Registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation, No: 1198273
Trustee’s Annual Report & Statement of Financial Activity
for the year ended 31[th] July 2024
Trustees:
Catherine Moss Penelope Roberts Derek Clarke Laurence James Joanna Hanney Margaret Roberts Roger Cliffe Gill Scott
1) Charitable Objects
Sustainable Hayfield was constituted as a CIO in March 2022, with the charitable object to promote sustainable development for the benefit of the public in the Parish of Hayfield and surrounding area by:
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a) The preservation, conservation and the protection of the environment and the prudent use of resources;
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b) The promotion of sustainable means of achieving social and economic wellbeing and regeneration;
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c) The education of the public in subjects relating to sustainable development and the protection, enhancement and rehabilitation of the environment.
2) Main Activities and Achievements to deliver public benefit.
The trustees are confident that we have met our objects throughout the reporting period, and are delighted to update on our main activities as follows:
- Energy Group Home Energy MOT Scheme follow up and more……
Following the success of our Home Energy MOT activity last year, the evaluation report, ‘The Hayfield Hundred’ has continued to receive a universally positive response from statutory organisations and local community groups. We have responded to requests to share our approach with community groups in Darley Dale, Marple, Kniveton
(near Ashbourne), and with Derbyshire County Council. These have been delivered mainly by Zoom. We also made a presentation at Buxton Energy Fair. Our work was also shortlisted for a national award by Community Energy England and several group members attended the awards ceremony in Salford Quays.
Responding to the challenges presented by the HE MOT Scheme, we have been exploring options for insulation of solid stone properties. Most recently, we were represented at a workshop on the use of traditional materials for internal insulation. There are no easy answers, but we are formulating a position for local residents.
We have also responded to several invitations and consultations on energy efficiency and use. These have included Community Energy England’s work on ‘ barriers to community energy generation’ which was informed by our recent feasibility study for a solar farm in Hayfield.
Following on from our presentation at last year’s AGM on Air Source Heat Pumps by Rich Lowe, we have received and responded to several enquiries, including for example, Rich being asked to present to a meeting of Marple Climate Action. Linked to the financial case for Air Source Heat Pumps, we are now actively exploring the potential for households of new, flexible ‘time of use’ tariffs provided by some energy suppliers. These vary the price of energy charged every 30 minutes. The electricity price increases when demand is high (and the carbon intensity is high), and much less when demand is low (and carbon intensity is low). Some days, when electricity generation is high (due to high winds), the price of electricity goes negative. We have developed a model by which to evaluate the impact of such tariffs on monthly bills on several households whose scale of energy use we know. To date, this has suggested real opportunities for substantial savings in household energy bills. We are continuing to work in this area, seeking more households to be involved. A couple of members have switched to these tariffs and have confirmed that the models are accurate and are saving over £500 a year on electricity bills. Note that these tariffs are only available with houses that have Smart Meters. We are currently considering how best to take this modelling capability to the residents of Hayfield, but we are hoping to undertake some initial trials at Apple Day.
Biodiversity Group
Our second full year has seen a significant increase in activities, all with the aim of increasing awareness of nature amongst the community and directly involving people through volunteering.
Tree Planting was our main activity last winter and spring when we played a key role in working with landowners and funders to develop planting designs and coordinate the site work to plant out 11000 young tree and hedge plants off Lanehead Road, 350 of which were grown in our own tree nursery. We also helped raise funds for and help with the planting of a further 3000 trees between Rowarth and Mellor.
Bluebell Wood. Also over last winter and spring, we raised funds for and renovated the wildlife pond/wetland in Bluebell Wood. After a summer growing season, this is now maturing nicely.
Wildflower Areas. With the ultimate intention to develop several wildflower sites around the village in publicly-accessible areas, in spring we raised the funding for and embarked on our first wildflower site at the corner of Lea Road. Work has been disrupted and delayed by telecoms contractors in the area, meaning that the main site preparation and planting, plus the replacement of the old bench, will now take place in Autumn this year, with further sites identified for development next spring.
