We were delighted to welcome Chipping Norton’s Green Gym to Southill Solar this spring, and are looking forward to their next visit.
Chippy Green Gym is an independent community group that works on environmental conservation projects in Chipping Norton and the surrounding area. They arrange fun and free outdoor sessions every week, normally on Wednesday mornings. They recently paid a visit to us at Southill Solar to help maintain the site.
During their recent visit, the volunteers helped to put up heras fencing - a wide mesh panel - under the railway arch to reduce the number of deer grazing the site.
Although deer can seem like a normal presence in the British countryside, their prevalence can have a negative impact on the natural habitat of the wildflower meadow and grassland - through grazing and trampling. We hope that the new deer fencing will prevent or at least reduce the passage of deer across the site.
We were also delighted that Ashley and Kate from the Cotswolds AONB joined the Green Gym session. They are responsible for the Save our Magnificent Meadows project within the Cotswolds. They have kindly offered to supply donated seed from local limestone grassland. We hope that this will increase biodiversity at Southill.
If you’d like to get involved with Green Gym at Southill, see their current programme for more upcoming visits. Everybody is welcome!