10am on Sunday 15th October

A guided walk around Oakington and Westwick – find out more about trees from our expert Jake!

Discover…

• how to identify common British trees
• how trees grow and respond to their environment
• how trees decay
• how trees are part of the landscape

Meet at 10 on Sunday 15th on the bridge over Beck Brook in Westwick. The talk should be no longer than two and a half hours. It will end on the green by the chapel in Oakington.

Please bring suitable footwear and clothing. Kids and dogs welcome!

Please email SOW to let us know you would like to come.

NB We will cancel if the weather is really poor.

(Notes from SOW meeting on 27/9/23 – ten members present.)

Activities under way / already being discussed

Repair Cafe. (Jenny reported on behalf of Philip.) Philip has taken part in online training by Cambridge Carbon Footprint. Repair Cafes take quite a bit of organising taking 3 months, and need about £200 upfront (usually recouped in tea/cake sales and donations.) But they are brilliant not just practically but for spreading the environmental message and bringing the community together, and CCF provide lots of help. Philip to tell us more probably at the November meeting.

Community meal. (Alice reported.) To bring people together, demonstrate veggie cuisine and use garden produce. Ambition for a future meal is to cook together. Pavilion is free Sat 18 Nov but costs £60 + food, and might be too big a space; church hall not free in November on Saturdays which work for us. Church hall has no cooking facilities (but a heating cupboard) so cooked food would have to be brought. Suggest February (albeit with limited homegrown produce.)

Nature Recovery Project. (Jenny reported.) Joint with EAG, this is really an umbrella for all the nature/wildlife/biodiversity actions, plus wildlife recording and habitat mapping. Had a meeting in July. John and Graham ran a wildlife observation session at the orchard. The many people who contributed observations on Village Day are on an email list. The Parish Council has funded hedgehog highway “surrounds” we can give out.

Main planned activities

We considered a list (a shortlist from the many ideas generated in July) and people put their names by those they were willing to help with. From this the next actions for the group to focus on were decided. We’ll go back to the others at a later date, but will concentrate our time and energy initially on:

	Champion	Team starting with
Repair Cafe (see above)	Philip	Alice, Jenny
Community meal (see above)	Alice	Gerry, Ems
Small groups of people to visit targeted areas of village 4-6 times next year and record wildlife spotted Involve school.	John Terry (suggested)	Jake, Kate, Ems, Lucy, Angela
Plant native hedging, or fruit trees, or hazel/willow coppice, along busway	Ems	Lucy, Leo, Gerry
Build and put up bee hotels (birdboxes, etc) in public spaces.	Kate	Angela, Ems, Lucy
Research which areas of the village are owned by whom, plus paths/ rights of ways / land use. (NB Paul D explained that ownership and management of land are often by separate bodies.)	Paul Kershaw	Gerry, Ems, Paul Dover

	Willing to help organise
Trip to Amey Cespa (recycling facility)	Jake
Community cider / bring your own apples to press (but see Dates, at end)	Ems, Jake
Use wildlife cameras to discover wildlife around the village	Kate (champion), Lucy
Car share	Gerry
Crayfish removal	Kate, Ems
Organise local Terracycle – public collection of hard to recycle items	Kate

Talks & workshops

Talks/workshops in some meetings draw people in but need to have 15 min afterwards at least to discuss plans. October’s is in half term with many away, so main event in October will be tree trail instead.

	Champion	Team
Tree Trail Planned for Sunday 15 Oct, 10-12, starting in Westwick. Participants to sign up in advance. Alice to help with Risk Assessment.	Jake	Alice, Kate
Using public transport apps Short talk for Oct meeting for those who can make it	Jenny
Making bee hotels/ bird feeders etc. November meeting workshop (Christmas presents!)	Kate	Jake
Energy efficiency and coming off gas	Paul K could do this talk
Local resilience plan – what can village do to prepare specifically for heatwaves, droughts, flooding etc.	Gerry, Paul K
Tree grafting workshop	Leo, Ems
More wildlife walks. Eg trees, birdsong, moths, etc. Good for families		Kate, Alice, Jake

Social media campaigns

Angela offered to coordinate monthly themed campaigns. Kate & Ems could help with putting good wildlife pics online. Kate & Angela to work out how to share managing the facebook page.

