News

South Hams District Council suspended all garden waste collections from Monday 16th August. At a meeting of the South Hams Executive on 16th September Councillors agreed to keep the suspension of garden waste in place. They will review the situation when they meet again on 14th October. Here’s a link to the detailed announcement.

The great majority of properties in Littlehempston also continue to be in the situation where food waste isn’t being collected and must instead be put in the black bin, and batteries and printer cartidges can’t be collected. You can read more about these temporary changes to the recycling system on SHDC’s Waste and Recycling Service Updates page which also has a link to a form where you can enter your postcode to check whether your property is affected by these changes. If you scroll right to the bottom of that page there’s a link to a form where you can report missed collections

Parish Council chair Jon Morris and Littlehempston webmaster Mike Thomas had an e-mail from Michelle Maidment, our contact at Openreach, on the 9th September saying that they “…are definitely going ahead with the scheme…” to bring fast fibre broadband to Littlehempston. Her e-mail also confirmed that the cost of the project would be covered by the vouchers issued by the government (so not our parish council!). She pointed out that anyone who has requested and confirmed a voucher with DCMS, but doesn’t take out a fibre broadband contract once the system is installed, may be asked to reimburse the value of the voucher to Openreach.

Michelle also introduced us to Tayler Dan, an Openreach Fibre Delivery Support Clerk of Works, and Jon and Mike met up with Tayler in the Tally Ho car park on 17th September. Tayler told us that surveying one of these projects normally takes a couple of days, but the Littlehempston project is one of the most complicated he’s come across, and they’ve been working on it for weeks.

He explained that in several places in Littlehempston the existing copper telephone cables had simply been buried underground – not run through conduits, just buried. That means those routes are unusable – particularly the route followed by the telephone cables going to Hampstead Manor and nearby properties, as those cables come from the A381 road and are buried under the mainline railway.

So Openreach need to erect new poles for overhead lines and install conduits for underground lines in some parts of Littlehempston. They also need to install boxes on the outside of a couple of buildings. All of this work will require wayleaves, where the landowners grant permission for the work to be carried out on their premises, usually in exchange for payment.

Meanwhile we’re also still in touch with fibre broadband supplier Airband whose project covers most of the Littlehempston properties that aren’t included in the Openreach scheme, and many other properties in adjacent parishes.

The Community Space Team are delighted to be hosting an event in the Space for the first time since March 2020, when those enjoying the illustrated talk on Raphael were blissfully unaware of what was round the corner. On Friday 29th October at 7.30pm, we can meet up again to enjoy Space for Words – an informal ‘at-home’ style of event, with Chris Waters reading from his four poetry collections, all written since his move to Littlehempston in 2001 (‘something in the air?’ he asks), alongside much-loved poetry requests from you, the audience, brought to life by actress, Amanda Cuthbert. And to add to this delightful evening, talented local musician John Garner will play classical and reflective guitar music. (He and his wife Mary recently moved into a cottage behind the church.)

From Chris, expect themes of nature, travel, family memories and snapshots of local places. Amanda will read your requests which may be old favourites, half-remembered classics, or poems with a special, particular value for you. Poems need to be of published and therefore traceable origin. Please send your requests to Chris by 15th October along with your name, contact details, the poem, author and title together with a dedication if you wish.

The Space will be laid out cafe-style, so expect table cloths, low lights and candles. A free drink, nibbles and canapes are included in the £10 payable on the door. No booking is necessary, but if you’d like to reserve a group table, just get in touch! All proceeds will go to support the Community Space – including 50% of Chris’s book sales available from the book stall. So why not get together with a group of friends and for one night only, shelve those box-sets – and make Space for Words!

