Alex Charlesworth

Following the announcement of the death of the Duke of Edinburgh:  Kirtlington Parish Council would like to pass on this message from Yvonne Rees, Chief Executive Of Oxfordshire County Council, which has been circulated to the County’s local authorities;

It is with great sadness that today we hear of the death of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. This sadness, I am sure, is shared by many of you who will want to remember and recognise the service of Prince Philip.

During the pandemic, we cannot host and open physical books of condolence as it is not safe to do so. We would encourage those who would like to share a message to sign Buckingham Palace’s online book of condolence at www.royal.uk This will close at 5pm on the day after the funeral. It is not live yet.  

Outside of COVID-19, we would, at this time, be working to identify suitable locations around the county for the laying of flowers, should anyone wish to do that. Unfortunately, we need to discourage this. Alternative donation arrangements may be announced by the government or Buckingham Palace in the coming days.

During the period before the funeral, a period of national mourning will be observed. As part of this, councils are now reviewing our meetings schedule and civic functions in the days ahead and there are likely to be some changes. Our websites will be updated to reflect any changes.

Yvonne Rees

Chief Executive, Oxfordshire County Council

In terms of next steps, as per the protocol, we advise of the following issues that local councils may wish to give specific consideration:

• Flags

Where arrangements exist to ensure that only essential staff are going to their place of work it is suggested that no one should be required specifically to travel to various buildings to lower flags to half-mast. If staff are resident on the premises where a flag is being flown and can lower it to half-mast then by all means do so, but the health of the wider community outweighs the need ask staff to leave their homes and travel around to lower flags at other sites.

• Organisation of Local Events

The idea of bringing people together within their local communities is no longer possible. Councils may wish to postpone any plans that they have to hold events (including civic church services).  You may wish to use social media to explain the events that you had planned and to say that arrangements will be made for this to happen when all movement restrictions are lifted and it is safe to do so.

It is hoped that television broadcasters will step in to fill gaps should the need arise. 

• Books of condolence and flower laying

For the duration of the current emergency it is not appropriate to open physical books of condolence.  The only safe option is to use the online books of condolence where these are available, we anticipate an official Book of Condolence on www.royal.uk however this is not yet live. Clearly it is very difficult for members of the public to lay flowers and Councils may wish to actively discourage people from doing so.  An alternative might be to suggest that people should make donations if they so wish, with details expected through the official Buckingham Palace website in due course www.royal.uk It needs to be made very clear that Councils do understand the enormous financial pressures that the current situation is placing on some people and that nobody should feel obliged to donate. 

• Organisation of Local Events

The idea of bringing people together within their local communities is no longer possible.  Councils may wish to postpone any plans that they have to hold events (including civic church services).  You may wish to use social media to explain the events that you had planned and to say that arrangements will be made for this to happen when all movement restrictions are lifted and it is safe to do so.

It is hoped that television broadcasters will step in to fill gaps should the need arise. 

After our hopeful article in the last Village News and further consultation with some specialist advisers on potential profitability, with the utmost reluctance, the shop action group has come to the conclusion that it is simply too risky to go ahead. The main issues are:

• The space is too small to stock a large enough range of products to generate sales (it would need to be at least twice as big).
• Projected running costs are higher than we could afford, to be really comfortable we would need free premises. 
• We would need to run the operation with no paid staff, and we know that to be successful we probably need a manager for at least 20 hours per week.
• We are lacking sufficient personnel for several key areas in the ‘management’ team (accounts/stock taker/buyer) and volunteers from the village to fill these slots have not been forthcoming.
• The opening hours of other profitable shops are 2 – 3 times longer than we can sustain with volunteers.
• There is a lot of risk with retail operations due to the opening hours, need for reliable staffing and risks of products going out of date. 

The team has had the benefit of invaluable advice from the Plunkett Foundation that supports community businesses all over the UK and helpful meetings with neighbouring community shops. We have spent a year thoroughly investigating the project’s potential, with the support of Scott Patterson at the Dashwood, whose business has naturally been thrown off course by the pandemic. We are acutely aware of the importance of a shop for the village, as shown by the willingness of many households to commit to regular purchases and to support our farmers’ markets despite atrocious weather, so this has been a very difficult decision for us all.

We would like to thank everyone for the support that you’ve shown for the project and hope you understand our reasons for not being able to proceed.  

We intend to continue to create community events throughout the year, such as the Farmer’s markets which have proved popular.

From – Friends of Kirtlington village shop (Caroline Cater, Celia Hawkesworth, Chris Brett, Louise Goodman, Steve Rice) with additional help from Richard Sadler, Scott Patterson & Tony Summerfield.

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As hedgehogs have yet to evolve the ability to fly, where there is a ground difference between gardens we have to resort to innovative structures like this stone staircase and oak ramp:

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As part of the project, we use foot print recording tunnels and camera traps to check on the presence of hedgehogs. A camera trap video of a hedgehog on the ramp posted to KWACS’ twitter feed went viral with over 33,000 views!

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