Report back on actions from last time

• Discussion document sent round for people to sign up to activities — Jenny — done
• Make a start on who owns where — Ems & Paul K — carried forward, above
• Community meal — already reported on
• Facebook survey on suggested actions — Kate — will report next time
• Journal article on wild flower planting — Rachel — next Journal
• Cycle ride — Alice organised this on Bank Holiday Monday, a trip to Fen Drayton lakes to picnic and birdwatch. Much appreciated!
• Solar panels on pavilion — the Parish Council are looking into this and Philip has spoken to the clerk about it.

Events coming up

• Sewage talk in Histon (A Really Crap Evening), St Andrew’s Centre. Wed 11 Oct, 7pm
• Cottenham Repair Cafe, Sat 14 Oct 10 — 2, go and see what it’s like
• Tree Trail led by Jake, Sun 15 Oct, probably 10am. Details to follow.
• Human Library on Home Energy, Grand Arcade, Sat 21 Oct, 10 — 4. Paul K is a book!
• Reimagining Community Energy Together, Whittlesford Memorial Hall, Sun 22 Oct, 2-5pm. Paul K is involved.
• Next SOW meeting Wed 25 Oct, 7:30pm — Public transport apps talk and update on action planning
• Apple pressing 28 Oct & 4 Nov, 12 — 4 (& picking 10 — 12). Bring your own apples to press beforehand.

Green Library

The green library of eco and wildlife books was open during the meeting and several loans were issued!

Traditional orchards are havens for biodiversity, providing food and shelter for hundreds of species,
some of high conservation priority which flourish under low intensity management. The well spread
trees (unlike the close planting of modern commercial orchards) allow light into the lower branches
of the trees and also to the vegetation beneath the trees, encouraging grass and wild flowers.
Natural populations of all wild plant and animal species are encouraged in the absence of pesticides
and artificial fertilizer.

As the trees come into flower they attract a range of pollinators like hive bees, bumble
butterflies, moths, hover flies, wasps and flies, in their search for nectar and indirectly, pollen. The
choice of varieties of the fruit planted can ensure a wide spread of available pollen and nectar
throughout each summer.

As the trees get older, they will become more valuable to wildlife in that some wood will rot and
develop cracks and holes in the bark, ideal for invertebrates and birds. The wood will also develop
fungi and lichen (a combination of fungi and bacteria) which will attract certain invertebrates.
Decaying and dead timber will attract woodpeckers, stag beetles, rhinoceros beetle and perhaps the
rare noble Chafer.

Mistletoe can develop, especially on the apples. Mistletoe attracts mistle thrush, marble moth and
various weevils. Mycorrhiza, the rooting system of fungi often live in association with trees; their
work is vital in securing nutrients form rotting organic matter and communicating adverse events
between trees.

Where wood is cut from trees for safety reasons, it is worth creating wood piles. This provides
overwintering sites for amphibians, hedgehogs and beetles. Beetle larvae attract shrews, voles and
birds and hence owls.

Windfalls and overripe fruit will attract thrushes and blackbirds and fieldfares and redwings as
winter approaches. Mammals are also attracted; badgers, hedgehogs and hares are all fond of
overripe fruit, as are insects including moths and hence bats. Where juicing of the fruit is carried out,
it is worth putting the leftover ‘scrat’ back into the orchard for wildlife.

The other opportunity for wildlife habitats is the hedges and plants around the orchard. These can
include perennial nettles, so valuable for aristocrat butterflies like small tortoiseshell, painted lady,
red admiral and peacock, blackthorn. Hawthorn and other hedge plant species and standard trees
like ash, oak and mountain ash. The grass, if unmown may attract brown and skipper butterflies.

John Terry

SOW meeting, 26 July 2023. Twelve people present; thank you Alice for leading.

Specific action points

ACTION JP (or other person with access to the mailing list) Send this discussion document round to all regular SOW attendees to see who wants to sign up for which activities.

• ACTION EJ and PK make a start on finding out who owns which parts of land that might be suitable for planting trees or other local nature actions. Include in that information from Philip about permissive paths in the area (on the principle of ‘use it or lose it’). The PC clerk is a good starting point.
• ACTION AJ find out when the pavilion is free one evening in late September for a community meal of free food for all comers (use produce from our own gardens and allotments).
• ACTION KS puts up a survey on Facebook with list of suggested actions SOW could help people with e.g. hedgehog holes, water butts, bee houses, repair cafe.
• ACTION RG writes an article on maintaining their meadow for the journal (deadline Tues 19 Sep)

Ideas discussed

Ideas for productive areas of activities, and suggestions. Some of the suggestions are for specific events that are not necessarily seasonal, and others are for info campaigns that might be beneficial etc. Categorised by subject area.

