Tackley Newsletter
February & March 2025

Parish Council

Housing Needs Survey

In the last newsletter we had planned to add a paper version of the housing needs survey we are doing, as part of the Neighbourhood Plan, with Oxford Community First (OCF). However, councillors thought it was important to have this available online to our community as well as a paper version, which OCF oddly discourage. As we could not get them both available at the same time, we decided it would be better to wait. Hopefully we will have the online version available in time for the next newsletter, so please look out for it then.

S106 Feedback Form

Many people attended the Section 106 information evening at the Pop-Up Pub back in November, and it was lovely to see so many interested.

Unfortunately we didn’t have enough printed forms available on the night; and even though we put some in the shop, many residents have not been able to put forward their views.

Please find the S106 feedback form in this newsletter for you to fill in and put into the parish council post box on the front of the village hall. If you have differing views within your household, go to tackley.link/pc or look up the parish council page of the village website to print out extra ones. There are also links to more information on the proposed projects.

Please note: if you only signed the sheet on the pump track board, but did not fill in a feedback form, please do fill one in and post it back to us. If you already filled in a feedback form: thank you, we have it. Please do not fill in another.

Remembrance Parade

The annual parade to Tackley Village Memorial Hall began in 2018 for the centenary of Armistice Day and the unveiling of the plaque. It is a lovely event, with the parade led by many of the Scout group. Sadly, with a dwindling Scout group and no one available to organise it, in 2024 it did not happen. We had a few complaints, understandably.

Councillor Richard Holland-Oakes has agreed to take on organising this year’s event, but would like to gather a small committee together so that if ‘life happens’ to one member the event does not have to be cancelled. If you would like to be involved, please email richard.holland-oakes@tackleyvillage.co.uk.

Balliol Close Railings

By the time this newsletter reaches you, the awful, broken railings on the path from Balliol Close up into the Ashwell Bank estate will have been replaced with something much more in keeping with the conservation area. The barriers will also have been made compliant with regulations.

Blandford Fly Eradication Programme

The Blandford fly (Simulium posticatum) is a small species of black fly found in Europe. Its name derives from a major outbreak of people being bitten around the town of Blandford Forum in Dorset, which straddles the River Stour, in the 1960s and 70s. More recently it has become endemic along our stretch of the River Cherwell from Clifton, near Deddington, to Kidlington.

Most common in May and June, it flies low to the ground, typically biting ankles and legs. The painful bites can lead to swelling, blistering, joint pain and occasionally a high temperature, as many villagers have found to their cost. In severe cases, a bite can cause ulceration and secondary infections.

The Blandford fly is now a problem in Tackley every year, particularly along the stream. The larvae thrive and develop to maturity on the particularly accommodating, undulating, long river weed ranunculus.

Researchers at Bournemouth University’s commercial environmental programme, BUG, developed a solution which for more than 30 years has reduced the population of the Blandford fly by up to 98 per cent in affected areas along the River Stour.

They spray the larvae in their breeding grounds among the weeds with an aqueous solution of Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti), a group of bacteria that produces toxins effective in killing various species of mosquitoes, fungus gnats and blackflies while having almost no effect on other organisms.

A report on BUG’s treatment of the River Stour in 2024 can be found at tackley.link/105.

Steeple Aston Parish Council is proposing that the same be done locally. The cost of the first year’s treatment would be £23,000, with subsequent years costing around £18,000. These costs have been derived from an initial scoping project last year with multiple visits and testing by BUG scientists in various locations along the Cherwell.

Full approval has already been gained from the Health and Safety Executive as a result of the longstanding evidence from the River Stour, and contact in the autumn with the Oxfordshire offices of the Environment Agency and Thames Water has secured their go-ahead as well.

It had been hoped that Oxfordshire County Council would provide all or part of the funding for the first year of treatment to get the project underway this spring. But as this money has not been forthcoming, the council has decided to approach local parishes to see if they will share the cost between them. Unfortunately, at this stage in parish budget cycles, gaining sufficient commitment has proved impossible. Dorset County Council funds the spraying programme on the River Stour.

Tackley Parish Council has been contacted by Steeple Aston councillor Greg Elphick to see if we would be involved in the project. We have many questions, as eradicating an entire species can have unintended consequences and, on the face of it, it seems rash at best. But the results from Dorset appear to show the safety of such action.