Butterfly Survey Walk. As part of a national Butterfly Conservation Trust scheme, we have established a regular weekly survey of butterflies on a route around the Platt’s Wood community woodland, with 16 volunteers.
Swifts. In order to raise awareness of swifts around the village, and to help stop their decline, this summer we arranged for a local enthusiast to give a walk and talk. This was well-attended, despite the weather, and has resulted in confirmation and recording of approximately 6 nest sites.
Himalayan Balsam. Our main activity this summer, we have focussed on and successfully cleared 1 mile of a 1.3 mile infestation along Hollingworth Clough from Swallow House Lane up to Lanehead Road. We have had good support from landowners along the route and an impressive 29 volunteers (incl. Hayfield Scouts), putting in over 200 man-hours of effort. The nature of this invasive and problematic plant is that we will need to maintain this effort for a few years to remove regrowth and prevent further spread to other areas of the village.
Farmers Meetings. In order to help raise awareness amongst the farming community of various schemes which offer the prospect of benefitting their businesses whilst also improving biodiversity, we have facilitated 2 presentations by external speakers – one on identifying the carbon footprint of farms and one on the
government’s Environment Land Management Scheme. Both were well attended, and enthusiasm was such that 2 more are planned for September, with hopefully a further two before the end of the year.
National Trust. We have established a monthly day for volunteers to assist the NT rangers on their routine tasks, such as rhododendron removal and wall and fence repair.
Other Surveying Activities. We have continued our regular bumblebee and bat surveys as part of national schemes. Our bat detector and moth trap continue to be made available for the community to borrow, free of charge, to carry out their own surveying work. We also continue to progressively record the area’s ancient, veteran and notable trees on the national register.
Future Work. Our ambition is limited only by the need for people to get actively involved, with plans to continue to build upon many of this year’s activities detailed above. We also intend to launch a ‘garden birdwatch’ project for the village, develop a network of wildflower sites throughout the village, and compliment the tree planting, wildflower cultivation and HB clearance activities with the organisation of some scything and hedge laying courses. We welcome anyone with a shared interest and a little time to get involved!
Food Group
The food group continued our long established tending to the community garden at the library, offering people the opportunity to enjoy locally grown fruit and vegetables, participate in / learn about produce cultivation and get involved in socially inclusive community gardening days. We also held our increasingly popular seed and seedling swap, encouraging gardeners throughout the community to reduce the waste often associated with small scale crop generation, and provided ongoing advice on how to reduce food waste / “growing your own” through our quarterly newsletter updates. For food group members, we also continued to operate a food bulk buying scheme to reduce food waste and packaging, and via the newsletter, signposted others in the community to create similar purchasing groups.
Transport Group
The Transport Group has grown in size since its relaunch last year, and attracted a cycling and active travel champion, a transport expert and a design wizard to our core team. Our main focus has continued to be on providing better buses for the community, and to encourage people to #takethebus: - if the recent challenges over the sinkhole on the Hayfield Road have taught us anything, it is that communities need a range of transport options to stay connected, resilient and thrive, and buses are an essential element of that.
Buses provide a lifeline to remote communities, are a cheap (still! with the £2 flat fare) and environmentally friendly way of travelling, are fully accessible for families with buggies, wheelchairs or small mobility scooters, offer terrific views and are warm and sociable! We believe they are a vital part of a society that values climate and social justice.
As part of our #takethebus activities, we have had two very enjoyable trips - both into Stockport on the 358 following the opening of the fantastic Stockport Interchange: one was to the Hatworks Hat Museum and the other was to the Stockport Air Raid Shelters and the Friday Food Market.
Building on the success of the 358 #takethebus campaign, and supported and encouraged by Anne Clarke, we have also lobbied Derbyshire County Council to use BSIP money to improve the Glossop
to Buxton 61 bus service.
We are pleased to report that some improvements have been made, in that an extra bus from Glossop to New Mills has been added, meaning there is now a bus every half hour from Hayfield to New Mills and Glossop, as well as the hourly bus to Buxton. DCC have produced data to show that since the improvements to the service, 25% more passengers are using the bus.
