1. Great Coxwell Community Energy Project Phase one Successful -  Please Complete our Confidential Household Energy Survey 
 
Our consultants, Locogen, have completed the Phase 1 Report -  the desktop assessment of benefits and risks of potentially technically feasible energy schemes. Locogen concluded "there is potential for a heat network in Great Coxwell - hot network solutions are potentially viable". Next steps for Phase 2 are to model test scenarios comparing those solutions under different heat demand profiles. 
To continue this work we now need more detailed information on the energy requirements of the village. We are therefore asking for as many people as possible to complete our brief survey which collects information on your energy use and some basic household data. Completing the questionnaire implies no commitment and the information will be strictly confidential to the energy team and the consultants.  Please use the following link to access our on-line survey - time is short so we would appreciate a quick response - apart from the information on energy use (from your energy bill) the questions are very simple and shouldn't take more than a few minutes. There is also space to add comments.  Please go to: 
 
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/L9HZBGX
 
If you are not already signed up for our Community Energy Bulletin, you are still welcome to complete the survey and you might like to go to the website: greenergreatcoxwell.com to sign up  or e-mail [email protected].
 
2. Greener Great Coxwell Featured in Oxfordshire Climate Action Stories Website
 
Our Community Energy Project has been included in the above 'Climate Action Stories' project run jointly by Friends of the Earth and Edinburgh University. We contributed to the Edinburgh research initiative and are featured on the Website under 'Energy Production' - see:   
 
https://www.oxfoe.co.uk/oxfordshire-climate-action-stories

Thank you 
Greener Great Coxwell 
 

web: www.greenergreatcoxwell.com
mail: [email protected]
Greener Great Coxwell Limited is registered in England as a registered society under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014. 
Registration number: 8761

Greener Great Coxwell plans to encourage and assist with the planting of 70 trees (one for each year of Her Majesty’s reign) in the parish.
 
We have been contacted by the Deputy Lieutenant Deputy Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, Neil Sutherland.  He told us that The Queen has asked that a very significant initiative is undertaken to mark her 70th (Platinum) Jubilee.  She has requested that the Queen's Green Canopy project be rolled out to mark this occasion.  (See: queensgreencanopy.org).  The emphasis is on planting healthy trees in the correct location so that they will thrive.  All projects are to be logged on the Queen's Green Canopy website. 
 
Ideally trees should have been planted between October 2021 and March 2022, but for various reasons I’ve only recently been able to start investigating potential sites and sources of trees and other assistance.

I've recently contacted the Great Western Area Forest organisers at Swindon Borough Council and they have agreed to consider providing trees and stakes for the village.  Once we have identified suitable locations they will visit the village and provide us with advice about location, recommended stage of growth of the trees and species to be used.  Over the next few weeks we will finalise the potential sites for the trees and with liaise with them about planting this autumn.  At that point we will enter the trees onto the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee tree initiative map as requested.

If you want to get involved and plant trees:

Please let me know your plans and the future location of the trees.  I can then collate a list of trees and sites and respond to the Great Western Forest team with our intentions.

If you’ve already recently planted trees in the parish:

I'm also aware that last autumn a number of trees were planted by various landowners and householders within the parish.  If that applies to you please follow the following instructions  and register the trees.  (I’ve just done it for three trees we planted here and it seems pretty straightforward.  Let me know if you have any difficulties and I’ll try to help.)

1. Take a photo of your tree, or if you have planted a clump, copse, avenue, orchard, hedgerow, etc , then a general view of as many as you can see.   If you would like to, include people, either yourself or others, in the foreground.
2. Go to the following QGC webpage https://queensgreencanopy.org/map-education-hub/qgc-map/#/
3. Select "Add your tree" and follow the instructions.  The photo of your tree or planting site will need to be uploaded, and some basic information completed.
   
4. Your entry will take a couple of days to appear on the digital map as the registration is checked by the QGC team and the location 'randomised' for data privacy reasons.  You should get a confirmatory email within a few days.  The photo and basic details (including your first name only or the name of your organisation) will then appear on the digital map.   

