Chardstock Eco Group
Welcome to Chardstock
Chardstock is a village and civil parish located on the eastern border of Devon, England off the A358 road between Chard and Axminster. The parish population at the 2021 Census was 849. The parish also contains the hamlets of Bewley Down, Birchhill, Burridge, Holy City and Tytherleigh.
Our attractive village is surrounded by farmland and woodland and is within the Blackdown Hills National Landscape. The River Kit runs through the village. In the village we have a primary school, a church that dates from the 13th Century and a community shop with a post office. There’s a pub, but it’s closed.
About
Chardstock Eco Group (CEG) is our overarching body and coordinates the running of CEG, the Kit Brook River Restoration and the Wilder Chardstock Community groups. Each of these are run by small steering teams of enthusiastic locals who are passionate about the natural world. We aim to make our corner of the Eastern Blackdown’s a welcoming and sustainable environment for all.
We raise awareness of our work at events such as festivals and country fares and have been invited to speak at various nature themed conferences and forums across the southwest
We have delivered several large-scale community engagement opportunities, including a ‘Freecycle’ giveaway in 2021, a Talking Rubbish forum tree planting in 2022, a River Café in 2023, and the 2024 Nature Matters community event.
In September 2024, in recognition of all of our environmental work, we were absolutely thrilled to receive a ‘Highly Commended’ trophy in the ‘Green Category’ of BBC Devon’s Make a Difference awards.
What do we do?
- Deliver a varied programme of well attended monthly presentations, with guest speakers covering a wide selection of topics.
- Organise trips to local sites of interest. Examples include – trips to both the West Dorset and Moor Barton Beaver Projects, the Exeter Waste to Energy Recovery facility, and the Lower Otter Restoration Project. These are in addition to local educational walks led by us.
- Facilitate and promoted training in lichen identification, bat surveying, owl pellet dissection, hedge surveying
- Conduct surveys for various nature-related projects following the training.
- Mentor and support students studying for Duke of Edinburgh Awards
- Coordinate the Chardstock ‘Womblers’, our litter-pickers.
- Run a loan scheme offering wildlife trail cameras and other equipment to capture evidence of wildlife living locally.
- Oversee a plastic plant pot recycling scheme, where locals can deposit or take away pots free of charge. This scheme has enabled many plastic pots to have a second life and has prevented them going into the general waste collection bins.
- Lobbied for a reduction in street lighting to promote Dark Skies after a community survey
- Produce newsletters following events
- Have a regular column in the monthly Chardstock newsletter
