Kings Cliffe Transition

We are an enthusiastic active group of volunteers based in the fabulous village of Kings Cliffe, Northants. We’re passionate about protecting our planet, here’s a bit more information about what we’re up to.

Transport Group: Monthly Bikefix workshops; Local bike ride leaflets; Generally encouraging our community to walk or use their bikes rather than jump into the car for short journeys. Food Group: Allotment project creating mini-allotments for people who can’t or don’t want to manage a full or half-size allotment. A group of us have set up an ethical food buying cooperative. We encourage people to minimise packaging and refill containers wherever possible. The Pytchell: An area of land owned by our Parish Council, that we now maintain with them. It includes a Community Orchard that we have been managing for many years. We’re now looking after the rest of the Pytchell, with a view to making it as nature friendly and biodiverse as possible. We may create a food growing area at the top, and a community seating area. The Pytchell is a designated quiet space, with no dogs allowed, so perfect for nurturing plants and wildlife. Wildplaces Group: Kings Cliffe is very lucky to be set in a large area of wonderful countryside. We have many sites recognised for their high value for nature and biodiversity and our Wildplaces Group was set up not only to manage these areas for the wildlife, but also to encourage villagers to get out and enjoy them. We run regular volunteer work parties to manage these areas and keep them open to visitors, and always welcome new volunteers. We also organise guided walks where we explore our wild places, and discover interesting plants, animals, birds and insects. We campaign ardently to protect biodiverse land within our village boundary and beyond, which can be a real battle sometimes. We have a fair bit of experience doing that now.  We also work hard to encourage and promote biodiversity wherever we can. Home Energy Group: A group formed in 2023 to look at ways in which we can help people to use green energy, become more energy efficient, and save money. No major progress thus far due to time and resource constraints, will probably be more about education at the moment. We have a thermal imaging camera that people can borrow to measure heat loss in their home. Events: Thus far we have run three series of ‘Green Gardening’ talks (July 2023, June 2025, and July 2026), encouraging people to garden in a more environmentally friendly way. The talks have been very well received so we plan to run further events covering different topics. The talks have been so interesting, with lots of ideas about how we can all make our gardens kinder to the planet. The materials we use, the plants we grow, the way we use and conserve water, the health of our soil. We also run climate cafes periodically, usually by turning up at existing cafes in the village to provide information and conversation. Plus in 2022 we ran a Carbon Literacy workshop hosted by Jen Gale, very useful and informative and now some of us are qualified carbon literate! Communication & Awareness Raising: We write an article about our Transition activities every month in the village gazette. We have designed and printed an information brochure that has been posted through people’s doors and is made available at any events we run. We have a website, which is updated quarterly, and a very active Facebook page.

If we have the resource we would like to expand the Home Energy Group activity to look at local energy schemes, for example. Further events and talks.