 
Ian Mason, Greener Great Coxwell ([email protected])
​

1. Greener Great Coxwell featured in the Oxford Low Carbon Hub Community Newsletter - 'Groups in the News'
 
Greener Great Coxwell Awarded £33k for Community Heat and Hot Water Feasibility Study

It’s fantastic to report that one of our more recent Low Carbon Hub community groups, Greener Great Coxwell, has been successful in its application to the Rural Community Energy Fund for the Phase 1 Community Heat and Hot Water Project feasibility study. With the help of similar projects, especially Heating Upper Heyford and the Greater SouthEast Energy Hub, and the support of a large number of their residents, an ambitious project to make sustainable and reliable heat available to the whole village has taken a significant step forward. The grant will enable their selected energy consultants, Locogen, to carry out the initial study and recommend the next steps. They commented: 

"It is early days yet but we are very excited to receive this grant award for our village. The government has identified Heat Networks as an important option for decarbonising heat and hot water and we are keen to see if we could be early adopters with our community-based proposal. The project would deliver low-carbon, reliable and reduced-cost heat to the village and potentially provide a revenue stream to help us fight fuel poverty and support a range of green projects locally."

2. Village Pump/Well update

GGC have spoken to both the Parish Council and Oxfordshire County Council about the ownership of our well and pump. Neither have ownership of the well or pump and both have given their approval for us to explore the possibility of restoring it to working order.
GGC has emailed two well restorers. One got back to them. Well Masters are a family run business from Liss, Hampshire. They are coming to look at the well on Wednesday 23 March. It will cost £82.60 for the visit and an initial assessment of it. If you have any comments, suggestions or historic information please be in contact with us via our email address below.
 
3. Progress on Great Coxwell Community Energy Project

Work on phase 1 of the project, the desktop feasibility study, is now underway. Locogen will be updating us bi-weekly and we will keep everyone informed of progress. If this phase is successful we will be working with them and will involve as many people in the village as we can.

4. Visit to North Aston.

Greener Great Coxwell energy group were invited to visit a fully operational ground source heat pump installation in North Aston about 12 miles north of Oxford. See photographs of the field containing buried loops, the Energy Centre, and the Heat Transfer unit each house needs to transfer heat to the existing central heating fluid.
Properties in NA are stone estate properties having no cavity walls, poor insulation (EPC F-G) and generally no double glazing. The NA estate is experimenting to see how well the system performs with various amounts of extra insulation - or none. They report good results, even with a low temperature network. The system went live last year.
Further technical details and more photographs can be seen on the Energy Project Web Site under Bulletins.
https://greenergreatcoxwell.com/great-coxwell-community-energy-bulletins/
 
Thank you,
Greener Great Coxwell
web: www.greenergreatcoxwell.com
mail: [email protected]
 
Greener Great Coxwell Limited is registered in England as a registered society under the Co‑operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014.
Registration number: 8761
​

Greener Great Coxwell Awarded £33k for Community Heat and Hot Water Feasibility Study 
We are really excited to report that Greener Great Coxwell has been successful in our application to the Rural Community Energy Fund for the Phase 1 Community Heat and Hot Water Project feasibility study.  With the help of similar projects, especially Heating Upper Heyford and the Greater SouthEast Energy Hub, and the fantastic support of a large number of our residents, we proposed an ambitious project to make sustainable and reliable heat available to the whole village. This grant will enable our energy consultants, Locogen, to carry out the initial study and recommend the way forward. We will update the village as the study progresses over the next few months.

