Front Page Post

– you could walk down the road to buy that bottle of milk you suddenly need? Or some of those special little extras for when friends come round? Or home-made cakes and biscuits and other local produce?

– you could meet your friends for a coffee while your children played on the field behind the Village Hall? 

– you could showcase and sell your work in a local venue?

– you could contribute to village life by being part of a project to set up a community-owned shop and café?

All these things could be possible if enough people are   willing to commit to making them happen. Several villages near us have successful community shops: Islip, Tackley and Wootton are three examples. They use existing buildings but you can see from these pictures what the villagers of Wigginton, near Tring, achieved when they created a new purpose-built shop/café beside their playing field. 

We could do something like that here.

You may have your doubts about such a project – after all, the Bletchingdon Co-op is very close. But you may not want to be obliged to get in your car for every small errand, especially if you are elderly or have small children it’s easier just to put in a buggy. You may want to be able to meet others close to home and hear the latest news in an informal setting …

 In addition to being a real hub of village life, such a venue could grow into a destination for walkers and visitors from outside the village to come and enjoy the exceptional surroundings of Kirtlington Park, the sports field, playground and church. There is no doubt that such an asset would not only contribute to the quality of our daily community life but it would also enhance the value of our properties.

There will be a public meeting to discuss this possibility in March in the Village Hall and a flyer will be sent out with more details nearer the time.

Meanwhile, if you would like to be involved or ask questions, please contact:

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.

Kirtlington Hedgehog Street is connecting gardens in the village to give hedgehogs enough space to breed and to help keep them off the roads. This is part of the national Hedgehog Street campaign. To learn more see this article that was published in the national press.

• 60 properties in the village are connected
• c. 16 acres of gardens are included
• The village pub, school and church are all connected.

The national Hedgehog Street organisation has told KWACS that Kirtlington has one of the biggest volunteer-run Hedgehog Streets in the country!  See the map in green.  To join, please make sure hedgehogs can pass from your garden to your neighbours’ gardens.  All it needs is a CD sized hole in your fence or wall.

In Spring 2020, there was a rapid and significant decline in Kirtlington’s hedgehog population.  We have written up the evidence for the decline which is very clear and the possible reasons for it.  Click here for that article and here for another article by Professor Patrick Doncaster who researched into hedgehogs in Kirtlington Park in 1992. Click here for coverage of the loss of our hedgehogs on local BBC news.

KWACS is delighted, whenever possible, to support other communities who would like to set up their own hedgehog street.  In particular, click here if you are interested in receiving a lecture about what we have done in Kirtlington.  This is given either in person (when Covid allows) or via Zoom by the brother of the KWACS committee member who leads our hedgehog work.  He is a wildlife photographer, film maker and public speaker.  In addition, visitors are welcome to come to Kirtlington (when Covid allows) to see in person what we have done.

DONATIONS

If you would like to support our work, please click on DONATIONS above.  That will take you to our on-line giving page for the KWACS Hedge Fund.

All donations will go directly to enlarging Kirtlington Hedgehog Street or supporting other communities start their own hedgehog street.

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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:

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!

Cherwell District Council Licencing Sub-committee met on 21st January 2020 to hear the application of the KITE Festival in Kirtlington in June. The Licencing Authority decided to withdraw their objection following representation from the event organisers and the Committee resolved to grant the licence. http://modgov.cherwell.gov.uk/documents/s43173/Determination%20Letter%20U%20Live%2027%201%2020%202.pdf
The conditions to the granting of the license are set out in the Promoting Licensing Objectives: http://modgov.cherwell.gov.uk/documents/s43095/Promoting%20Licensing%20Objectives%20V3.pdf

The Parish Council is pleased to note the following:
Condition 4. The Licensee will attend a Parish Council meeting prior to each Event and will provide a monthly update to the Parish Council upon the plans for delivery of the Event for each of the three months prior to the event and will attend a Parish Council meeting after each Event to share information and receive local community feedback.
Condition 6. The Event Management Plan (EMP) shall be subject to scrutiny by the Safety Advisory Group (SAG) and shall be discussed with and approved by the Licensing Authority at least one month prior to each Event.
Kirtlington Parish Council is looking forward to meeting the U-Live (Promotor) representatives who have confirmed their attendance at the next Parish Council meeting on 18th February 2020 at 7pm when they will outline their plans for the Kite Festival in more detail. Members of the public are encouraged to attend.