Village Sustainability Newsletter September 2025

SUSTAINABILITY – WORKING TOWARDS THE COFE’S CARBON NEUTRAL TARGET 2030

Phew, what a scorcher!

It may be that by the time this is published we will be settling in to late summer and some cooler weather, but I am writing this in yet another 2025 heatwave.  The fourth.  We are just back from our holiday in Pembrokeshire.  I didn’t send you a postcard but we had a lovely time, with beautiful coastline, cliffs and beaches, fabulous sunny weather (not nearly as uncomfortable as this week’s West Berkshire 30ish degrees), and varied enough wind and wave conditions to surf, paddle board, fly kites, body board; our favourite things.  We spotted wildlife on a boat trip, and a slightly damp bottom-edge of Storm Floris morning allowed a quick visit to the wet day activities we had identified. “Just in case”, “it IS Wales after all!”; the fantastic Solva Wollen Mill selling beautiful local products and showing the weaving process, and an exhibition of images inspired by sea horizons, by photographer Garry Fabian Miller. 

What might I have written had I sent you that postcard?

  • We saw LOTS of wonderful wildlife!  Skomer Island where we took our boat trip is known as home to puffins.  After a decline in numbers in the 1950-70s, the population increased to over 24,000 in 2019 and a fantastic 43,000 this year.  It is managed by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales – part of the same family of conservationists as the BBOWT which is supported by Chieveley.  We were nearing the end of the season but it was a privilege to see lots of these gorgeous birds flying and bobbing around, feeding their young. 
  • One of the bays near Skomer is a popular breeding ground for seals.  We saw 5-6 on each of 2-3 beaches we could see from the cliff top, largely safe from human disturbance.
  • We heard reports of dolphins and porpoises putting on a show for holiday makers though we only saw a distant group of 3-4.  There are plenty of mackerel this year, so the usual smaller feeding grounds are extended and it becomes harder to reliably predict where to spot them.
  • All the amazing water activities available mean we saw hundreds if not thousands of people in wetsuits.  I was reminded how difficult these are to recycle and with children outgrowing them in a year or two it was good to hear that a volunteer at The Cowshed charity (look it up online; the drop-off is in Wokingham) collects them to sell on at her sailing club, raising funds for this excellent charity.
  • We spotted a Blue Plaque one day bearing the names of West Wales Eco Centre and Newport Town Council and stating “on this site the first – and smallest – commercial solar PV installation in the UK started to feed electricity into the grid, 11th October 1986, pioneering what is now a vast industry.”  A little bit of green history!
  • One evening we went to the stunning (and more obviously historic) St David’s Cathedral for Celtic evening prayer, attracted by a poster offering “a liturgy that connects vividly to Scripture, nature and the seasons.”  It was an informal, beautiful and peaceful half hour, welcoming and refreshing both the faithful and the curious, even those whose sandy feet left evidence of their presence.
  • We found lots of fantastic places to eat.  The Welsh are proud to advertise when food is locally sourced, from the Welsh cakes and Bara Brith that welcomed us to our cottage, via local craft breweries, the freshest sea fish, to a spectacular “zero food miles” ice cream café located on the dairy farm where the cows could be seen over the fence.  I could have left home for their Blackcurrant Ripple…. 
  • And an unresearched lunch stop at a plant nursery-come-café called Perennials yielded delicious food and tables dotted around the gardens with blackboard written signs saying things like “We’re harvesting wildflower seeds so it’s looking a little wild”.  Heavenly.

It was refreshing to see the hard work and successes in another part of the UK protecting, preserving and celebrating the environment.  And we didn’t even need to get on an aeroplane to go there!

Next on the family agenda is Greenbelt Festival for our annual fix of music, friends, faith, poetry, crafting, and hearing a huge variety of speakers on a range of social justice topics – including of course the environment.  More on this next month!

Julia Hoaen