Transport

• Dedicated group of enthusiasts from SOW to promote sharing of transport resources. Eg have a pool of pedal bikes, then make arrangement with Sean with his ebikes as a village resource, then aim for a shared car (tie in with idea of a public charging point for EV at pavilion, and look to have a shared village car).
• Emphasis on ways to save money, such as using bus app, and ticket splitting etc.
• Encourage active travel – cycle repair workshop; community bike rides. Cycle ride – Alice could lead. SUMMER

Food

• Discouraging food waste through journal articles on how to use things up in the kitchen; use-by dates and what they actually mean.
• Foraging workshop; foraging trail
• Crop sharing, allotment (possible new allotments behind Mill Road orchard), along airfield road.
• Community meals – brilliant way of promoting vegetarian diet and bringing people together. Free food is hard to ignore. (Discussed doing as part of Village Day or Bonfire Night but not good to undercut other caterers; although would be good to have veggie option on bonfire night.) Autumn to use home-grown produce?
• Herb boxes, like the flower tubs. For all year round. By a SOW team? SPRING
• Using community soup evening as fundraiser (model is that there will be food – everyone who comes pays a fiver; people bid for a community project; attendees then vote for which project the best; they take the money to implement small local project and then report back next event. Eg three or four a year)
• Bring your own apples to press with the Jordans’ equipment. Sep/Oct

Biodiversity

• Bird feeders; bird boxes; Bee hotels; hedgehog highways – workshops and offering to cut hole in fence (possibly dressed as a hedgehog in order to be seen to be doing things)
• Plant native hedging along busway. Or fruit trees but would be expensive to use only fruit trees. Choose plants whose size can be controlled. Would need permission. October -> winter.
• Plant small trees in empty spaces. (Eg Arcadia Gardens?) AUTUMN/WINTER.
• Wildlife gardening advice team – eg James Y advised someone on planting wildflowers for pollinators;
• Tap in when there are annual counts of butterflies, birds etc and use this as basis for building up local understanding of what there is in our gardens and fields; use iRecord
• Wildlife walks, eg trees, birdsong, moths, etc. Good for families. Ask John T. SUMMER
• Good wildlife pictures to put up on facebook to grab attention
• Put up bee hotels in public spaces. Pavilion, church, church hall, garden centre, bus stops. SPRING
• Plant community hazel (or willow) coppice. Also along busway? AUTUMN/WINTER.

Waste

• discourage vaping – check if they are sold in village shop; nowhere to recycle them; potential fire hazard; talk to shop or highlight issues in journal
• Repair cafe – plug into CCF (Cambridge Carbon Footprint), who can help supply repairers; people need to sign up beforehand so you know what needs mending; probably need pavilion or church hall rather than Crossways because of space required.
• Terracycle – public recycling locally of items that don’t go in usual recycling (crisp packets; biros; toothbrushes etc.) – gives money back, although need to collect a lot of waste before any meaningful profit.
• Article in journal about what can and can’t go in blue bin
• Toy swap/library – is there another resource such as phone box where this could be housed?
• Get more use out of tool share
• Plastic awareness – like the Big Plastic Count – promote awareness and alternatives; use social media for drip-drip reminders, facts etc.

Water

• Messaging about water efficiency
• Can local parish impose local hosepipe ban?
• Water butts – train people to install, have team of people who can install; advise on large water tanks

Climate Change

• Local resilience plan – what can village do to prepare specifically for heatwaves, droughts, flooding etc.
• Letter-writing campaign eg about environmental policies to companies, press, politicians. This can be on individual basis or from groups

Energy

• Solar panels on pavilion – should pay back reasonably quickly, and people (eg Philip and Rachel) can help calculate how long it would take to cover costs. Look for a grant for that, work with parish council.

Thanks to all the 26 respondents to the SOW survey made available at the Oakington
Village Day on the 24th June 2023. This gives us all some idea what the village thinks.

1. ‘Do you garden for wildlife?’
   19 (73%) answered Yes (2 added “ish”)
   2 (8%) answered both Yes and No.
   5 (19%) answered No.
   
2. ‘Interested in learning about our local environment matters?’
   26 (100%) answered Yes.
   
3. ‘Would you like to help map the wildlife in our village?’
   21 (81%) answered Yes.
   5 (19%) answered No.
   
