Welcome to Church Lawford !! The back of our signboard had been a dull brown, but a project to brighten it up was proposed, and so a set of handmade tiles was made and mounted undere the guidance of Lesley Anne French, the "Potter from Pailton". Everyone made one or more letters, and one or more picture tiles - the subjects entirely the decision of the participants !! The resulting mosaic can be seen at the top of this page - or of course on the village green itself.
Repurposed Phone Box - the essence of an English Village
The phone box on the village green has been acquired for a nominal fee. It was being decommissioned by BT due to it being little used, and would have been removed otherwise. We have converted it into a community resource centre, housing information for visitors, and a book exchange. A grant from Warwickshire County Council helped pay for its conversion.
Street Lights Upgrade - Better lighting, Energy efficient, much lower running & maintenance costs.
All the street lights in the Parish have now been replaced with new LED ones, a plan that has long been in the pipeline. They are not the most exciting looking things, especially in the accompanying photograph taken on a grey January late afternoon, but there two very good reasons this upgrade was undertaken. Firstly, it was becoming increasingly difficult to source replacement parts, including bulbs, for our old suite. Secondly, LED lights use less electricity, which means that our electricity bills should be able to be reduced, which has some knock on effects for the level of Precept. Thankfully, we have received funding for the project from Warwickshire County Council's Greenshoots scheme, so we will not have to pass on the costs of the upgrade.
Defibrillator - if you have to call 999 for a medical emergency, they'll tell you the code !
One of our most successful recent projects was raising the funds to purchase a defibrillator for the community, which is now in place on the external wall of the Village Hall ready to use (picture above). Funding for this was provided by the Heart of England Community Fund. The defibrillator is checked every month, and consumable supplies replaced. We recently (2024) upgraded it so we have children's pads as well as adult. Another ongoing project has been organising the planting of a new tree on the Village Green now that the Horse Chestnuts have been removed. They were in a very poor condition because they had been infected with honey fungus and had become a safety hazard. A new Golden Box Elder has now been planted in their stead, and should prove to be an attractive addition to the Green. Funding for the tree was provided by the Village Fete Committee