GREENER LANGFORD BUDVILLE
This was a community project funded by Somerset County Council's Climate Emergency Funding from 2021 to 2022. It was proposed and undertaken by parishioners and supported and administered by Langford Budville Parish Council.
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Its aims were to encourage Langford Budville to become a more sustainable, connected and lower-carbon community, to share the wealth of talent, experience and enthusiasm across the parish and to inspire each other to live more lightly.
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Download updates on the Greener Langford Budville project here: Q1, Q2, Q3
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The parish received funds to undertake the following baseline surveys:
Community consultation and household survey
The purpose of the survey was to understand the community's views on a range of
sustainability issues and what they thought was important. It also aimed to encourage residents
to get involved in community actions to reduce their carbon footprint, improve the natural
environment and, in the process, make Langford Budville parish a better place to live.
This was successful and a number of initiatives were set up, including a pop-up experimental shop, a conservation group, a green gardening group and recording groups on plants and wildlife.
Examples of what they have include planting a corner of the playing field with 50 species of locally sourced wildflowers that will now spread to attract pollenators and add colour and interest.
The Conservation Group has cleared a cycle track, bashed bracken, coppiced and ditched on the Common and planted more than 50 trees in the Parish. A reuse group has been set up – called Trash Or Treasure.
Download the parish council sustainability commitment here. More information on these groups and how to get involved is on the local links page.
Biodiversity audit of the Parish
This was undertaken by ecological consultancy Clarkson & Woods and combined digital information with expert local knowledge to identify our most valuable local habitats
and carbon sinks, as well as the most effective spaces for recovery networks and wildlife
corridors, including opportunities to link with neighbouring parishes.
Out of this work, two amazing habitat creation opportunities have emerged. One is a
potential wildlife corridor running from Langford Heathfield reserve through Runnington to
Fox’s Field and on to the Basins and beyond.
This is a symbol of our need to work together on
all this. We hope to cooperate with Transition Town Wellington on this ambitious project.
The second is a very real outcome: a Jubilee Wood of more than 600 trees. This has now
become a reality thanks to the generosity of the Hendy family of Langford Lakes, who solved the
first problem of finding a site.
Grants and advice from the Woodland Trust, Asda and the National Lottery have enabled the trees and guards to be secured. Planting of the new Jubilee Wood will be undertaken by the community in January 2023.
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Download the biodiversity audit here.
A low carbon active travel feasibility study
This included a community consultation which identified local travel problem spots and
barriers to people getting out and about by foot or bike. The project also funded a formal
study to identify and assess the feasibility of a potential safe cycle routes from Langford
Budville to Wellington. Download the report here. Please contact
julietlbpc@gmail.com for current updates on this project.
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Langford Budville Parish carbon footprint
As part of the project, we wanted to understand our parish baseline carbon footprint. Exeter University has developed a tool to
estimate a community’s carbon footprint at a parish level. It estimates the total amount of
greenhouse gases produced directly and indirectly as a result of everyday human activities in the given parish. The chart below shows the emissions produced as a result of what people in
Langford Budville and a neighbouring parish use in their daily lives. This includes the
obvious things, such as gas, electricity and petrol, but also products like food and drink, clothes, shoes, consumer electronics and appliances and financial services.
Ordnance Survey Maps reproduced with permission. Thanks to Tony Price for producing the parish outline from the original, and to Lily Girone-Maddocks for embellishing it with green ideas.