Archive for category: News

You can read the latest issue here.

Huge thanks, as ever, for all the team who put in so much hard to to create this issue.

A reminder from North Somerset Council that Highways England will be again closing the following: Further closures of M5 Junction 19 and Martcombe Road (entrance and exit) are required by Highways England on the following dates: 28 Sept – 1^st Oct 20.00-06.00hrs & 6-14 October 20.00 – 06.00hrs. There will be a revocation of the left turn and a right hand turn created from High Street, Portbury. 

Here are details from Highway England regarding diversions:

Traffic from Portbury Hundred and M5 north.

• Traffic wanting to travel M5 south will divert via M5 north to J18, Avonmouth and re-join M5 south via the Y loop.
• Traffic wanting Martcombe Road will divert via M5 north to J18 Avonmouth, A4 Portway, A370, B3218 and B3219 Beggar Bush Lane to re-join A369 Martcombe Road (Vehicles not permitted on the Motorway) Non motorway traffic only wanting Martcombe road will divert via Royal Portbury Dock Road and Marsh Lane 

Traffic from M5 south

• Traffic wanting Martcombe Road will divert via  M5 south at J18 Avonmouth, A4 Portway, A370, B3218 and B3219 Beggar Bush Lane to re-join A369 Martcombe Road
• Traffic wanting Portbury Hundred will divert to M5 J20 and back to M5 J19

The notice can be read here.

Even a very small pond can be a fantastic benefit for wildlife and a source of real interest in a garden. To make it easier for people to create their own small ponds, the Parish Council has bought a reasonable amount of high quality pond liner with underlay for people to buy at £5 per sq. metre. It can be available almost as soon as you contact us to place an order, which must be for a rectangular piece. The underlay is really helpful in protecting against damage to the liner by small sharp stones etc.

The first question of course, is “How much liner do I need?” You can go online and find guidance about this, but for some reason the guidelines assume that you should be making a pond that is three feet deep and has vertical sides. This inevitably uses a great deal of liner, and is almost certainly not what you want, for two reasons:

a) 3 ft (90 cm) is very deep and involves a great deal of work to remove the earth etc: the figure seems to be based on absolute protection against frost, but it would take the sort of hard and prolonged frost that we never experience in these parts to cause a problem of this sort. A maximum depth of 2ft (60 cm) seems absolutely fine.

b) many of the plants you might want to have in a pond won’t thrive in deep water, and having shallower sections is desirable.

So, to estimate the amount of liner you want, we suggest:

a) look at where you are going to put the pond and decide on its length and breadth. (Make sure this area is level – you don’t want one side of your pond to be higher than another!)

b) draw two scale models of the pond in profile – one from end to end, and the other from side to side. The drawings will show how deep you want the bottom of the pond to be in cross-section in these two directions

c) use a piece of thread or thin string to follow the line of the pond bottom in each direction, and measure the length of the from one end to the other – then convert to the real dimensions. (So, for example, if scale is 1 inch per foot, and your piece of thread measures 7½” from one side of the pond to the other then you need 7½ Feet (2.25 metres) of liner – except that you need to add 6-8 inches (15-20 cm) all the way round to create an edge to your pond that you will weight down with stones.)

It’s a good idea to include a section of bog in your design if you have room – there are lots of plants that like bog, and that insects love! If you do do this, keep the pond and the bog separate: the reason is that it’s a good idea to make a very few small slits in the liner for the bog section so that it does very slowly drain, like a natural bog, and you don’t want to lose water from the pond at the same time. Of course, the separation only needs to be a few inches where you leave the ground level above the water lever in the pond.

Plants

Note: after you have dug the pond, put the liner down and placed stones or bricks round the edge you can fill it straight away – rainwater is best, but tap water will be fine. Either way, leave it a few days to settle down before putting any plants in.

The one essential you need is something that will oxygenate the pond – you can probably get bits from friends who have ponds or we can put you in touch with someone who can spare some. Try to avoid importing duckweed – though you quite likely will in small amounts and it’s worth keeping an eye on the pond and removing any odd pieces of duckweed that appear as quickly as you can. (There is a great guide to plants for your pond here!)

A message from Cath of the Footpaths sub-group of the Parish Council;

Dear walkers,
Lots of you will have noticed the “0520 notice of joint landowner and highways statement land adjacent Markham Farm Easton in Gordano“.(attached map on page 2 of the linked PDF). The parish council have been investigating this and there is currently no plan or permission to build on this land and it is still in the green belt.

However, the owners are establishing the public rights of way across this land so that if they do get permission (when the government suddenly decides that they can build on greenbelt as housing needs are very high) we will not be able to claim other footpaths exist on the land.

I am therefore trying to establish the footpath up the edge of the field from where you enter at the bridleway at Brookside playing field up to where it joins the footpath emerging from where the horse are (what was Shilton’s farm) as public right of way under the evidence of use from the section 31 of The highways act 1980.

We need as many evidence statements as we can get to prove it has been used as a footpath for at least 20 years. I don’t think this is a problem as I have memories of walking that way over 40 years ago.

What I would like you to do is print off and fill in the application form here and draw on a map the route (below), completed forms can be left at the resource centre for the Attention of the footpath committee and I will collect them from there. If we can get them done by the 28th in August we can put them in with the rights of way improvement plan.

Please feel free to share this with anyone who you think would be able to complete the form.

Thanks for all your support on this

 Cath