Charity No: 119265
Annual Report January 1[st] 2024 to December 1[st] 2024
In spite of the erratic weather 2024 has been another very successful year for us. Our small team of volunteer workers have pressed on with various tasks, greatly improving the look and safety of the area, and our publicity team have continued to ‘spread the word’.
We have purchased a tracked (300kg load capacity) mini dumper to make moving materials around the site easier, and to facilitate this two new, ‘temporary’ bridges have been constructed over the lock. This allowed for 15 tons of material to be moved to improve a section of towpath that had ‘slipped’.
The two wing walls of the lock have now been rebuilt and are only waiting for the new ‘bull-nose’ coping stones to be laid.
The large willow tree that had fallen across the west side of the aqueduct, and was hindering progress, was removed by the very competent team from WRG Forestry. Access to the west side will now allow for proper assessment of the work required to stabilise it.
An area of Hemlock was found to be growing across the towpath at the River Churn end and suitable precautions were put in place to protect the volunteers and the public.
All the usual maintenance continued as usual.
Our lease negotiations were put on hold as Farmcare decided to sell the entire Down Ampney Estate. This failed to happen and the sale was postponed while they reconsider their options. Our ‘License to Work’ was extended to May 2026 including permission to carry out maintenance works.
We continue to attend events and to publicise the project. This included two talks (Cricklade WI and Cricklade History Society). Events were the Cricklade Town Festival, the Melksham Food and River Festival and the Newbury Agricultural Show.
The web site and Facebook are still active, but need to have more attention paid to their management. Subscriptions to our free Newsletter continue to increase. We are grateful to our colleagues in WBCT who are actively promoting LBR.
We received grants from Wayland Estates and Crapper & Sons again this year. Without their generosity it would be difficult to progress as well as we are doing. Wayland Estates funded the purchase of several items of battery powered equipment (hedge trimmers, pole saw, and reciprocating saw) to replace aging petrol equipment. Crapper & Sons grant of LCF money continues to fund the major projects and maintenance we are undertaking.
Our Worksite Manager continues to have close contact with members of the WBCT restoration team and we closely follow, with their permission, many of their procedures
Doug Small 31[st] Dec 2024
Charity No 1192965 Charitable Incorporated Organisation
Income and Expenditure for the period 1st January 2024 to 31[st] December 2024
| Income | General | Lease Restricted |
Lease Restricted |
Entrust Restricted |
Entrust Restricted |
Total | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | £ | £ | |||||||||
| Openingbalance | 3,210.23 | 2,920.00 | 3,786.79 | |||||||||
| Donations | 848.35 | |||||||||||
| Refund Amazon | 126.99 | |||||||||||
| Wayland Estates | 530.00 | |||||||||||
| LCF(Crapper & Sons) | 4,000 | 7,000.00 | ||||||||||
| Totals | £4,715.57 | £6,920.00 | £10,786.79 | £22,422.36 | ||||||||
| Expenditure | General | Lease Restricted |
Entrust Restricted |
Total | ||||||||
| £ | £ | £ | £ | |||||||||
| Tools, | fuel & materials | 873.64 | 6803.79 | |||||||||
| Admin, (fees, paper,toners etc) | 344.67 | 1,100 | ||||||||||
| SSL cert. for web site | 40.49 | |||||||||||
| WRG Forestry | 100.00 | |||||||||||
| PPE | 115.27 | |||||||||||
| Events equipment & fees | 694.99 | |||||||||||
| Insurance 2025 | 694.06 | |||||||||||
| IWA membership | 73.00 | |||||||||||
| Entrust,fees etc | 694.10 | |||||||||||
| Totals | £3,414.95 | 0.00 | £8,119.06 | |||||||||
| Balance at Lloyds Bank 31st December 2024 | £10,888.35 |