New islands at Chew Valley Lake

Construction of the new islands at Chew

Two islands are being built in Bristol Water's nature reserve at Chew Valley Lake which will provide safe nesting and roosting sites for a range of wildfowl. Many of the water birds which nest choose to do so on the ground and this makes their eggs and young very vulnerable to predation by the main predators such as foxes, badgers and cats.

However, these don't usually swim across deep water so providing nesting islands gives a lot of protection to the ducks, grebes, geese and swans which do nest at Chew. BW's Paul Kelson said: "We had provided islands some 20 years ago but these have gradually been eroded away and were too small to be of much use. The current work will recreate the islands to full size and we are building them to a much higher standard to resist erosion from the waves so they will last much longer."

The work is being done while the lake level is low and a rubber tracked truck and a hydraulic excavator can track across the exposed lake bed to do the work. The excavator digs a trench along the planned outer face of the island and lifts a section of 8ft long stakes, joined together with cross timbers, into position. The trench is back filled so the stakes stand up like a pallisade some 4 ft above the lake bed, to resist the winter waves when the lake level rises again.

The back face of the islands will be left alone to provide a shelving beach and allowing the ducks to walk up to the top of the islands. A range of wildfowl do nest at Chew but, except for coots and moorhens not in large numbers. A number of species are likely to benefit from the new islands, including tufted duck, pochard, mallard, swans and, nesting around the edges when the rushes and reeds develop, great crested and little grebes. Bristol Water has managed wildlife habitats here under a plan agreed with English Nature for many years and the result is that the lake makes a significant contribution to wildlife conservation.

Online mapping of the Chew Valley

The map of Chew Valley pubs and landmarks on the wayfaring.com website

Maps have, for hundreds of years, been one of the ways in which we know about the world around us. The trusted Ordnance Survey has been carried by many ramblers, and forms the basis for most UK maps. OS maps, which are updated every few years, are now being made available electronically and many public sector organisations are now paying licences for this data and overlaying information about drains, electricity wires etc, however the licence is prohibitive for most individuals wanting to customise them for their own purposes.

A different sort of map is now available via the internet, based on Google Maps http://maps.google.com/ , which allows you to zoom in or out on an area, from individual streets to a whole country, and allows you to switch from map view to satellite images of the same area or overlay one on the other. This facility is available free and is being used in a variety of other application such as estate agents marking property for sale onto the map. The latest application, 'Wayfaring' at http://wayfaring.com/ , takes this process one stage further allowing individuals to create their own maps showing places of significance to them and their friends. In cities this can be peoples homes or offices, local coffee shops etc. which they mark on as waypoints. After a couple of hours playing with this utility, I developed a map of the Chew Valley which can be seen at: http://wayfaring.com/maps/show/1467 .

It includes some of the pubs, shops, churches etc in the valley, and some local walks. Although I doubt if many people would use this while walking in the valley, the great advantage is that other people can use the waymarks one person has created to make their own maps and add their own waymarks, walks etc which can then be shared to anyone with an internet connection.

By Rod Ward

Calendar girls

Niamh and Bebhinn Baber

Identical Pensford twins Niamh and Bebhinn Baber have become calendar girls in a bid to raise cash for a national multiple birth charity. The girls beat off stiff competition to appear on the December page of the www.twinsclub.co.uk 2006 calendar raising money for TAMBA, the UK charity for Twins and Multiple births. Born at St Michael's Hospital in Bristol five weeks prematurely on October 27 2000 and weighing 4lbs 15oz and 4lbs 10 1/2 oz, Niamh and Bebhinn are now five and joined their big sister Orla aged six at Pensford Primary at the beginning of this school year.

