Community Orchard 

 

 

 

Around 50 local people joined us for a glorious morning on Saturday 16th October to plant our Heritage Community Orchard.

15 fruit and nut trees together with 900 spring bulbs were planted by a group of wonderful and hard-working volunteers.
In collaboration with the Parish Council, the Community Orchard Project at Welford’s Piece is now truly starting to look the part!
A huge and heartfelt thank you to everyone who has
donated their time or money or helped in any way to enable this to happen.
Community Orchard Planting Day

Our Community Orchard is a joint initiative between Deddington Environment Network and Deddington Parish Council. In 2020 we consulted our community and received overwhelming support for the idea of an orchard in our Parish. The Welford’s Piece in Clifton was identified as a suitable site and was donated by the Parish council to the project with the blessing of the Welford Family. We have successfully secured funding from the Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment to plant and maintain a range of Heritage Fruit trees.

Community Orchard Planting Day – Saturday 16th October 2021

Community Orchard Planting Day

Donations now being gratefully received!

Many of the people who responded to the consultation were interested in sponsoring a tree within the orchard, however, as we have already secured funding to pay for the orchard trees (and only 15 trees available) we are no longer offering individual tree sponsorship. Instead, we are suggesting to those who would like to support the orchard financially to make a one off donation of £10, £30 or £50 please scan the QR code opposite with your mobile phone to make a donation through the paypal app or cheques can be sent to Deddington Environment Network C/O Treholford, New Street, Deddington.

All the monies raised will go into a maintenance pot for the site to allow the orchard to be well cared for, over the longer term. The funds would cover the costs of replacing any trees that fail, mulch, seaweed fertilisers and continuing the training of volunteers who will look after the site. ‘

In late 2020 we held a consultation on a Heritage Community Orchard. We received 137 responses from members of the community.

A significant majority of those who took part in the consultation; 81%,  were in favour of progressing with a community orchard initiative. The survey also showed a large number of respondents, over 100 local people, keen to be actively involved in either financially supporting or giving time and effort towards it. A very large proportion of the respondents; 94% were also in favour of more tree-planting within the parish generally, which is incredibly positive news. Click on the link opposite to download a full summary of the results.

The results of the survey are in