4. ‘What environmental issues concern you?’
   Respondents’ answers included the following themes:
   9 (35%) global warming/climate change
   6 (23%) water concerns (shortage, pollution, flooding)
   6 (23%) biodiversity loss
   5 (19%) destruction of wildlife habitats
   4 (15%) plastic, landfill, recycling
   3 (12%) access to sustainable energy
   2 (7%) deforestation, tree preservation
   2 (7%) air pollution
   2 (7%) sustainable living (vs. consumerism)
   2 (7%) climate anxiety
   2 (7%) negative environmental impact (noise, traffic/speeding, litter)
   1 (4%) growing food sustainably
   1 (4%) soil conservation
   
   
5. ‘What do you do personally, to live more sustainably?’
   14 (54%) grow veg, compost, garden sustainably/for wildlife
   12 (46%) recycling
   6 (23%) sustainable travel (walk, cycle, bus)
   5 (19%) solar panels
   5 (19%) sustainable shopping (eco provider, second hand, plastic free)
   4 (15%) store/collect rainwater (water butts)
   3 (12%) reduce food waste
   3 (12%) meat free/reduced meat diet
   3 (12%) electric or hybrid vehicle
   2 (7%) reduce energy use
   1 (4%) only two children
   1 (4%) educate myself about sustainability
   
6. ‘What would you like to be able to do, but can’t?’
   8 (31%) use renewable energy at home
   6 (23%) use car less / have electric car
   3 (12%) tackle pollution
   2 (7%) political change
   2 (7%) keep chickens/pigs
   2 (7%) plastic free
   1 (4%) plant trees
   1 (4%) have a bigger garden
   1 (4%) improve house insulation
   1 (4%) self sufficiency (grow own food)
   1 (4%) watch hedgehogs
   1 (4%) Buy sustainable food at local supermarket
   

Notes from SOW meeting, 28 June 2023

11 people present. Thank you Gerry for chairing.

We discussed what we would like to discuss, then voted on which topics to start on!

1. What to do to alleviate climate anxiety
2. How to maximise visibility of SOW
3. Community actions eg planting hedges, communal meals, plastic free
4. Get young people/children engaged
5. National eco schemes eg plastic free
6. Water – sustainable use
7. Review SOW so far & direction
8. What is the most effective thing small communities can do?

Hopefully the following notes will give a flavour of the discussions.

SOW review

SOW came out of the Net Zero Now course Paul did. This year he was a guest speaker on the course – SOW is seen as a successful outcome, one of several groups started locally.

Different categories of people turned up to the first SOW meeting, from those who wanted discussion to those who wanted XR-style action.

The talks we have had so far have been enjoyed – best were the workshops eg birdbox making – but the group hasn’t grown and the impact on the environment hasn’t been enormous? Would there be an appetite to do something bigger? Eg a village solar farm or something like the Histon Abbey Fields purchase. Best to go with the energy and strengths in the community. Or maybe better to start with small wins, actions with palpable, measurable results. The Local Nature Recovery Plan will have links to the wider area and national efforts. 

Everyone: think through 3 reasonably achievable local actions and bring the suggestions to the next meeting.

A constitution and committee (chair, secretary, treasurer) would be needed if we want to apply for grants. District Council Zero Carbon grants are easily available. Recruitment is better via community activities than explicit recruitment drives. Discussions are not necessarily better with loads of people. From the Village Day surveys, cost of living is a barrier for many people, so activities which pull in people needing to save money would be good.

We should ‘follow the data” but don’t have it. We don’t really know what residents are doing or could do to live sustainably – discussion of a Facebook or door-to-door survey.

Sustainable Use of Water

A growing problem – some councils have a permanent hosepipe ban. Longstanton saw water table drop with Northstowe phases 1&2. Do our small actions (short showers) make a difference? Water doesn’t disappear but more and more ends up as salt water – very energy intensive to desalinate. The rare chalk stream habitats are endangered. Water shortage is a more imminent problem even than climate change but people don’t engage. 

What could be done? Bulk buy water butts and offer to install? But plastic butts don’t last. Allotment holders have to bring water each night. Ems’s Nottingham allotment dug a borehole. All chip in and offer £100 prize in a Facebook competition for the best idea?

July meeting

Alice offered to chair. Bring suggestions for 3 actions. People to be invited (reminded each week?) to suggest in advance of meeting by Facebook/WhatsApp and email. Also bring ideas from the May meeting about the Nature Recovery Plan.

