Category Archives: General Interest

SHARE News Bulletin October 2021


SHARE AGM

Our AGM on September 22nd was well attended, firstly at an informal “board report” session outside the Parish Hall, to show what we do and progress made during the past year.  The second, more formal part of the meeting was conducted inside the Hall, and was rounded off with drinks and snacks so that people could continue to chat.

It was especially good to meet and put names to some new faces.  Membership continues to grow and now stands at 109 full members and 77 associate members.

Draft minutes of the meeting are being circulated to members who were present, and will in due course be published on our web page (https://south-hill.co.uk/share/share-member-area/)

Insulation, insulation, insulation!

A well insulated house

There’s a great deal of talk about “retrofit” just now.  Houses built without a high standard of insulation (and this includes many being built at this very moment) can never hope to be truly energy efficient without addressing this problem.  

At the recent Cornwall Home Improvement & Self Build Show at Wadebridge, Sue went with the intention of finding out more about retrofit, but was a bit disappointed to be honest.  There were plenty of stands selling solar PV, air and ground source heat pumps, even MVHR (mechanical ventilation and heat recovery) systems, but besides being expensive to install, without high standards of insulation in homes, these can also be expensive to run.

Sadly, we missed a recent talk given by Kate Royston of TEC (Tamar Energy Community), “Retrofitting your home – What’s this all about?” .  Kate has kindly made available the presentation used for her talk – see attached.  She says costs are coming down all the time, and the ones in the presentation are on the high side.

Kate would be happy to come and talk to our members about this.  Please contact SHARE@south-hill.co.uk if you’d be interested.

Out And About

We’ve been thinking about possible visits to places of interest. 

One example is the tree nursery and a new rainwater harvesting system at Meeth Quarry near Hatherleigh in Devon (https://www.devonwildlifetrust.org/nature-reserves/meeth-quarry)

This Devon Wildlife Trust site has been developed from an old clay quarry whose industrial past has produced a fascinating landscape for wildlife today.  With 150 hectares of nature reserve we should be able to have a good walk and observe abundant wildlife too.

Trebartha, nr Launceston

We’d also like to visit Trebartha, near Launceston, where as well as extensive gardens they have a hydro-power turbine installed in 2015.  Trebartha Estate opens its gardens to visitors through the NGS – National Garden Scheme.  The next open day is in May 2022.

At a recent open day we learned that “water comes from an intake area, through a 1.2km stretch of pipe dropping 90m down to the turbine house.  The turbine is a 4 jet vertical shafted Pelton wheel with a 350kW generator.  It is estimated to generate an average of 1000MWH of energy per year – enough for about 200 homes – which is fed into the national grid.”  Naturally we’re interested in this as it links to our own hydro feasibility study.

There may also be an opportunity for us to learn more about methods of farming which are more in tune with the environment – fans of the Archers may have heard talk of “herbal leys” and such like!  Example: https://www.facebook.com/LeanneBarriballbiz/videos/1033684474135257

If you have any ideas for SHARE visits, please let us know.

Website: www.south-hill.co.uk/SHARE       email: SHARE@south-hill.co.uk 

Survey – South Hill Community Jubilee Orchard


Welcome to South Hill Community Jubilee Orchard’s participant survey.

This survey will help to inform whether there is enough local support for a new community orchard.

Survey link: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/M6RDR58

South Hill Community Jubilee Orchard

A proposed view of how the community orchard might look

This new space is owned by South Hill Parish Council, near Golberdon, and would be a new area that the local community can access. It will be a joint project between the Council and SHARE.

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Unlocking, AGM and Big Green Week


In advance of our SHARE AGM event, to be held at South Hill Parish Hall from 7.30pm on Wednesday September 22nd, we are contacting all members informally.  This message includes important information for members regarding the election of Directors.

As music fans will know all too well, during lockdown all gigs were either cancelled or postponed. At last that situation is changing as we head into ever more freedom. There has been a knock on effect; a lack of available venues, as everyone wants a stage at once.  The SHARE AGM has been affected by the same issues, as we’ve had to postpone last year’s AGM until now. The similarity with your favourite band is that venues have become in huge demand. Our own Parish Hall is seeing a great upsurge in bookings, taking advantage of its refurbishment.

We have hatched a Cunning Plan:  the format of the AGM will change slightly.

This September sees the national Great Big Green Week, (18th to 26th September) and we’ve chosen to hook into that for our Annual General Meeting.

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SHARE – Out and About Again


Lethytep Conservation & Wildlife Haven

In July, Saltash Environmental Action (SEA) arranged a visit to Lethytep for their members, which was publicised in the SEA newsletter.  Seeing this, we asked if some SHARE members could join in and included an invitation in our latest Member email bulletin.  In the end, only four of us were free to go on the trip, so Geoff, Mike, Ali, and Sue joined the lovely SEA members and Philip and Faith Hambly for the afternoon.