Greg has agreed to come to our next meeting on Monday, 17 February to discuss the proposals. If you would like to come along to ask questions or just to listen, please do. This is not a decision we will take lightly, and we welcome input from residents.

Recording Your Stories

Do you have a story to tell about our village? In conjunction with the history group, I am recording your stories of life in Tackley. Whether you grew up here or moved here later; whether you have lived here a long time or arrived recently; you are invited to share your story in conversation. The tapes will be kept in the village archive. If you’d like to take part, please contact me. I look forward to hearing from you.

Village Memorial Hall

Last year we saw incredible community spirit as many groups and individuals held events and fundraisers through the village hall and Pop-Up Pub. These included PTA fundraisers for the outdoor classroom, Dawn Chambers’ Macmillan coffee morning and Alan Diver’s raffle for Médecins Sans Frontières. Various evenings supported causes like Alzheimer’s UK, Tackley Primary School and St Nicholas’ Fete, and local community initiatives.

In total, we estimate over £10,000 was raised across all efforts — an incredible achievement! Thank you to everyone who contributed, whether by organising, volunteering, or attending.

If you’d like to host an event at the hall or volunteer to cook or serve at the Pop-Up Pub for a cause – or simply for fun – please get in touch.

• Hall bookings: email booking-clerk@tvmh.org.uk
• Pop-Up Pub volunteering: message us via our Facebook page or come in and see us on Fridays!

Extension Project

The village hall extension project is progressing, with plans being refined and a clear strategy taking shape. To keep everyone informed, we’ll be creating an infographic detailing what’s planned and why. This will be shared digitally and displayed around the village.

Fundraising ideas are currently circulating, and we’re excited to share updates as they develop. Watch this space!

Maintenance

Recent repairs have been made to heaters, to ensure all units are in full working order, as well as to the floor and roof tiles — hopefully no more leaky shop!

We’ve had reports of children climbing onto the hall roof from the storage container by the park. Please note that the roof is treated with anti-climb paint, which will be replenished during maintenance. To avoid accidents or damage, we ask parents to remind children not to climb the roof.

All meeting minutes of the village hall can be found on the Tackley website under Village Hall > Management.

Pop-Up Pub

We’re thrilled to announce a new initiative for 2025: First Friday Night Live. Every first Friday of the month, we’ll feature live music and food. Here’s a sneak peek at the lineup so far:

• 7 February: Dave Giles
• 7 March: Restoration Project
• 4 April: Emma De La Querra
• 2 May: Sunfly Duo
• 6 June: Dave Giles

Valentine’s Evening

Join us at the village hall for a free-entry, ticketed food event featuring a delicious menu prepared by the talented Fiona Colonnese. Tickets are £12 per adult and £7 per child, and available from the Pop-Up Pub.

On the menu will be meat lasagne (adult portion) and pasta al forno (vegetarian and kids’ option) served with a salad garnish and a small piece of focaccia. As an optional dessert, Alfonso ice cream cones will be available separately at £3 each.

Spaces are limited, so book your tickets early to secure your spot. We look forward to seeing you there for an evening of great food and community cheer!

More events are in the works, so keep an eye out for updates. The Pop-Up Pub remains a vital hub for fundraising and community connection. Thank you for supporting us last year, and we can’t wait to see what we can achieve together in 2025!

Insecticide Plan for Blandford Fly

Everyone who has been bitten by a Blandford fly knows it can be unpleasant. Steeple Aston Parish Council has come up with a plan to use an insecticide to kill the blackflies in the River Cherwell at a cost of £23,000 for the first year, and is currently looking for funds.

The product they plan to use, BTi, kills blackflies and mosquitoes but is not toxic to mammals or fish. It has been hailed as a wonderful ‘green’ pesticide. But this is not the whole story.

Removing insects from the food chain can have unforeseen consequences. We are already seeing a dramatic decline in bird populations, and BTi use has been linked in recent studies to a decline in house martin breeding success, as well as affecting populations of predatory insects like dragonflies.

The Blandford fly is seasonal, and easily countered by long trousers and insect repellents. Perhaps simple individual action to prevent bites is preferable to risking ecological effects that are hard to predict and difficult to reverse.

