Environment Working Group (EWG) update

We thought it would be nice to look at the year and see what the EWG have achieved over 2024.

The year started with us supporting our local toad patrol in Priddy – over xx amphibians were saved from the Old Bristol Road and safely put into the Priddy Mineries pond.

We continued to host our community group days, which included our village litter pick, village green weeding and churchyard meadow management. We were delighted to see how many seeds successfully germinated on the village green verge and the mix of plants that flourished.

We have written a Local Climate and Nature Action Plan for our Priddy Parish that aligns with both the Mendip Hills National Landscape Nature Recovery Plan and the soon to be published Somerset Council Local Nature Recovery Strategy. This ensures that we are all working together to help improve our biodiversity and combat climate change.

We carried out several invasive species surveys and identified the patches of Himalayan balsam in our Parish. We tackled one area on Plummers Lane, and we will be contacting landowners over the winter to discuss managing the larger areas. We need your help with weed pulls next year please!

We teamed up with Sunlit Solar who came and presented at the Priddy Village Hall in October. They are a local firm in Wedmore who are passionate about renewables and will offer a 10% discount to anyone who signs up for a solar system in our parish (https://sunlit-solar.co.uk/).

We have recently undertaken some restoration work on Priddy Pool.

We have expanded our EWG and invited parishioners to join us so that you can share your thoughts with us and help us conserve our wonderful parish together.

Next year we have lots of community events that you can get involved with. We will be sending out more details, reminders and dates on the Parish website, Priddy FB page and in the PEW:

• February 1^st Freecycle Event – from 11am at the Priddy Village Hall- this will be your opportunity to give away your unwanted items or do some swapsies! We will also be selling tea, coffee and cake.
• March – we will be litter picking, weeding the village green and creating some new meadow areas.
• April – we will be wildflower planting – if you have any native wildflower plug plants, we would love them please!
• May – July – we will focus on weed pulls during these months and remove Himalayan balsam in the parish. Lots of help would be very much appreciated.
• September – December – Priddy pool / Townsend pool maintenance – it would be great if we could have some help with some pond tasks, please. More details to follow…

As always if you have any ideas, thoughts or just want to get involved please contact me. We are updating our Priddy Parish Council website at the moment so there will be lots of information on there as well for you to look at.

Our next EWG meeting is at the Queen Vic at 7pm on December 9^th. We meet every month and the meetings are always short!

Many thanks to all of you for your help and support this year.  Here’s hoping that 2025 is a truly magical and biodiverse one!

Jen Nightingale Clements

EWG Chair, Priddy Parish Council

jen2clements@gmail.com