Welcome to our Environment Group web. 

Here you will find updates relating to our environmental agenda as well as useful links and resources. If you have any suggestions or comment please get in touch through our Clerk via email environmentgroup@corfecastleparishcouncil.gov.uk

Visit to Littlesea, to find out more about Purbeck Beavers

The Parish Council support Litter Free Purbeck with annual grants and support the local team to organise regular litter picks around the Parish. 

Litter-Free Purbeck is an alliance of community litter campaign groups in and around the Isle of Purbeck peninsula. Whether you live in, work in or just visit this beautiful place, please join them in keeping it litter-free for everyone to enjoy, now and in the future.

They litter-pick in groups and individually and also raise awareness about the risks of litter to our own well-being, to farm animals, to wildlife, to our beautiful landscapes and importantly to the sea that surrounds us and to the marine life that lives in it.

Purbeck is part of the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and makes up the eastern extent of the Jurassic Coast UNESCO World Heritage site, so it’s nationally and internationally important. The area is visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year so it’s essential that the area is kept litter-free so that everyone can enjoy it now and in the future. 

You can view the Litter Free Purbeck website here.

Packaging Free

Ever wondered where your food waste goes?

We found out. We joined representatives from Dorset Council and Swanage Council on a visit to the Eco Sustainable Solutions plant in Dorchester and saw how our food waste is converted into electricity, taking 40,000 tons of food waste a year out of landfill. The biproduct of the process, which is effectively a food waste compost is used by local farmers as fertiliser.

Sustainable Swanage – Litter Free Coast and Sea

Sustainable Swanage are a steering group made up of Swanage town councilors, Swanage Chamber of Trade and Commerce, business representatives, members of the community and Litter Free Coast and Sea. Our mission is to positively support the community in reducing its waste, with an emphasis on plastic. We will work together to find solutions to issues and challenges around waste and its management.

Sustainable Swanage provide a central point of information for the community on this matter and provide a means of sharing good tips and connecting people. They are a positive group looking to the future and how we can all live more sustainably in our community. You can visit their website here.

Feedback from The National Trust following Bio Diversity Meeting

2019 will stick in the memory as the year when Climate emergency and ecological crisis became mainstream. In Corfe, as well as in other Parishes of Purbeck, people are coming together to work out how to respond collectively to this massive challenge.

Responding to these two hugely way of life changing catastrophes (more extreme weather, less varied nature) requires us to act, even when our knowledge and data is imperfect.

Whilst Corfe Castle Parish Council and National Trust are looking at some big plans across Purbeck, every one of us can play our part in reducing the impact of climate change. This will enable nature to adapt to a warmer, more extreme, climate.

Here’s some immediate things to do in your garden to make a difference now, with some ideas of how we can together work together more ambitiously.

1. Make your garden messier! Neat and tidy isn’t as good for nature as a garden that’s rougher and wilder around the edges leaves plenty of places for birds and small mammals to enjoy.
2. Get some water in. Even the smallest regular source of water is valuable for animals to find in droughts, and the insects emerge provide food for bats and birds.
3. Plant a tree. Preferably native and with berries! Hawthorn is a great (albeit prickly) small tree to have in your garden with blossom in May (although that is becoming more like April now) and berries in the autumn.
4. Boost the amount of nectar available for pollinating insects. Plant bee friendly flowers (look for the symbol).
5. Something more ambitious for the future. Would you be interested in helping some of Corfe’s rarest plants? Plant chamomile and small scabious from seed at home… We’ll be trying to get this to happen on a larger scale this year.

The above may seem insignificant, but the twin challenges of climate and ecological emergencies require local as well as global action to make a difference and we all have a role to play. 

Dr Derek Moss – Low Carbon Dorset

At our first meeting in October 2019 we had an excellent presentation delivered by Derek Moss of Low Carbon Dorset focusing on the facts behind global warming and offering practical advice on how individuals and businesses can make small changes to cut their energy consumption. 

Derek very kindly has shared his slides with the Council which you can view by clicking the link below. 

Derek wants to stress that he made a mistake with the maths in the talk. He mentions a factor of 1,000 when referring to the increase in amount of renewable energy generation capacity in Dorset. This is wrong. The exact number is unknown, but it likely to be around 25, not 1,000. The factor of 1,000 is the increase in spending needed to achieve the climate goals. 

Click here to visit the Low Carbon Dorset website