Steeple Aston is consulting with villages up and down the Cherwell on the scheme. To have your say, email parishclerk.steepleaston@gmail.com. They will also be coming to speak to Tackley Parish Council in February.

Hedges on the Heath

With all the rain, the main public footpath along the boundary of Tackley Heath has become impassable, blocked by a seasonal pond for months now. With 150 fun runners due to run down it on Boxing Day, a work party was organised to create a diversion, which is still in place.

Since then, the Nature Spaces committee have turned their attention back to the management plan for the heath. Regenerating/replacing the hedges around the heath was supported by a clear majority in our recent community questionnaire.

Well-maintained hedgerows are wildlife corridors that provide food, shelter and nesting locations for a wide variety of animals. They also capture carbon out of the atmosphere, and help to regulate water flows during flood and drought events.

Most of the nation’s hedgerows are in a poor condition, so this is a vital way that we can contribute to a county-wide and indeed nationwide effort to improve our natural environment.

A well-maintained hedge would also help to make the heath more secure, preventing unwanted events like the illegal mass fly-tipping that has taken place in recent times.

Starting with the boundary between the heath and the Fox Hill road, we have been investigating options for the regeneration of the hedgerow. We’ve received advice from ecologists and hedgerow specialists that some parts of the hedge may be in sufficiently good condition to be regenerated, perhaps through techniques such as hedge-laying. But in other places, the gaps in the hedge are so big – or the hedge is so smothered by bracken, brambles, elder and other undesirable plants – that we may need to start again in those areas, planting a new hedge using whips of mixed native hedgerow species.

We are investigating the possibility of a grant for this restoration through the Hedgerow Heroes project, funded by Wild Oxfordshire using money from the Campaign to Protect Rural England. To gain a better assessment of the state of the hedge, they have asked us to clear away the bracken and brambles in front of and around the hedge as soon as we can. We are therefore planning a volunteer work party on Saturday, 1 February from 10 am to 12 noon. As it is a long section of hedge, we would love some more volunteers to help us.

We are also looking for some more members to join our friendly Nature Spaces committee.

Love

February is dominated by Valentine’s Day. Florists stock up with red roses, supermarkets decorate their aisles, and advertising companies use it to tempt us. The world keeps telling us that love is fluffy pink cushions and red roses.

Over the Christmas period I finished Miranda Hart’s book I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You, in which she describes her health journey, complete collapse, eventual diagnosis of Lyme disease and slow recovery.

I am now halfway through Chris Hoy’s book All That Matters, chronicling his own journey over the last year. He talks about how the day after he was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer, he saw his death hurtling towards him — comparing it to an out-of-control rollercoaster or a slow-motion car crash from which no one can save him. Life is often compared to a rollercoaster with its highs and lows, fun moments and scary moments — sometimes at the same time.

Miranda, by contrast, had to battle for years with doctors who didn’t think anything was wrong before finally getting her own diagnosis, which came with a sense of relief. Something was wrong, and now there was a way forward.

Both Miranda and Chris have, in vastly different ways, had to face and overcome challenges. Chris faced his chemotherapy treatment like a training camp, breaking it down into small manageable steps. Miranda writes about walking through a dark cave and picking up treasures as she learnt things about herself and how to care for herself. She learnt to let go of negative things that were holding her back, and to treat herself with gentleness and kindness.

While their challenges and their responses to them look very different, there are many similarities. Both have built a team of people around them who supported and encouraged them onwards. Both refer back to previous experiences and encounters to help them navigate their way forward. Chris acknowledges that a cancer diagnosis is a mental challenge as well as a physical one. Recognising the precariousness of life has changed his perception and attitude towards it, which has enriched him. It has increased his appreciation for the little things, and he ‘loves like he’s never loved before’.

Miranda’s final treasure is love. Through the course of her health journey she learnt to love ‘her wild self’, and that she is loveable. We all are. This Valentine’s Day, I invite you to spend some time loving yourself. Look at yourself through God’s eyes, and honour your gifts, then go out and share God’s love with others.

Local History Group

For those who have not yet heard our good news: we are really pleased to say that Charmian Knight has agreed to take over the role of chair of Tackley Local History Group from the AGM in February. This will be at 6:30 pm on Monday, 24 February, before our speaker.