Find out more about the project at: www.greenergreatcoxwell.com
Contact us for more information at: [email protected]
You can find more detailed Energy Project Bulletins on the website at : https://greenergreatcoxwell.com/great-coxwell-community-energy-bulletins/
 
Great Coxwell Well and Pump. 
Greener Great Coxwell are looking into the possibility of restoring the well on the triangle of land at the bottom the cobbled path from the Church. After all, our name comes from the fact the village had plenty of water. We have contacted the Parish Council and Oxfordshire County Council and both are happy for us to explore more and say they do not think the well has a registered title owner. If anyone has any interesting information on the well and it’s pump we would love to hear. 
Please email:  [email protected]

Can the individual really affect climate change? 
Yes. You can, and here’s how…. If you think you want to do more yourself to help 'Just have a Think' have made an excellent short video talking through the different things you could do and the impact that would make.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRTic6mjCFk

Thank you, 
Greener Great Coxwell
 
web: www.greenergreatcoxwell.com
mail: [email protected]

Greener Great Coxwell Limited is registered in England as a registered society under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014. 

Registration number: 8761

1. Community Group of the Month
Greener Great Coxwell has been chosen as the Low Carbon Hub Community Group of the Month for December. Please go to the link below for the announcement:
https://www.lowcarbonhub.org/p/community-group-of-the-month-greener-great-coxwell/ 
This is mainly concerned with the heating project but recognises the wide range of interests of the group as a whole.
 
2. Cosy Homes  Presentation
If you were not able to attend the recent Cosy Homes retrofit scheme presentation by project manager Geordie Stewart and would like to get more information, you can viewing a recording by clicking on the link here:
https://lowcarbonhub.box.com/s/j9h8o9xakmupvh6ofkob3s7ci71vuzsw
 
3. Community Benefit Company
As of the 9th of December, Greener Great Coxwell has been approved and registered with the FCA as a Community Benefit Society.  This gives us the legal entity we need to move forward with the energy project but it covers all our other activities as well. We will shortly send more details and hope as many villagers as possible will be interested in becoming members. 
   
e-mail:  [email protected]

For general information from Greener Great Coxwell please mail : [email protected].

You can find these Bulletins on the website at : https://greenergreatcoxwell.com/great-coxwell-community-energy-bulletins/

Thank you, 
Annabelle Zinovieff, Ken Hirons, Ian Mason, Karen Mason, Margaret O’Donohoe, Richard Benwell, Sophie Stainer, Jacqui Russell
 
Ken Hirons  
Mob: +44 (0)7771 504211

web: www.greenergreatcoxwell.com
mail: [email protected]
​

Interested in helping save perfectly good food from ending up in the skip, taking pressure off the environment and cutting food bills into the bargain ? If so, the new Faringdon Community Larder could be a great place to start.
 
It is estimated that we waste around 30% of all food produced for human consumption. This wasted food has taken a tsunami of fresh water, land and labour to produce, not to mention pointlessly wasted energy, emissions and fertilisers / polluted runoff. Friends of the Earth say - if it were a country, food waste would be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world.
 
SOFEA ( https://www.sofea.uk.com/ ) is an Oxfordshire-based organisation aiming to give local, excluded young people a fresh start and in the process provide a range of services including around 20 Community Larders in Oxfordshire (working with fareshare.org.uk). For a small fee ANYONE interested in preventing food waste or saving money on food bills can join the project. There are no conditions for membership. This food comes direct from the warehouses of the big Supermarkets to the SOFEA warehouse in Didcot. It was destined for the skip without ever seeing a retail shop! This food is different from the food banks or community fridges/Pump House project; they run in parallel. The Larder in Wantage re-distributed 1.7 TONS of food in November alone. 
 
Over the last few weeks, Faringdon Council has started running a Community Larder in the Corn Hall every Tuesday Afternoon. Costs are a one off £10 fee to join SOFEA and a £3.50 weekly subscription for the larder paid by direct debit. Get more details from SOFEA's website and sign-up on line at https://www.sofea.uk.com/purpose-projects/community-larder/. Come along to the Corn Hall between 2:30 and 4:00 any Tuesday to have a free tea and a look around or drop us a mail for more details.  
 
Thanks,
Ken Hirons  
Mob: +44 (0)7771 504211

web: www.greenergreatcoxwell.com
mail: [email protected]

​Welcome to Bulletin 5 from the Energy Project team.

