In 2019 the government decided that using Natural Gas for heating and hot water was no longer compatible with their net zero emission commitments for 2050. They therefore announced the intention to prohibit the installation of gas and oil boilers in all new domestic properties from 2025. Eventually all existing gas and oil boilers will be phased out and the Committee on Climate Change (the government’s independent advisor) has said that we will need to install new boilers that use clean hydrogen or electric powered heat pumps. There is currently no detailed plan for either of these possibilities.
The Greener Great Coxwell group has been investigating a community owned, sustainable and secure energy project that would provide heating and hot water for the whole village.
 
With your support, we believe the objectives of such a scheme could be to –

• Provide the same temperature of hot water and central heating as your existing oil or gas boiler at less cost.
• Provide a sustainable and reliable supply of renewable heat energy for decades to come. 
• Help to cut the carbon footprint of the village contributing towards the UK’s 2050 Carbon Neutral goals.

 
The scheme would potentially use a ground source heating system powered by a solar PV installation. Heat distribution would be through an insulated pipe network connected to each participating home via a small heat transfer unit. Similar schemes are common on the continent and several are under construction or in planning locally, for example at North Aston and Upper Heyford in north Oxfordshire and at Swaffham in Cambridgeshire (https://heatingswaffhamprior.co.uk ).  Households not wishing to participate would not be affected in any way.
  
To  help  with  our  understanding  and  potential  for  such  a  scheme,  we became members of the Low Carbon Hub (https://www.lowcarbonhub.org/), the Oxfordshire organisation working to promote Community based and sustainable energy sources, and the South East Energy Hub (www.energyhub.org.uk), a collaboration of Local Enterprise Partnerships working to support local energy projects in south-east England. The latter provides grants for feasibility studies and business development via the Rural Community Energy Fund, which we would hope to take advantage of. We have also made contact with other projects including Heating Upper Heyford (https://heatupperheyford.wixsite.com/website) and held discussions and taken expert advice from several renewable energy consultants.
 
All agreed that our scheme is potentially viable and worthy of your consideration and we are therefore writing to you asking for an indication of support from as many villagers as possible to enable us to progress to a grant funded research stage. To support us  please go to our website and complete an expression of interest form at www.greenergreatcoxwell.com or e-mail [email protected] for more information.  We will be manning a stand at the Great Barn Festival on 18-19th September and on 25th at Faringdon’s Great Green Day in the Faringdon Corn Exchange between 10:00-1:00. Later we will be arranging meetings or Zoom calls to discuss with anyone interested.   
 
Expressing an interest is all that is required at this stage.  Your expression of interest does not imply any other obligation or commitment.  
 
At the moment details of a scheme are difficult to predict – the first and second rounds of grant funding are specifically to engage consultants to assess the project's feasibility, keep the community involved and plan the scheme in detail. However, we have some pointers from existing schemes:

• Planning would be grant funded so there are no initial costs. The planning procedure would also investigate the most appropriate source of development funding.
• Our aspiration is that there would be no installation costs and no service or equipment replacement costs. All costs are included in a monthly energy bill which is expected to be lower than current energy costs.
• The scheme would guarantee heat delivery of 72 degrees in the winter and 62 degrees in the summer which is the equivalent temperature of an oil or gas boiler. This has the advantage of plugging straight into your current hot water central heating systems. Service provision is also guaranteed.
• The monthly energy bill is made up of a standing charge and metered usage just like electricity or gas.
• The impact on the community and on the households of the change to the new scheme has been found to be minimal. The change from a boiler to the Heat Transfer Unit (HTU) is completed in a couple of days and the HTU is half the size of an average oil boiler.
• The solar installation and the boreholes for the heat pump would require a dedicated area of land and a small building to house the pumps and potentially heat storage units (hot water tanks). We would hope to lease this land from local landowners. Once the installation is complete the land would be suitable for use as pasture but the precise area required would depend on the take-up and geological factors that would be researched as part of the feasibility study.
• The financing model would be investigated during the second, business development round of grant funding. Development costs could come from grant money, loans or investment from community funds and may include investment opportunities for our community.

 
A comparable but slightly larger scheme is in progress at Swaffham in Cambridgeshire which is expected to sign up 150 households. You can get details of a more advanced project from their website - www.heatingswaffhamprior.co.uk .
 
We hope you will be interested in this scheme and will support us in seeking a research grant by completing an expression of interest form at the Great Barn Festival, visiting our website at www.greenergreatcoxwell.com  or e-mailing [email protected] for more information.
 
Thank you,
 
Annabelle Zinovieff, Ken Hirons, Ian Mason, Karen Mason, Margaret O’Donohoe, Richard Benwell, Sophie Stainer, Jacqui Russell
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The following documents have been added to the website:

1. Agenda GCPC for next meeting on 20.09.21
2. Agenda Reading Room for next meeting on 20.09.21
3. District Councillors Report
4. Draft minutes of meeting of the Trustee of the Reading Room on
06.09.21

GREAT COXWELL PARISH COUNCIL is looking for your help and input:

Please see the four announcements below from the Parish Council.
 
1. Great Coxwell Parish Council is still looking for one more Parish councillor, we have been one member short for some months now and we need your help to enable us to keep the village amenities like the Park and the Reading Room operating.

Please feel free to chat informally to any of the existing councillors (Jacqui Russell, Mike Harris, Rory Gilmour and Kym MacDonald) about the role or email the clerk ([email protected]) for more details.