Motivated by this positive news we are continuing to lobby for an evening service to allow people to travel through the Borough to work evening shifts and take advantage of our growing night-time economy in the High Peak; and are actively wanting to encourage more people to use the bus.
We are particularly excited to be working with graphic designer, Dave Dunford, to produce a "Walks from the 61 bus" leaflet, highlighting walks along this wonderfully scenic route, and have liaised with the Buxton Town Team, who are now producing similar leaflets, and with Regeneration officers at High Peak Borough Council and Visit Peak District Derbyshire who are very supportive of our aims and efforts.
We hope to launch the leaflet at Apple Day, so come along and pick one up, keep down your carbon footprint, make the roads safer for cyclists and take a ride! Please join us as we offer more opportunities for you to #takethebus! - to help us secure a network of bus routes to our neighbouring towns and indeed cities for all who live in our local community.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Group (3 R’s )
This year we have focused on the production and promotion of a Recycling Directory to help people recycle difficult items locally, working in conjunction with St John's Methodist Church who are on a journey to become an eco-Church, and who provide a weekly drop off point for many of the “hard to recycle” items. A digital copy of the Directory is available on our website, and a hardcopy from the local library. The Directory has proved to be very popular, generating a lot of interest and positive comment locally, and we are pleased that another local transition group has asked to use our format as a basis for their own directory as they recognise its value.
In March we joined the national Big Plastic Count run by Greenpeace. We encouraged people in Hayfield to register and count their plastic waste. Those who did so were put into a local draw for vouchers from local sustainability businesses. The local and national results were disseminated through our newsletter and FB page.
In May we ran a Repair Café assisted by our colleagues from Transition New Mills. 17 items were successfully repaired with more being directed to specialist repairers. Items included an earring, a strimmer, a lamp and several items of clothing.
Finally, we look forward to hosting New Mills Fashion Activistas and the “The Alternative Catwalk” at our forthcoming AGM, intending to highlight the hugely pollutive and exploitative nature of the fashion world and offer an environmentally and people friendly alternative.
Apple Day
We were again delighted to hold our long established apple day at the local primary school
last October, which attracted over 800 visitors, coming from as far afield as Manchester, Stockport and Derby. This event not only hosts the juicing of a large number of the community orchard’s apples but continues to be very much our shop window, through which we update on our activities, provide information to the public on environmental
and sustainability matters and recruit volunteers for the following years activities. This year, it provided a platform from which to share the success of the Home Energy MOT scheme and to recruit volunteers to the rapidly expanding Biodiversity Group. We were also delighted to invite back a wide number of local / regional groups and small businesses, including Hayfield Mummer’s Society’s production of “Apple Day”, all with a sustainable or environmental ethos, making the event an environmentally educational and social hub for all generations of the local community. Our next Apple Day is planned to take place on 12[th] October, and we look forward to welcoming back the hugely popular clothes swap, Moors for the Future, Marches Energy,
New Mills Repair Shop and Forest schools along with being joined by the Tent People for the first time.
Communicatons, Local Council Engagements & Lobbying
Sustainable Hayfield continues to publish a well established quarterly newsletter that goes to all members and followers, providing relevant and current information about the environment and climate change at local, regional and national level. Feedback to the letter remains extremely positive, with many local residents benefiting from the knowledge and expertise of the editor and group content providers.
In addition to the newsletter, we have a facebook page and website through which we publicise our activities and selective local and national promotions. The website also houses high level content for each group, our newsletters and governance documents. Its planned upgrade is currently in “proposal” stage awaiting confirmation of funding to go ahead.
Our political lobbying activities this year focused on the twin elections of Regional Mayor and local MP, with an emphasis on raising the profile of green issues during the respective campaigns via promotion of the Green Peace manifesto. We also hosted a hustings for the General Election, to which all local candidates were invited. This was well attended and placed a particular emphasis on Environmental and Social justice issues.