Also

• Green library – instead of a shelf in the phone box ( because none of the books were returned), bring books to the meeting to lend among SOW members.
• Jake has joined the Parish Council so let him know of any environmental issues you think he should be pushing.
• 25 SOW short surveys were completed at Village Day. Lucy will try to collate the responses.
• John Terry will lead the first stage of the SOW/EAG Nature Recovery Plan, starting with a meeting to discuss next steps.

7.30pm at the church hall.

We’ve learned a lot over last year .. so what do you now think we should be doing as a community going forward? There will be a slot for everyone to say what they think. In June we will listen to all / each other’s views and in July debate further and try to vote/decide what we can and what we can’t do…

Joint SOW and EAG (Environment Action Group) meeting 31 May 2023. Eleven attended, numerous apologies, and lots of enthusiasm overall!

From the Nature Recovery Toolkit:

• Medium term (10 yrs+) plan for the creation of more nature-rich habitats in the village and surrounding countryside
• Clear outcomes – targets such as “plant 2km hedgerow” or “create hectare of wild flower meadow”
• Monitoring and recording key species, eg bats, swifts and swallows nesting on buildings, hedgehogs in gardens
• Ideally formally endorsed by Parish Council
• Success depends on support of local residents and landowners so communicate widely
• Discuss with and respect interests of landowners – can’t plan specifics without their agreement
• Might need to do surveys to discover current state. Creating a database of photos at the start of the project will also be important, so visible progress can be recorded over time.

Steps

1. Make a simple map of wildlife habitats in your area, identifying where the most important places for nature are and why they matter

2. Based on this, decide the objectives for your nature recovery plan. What habitats do you want to improve or create and what species do you particularly want to see increase in your area?

3. Develop a nature recovery map that illustrates where you want to create new habitats and the existing habitats that can be improved.

4. Develop a timeline for habitat creation or improvement, recognising that the plan is best delivered in bitesize pieces over the ten-year period.

5. Develop a plan for maintaining and monitoring these habitats and the wildlife that lives there

This is the area of O&W parish which we thought might be the area to target in the Plan. Note that it extends some way along the A14 including a mysterious lake, and some way north of Westwick.

Ideas about objectives/goals (varying degrees of realism!):

• Create hedgerow along busway (between Mansell Wood and Gatehouse Road – by cycle path is easier and safer to plant but other side of busway has more room)
• Preserve land like that by Manor Farm Close from developers – maybe by identifying badgers etc living on it, maybe by radical occupation action and claiming local ownership
• If land is developed, ensuring wildlife corridors are included
• Identifying garden wildlife corridors
• No-mow for identified areas around village
• Animal tunnels under the road, or at least signs to warn drivers of wildlife corridors
• Village goat to graze gardens, creating better biodiversity (see “Wilding” by Isabella Tree) – also power-saving and manure-yielding
• Make Mansell Wood a nature reserve
• Make the Northstowe buffer areas into nature reserves
• Add water source/store to the allotments, maybe by using large currently dry ditch there

Bits of land particularly noted or discussed:

• Land by Manor Farm Close
• Grassy areas withiin Arcadia Gardens and near the bus stop there
• Gravelly patch between garage and crossways
• Land to northeast of crossroads – was always nicely overgrown but has been recently part-cleared
• Along airfield road
• Behind Garden Centre (near the brick tower)
• School grounds
• Recreation ground
• Stocks Green (Parish Council) and land around village sign (ditto?)
• Village pond
• Orchards and fruit trees around the village
• Farmland:
  Before wandering across farmland, we must always first seek the permission of the landlord or tenant. We aim to approach all land managers in the parish with the aim of working with them.
  Some farmers in the parish are keen to encourage wildlife on their farms. These include the farmer at Mansell Farm, who is working with the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) who will secure grants for his grass margins, pollinator strips, woodland and possibly more.
  Other farmers are not farming their land at present, so it is ‘wilding’. These include farms on at west of Cambridge Road. The latter includes land which was under plastic for horticulture) and also a ‘disused’ orchard.
  Some other land is contract farmed, i.e. worked by a another farmer usually with big equipment.