Click here for full details.
 
2. Great Coxwell Parish Council is looking for a volunteer to run the Reading Room bookings. The Parish Room is mainly let to villagers and village groups. We need someone to hold the calendar and make sure everyone using the room has all the necessary information and access when required. For more details please contact the Parish clerk ([email protected])
 
3. The Vale of the White Horse is surveying the needs for future leisure facilities in the area in response to housing growth. The Parish Council has been invited to meet with them and Faringdon Town Council to gain an understanding of local needs. We understand that there will be a future opportunity for individual comment but if you have anything you would like to bear in mind when we meet please let us know.
 
As present we will base our points on responses we have had from previous surveys of the Parish, comments from residents and past experience, we intend to raise the follow three main points:

• There is a lack of free to access facilities for secondary school age children that permit self-directed play and exercise in the area. In addition to supporting the existing facilities of this kind such as the Great Coxwell MUGA and the Faringdon skate park, there is a need for additions on site, or at least close to, the new developments to ensure these existing facilities are not overburdened and that the young people through the area are properly served. Specific concerns have been raised by residents in past discussions that the existing facilities can not cope and that lack of provision of such facilities and places to go will lead to increases in anti-social behaviour.
• There is a lack of larger more exciting play spaces for primary age children. The new developments each included a small local play area, but the lack of something larger and more exciting serving the group of developments within easy distance leads to residents using cars to visit more distant facilities. Investment in larger more varied play spaces to serve the group of developments is needed to avoid increased traffic and parking issues around existing facilities of this type. Great Coxwell Parish Council has had residents raise issues regarding safety and obstruction due to parking by the Great Coxwell park, which is a larger mixed age play facility for example and express concerns that this will increase.
• There are limited free to access or non-membership options for adult leisure. In past surveys the desire for publicly availably adult fitness equipment or trails and drop in tennis facilities were noted as lacking in the area.

 
4. We are sorry that the Reading Room remains closed, just to let you know that we need to replace the boiler and attend to the plumbing in the toilets to make it fit for use again. We hope it will be up and running again before the end of the month and will keep you posted.

A couple of pieces of news about the book exchange based in the old village phone box:

Those lovely Greener Great Coxwell people have set up a lending library of books on environmental issues, conservation and nature.  These are LOAN ITEMS only, so please, if you take one, please return after you’ve read it.

The book exchange has been really successful since it was set up a few years ago.  It is bursting to overflowing with books (I had to remove a few to keep in storage yesterday to keep the titles visible and prevent books getting creased and damaged.)  At the moment  there isn't any room for any additional book donation so if you’ve got books for the book exchange and you need to re-home them urgently, please can you drop them off at Orchard End (at the bottom of the Church Path and opposite the Old School) and I’ll store them for the future.  Or give me a call (07973 793089) and I’ll arrange to collect.

Ian Mason
​

Update posted on Vale of White Horse website.

www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/vale-of-white-horse-district-council/recycling-rubbish-and-waste/garden-waste/

People arriving from Afghanistan are still in need of support and supplies.
 
We thought it might be helpful to have a common list and collection point for any Great Coxwell villagers who might like to contribute - we know some folk have already made generous donations. 
 
Sally Tipple has kindly offered to collect things at Clayton Villa. Please drop off any donations by 18 September, or as soon as you like.
 
We've checked in with Asylum Welcome in Oxford and, in particular, they're collecting:

✅Rice
✅Tinned tomatoes
✅Chickpeas
✅Milk (UHT)
✅Tinned sweetcorn
✅Tinned beans
✅Tinned fruit
✅Baked beans
✅Sanitary products

people can also drop off at 3 Danes Court or call Richard on 07896 239113 with any questions.

Richard, Sally, Jan

Here are the film offerings for October.  We will provide seating for 40 visitors.  Advance tickets only from the Information Centre.  
 
Wed 6 October - Love Sarah (12A)
(2020 - Comedy, Drama, Romance)
A young woman wishes to fulfill her mother's dream of opening her own bakery in Notting Hill, London.  To do this, she enlists the help of an old friend and her grandma
Stars: Celia Imrie, Rupert Penry-Jones
Film duration:  1 hour 37 mins (no interval)
Matinee Club @ The Regent Cinema, Corn Exchange, Faringdon 
Doors open 12.30pm, film starts at 1pm 
ADVANCE TICKETS ONLY £4 from Faringdon Information Centre 
Matinee Club Membership - Just £24 for 12 films 
 
 
Fri 22 October - Nomadland (12A)
(2020 - Drama)
A woman in her sixties, after losing everything in the Great Recession, embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad
Stars: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn
Film duration: 1 hrs 47 mins plus 15 min interval
Blockbuster @ The Regent Cinema, Corn Exchange, Faringdon 
Doors open 7.00pm, film starts at 7.30pm
ADVANCE TICKETS ONLY £3 U18s, £4 Adult, £10 Family from Faringdon Information Centre 
 
For more info or to join the mailing list, please visit our website www.faringdontowncouncil.gov.uk/regent-cinema-2
 
Kind regards,
Billie
​

The following documents have been added to the website:

County Council Report - August 2021
​

Saturday 4th September, 9.30 am
​
At last we are able to have our usual joint effort to do the annual 'major clean' for St Giles. So I hope you are able to come - this Saturday at 9.30 - and do your favourite bit(!) and then come back to Hollycroft for coffee and cake afterwards.

Sylvia (07923 563662)
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