Having given the successful candidates time to bed in, we plan to continue our lobbying activities during the forthcoming year, in combination with other members of High Peak Green Network, with a particular focus on transport, water and community / renewable energy issues at national and regional level.
We also continued to participate in various council planning consultations and associated planning activities, specifically contributing at various levels to the HPBC Plan for Nature
Biodiversity Strategy. We await final publication on this report, along with progress feedback on the DCC Minerals Local Plan, HPBC Climate Change Action Plan and HPBC Local Plan to which we previously contributed.
Having previously made a significant contribution to Parish Council Climate Emergency group, helping to deliver their “green” procurement policy, our involvement with them has been paused as they consider their future structure , and we await clarity as to how we can continue to work with them moving forward, for the benefit of maintaining a sustainable community.
3) Financial and Members Review
Our financial statements have been prepared by our Treasurer and reviewed by an independent observer and can be found on our website at www.Sustainablehayfield.com. As per these statements, we have £ 3,024 of Sustainable Hayfield funds in the bank at the time of reporting (excluding £495 held on behalf of Save the Royal), an increase of £54 during the period, and comfortably in excess of our agreed minimum reserve of £1.5k. (Note, after the £495 held on behalf of Save the Royal Group, our closing bank balance is £3,519).
Our main source of funds in the year were apple day proceeds of £848 (£825 PY) and grant funding of £2,553 with £1,581 received from Peak District National Park in support of the Farmers Meetings and £870 from Foundation Derbyshire to support the Wildflower site development.
We continued not to charge a membership fee this year, to ensure maximum inclusivity, although we may receive a small amount of funding through member donations.
Membership remained constant at 77 during the year, which continues to represent approximately 20% of our distribution list / face-book following, whilst our active volunteer network has grown from 30 to > 50 in the same period largely through the activities of our Biodiversity, Apple Day Planning and Transport Groups.
To enable us to deliver our planned level of activity next year and beyond, we aim to grow our membership and core active volunteer network by 10 – 20% in the coming year.
The trustees are confident that the group is financially sustainable, and were pleased to welcome two new Trustees during the year, who bring significant energy and skills to our governing team. We continue to seek to strengthen our Trustee, Volunteer and Membership base further however, to secure our long term sustainability, and to enable us to scale our response proportionally to the fast growing climate and environmental challenges we face. We are also still keen to broaden and deepen our IT / digital capability!
Finally, we would like to thank all of our supporters, volunteers and anyone else who has been involved with Sustainable Hayfield over the past 12 months and helping us to meet our objectives. We very much look forward to working with you again over the coming year and beyond, for the benefit of our local community.
Yours sincerely
Catherine Moss Chair of Sustainable Hayfield On behalf of the Group Trustees.
| 2022-2023 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opening Balanc | es Co-op B | ank on 9th Aug | 2023 £2195.9 | 9 | |||||
| Money In | |||||||||