We would like to thank Hilary Laughton, Malcolm Ridout and Sue Whitaker, who are standing down, for all their contributions and hard work during their time on the committee. We will be very sorry to lose them, but there will be a vacancy if anyone would like to join us. We welcome new ideas as to how we can move forward with the history group, and keep it as one of the best village local history groups, so do please get in touch if you are interested.

Recording Tackley

We know from the stories shared on our Facebook page that many of you have memories of growing up in Tackley – or stories of your parents, grandparents and even further back – and we want you to share them with us, please.

Before Covid, a group of members began recording interviews and chats with people who were willing to share these memories; and it got off to a great start. Our plan was to get a lot of these recordings and then hopefully collate them together with photographs and memories of places, organisations and events: the churches, school, May Day, Kings Arms, Gardiner Arms, youth club, mothers’ union, WI, Brownies, Guides, Cubs, Scouts, football, cricket… I could go on: how about the barn dances, or the barbecue at Hog’s Bottom! Or Gala Day and the flower festival!

All these memories we need to capture, but we need your help. We have audio recorders, and we have some people willing to conduct the very informal interviews – we would like some more people – but most of all, we need you to share these memories. So please let me or any member of the committee know if you have a memory or memories you would like to share.

Upcoming Talks

We meet on the fourth Monday in Tackley Village Memorial Hall at 7:15 pm, for tea or coffee, with the talk at 7:30 pm. Annual membership is £12; visitors are welcome for £5.

• Monday, 24 February: AGM at 6:30 pm followed by Liz Woolley on Felicia Skene: Prison Reformer and Friend of the Poor in Victorian Oxford
• Monday, 24 March: John Harwood DL on The History of the Role of Lord Lieutenancy

WI

Tackley WI has continued to enjoy an interesting and varied programme of events, and our meetings have been well attended. We were delighted to welcome several visitors to our December meeting, led by Mariella Bliss, who shared with us the joy of an Italian Christmas though customs and food.

Our programme for 2025 covers a wide range of topics and practical crafts. Look out for updates via Tackley Notices and Facebook.

On Tuesday, 4 February Christine Clark will be speaking about the life, homes, work and enduring appeal of William Morris. Please note a change in the time for this and all future monthly meetings: we will be starting a little earlier in the evening, at 7:30 for 7:45 pm.

Tuesday, 4 March will be our annual meeting, followed by an informal discussion on ‘Our favourite things’.

Tackley WI has a friendly and welcoming membership. Most months we hold a coffee morning for our members, which provides an opportunity to meet and chat. Our members have wide and varied interests, and our ages range from 30s to 90s. For all enquiries, please email us at the address above.

Gardening Club

Our year starts with our AGM on Tuesday, 18 February at 7:45 for 8 pm in the village hall. Please come along and see what we do. We will also have a quiz, along with refreshments and a raffle.

On Tuesday, 18 March we have Tim Walker talking about 21st Century Gardening. Tim is an excellent speaker and very entertaining. We will be joined by Steeple Aston Garden Club for what should be a great evening.

I know we are all itching to get back in the garden and start planning our borders, but it’s cold — and the rubble and leaves are essential to look after our wildlife, so let them rest a while longer.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as can come in February. We need more men in the club! And don’t worry if you think you know nothing about gardening: we all just wing it and learn as we go, and we’re here to help.

Golf Society

The Tackley Golf Society season will begin in February (Heythrop Park) and March (Feldon Valley).

We welcome any residents of Tackley to join us for an enjoyable round of golf. An official handicap is not necessary, and the average handicap of players is around 23/24 so everyone has a chance of winning!

We play on local courses around the county, playing 18 holes after bacon rolls and coffee.

• February: Heythrop Park
• March: The Springs Hotel, Wallingford
• April: North Oxford. The course is closing in October, so this is the last time we will play it!
• May: Wychwood
• May: Hinksey Heights
• June: Away trip on 13 June. One night, two rounds, dinner B&B at the Marriot St Pierre, Chepstow.
• July: Kirtlington
• August: Cherwell Edge
• September: Studley Wood
• October: Feldon Valley
• November: Silverstone

Joining an event is very easy once you’ve been added to the list of players on our website. To be added, please email me at the address above. Once access to the site is given, you simply review the events and sign up.

I have taken on the role of the society’s administrator, and would like to thank Malcolm Hills who has done sterling work in keeping us going for the last few years.

We look forward to seeing you!