Special Platinum Jubilee Free Bus Travel in West Berkshire
Bus users in West Berkshire will have even more reason to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee this June.
Following on from the successful free bus travel offered in December for Christmas, and the Easter weekend, most bus journeys starting in West Berkshire over Jubilee weekend (2-5 June 2022) will be completely free!
Travellers can take advantage of this offer to celebrate this very special milestone to attend Jubilee events across West Berkshire, to meet up with friends and family, or attend events in towns and villages across the district.
This initiative has been developed by West Berkshire Council in partnership with Reading Buses and Thames Travel and will be valid on any Reading Buses, Newbury & District, and Thames Travel services within West Berkshire. If you board the bus outside West Berkshire you will still need to pay for the ticket or use a valid concessionary bus pass. The full list of valid routes can be found on our website here.
- Avoid single use items like plates, cutlery, and utensils. Everyone could bring their own or you can hire items.
- Swap cling film for storage containers
- Plan who is bringing what food to avoid duplicates and wastage. Make food last longer on the day by covering it and making sure it isn’t in direct sunlight. Share leftovers and freeze what you can
- Reuse or borrow decorations or make your own. Find great ideas online here
- Make sure you pick up all your litter and recycle what you can. You can find information on recycling here
After a successful launch in 2021, Veolia’s Sustainability Fund is back this year and offering up to £1,000 worth of funding for innovative project ideas to transform local communities across the UK!
Veolia’s Sustainability Fund will support inspirational ideas that aim to make a positive change towards their local communities. The purpose of the Fund is to support non-profit organisations, community groups or individuals that help transform their local community through enhancing biodiversity, promoting sustainable waste behaviours, protecting or preserving resources and the environment, or using recycled, reused or reclaimed materials.
Any not-for-profit organisation, community group or individuals can apply to the Sustainability Fund.
Projects can apply until 4 November online here.
Congratulations to Curridge Primary School in Thatcham who are celebrating their Eco-Schools Green Flag award with merit! To achieve this accolade, Year 6 children made a huge effort in continuing the 'green' work featured in the curriculum, and collected evidence over an eighteen month period to submit to the Eco-School team.
This included taking part in lessons and projects featuring art inspired by Wangari Maathai and Jadav Payeng; drawing up an environmental review & action plan; designing a sustainable housing development of 150 homes, and building bug hotels and gardens to attract more wildlife.
Everyone at Curridge is delighted by the award, and are particularly pleased with the feedback from the Eco-Schools Team, some of which can be seen below:
“It was great to see how you utilised your school’s website to highlight and promote the Eco-Schools activity. This is a great way to inspire others – we certainly felt inspired!”
“The Eco-Schools Team have been saying how we wished we’d been pupils at your school when we were growing up!”
“Overall, this has been an excellent application to review. I (Adam, Eco-Schools Manager) have flagged it for the rest of the team to read. It’s been incredibly heartening and inspiring to see how fully your pupils have engaged with the programme and the work that they’ve done has simply been astonishing – so creative, wide-spread and embedded in curriculum studies. Great work everyone!”
We are delighted at the success of our first ever soil conditioner give-away at our Integrated Waste Management Facility at Padworth, which saw 25 tonnes of soil conditioner collected by West Berkshire Council residents on Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 May 2022.
We'd like to thank residents for patiently waiting for their turn as we saw long queues on Saturday due to high demand for the material, which is a fine grade, peat free soil conditioner, made from garden and food waste collected from households across West Berkshire.
We are also grateful to our partners Veolia UK for working with us to make this happen.
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Do you have questions about waste and recycling?
A member of our Waste Team will be at Pangbourne Library on 7 June between 2-4pm to answer any queries and offer waste reduction advice.
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Following Storm Eunice on 18 February there have been many trees down not just across roads, but also across public rights of way. It generally takes us longer to hear about these and they are cleared either by the Council’s Ranger team, or we have to contact landowners if the trees are privately-owned. Between 18 February and 29 April, a total of 132 tree problems were resolved, with 51 of these dealt with by landowners.
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Join other volunteers and the Action for River Kennet for Balsam Bashing! These volunteering days are Friday 1 June and Friday 24 June.
‘Balsam Bashing’ is a way of easily and naturally clearing the very invasive Himalayan Balsam near river banks, preferably before it flowers.
This 2.5m, fast growing plant has a shallow root and will shade out other vegetation, gradually killing off all native plants. Its seeds can live for up to 2 years and travel down the nearby streams and populate new areas, continuing the cycle of killing off the UK’s native plants and habitats.
Advanced booking essential. Please email: mia@riverkennet.org to find out more. Equipment and refreshments provided.
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We currently support Action River Kennet's (ARK) 'Love the Lambourn' initiative through May and June. The Lambourn is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). However, it is currently classified as 'Unfavourable, recovering' condition.
As a result, ARK has set up 'Love the Lambourn', a volunteer-based river restoration project of this rare chalk stream habitat that runs through West Berkshire.
The project will improve the river habitat to make the river more robust and healthy for its unique wildlife in the river and along its banks. Volunteers will learn how to create brushwood mattresses in the river (using locally sourced natural materials) planted up with a range of native marginal plants.
Part of 'Love the Lambourn' will be to hold Clean Up sessions removing in-river litter, much of which, if left, will contribute toxins to the water.
No experience is necessary, and equipment will be supplied. If you'd like to get involved, please book your space by calling Anna at ARK on 07780 381709 or emailing: anna@riverkennet.org
For more information, visit the Action River Kennet Website
Heat are holding several environmentally-focused events this June which all are welcome to attend.
Weds 9 June, 7pm: Home Heating Controls
Hungerford Hub (in Hungerford Library)
How to control which rooms we heat when. Plus, the benefits of Smart Meters and why we should all have one.
Sat 18 June, 10am – 4pm: Eco Conference
St Lawrence’s Church, Hungerford
A free event about how to reduce your carbon footprint, including electric cars and how to heat your home without it costing the earth. There will be several local owners of Electric Vehicles on hand (with their cars) ready to chat about their experience of owning and driving an EV. There will also be a Home Energy session, which will be an introduction for the main event to be held in September.
Register with Admin@StLawrencesHungerford.org.uk
Weds 23 June, 7pm: Solar Electric Panels
Why now is a good time to install them on your home. Plus, if you already have them, how you can make them even more effective in reducing your energy costs and your carbon emissions.
Taking place Saturday 10 September, Greenfest is a free sustainability celebration packed with ideas, experts, advice and entertainment hosted by Hampstead Norreys with 9 venues.
Greenfest would welcome helpers for the festival of sustainability on Saturday 10 September between 10:00am-5:30pm.
Volunteers are now able to register to help in the Nature Zone, The Energy Zone and at the free workshops and many other areas.
For more information please visit: www.ourgreenfest.co.uk or email: ourgreenfest@gmail.com
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