About Great Green Bedwyn
Great Green Bedwyn is a community climate action group. Our aims are to bring our local community together to share ideas and take action to reduce our community and individual carbon footprints. We were set up in 2022 with funding from the National Lottery and support from Great Bedwyn Parish Council.
About Great Bedwyn
Great Bedwyn is a Wiltshire village of 1300 people surrounded by farmland and historic sites. There is a high proportion of old buildings, many with thatched roofs and most with gardens. There is a railway station with some direct trains to London, a canal and local school. It is at the bottom of a valley which has meant flooding in the past.
Our progress so far
We began with a survey of the whole parish and canal boat residents in February 2022. Analysis of the 147 responses revealed that two thirds of people were already aware of climate change and felt we were already experiencing hotter, wetter, windier weather, and that local flooding was a significant risk. Community energy, reducing river pollution, biodiversity, and home energy were the climate-related topics residents were the most supportive of.
Guided by our survey results, we have held several very successful open meetings (on the survey results, retrofitting houses, improving home energy efficiency, community energy and rain gardens) and other events (including nature recovery in gardens, demystifying electric cars, green open homes and carrying out heat loss surveys using an infrared camera). We also worked in partnership with Great Bedwyn School to hold Great Bedwyn's first ever Green Fair, this was a great success and attended by over 250 people.
We are keen to learn what other local groups and communities are doing about climate change and are developing strong links with several organisations, including ARK (Action for the River Kennet) and HEAT (Hungerford Environment Action Team), Southern Streams (the local cluster of farms), Sustainable Marlborough and Wiltshire Climate Alliance.
Our team
Great Green Bedwyn is led by Sylvia and Jeremy Wyatt and supported by Project Officer Ruth Larkin and volunteers including Jane Renwick. We are grateful to many other people who have volunteered their time and shared their expertise to support the group.