It covers
1: an update on the energy network and
2: an invitation to COSY HOMES zoom talk

1: Over the last weeks Greener Great Coxwell Heating Project have:

• Finally submitted our application to the Greater South West Energy Hub - for Rural Community Energy Fund (RCEF) grants for the feasibility study. We currently have 75 households expressing an interest. Anyone else is always welcome. If you are interested - with no obligation - please go to :  www.greenergreatcoxwell.com. We don’t expect to hear any definite news until into the new year.
• Locogen (https://locogen.com),have been appointed to act as our consultants should we be successful in the grant application.
• The team working on a similar proposal for the island of Iona said the following about Locogen: 

"The Locogen staff are technically extremely impressive - they immediately command confidence of all parties and stakeholders. They are flexible, responsive and committed. They are excellent communicators and excellent at dealing with the community and other stakeholders. "  

• Submitted our application to the Financial Conduct Authority  to form a Community Benefit Company. This will give us the legal framework we need to carry out the first part of the project and manage the finances should we be successful in winning the grant.
• Finalized our application for a bank account with the Co-Operative Bank.
• Linked with the Clanfield Sustainability group 'One Planet Clanfield'. They have started several projects in the last six months; a Community Allotment and Sharing Shelves, Green Team at the school, TerraCycling schemes, regular meetings and village wide events. They were interested in our experience working on the energy project and are looking for land for a community orchard and to run a regular Repair Café.
• Participated in the Oxfordshire Cosy Homes Insulation Project Advocates AGM. Greener Great Cowell have organised a Zoom later this week for anyone interested. You might find it informative to try Cosy Home's free 'Plan Builder' to 'Create a refurbishment plan to make your home warmer, reduce your CO₂ emissions and cut your energy bills'. See the link on Cosy Homes home page : https://cosyhomesoxfordshire.org/.

2 : Cosy Homes presentation for Greener Gt Coxwell    Thursday, 18 November⋅7:30 – 9:00pm

One of the quickest and most cost-effective means of reducing our energy use and thereby saving money and emissions, is by improving home insulation. The Oxford Low Carbon Hub home insulation project called Cost Homes (https://cosyhomesoxfordshire.org/) provides a single source of help and advice for anyone considering retrofitting home insulation. Cosy Homes offers a consultancy service to assess your current insulation and provide a costed plan of how it could be improved. They can even recommend approved contractors  and if you wish they could manage the whole project. 

Greener Great Coxwell have arranged a Zoom meeting on 18th November from 7:30 to 9:00, when the Cosy Homes Manager, Geordie Stewart, will give a Presentation of the program and be available to answer questions. Details are: 

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86346161016?pwd=Q2ZPWVI2M25nVFVremt6YlZyNkNjZz09
Meeting ID: 863 4616 1016
Passcode: 569786
 
If you would like to express an interest in the energy project, please contact us - with no obligation or commitment - either : 

e-mail:  [email protected]
visit :     https://greenergreatcoxwell.com/contact-page/   

To find out more or to send us specific queries visit www.greenergreatcoxwell.com or e-mail [email protected].

For general information from Greener Great Coxwell please mail : [email protected].
You can find these Bulletins on the website at : https://greenergreatcoxwell.com/great-coxwell-community-energy-bulletins/

Thank you, 
Annabelle Zinovieff, Ken Hirons, Ian Mason, Karen Mason, Margaret O’Donohoe, Richard Benwell, Sophie Stainer, Jacqui Russell

Dear all,

Oxford Friends of the Earth are supporting small groups to send a message to the COP26:

We suggest that at 11am people across the county organise a group of people wherever they are to stand up with a common banner or similar, take the photo with the banner message and send it to the Prime Minister, share it widely on social media, and add it to an online display wall. 

People could do this outside a community centre, college, or faith building, or on a village green, or in front of an Oxfordshire landmark – maybe on top of White Horse Hill, at the Rollright Stones, Banbury Cross, or simply outside a local pub.  

