We are sorry to announce that our composting club will shortly be closing as our lease is coming to an end. We would like to thank St Vincent’s and St George’s Association for the use of their land and their support for this project.
In 2011, Mike Bush and I attended a GCC organised Community Compost training weekend, I was the only one on that course that subsequently set up a site. We applied for planning permission from GlosCC in 2011, we received Environment Agency approval in 2011. However due to a few local resident objections (shredder noise – we cannot shred on Christmas day, rats, increased traffic in Lansdown, colour of fence and many other weird objections) it wasn’t until 4Jan2013 that we got planning permission and approvals. At that time we had 25 active members, a management board of 5 members and the annual joining fee was £15, as it still was in 2013. We had a 5 year plan back in 2013, great on paper but never looked at again.
We received a CBC Community grant to pay for the fencing, the largest grant they awarded that year, a grant from the Mid-Counties Coop to buy the shredder, tools and health & Safety equipment. During this time we produced 10-15 tonnes of compost which means we processed in excess of 20 tonnes of organic gardenI material. I ran 5 workshops for in- and out-of-county community compost groups and hosted a number of visits, including a group of 15 visitors from Sweden.
So the site operated for 10 years during that time we were the only urban community composting site in Gloucestershire, actually the UK community composting coordinators think we were the ONLY urban site in the UK