Philip and Faith have transformed 52 acres of meadows, lakes and ancient woodland into habitats that they manage for wildlife.  The amazing wildflower and hay meadows are managed the old-fashioned way using only carefully-timed grazing and cutting, resulting in a rich and varied habitat.  Though probably not financially viable as a working farm, Lethytep is a valuable resource for biodiversity and wellbeing and is open to visitors by arrangement and on planned open days in June and July each year.

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Soil Samples for Mining Company


Deep Digital Cornwall and Cornwall Resources: Regional fieldwork supporting university research and data hub.
Over the next few months, you may meet field teams from Cornwall Resources (CRL) working in the local area. This work is being conducted as part of Deep Digital Cornwall, a £4.1m project comprising a consortium of regional companies and research bodies, led by the University of Exeter’s Camborne School of Mines (CSM), in which CRL and Cornish Lithium are delivery partners. The project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and the UK Government. The objective of this work is to generate an open-source sub-surface data set to use as demonstration data at a new ‘Digital Hub’ being built at the Camborne School of Mines (at the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus). The resultant data will be of relevance to end-users including in the farming, environmental, and mineral exploration fields, as well as for scientific research and general interest. A brochure on the project is available at https://deepdigitalcornwall.org

CRL are helping to deliver work in the area to the west of Kelly Bray, including in the parish of South Hill and Callington and Kelly Bray. Work is small-scale and low impact and consists of soil sampling and analysis, and a gravity survey. The soil sampling involves collection of small (<500 g) soil samples with a hand-held powered auger, from depths of 40-80 cm below the surface. These samples are then analysed for over 50 elements. Gravity measurements are non-intrusive, and carried out using an instrument that measures the earth’s gravitational force at a given point with a high degree of precision. By combining this with accurate topographic data, variations in gravity can be modelled, allowing interpretation of sub-surface variations in geology, such as the presence of a granite, or the presence of underground voids.

Two teams are working outdoors, in all weather, to collect soil samples and gravity measurements. The teams are composed of three graduate geoscientists gaining vital early career work experience, and one local resident trying his hand at something new. Landowners will be contacted to request permission for land access, and to ensure that any impacts, for example on stock movements, are limited.

All data collected under the Deep Digital Cornwall project will be made open-source, available to anyone interested, including farmers, other land users and local residents.
Further information on the above can also be found on the Cornwall Resources website: https://www.cornwallresources.com/deep-digital-cornwall

Cornwall Resources remains focussed on Redmoor, near Kelly Bray, where it has been working since 2017, and where it has met with considerable success – defining a world-class underground tungstentin-copper resource. However, the company is pleased to be able to facilitate the Deep Digital Cornwall work, which will put their already-discovered deposit into regional context, and show that Cornwall is at the cutting edge of earth data collection and interpretation.
If you see our teams at work in the field, feel free to say hello. If you would like more information, or would like to be informed when the data is released, please do not hesitate to contact Jeff Harrison by email jharrison@strategicminerals.net or on 07403 568770.
Jeff Harrison
Non-Executive Director Strategic Minerals Ltd.
July 26th 202

What is YOUR Carbon Footprint?


On Monday 25th January, SHARE members attended a Zoom talk on Community Energy Schemes by Dr Tim Jones of CEP.  Despite a few IT difficulties, the event was very well organised and interesting.

The talk, hosted by St Cleer Outdoor and Environmental group, ranged far and wide over the relative benefits and costs of non-fossil-fuel heating; Cornish “Dickensian” housing stock; transport and other topics.

A mention of Carbon Footprints inspired us to look back to 2019 when SHARE commissioned a Carbon Footprint Report for South Hill Parish.  Along with an analysis of energy supply and demand in South Hill,

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SHARE Dippers and Waders!


No, not an ornithological sighting for the twitchers; rather a working party of wellies and waders to install the weir for SHARE’s hydro feasibility study.

The story so far: thanks to everyone’s generosity, we managed to raise all the funds necessary to get construction under way. Some of this started in isolation, but now we’re enjoying the luxury of Tier One, with socially distanced teamwork cranked into overdrive.

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Halloween Pumpkin Competition


A pumpkin competition was organised for Halloween by Jemma Hames (Jem’s Book Shop). There was a wonderful response all around the parish, and prizes were donated by Meaders Cabinet Works, Helen at the Chutney Shed, Astrid Fischer, Eversfield Organics, Callington Tesco and Jem Books.

Photos were submitted to Facebook and in the end they were all so good that everybody had a prize!