The arrival of twins was quite a shock to father Bob (an only child) who has always lived in Pensford, and their mother Gerry from Co Kerry in Ireland, one of six children herself but with no history of twins in the family. Bob said: "It was amazing for the girls to be chosen for the calendar and we are proud to be helping this wonderful charity. It has been a lifeline for many people and I hope that other parents of multiples can find friendship and support there, like I have." Their appearance in the calendar is not the girls' first brush with fame: they have twice featured in episodes of Casualty (the first one shortly after they were born), have appeared in an episode of Doctors and last year appeared in an Andrex advertisement which, so far, has only been shown in America.

They also appeared at the opening in Cardiff of a 'Two for One' pub! Not to be outdone, big sister Orla will be appearing briefly in the Christmas edition of Casualty. The twins both enjoy ballet and horse-riding and share a dislike of fireworks, brussel sprouts and sleeping past 6.30am! Together with Orla they are keen Irish dancers. The Twinsclub website was started five years ago and is now the largest in the UK dedicated to parenting twins, triplets and more, receiving over 250,000 hits per week. It is still run from the spare room of one of the mothers of twins who started the site and hopes to reach their target of selling 2000 copies of the calendar which will enable them to donated £4,000 to TAMBA. The calendar priced £10.50 including postage and packing is available from www.twinsclub.co.uk or by calling the TAMBA office on 0870 770 3305.

A sustainable plan for Barrow Hospital site
A 'Sustainable Initiative for Barrow' has been launched with the aim of buying and converting the 192-acre site, which has already been given outline consent for redevelopment as a science-business park, with some residential development. As reported in the Gazette May 2005 issue, the hospital is to close in 2006, with the various services being dispersed to a new hospital in South Bristol, and facilities in Weston.

The 'Sustainable Initiative for Barrow' has been launched by a collective, who describe themselves as 'Local Business People, Health Care Professionals, Teachers, Students, Woodland Managers and Crafts People, amongst others. Currently there are eight of us on the Steering Group. We all reside within the Forest of Avon area and are strongly linked with the Forest of Avon Wood Products Co-operative.'

They say the Barrow hospital site presents a unique opportunity to create a flagship self-sustaining, zero-carbon Integrated Forest Community (IFC), within 4 miles of a major city Obvious questions as to how realistic the group¹s chances of raising the necessary funding are have been greeted with assurances that they will find the necessary backing. The group has already posted a website detailing what they are proposing - see www.sib.or.uk. They are holding a public meeting in Bristol on January 14. Enquiries to 0117 935 1200.

A website for Chew Valley Expats
A website for Chew Valley Ex-pats to put themselves on a world map has been launched. The map works in a similar way to the wayfaring.com site described above, but uses a world map, so anyone who used to live in the valley can put a marker on the map to show where they are, and add photographs and text to tell the rest of us what they are up to.

There is a link provided from the front page of the Chew Valley Gazette website at www.chewvalleygazette.co.uk As the site has only just been launched there is actually nobody registered at the time of going to press! But we hope that will change, and that it will enable us to bring occasional news of the 'where are they now' varietr. So if you have friends or relatives abroad, let them know about this address: www.frappr.com/chewvalleyexpats

Jem climbs Kilimanjaro for children's charity
On behalf of the Amani Home for street children, Moshi Tanzania, Jeremy (Jem) Thompson-Smith would like to thank everybody in the Chew Valley for their kind donations and support for his charity trek to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. He reports that substantial progress has been made in securing future funding for a new purpose built home for the children. At present 60 boys sleep 3 to a bunk in one average UK size bedroom.

Plans for the new home complete with dedicated boys and girls dormitories, classrooms, doctor's room and drum room have been drawn. Building the new home has just started, although it will take a long time to complete. At end of September as guest of a 12-person group he attempted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, at 5895 metres the highest mountain in Africa, in order to raise funds for building the new children's home.

If you would like to participate a similar climb is being arranged for March 2007 check out www.guerba.co.uk For more info on Amani and their work for the street children of north Tanzania see www.amanikids.org Ms Valerie Johnson director of fund raising for the home visited East Harptree for lunch in December. On behalf of the Amani children she thanked the East Harptree Primary School for their £500 donation towards the new house build.