| Date | Ref | Descripton | Project | Amount | Cash from events |
Donatons | Grant Funds | Other | |
| 11/10/2023 | Faster Pay | PTA Café | Apple Day | £138.13 | £138.13 | ||||
| 23/10/2023 | Giro | Rafe | Apple Day | £710.00 | £710.00 | ||||
| 1/3/2024 | BACS | 1st Farmers Me | Bio Group | £613.75 | PDNP | ||||
| 2/4/2024 | BACS | Farmers Meal | Bio Group | £523.25 | PDNP | ||||
| 5/4/2024 | BACS | 2nd Farmers m | eBio Group | £100.00 | PDNP | ||||
| 15/4/2024 | BACS | 2nd Farmers m | eBio Group | £375.00 | PDNP | ||||
| 16/5/2024 | BACS | Donaton | SavetheRoyal | £300.00 | HPC | ||||
| 16/5/2024 | BACS | Donaton | SavetheRoyal | £300.00 | HPBC | ||||
| 29/5/2024 | BACS | Grant | Wildfower Ar | £870.00 | Foundaton De | rbyshire | |||
| 30/5/2024 | BACS | Donaton | SavetheRoyal | £200.00 | DCC | ||||
| 31/5/2024 | BACS | Printng | Transport | £51.65 | HPBC | ||||
| 7/6/2024 | BACS | 2nd Farmers m | eBio Group | £20.00 | PDNP | ||||
| £4,201.78 |
| Money Out | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Ref | Descripton | **Amount ** | Bio Group. | Admin | Energy Projects |
Apple Day | Library Garden |
3Rs | Savethe Royal |
|
| 24/8/2023 | RH Clife | Moth Traps | £50.00 | £50.00 | |||||||
| 14/9/2023 | A Prat | Printng | £54.00 | £ 54.00 | |||||||
| 14/9/2023 | Markel | Insurance | £123.20 | £123.20 | |||||||
| 18/9/2023 | HPCVS | Registraton | £15.00 | £15.00 | |||||||
| 25/9/2023 | Hall Hire | AGM | £30.00 | £30.00 | |||||||
| 2/9/2023 | Mummers | Performance | £18.75 | £ 18.75 | |||||||
| 17/10/2023 | A Feetham | Fee | £50.00 | £ 50.00 | |||||||
| 13/11/2023 | RH Clife | Seedlings + | £45.48 | £45.48 | |||||||
| 14/11/2023 | Hall Hire | Event | £20.00 | £20.00 |
| 30/11/2023 | PrimarySch | School Hire | £69.02 | £ 69.02 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4/12/2023 | P Roberts | Printer Carts | £74.39 | £74.39 | |||||||
| 12/12/2023 | M Conway | Hall Hire | £24.00 | £24.00 | |||||||
| 9/2/2024 | SetValCafe | Farmers Meal | £313.75 | £313.75 | |||||||
| 16/2/2024 | Farmers Tk | Various | £300.00 | £300.00 | |||||||
| 22/3/2024 | P Roberts | Gif Voucher | £20.00 | £20.00 | |||||||
| 25/3/2024S | et Val Caf | eFarmers Meal | £423.25 | £423.25 | |||||||
| 8/4/2024 | C Palmer | Farm& Envi | £375.00 | £375.00 | |||||||
| 15/4/2023 | Village Hall | Repair Café | £21.25 | £21.25 | |||||||
| 3/5/2024 | G Scot | Plants | £51.65 | £51.65 | |||||||
| 8/5/2024 | P Webb | Compost | £45.90 | £45.90 | |||||||
| 8/5/2024 | RH Clife | Tree Nursery,W | ildfower area | £100.47 |
£100.47 | ||||||
| 13/5/2024 | PrimarySch | Farmers Meal | £20.00 | £20.00 | |||||||
| 18/06/2024 | Goldthorpe | Compost | £18.00 | £18.00 | |||||||
| 18/06/2024 | RH Clife | see note | £760.33 | £760.33 | |||||||
| 26/6/2024 | J Hanney | Compost Bins | £199.98 | £199.98 | |||||||
| 27/6/2024 | RH Clife | Gazebos | £178.18 | £ 178.18 | |||||||
| 22/7/2024 | JN Cosser | Printng | £49.59 | £49.59 | |||||||
| 8/8/2024 | CoopUK | Subscripton | £150.00 | £150.00 | |||||||
| 12/8/2024 | RB Smith | Web Design | £60.00 | £60.00 | |||||||
| 14/8/2024 | JN Cosser | Printng | £45.49 | £45.49 | |||||||
| 21/8/2024 | J Hanney | Plants | £100.00 | £100.00 | |||||||
| £3,806.68 | £2,603.83 | £286.59 | £369.95 | £241.23 | £305.08 | ||||||
| Closing Balances Co-op Bank on 22nd Aug 2024 £2,591.09 See Bank Statement Atached Manchester Credit Union £777.34 Pety Cash £50.00 Total £3,418.43 CHEQUES TO BE CLEARED 0 |
NB The yellow highlighted sums are monies we have been babysitting for the Save the Royal campaign while they opened their own bank account. This ha
£3,806.68
as now been done and the 24/25 accounts will show the transfer of these sums to them.