This will rapidly build a simple and strong visual display of action across the county – ideal for local media.  A ‘Twitter / Instagram storm’ will help build awareness of the day and encourage more people to join the march or other linked events. The 11am timing will give people ample time to get to the march in Oxford.    Register at https://actionnetwork.org/events/sat-6th-november-stand-up-for-our-future/

If like me you can’t get to the main rally in Oxford on Saturday but would like to do something shall we join together at the Great Barn at 11am?

Best wishes
Annabelle 
​

Welcome to Bulletin 4 from the Energy Project team. Again a big thank you to everyone who contacted us to show your support, completed the interest form on our Website or spoke to one of us on the doorstep. We are pleased to say that we have reached our target of 60% of our households expressing an interest by the end of October -  in fact we are now well past this with 72 addresses. Apologies if we haven't had a chance to speak with you and if anyone else would like to contact us or visit the website please see the links below. We welcome any last minute supporters - everyone helps our grant application.
 
Last week, the Heat and Buildings Strategy gave more details of the government's 10 Point Green Industrial Revolution plans. Two points of particular relevance to our project were their promise of £340m for the growth of heat networks like ours, and their 'aspiration' to end new gas boilers by 2035. To encourage this change they provide outline proposals, once the current energy price ‘spike’ has subsided, to shift environmental levies through the next decade so that gas will become yet more expensive but electricity less so. 
 
Over the last weeks Greener Great Coxwell Heating Network have:

• Received and reviewed three bids in response to our Invitation To Tender for the Consultancy work on the feasibility study. 
• Completed our draft funding application (to the Greater South West Energy Hub - for Rural Community Energy Fund (RCEF) ,  Stage 1 funding) which will be submitted before the Friday 5th deadline. Our application has been reviewed and described as 'very strong'. So we are optimistic.

• Completed our selection process and eventually appointed Locogen (https://locogen.com) as our consultants to carry out the feasibility study should we be successful in our grant application.  Locogen has experience in guiding 12 clients through the RCEF Stage 1 Process. We were impressed by their engagement with our village and project profile, their wide experience and their professional yet personal touch. Also, Locogen has much experience of the full cycle of implementing, investing in and managing Local Energy Networks. We feel Locogen will be a good fit with our village and will be able to help with all aspects of our project.

Locogen say:

We’re an internationally recognised and award-winning expert in facilitating the development, construction and operation of renewable energy systems for our partners and clients.

• We have now submitted our application to the Financial Conduct Authority to form a Community Benefit Company. This will give us the legal framework we need to carry out the first part of the project and manage the finances should we be successful in winning the grant. 

               Cosy Homes presentation for Greener Gt Coxwell    Thursday, 18 November⋅7:30 – 9:00pm
 
Whether we are successful with the Heat Network project or not, one of the quickest and most cost effective means of reducing our energy use and thereby saving money and emissions, is by improving home insulation. For some time Greener Great Coxwell have been working with an Oxford Low Carbon Hub home insulation project called Cost Homes (https://cosyhomesoxfordshire.org/). This project provides a single source of help and advice for anyone considering retrofitting home insulation. Cosy Homes offers a consultancy service that will survey your home and provide a comprehensive assessment of your current insulation status and a costed plan of how it could be improved. They have their own contractors who could be engaged to carry out any retrofit work and if you wish they could manage the whole project. 
 
Greener Great Coxwell have arranged a Zoom meeting on 18th November from 7:30 to 9:00, when the Cosy Homes Manager, Geordie Stewart, will give a Presentation of the program and be available to answer questions. Details are: 
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86346161016?pwd=Q2ZPWVI2M25nVFVremt6YlZyNkNjZz09

Meeting ID: 863 4616 1016
Passcode: 569786
 
We will send these details out again nearer the time.

