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What a busy year 2024 has been!

As we welcome in the New Year, we’re looking back on what the last 12 months has meant for Charvil

The year started with flooding across the village and ongoing negotiations with our partners at Wokingham Borough Council, and their contractors, over the repairs to the sinkhole at the East Park Farm car park.

We held a photo competition, with the winner featuring on the cover of the Spring Edition of our Parish Newsletter, the Charvil Village News.

The play surface at St Patrick’s Recreation Ground were repaired, and we took part in the Big Tidy Up, joined by litter-picking volunteers from across the village.

During the spring, we installed a new oven at the Margaret Gimblett Pavilion, improving the kitchen facilities for our users there, and had new tennis nets fitted at our East Park Farm courts.

With the sinkhole repairs completed, we were able to re-open the car park in early May, and we held our first Community Connect Event, combining our Annual Parish Meeting with a showcase of our local groups and clubs.

Over the summer months, we redesigned our website, which was relaunched in September, along with new email addresses for the Parish Councillors and Officers.

We held our Annual Footpath Walk, visiting all of the public rights of way across the village.

We attended the Village Fete, where we met and chatted to a number of residents over key issues, and were able to award prizes to our Sunflower Competition winner.

Over the last few months of the year, we’ve held two CPR training sessions at the Village Hall.

The Hall floor has been refurbished and new fencing has been installed around the East Park Farm Tennis Courts.

We’ve planted trees and hedging around Charvil, as well as additional fruit trees in our Community Orchard.

Finally, we rounded off the year with our Annual Christmas Party, bringing people together for games singing, mulled wine and mince pies.

As we welcome in the New Year, we’re looking ahead to what 2025 has in store!

We’re finalising our Neighbourhood Plan, and this will be out for public consultation later in the year.

We’re looking at new ways to engage with our residents through new Community events.

We’re exploring the options to improve the play area next to the Pavilion at East Park Farm

We’ll be launching our Community Speedwatch initiative

We’re in discussions with a potential new preschool provider who is hoping to open a nursery here, in Charvil.

We’d like to thank everyone who has supported us, or attended any of our events this year, and we look forward to seeing you in 2025!

Charvil Parish Council has formally responded to Speedy Fuels Ltd’s Application for a Goods Vehicle Operators Licence for the former Prince Brothers site on the Old Bath Rd.

A copy of our response is below:

Braving the weather last weekend, Parish Councillors & Officers planted 40 new trees around Charvil! 

The damaged tree outside the Village Hall was replaced, along with a new silver birch on The Mound. 

We planted a lime to replace the one that needed to be felled at the rear or Vale View and a new rowan. 

Around a dozen hedging plants were planted along the carpark border on Park Lane and, finally, around 25 hawthorn whips were planted to fill the gaps along the Pavilion service road. 

Thank you to Cllr Jones, Cllr Bennett and his son, and our Parish Clerk for their hard work in the rain!

Celebrate Christmas with us at our Annual Christmas Party on Saturday, 14th December, from 3pm to 6pm at Charvil Village Hall!

🤝 A chance to meet and mingle with your neighbours & Parish Councillors

🎵 Carol Singing, led by local choir director Suzanne

🎨 Games and crafts for children

🥂 Free refreshments, including mulled wine and mince pies

❓️ Christmas Quiz

🎁 We’ll also be collecting donations for Woodley Foodbank

Just a few days left to apply!

Every year, Charvil Parish Council awards grants to local community groups and charities that benefit Village residents.

If you are involved in a local group or charity that would benefit from a Parish Council Grant, you can download an application form at:

Completed forms should be returned to the Parish Clerk no later than 1st December.

Applications will be considered by the Parish Council at the monthly meeting of the Full Council on Monday 16th December.

For more information, or to submit your application, email

clerk@charvilparishcouncil.gov.uk

Last week, new fencing was installed at our two tennis courts at East Park Farm.

The old fencing had been damaged by people climbing over to access the courts.

The tennis courts are available for anyone who has one of our Annual Tennis Passes. Details of how to obtain one of these can be found at:

If, for any reason, you need to access the courts while they are not in use, please use the contact details posted on the tennis court gates.

🚣‍♀️ Are you Prepared? 🚣

As we head into winter, are you prepared for any potential flooding?

The “flood season” in Charvil generally occurs between late December to late February. While February is the riskiest month historically, there have been isolated localised floods at other times of the year.

Our Flood Wardens have prepared our Community Flood Plan, which includes a personal flood plan checklist. These can be found on our website at:

Any Flood Alerts will be posted on our social media and website, or you can join the Flood Wardens’ WhatsApp group at:

🌳 Planned Tree Works 🌳

Throughout the rest of November, works will be taking place to cut back tress around the village.

Some of these works are to trees covered by Tree Preservation Orders, for which an independent survey and the necessary permissions have been sought.

The works will be taking place at:

🏫 Village Hall: tidy up and crown lifting of the trees around the village hall and the large oak at the bottom.

🛝 St. Patrick’s: tidy up and crown lifting of the trees in the recreation ground and felling of a dead standing cherry to a 2m stump because it is within falling distance of the road.

⚽️ East Park Farm: crown lifting, cutting back of intruding branches on trees located in the boundary woodland areas. Crown lifting, dead wooding and tidy up of those in Lime Tree Avenue (footpath) and the felling of the lone lime that is on the corner of the service road in front of the Pavilion. The tree to be felled has a fungus that is causing decay and increases the risk of tree collapse – Fungus: Kretzschmaria deusta (Brittle Cinder).

Areas will be cordoned off as the works are completed, but please take care if walking in any of these areas

Tree Planting

As part of National Tree Week this year, we will be replacing some of the trees planted in previous years, which have failed to thrive.

We will be meeting at 10am on Sunday 24th November at Charvil Village Hall, to take care of some of the lime trees, then moving on to The Mound at East Park Farm, and some of the hedgerows lining the East Park Farm car park.

If you would like to join us, then please bring any gardening tools you may have, and dress appropriately for the weather.

If you would like to suggest sites for future tree planting, or would like to sponsor a future fruit tree for our Community Orchard, then please contact:

A huge thank you to everyone who attended our CPR Training sessions last week.

We trained 76 local people in how to recognise a cardiac arrest, how to perform hands-only CPR and how to use our Community Defibrillators.

Good CPR, and use of a community defibrillator prior to the arrival of the emergency services, has been shown to quadruple your chances of survival from a cardiac arrest. Almost 80% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur at home, so you are more likely to use these skills on someone you know than on a stranger.

If you would like to learn and practice CPR at home, you can visit:

https://revivr.bhf.org.uk

To find where the Community Defibrillators are, have a look at the Parish Map on the “Our Village” page of our website:

Our Village – Charvil Parish Council

If you attended our sessions but have not yet received your certificate, please contact: