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ANNUALREPORT 2023 Working together onclimate actionwww.transitionwilmslow.co.ukTransition Wilmslow Reg Charity No 1201884

NAME ROLE DATE OF APPT Jean Hill Sarah Fox Ken Wallace Lisa Johnson Lisa McClory Helen Lederer Lata Anderson Jackie Gradwell Georgie Johnson Andrew Backhouse Chair Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Trustee Treasurer Treasurer 9 March 2023 5 October 2023 5 February 2023 9 February 2023 9 February 2023 9 February 2023 9 February 2023 9 February 2023 9 February 2023 7 November 2023 TRUSTEES 2023

This is the first annual report fromTransition Wilmslow as a CharitableIncorporated Organisation, beingregistered as such in 2023, with our firstofficial trustees meeting taking place inJanuary. We have been working toensure that we have the right policiesand liaison in place with our very activegroups. As ever, there has been plenty to keepus busy this year and we have workedon many projects, big and small. Amongst others:The Energy Group has restarted.The Community Market Gardens havewon further RHS awards and donegreat things to encourage people tolearn to grow their own vegetables andhow to cook them, too. The Tree Group has been working withother groups and has planted our firstTiny Forest at Wilmslow High School;The Transport Group has movedforward on 20’s plenty and cyclingroutes.The Repair Cafe has saved many tons ofCO2.The Lindow Moss Group has started amajor project with others including TheGroundwork Trust to ensure thatLindow Moss is conserved andprotected. The Friends of Lindow Mossgroup has also been developed.The stalwarts on Environment andPlanning have been working to makenew buildings more appropriate forclimate change and location, and tomeet the local plans.A big thank you to all the wonderfulvolunteers who make us what we are,furthering our objectives of improvingthe conservation, protection andimprovement of the naturalenvironment, encouraging moreprudent use of resources, and educatingpeople in how to do that. We can’t savethe planet ourselves, but we can work toimprove things locally.Andrew Backhouse, ChairFROM THE CHAIRFinding ingredients forPlot to PlatePicking at OakencloughPlanting Trees in the TinyForest

The group has now grown to 14 activemembers. During 2023 it plantedcirca 700 trees including two majorprojects of the "Tiny Forest" atWilmslow High School andunderstorey planting along themargins of Lindow Moss. In boththese cases (and others) the groupalso undertook ongoing monitoringof the health and progress of thetrees as well as weeding etc to ensurethey became well established withmany additional volunteers helping. Throughout the year the group hasalso undertaken various activities toencourage involvement of the widercommunity and to help educatewherever possible and to this end GROUP REPORTSTREE GROUPfour seasonal "walking talks" havebeen undertaken; a fruit tree pruningclass has occurred; and variouscommunity fairs have had stallspromoting our activities.However, the main activity this yearhas been a campaign to improve theopportunities for tree planting alongCEC Highway sites which is currentlyseverely restricted by the existing CECpolicy. This work is ongoing and aconference of similar groups to ourown from all towns across CEC hasbeen planned to learn best practiceand to act together to pressurise forcountywide changes.

Aims:To raise awareness, teach and enable local people to grow their own foodTo create a sustainable business producing local organic foodTo contribute towards addressing climate changeAt Oakenclough there have been 80adult volunteers plus 19 children, and41 school and youth group childrenplus their adults working a total of1780 hours. In addition there weremany more attending our Open Day.Volunteers have included severalrefugees who have now moved on,and at least 12 attendees live inRiverside properties – who havehelped fund outreach. Many families visiting the cafe and theOpen Day have joined in picking,watering, and planting vegetables.The Plot to Plate sessions taughtfamilies what to pick and how to cookmany things from local sources withgreat effect – see separate report.Seeds and plants have been givenaway to some 20 people.Picking Food for Plot to Plate Sessions at Oakenclough COMMUNITY MARKET GARDENS Onions, garlic, salad veg, parsnips,raspberries, rhubarb, have been givento the cafe, and potatoes and onionsto the Hope Central Food Bank.The Harvest Festival event wasattended by 65 people who came andenjoyed an afternoon of good food, allprovided from the gardens andcooked by two local chefs, along witha musical accompaniment from Ken.A stall was held at the Artisan Marketthis year to promote local produceand which generated the money forseeds and raised awareness of localclimate action. We have been gratefulfor donations towards events,drainage, and our new polytunnelfrom the Police Commissioner’sproceeds of crime fund, RiversideCommunity Fund, and the NationalLottery via Transition Network.

At the Forest Garden we havecontinued to build up the guildsround our fruit trees, most of whichhave grown well this year. We havestarted several new guilds, which havegiven us great yields of chard, kaleand rhubarb, have planted two newthornless blackberries and two vines,and put in an entrance gate, new herbspiral and a structure for beans andsquash to climb over. Our nativehedging plants and small woodlandtrees have shown very good survivalrates.Our volunteer base is small butwonderfully supportive, and relationswith the Allotment Association haveimproved hugely. We now have a Duke of EdinburghStudent who has been maintaininghis own guild, and we hope to havemore students in the new year. Ourlatest project is to convert a wethollow into a wildlife pond, and weare actively working to obtain somefunding to support increasedbiodiversity, and future proof the siteagainst drought.The Temp has had another successfulyear. This summer, both The Tempand Oakenclough were delighted toreceive Outstanding judgements fromthe RHS Britain in Bloom judges, whorecognised the work with the localcommunity. Reception pupils fromAshdene school have maintainedtheir bed, firstly with a show ofdaffodils and then a crop of potatoes.A group of pre-school children andtheir parents enjoyed planting a rangeof vegetable seeds with Garry. Wehave also had several families whowere out for a Sunday afternoon walk,joining in with our volunteer sessions.One afternoon two little girls whowere passing planted up a whole bedof strawberries. A new experimental bed containingmaize, French beans, courgettes andgourds showed us the success ofcompanion planting. We alsoimproved the composting facilitiesand were able to provide a really goodmulch for the beds in the autumn. Arange of volunteers have continued tomake a regular contribution onSunday afternoons, and we held alovely harvest festival picnic at theTemp for about thirty people inAugust, as well as making a usefulcontribution to the food needed forthe Oakenclough Harvest supper inSeptember.

2023 has been a quiet year for theTransport Group and its 7 members.The ongoing campaign for boroughwide 20mph speed limit zonescontinues and has been energisedby a new lead for the county widecampaign, Diana Davey. The groupcontinues to engage with all localtransport infrastructure issues,particularly the LCWIPimplementation where Rob is veryinfluential through his CycleWilmslow role. The recent elections to CheshireEast Council and Wilmslow TownCouncil have brought new energyto attempts to influenceinfrastructure with TW membersChris Hilliard and Lata Andersonelected and taking on the roles ofCycling/Walking champion andPublic Transport Championrespectively for Cheshire EastCouncil.TRANSPORT GROUPThe Energy Group re-formed in theAutumn and agreed the aims ofincreasing awareness of homeenergy loss and use, rolling outhome energy surveys in the shorterterm and reviewing the potential fora community energy generation hubin the longer term.So far we have had a home-energystall and hosted a window blindcompany (The Sewing Sanctuary) atthe Repair Café, both of whichgenerated a lot of interest. We willbe rolling out home-energy surveysduring 2024 and once we havegauged interest, will explore thepossibility of funding forgroundworks to undertake minorinsulation tasks on request. ENERGY GROUP

Members of the group have beenworking this year to develop twowalks, which will be available onlineand as paper leaflets; the LindowMoss Heritage Walk (3.5 mi) and theLindow Moss Loop Walk (7 mi). Thereis also a plan for a Lindow Moss NatureWalk. The Heritage Walk map will beready for Summer 2024. The Loopwalk is awaiting footpathimprovements when funding isavailable. The Restoration Group metin April 2023 (29 attendees) with anupdate on the HLF application andagain in May 2023 at a walksworkshop (32 attendees) to discussthe most important points of intereston the walks and appropriate text forthese. A subgroup of the Restoration Groupis working on the Discover Lindow2024 Season celebrating the 40thanniversary of the discovery of LindowMan. The success of the Lindow MossCommunity Forum and the need toreach out to people beyond Wilmslowled to discussions about setting up aFriends Group. 18 people attended ameeting with local councillors andothers and agreed that a FriendsGroup would be formed, initially as asubgroup of Transition Wilmslow, butwith the option of becoming anindependent group. In September, 20people attended the launch of theinterim committee and the publiclaunch was in February 2024. Seewww.DiscoverLindow.org for moreinformation.Transition Wilmslow members havebeen raising community awareness ofand campaigning for the restorationof Lindow Moss for more than adecade, led by Professor JohnHandley, organising guided walks,lectures, a workshop, plant hunts anda Day School and other events as wellas responding to planningapplications and reports. The Transition Wilmslow LindowMoss Restoration Group (with amembership now of 25) consistsmainly of relevant scientists andother specialists, together with agroup of community representatives,and met regularly to update onrestoration progress and futureprospects as well as commissioning ahydrology report and undertakingsurveys and studies on site. The groupalso organised a Lindow MossCommunity Forum. Restoration bythe owners of Lindow Moss started inMarch 2022 for around 6 months andthen briefly in March 2023. LINDOW MOSS

ENVIRONMENT &PLANNINGREPAIR CAFEJean Hill has been a stalwart using theNeighbourhood Plan and our work onimproving biodiversity and climateresilience, to comment on planningapplications, particularly in Wilmslow.She has worked with members of theCivic Trust and the NeighbourhoodPlan Implementation group tomaximise impact, not just onplanning applications, but also on theprovision of a new cycling andwalking route along the valley of theRiver Dean.Whilst we are not always successful,we are slowly influencing the debateand it is heartening to note thatdevelopers are now beginning to bemore considerate on these matters,including the use of sustainabledrainage features for the significantarea of hard standing parkingprovision in one recent case. We have held 3 repair cafes this year,with increasing numbers each time,such that we have had to book alarger hall in Handforth for the nextone. 4th March at Wilmslow URC44 repairs completed out of 70customers (i.e. 62.9% completionrateApproximately 1 tonne of CO2saved from going to landfill1st July at St Chad's32 repairs completed out of 50customers (i.e. 64.0% completionrateApproximately 873 kg of CO2saved from going to landfill4th November at Wilmslow URC49 repairs completed out of 108customers (i.e. 45.4% completionrateApproximately 1.01 tonnes of CO2saved from going to landfillA total of approximately 2.9 tonnes ofCO2 saved compared with 2022 whenwe saved approximately 1¾ tonnes.

To advance the conservation, protection and improvement of the naturalenvironment and the prudent use of natural resources for the benefit of the publicin Wilmslow, Handforth and surrounding areas through promotion, awareness-raising and skill-sharing to build community resilience to combat climate changeand resource scarcity. To advance the education of the public in the conservation, protection andimprovement of the physical and natural environment. OUR AIMSWE ARE VERY GRATEFUL TO OUR GRANTGIVERS, SPONSORS AND SUPPORTERSTHROUGHOUT 2023Transition Wilmslow Registered Charity No 1201884