Finally: 
If you are at all interested in the Energy Project but have not yet expressed an interest and would like to, please contact us to let us know - with no obligation or commitment - either : 
e-mail:  [email protected]
visit :     https://greenergreatcoxwell.com/contact-page/   
To find out more or to send us specific queries visit www.greenergreatcoxwell.com or e-mail [email protected].
For general information from Greener Great Coxwell please mail : [email protected].
You can find these Bulletins on the website at : https://greenergreatcoxwell.com/great-coxwell-community-energy-bulletins/
Thank you, 
Annabelle Zinovieff, Ken Hirons, Ian Mason, Karen Mason, Margaret O’Donohoe, Richard Benwell, Sophie Stainer, Jacqui Russell
 
--
Ken Hirons (Dr.) 
Mob: +44 (0)7771 504211

Welcome to Bulletin 3, just over a week on from the last bulletin and the project is moving rapidly ahead. Again thank you to everyone who contacted us to show your support, completed the interest form on our Website or spoke to one of us on the doorstep. Apologies for interrupting your evenings and many thanks for some very interesting discussions. We are pleased to say that as of 15th October we have 57 households expressing support. We still need more support and, if anyone we haven't been able to call on yet would like to contact us or visit the website please see the links below. Our target is to have 70 supporters by the end of the month and to submit our application by 5th November. 

Expressing an interest is all that is required at this stage.  Your expression of interest does not imply any other obligation or commitment. 

Over the last week we have: 

• Attended the Oxford Low Carbon Hub AGM - we are a member of the Hub and they have been a great support, we hope to work closely with them on Solar Panels and Retrofit Insulation during the project.
• We completed our preliminary discussions with potential Consultants last week - and compiled a shortlist of 4 consultancies recommended by the Greater South West Energy Hub - the grant awarding body we will be applying to.
• We issued the Invitation To Tender for the Consultancy work on the feasibility study to the companies on our shortlist on 13th. The deadline we set is very tight (25th October) but we have had a positive response from three consultancies already.
• Approached the housing association that manages some of our properties and received a favourable response. 
• We are close to finalising our application to the Financial Conduct Authority to form a Community Benefit Company. This will give us the legal framework we need to carry out the first part of the project and manage the finances should we be successful in winning the grant. The company will allow us to open a bank account with an ethical bank and could be used more widely for qualifying projects. We hope to be sponsored by Energy4All, the company that manages the day to day operation of the Westmill Co-Op. When this is finalised we will submit the CBS application.
• Fact-Finding visit to The Cotswold Wildlife Park. 

The Park claims to be a UK pioneer in ground source heat pumps, installing the first in 2010 to keep the giraffes warm. It was so successful they installed a larger second system to heat their greenhouses and tropical houses in 2014. Nichola, the financial controller, kindly offered to show us their ground and air source heat pumps and solar installations and answer our myriad of questions. We were particularly impressed by their financial savings (the total financial benefit over 20 years as a result of energy cost savings and grants, and using 3% inflation a year, amounts to just over £490,000) and the reliability of their ground source system in needing no maintenance at all during its first ten years of operation. We took a few photos (below) showing the pumps and hot water tanks. Not exciting to look at but surprisingly quiet - they could barely be heard above their freezers! Also see the photo below showing the site of the groundworks - nothing to see other than the manhole covering the manifolds that collect the pipes. There are 18 x 200m pipe loops buried in the field. The water passes from here under the road to the pump house. Cotswold Wildlife Park is justifiably proud of their system and more than pleased to show it off. Many thanks to Nichola. 

​- Started a door-to-door leafleting campaign.
Apologies if we haven't managed to call on you yet. If you are at all interested in the Project please contact us to let us know - with no obligation or commitment - either : 
e-mail:  [email protected]
visit :     https://greenergreatcoxwell.com/contact-page/   
To find out more or to send us specific queries visit www.greenergreatcoxwell.com or e-mail [email protected].
For general information from Greener Great Coxwell please mail : [email protected].
You can find these Bulletins on the website at : https://greenergreatcoxwell.com/great-coxwell-community-energy-bulletins/
Thank you, 
Annabelle Zinovieff, Ken Hirons, Ian Mason, Karen Mason, Margaret O’Donohoe, Richard Benwell, Sophie Stainer, Jacqui Russell