Ideas on how to progress:

• Talk to JH in the Environment Action Group
• Need a good blank map – a large hardcopy for the Village Day at least, and electronic maps we can add to.
• Or contact www.cperc.org.uk.
• Map ownership of land
• Include Northstowe buffer areas on our map
• Use the toolkit which suggests questions for surveying different types of habitat: mature trees, woodland, water bodies/ponds, orchards, school bodies and amenity areas, waterways and rivers including ditches, grasslands / road verges with wildflowers, hedgerows, animal boxes, gardens and allotments, churches and their grounds, farmland. We made a start at divvying these between those present at the meeting but really need a map first to record findings, and some are big areas.
• Make contact with local farmers
• Get people to buy into rewilding ideas, don’t put people’s backs up – more people appreciate nature than are attracted by “eco” pressure
• Find some way of making it easy for anyone in the village to record their wildlife sightings centrally for us to include
• Work with neighbouring villages – see if they have Nature Recovery Plans (Girton has) as wildlife doesn’t know about parish boundaries!
• Find out what’s needed for a place to be an official nature reserve
• Do a tree walk to find, talk about and map our most precious trees
• Offer a garden as a rewilding lab
• Encourage people to have ponds. Capitalise on the fact that most people want to have more hedgerows, more birds (but cats are a problem)
• We need to recruit interested people to monitor and record the presence of wildlife (plants and animals) in the parish. They don’t have to be ecologists, just keen and interested in nature.

It is easier to improve an established habitat than create a new one. So, recording the presence of wildlife is vital. We need to set up regular monitoring and recording of habitats and species so comparisons can be made year on year and with other parishes. Wildlife do not recognise parish boundaries, so cooperation with neighbouring parishes is vital for monitoring and recording.

Local records help to indicate success or failure in terms of nature recovery and are also welcomed by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Biological Records Centre (Cambourne) to build a county (and national) picture.

Evidence really helps to give records credibility. Night wild life camera evidence and day time photos are valuable as are records in words and numbers with dates/times.

Village Day stall

Joint with EAG (although we will probably each also have information about our group’s other activities)

A big map with pins/stickers/etc so that people coming to the stall can show where they have seen wildlife in the last two years, eg hedgehogs in their gardens

Plus Cambridge Nature Network display material.

In other news…

Two members had visited Knepp of Rewilding fame.

Histon Ecofest is on Sat 10^th June.

Report by Jenny Prince and John Terry

Following on from March’s meeting about the Cambridge Nature Network, our May meeting, joint with the Environment Action Group, will be about starting to use the Nature Recovery Toolkit to map the existing quality of habitats in Oakington & Westwick:

1. Make a simple map of wildlife habitats in your area.
2. Decide the objectives for your nature recovery plan.
3. Develop a nature recovery map that illustrates where you want to create new habitats and the existing habitats that can be improved.
4. Develop a timeline for habitat creation or improvement.
5. Develop a plan for maintaining and monitoring these habitats and the wildlife that lives there.

Please come along, 31 May. 7:30pm at the church hall in Oakington.

At the SOW meeting on 26 April, Sean Moroney, Oakington resident and co-founder of Cambridge Electric Transport, explained how the company had gone from selling e-bikes to providing them as a service to businesses and now local communities – so far, Teversham, Hardwick, Abington and Northstowe. People in these communities can use the bikes occasionally or regularly, at low cost, as a sustainable alternative to driving

Unlike “commercial” schemes like Voi, the bikes have to be returned to their shelters/lockers (so aren’t left out in the open) but you can use the bike all day, and are only charged for the riding time (at 50p an hour) not for the time it’s parked. The bikes are step-through so easy access (no crossbar), have panniers, and have 6 derailleur gears and three levels of power assist so you can choose how much exercise to get yourself. The bikes have a solar panel to charge the lock battery; the bike battery charge is good for 25-30 miles.

The bikes are insured and if you get a puncture, CET will come and fix it (and sometimes rescue stranded riders as well!)

The purchase, installation and first year’s running costs £4000 but it’s possible to apply for an SCDC Zero Carbon Communities grant. A central location would have to be found for the lockers. Because of the very low user charge, running the bikes for subsequent years costs £1200. In Teversham the Parish Council funded this.

It was suggested we canvass opinion on our Village Day stall to find out if there would be enough demand to pursue an e-bike scheme for Oakington & Westwick.

Sean also told us about their “citipod” project. “Citipods” are like four-wheeled electric bikes, with a roof but no sides, and low and narrow so they can use cycle lanes without getting in the way of other cyclists. They are building a prototype of the cargo version; versions which can carry two child or one adult passengers are also proposed. Sean may bring one to Village Day. They may be especially useful to older people who find a normal bike off-putting. In the UK 1.2% of over-60s ride a bike, compared to 23% in Holland.

Some of us had a go at riding the electric bike!