Jun 25, 2026 | Community Action news
JUNE 2025 and 2026: June has several large and colourful moths, a real help for a complete amateur. Elephant Hawk. These moths are a great start, settled in the egg box inside the trap. Elephant hawk moth, JULY 2025: 26 species seen 84...
Jun 20, 2026 | Community Action news
Moths have been recorded from the 1 acre meadow off Brook lane and in the surrounding gardens as far as the bottom of the Churchfields allotments. The trap I have on loan is a battery 6W actinic heath trap. In June and August 2025 Peter Cuss from UTM kindly came with...
Mar 25, 2026 | Community Action news, Stonesfield news
Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) is looking for local volunteers to join its Pothole Super User scheme and Stonesfield has been encouraged to take part. The Parish Council is now asking residents who are willing to volunteer and help speed up...
Feb 12, 2026 | Community Action news
Stonesfield Parish Council are producing a Neighbourhood Plan and have submitted the plan to West Oxfordshire District Council for Regulation 16 consultation. We are writing to encourage you to submit your comments about the plan. Following the...
Dec 15, 2025 | Community Action news, Stonesfield news
The District Council is currently carrying out a consultation with the public on its latest proposals which they call “Preferred Spatial Options.” The closing date for comments is 22 December 2025, so there is little time to spare. Probably the most significant aspect...
Nov 12, 2025 | Community Action news
Brook lane limestone meadow and surrounds. The year to date Highlights for the year: a cuckoo heard and seen 25th April, the flowering of Meadow Clary and Pyramid orchids, common blue butterflies laying eggs on birds foot trefoil ( no common blues were recorded in...
Jun 29, 2025 | Community Action news
At a time when so much news on insects is poor, we have more good news; another couple of ‘fantastic firsts’ for the village. The first ‘first’ is a nationally scarce hoverfly – Parasyrphus nigritarsis (Zetterstedt, 1843) – a beneficial stripy yellow and black...
Jun 29, 2025 | Community Action news
Bagg’s Bottom, part of the Stonesfield Common, Bottoms and Banks SSSI in West Oxfordshire, is a rare chalk grassland ecosystem. With its complex topography, spring-fed slopes, ancient pollards, and upright brome-dominated grassland, it represents a landscape shaped by...
Jun 29, 2025 | Community Action news
The Brown Hairstreak butterfly (Thecla betulae) has not been observed in our parish so far this century. Late in the evening on 16 May 2025, several larvae of this species were observed and photographed along Bagg’s Bottom, detected using an ultra violet light on the...
Mar 29, 2025 | Community Action news
In September 2024, I produced a report (attached) espousing the botanical interest of the Glebe land , which was sent on by John Sampson to the Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment, who awarded a grant to develop a long-term management plan for the site. The management...
Feb 15, 2025 | Community Action news
Dear Catchment Champions. Can you believe that is it our February testing weekend already!? On Sunday 16th many of us will be heading out to sample. ❄️ As it is forecast to be so cold, please make sure that you not only wrap up warm but also remember to hold your N...
Jan 24, 2025 | Community Action news
Under the umbrella of the Environment Group, 2025 is the year we are looking to collect and record data to establish what is going in the environment of Stonesfield recording what we find onto national recording databases. This will be mainly centred on just over an...
Oct 29, 2024 | Community Action news
Sustainable Stonesfield (SUSTO) was formed in 2017 in response to the District Council’s emerging Local Plan 2031 and the potential for up to 200 houses being built in the village. We felt that residents needed a group who would watch out for planning applications and...
Sep 26, 2024 | Community Action news
Back in January 2017, Sustainable Stonesfield was formed after a meeting in the Village hall, called to alert residents to potentially catastrophic increases of inappropriate housing in Stonesfield. There was the potential for a further 200 houses being built. ...
Sep 15, 2024 | Community Action news
Over the last five months as many of you have noticed and stopped for a chat we have been steadily progressing the management of the orchard / limestone grassland site off Brook Lane. As advised by Filipe Salbany from Blenheim (see previous report) we have been...