And if you’d like a little preview, listen to this one that Chris and John have recorded for you:

Would you like to discover more about local nature? Littlehempston has an informal group who exchange news of local sightings by e-mail. If you’d like to join the e-mail list, just get in touch with Jenny Galton-Fenzi. Here’s the most recent post from Jenny:

“It hasn’t been a brilliant year for moth-trapping, probably because of the weather. I’ve counted about 65 kinds so far. (Two of us in the village have moth traps – a highly recommended hobby if anyone is inspired to start next year – a window on to our 2500 kinds of UK moths, many of which are extremely beautiful.) Everyone’s favourite, the Chinese Character Moth, turned up in my trap a couple of nights running. Its method of avoiding predators is to closely resemble a bird dropping.

It seems to have been a good year for green woodpeckers – heard of course far more than seen, although for the first time I saw a pair of them together flying across the orchard. Barn owls are around – if you want to check out their call, there are several recordings (or indeed for any bird) on YouTube, and we’ve had a few sightings.

I decided to let my lawn go largely wild this year, and it’s been most rewarding. The long grass was humming and fizzing with life. I made a point of trying to learn more about grasshoppers (short antennae) and crickets (long ditto), and have managed to identify five so far; the old favourite Great Green Bush Cricket, Meadow Grasshopper, Speckled Bush Cricket, Dark Bush Cricket and Common Green Grasshopper.

I haven’t seen so many honey bees in the garden this year, but lots of bumblebees of various kinds. According to Chris Packham, bumblebees are far more efficient at pollinating. My piece of tin on the lawn has attracted the usual number of slow worms. I was lucky enough to see one in the process of discarding its skin. I also saw, on three occasions, a young grass snake under there with its beautiful cream collar. And a dead lizard – what killed it?! There is still a hedgehog around near our garage (caught on my night camera) but I haven’t seen a pair together this year.

I’ve now finished my detailed history and wildlife lists of the community land (‘A History of Lot 7’ – so called because of its number in the auction of the farmland in March 2018) so if anyone would like a copy, please let me know. There’ll be a small charge to cover printing. As well as the history of this piece of land, it contains lists of all the surveys we’ve had done – lichen, wild flowers, beetles etc, and details of the apple trees we’ve planted.

Finally, I thought this tiny thing was a baby red damselfly, however it turns out to be a Hedgerow Darwin Wasp. Always something new!

Please feel free to share anything of interest which you see, or need help with identifying.

Best regards, Jenny

Littlehempston Parish Council is raising money to buy a defibrillator for the village which can be used by anyone for free. The Tally Ho is happy for it to be located in the front porch to enable easy access. The projected cost for the first five years is £1650 and it’s likely that £900 of that can be raised from Devon County Council, South Hams District Council and Littlehempston Parish Council.

So the Parish Council have set up a GoFundMe page to raise the remaining £750. If you’d like to help bring a defibrillator to Littlehempston just click on that GoFundMe link. And if you’ve got any other ideas to help raise funds for this good cause please get in touch and let us know!

A great afternoon was provided by talented local musicians Broadband at the open-air concert in the Community Orchard at the end of August. The sun shone on an audience of over 100 people, who drank the Pimms stall dry and ate lots of delicious home-baked cake, whilst the band rocked through a great medley of 60s and 70s music. This year, the gig kicked off with local singer, Emily Criddle, performing her own songs – her voice so impressed that she’s been contacted to sing at other venues.

The natural amphitheatre provided by the orchard gave a perfect setting and all agreed that this should become an annual event. Band leader David Beadel has suggested inviting other acts to play, saying “I’d be happy to help curate the act(s) in future years … there is a great deal of good local talent and, I’m sure, interest in playing at an intimate setting like your orchard.”

And icing on the cake was the much appreciated £730 raised in aid of the Community Space and Orchard. Many thanks to all who helped make this such a happy event including Mike the Generator Man, Strimmers Val and Lawrence, Car Parker Supremo John, mc Ali, Gazebo Men Mike and John, Mary and Jill on Cakes, Izabella on Decoration, and Mel and Will for the Pimms Stall. (Mel was the one rushing back home with a wheelbarrow to get further supplies, as demand exceeded supply at one point!)

And of course a huge thank you to all the musicians of Broadband, including our very own local man, drummer Chris Waters from Uphempston pictured in this gallery of lovely photos from Anna Beadel: