Char Valley Parish Council Information

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Welcome to the Char Valley Parish Council webpages. Char Valley is a group council and comprises the parishes of Whitchurch Canonicorum, Wootton Fitzpaine and Stanton St Gabriel. The area is all within the West Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is completely rural in character.
The parishes consist of :

• scattered farms,
• the villages of Whitchurch Canonicorum (pop. 640) , Wootton Fitzpaine (pop. 360) and Morcombelake (pop. 110),
• the settlements of Fishpond, Ryall and Monkton Wyld
• further small settlements at Stonebarrow Lane and at Fern Hill on the outskirts of Charmouth.

The A35 trunk road bisects the parishes from east to west. Stanton St Gabriel parish, between the A35 and the sea, is nearly all owned and managed by the National Trust, as are the hilltop forts which look down on the landscape of small fields, deep streams and woods of the Marshwood Vale and the Wootton valleys. The southern part of the council's area includes a section of the Jurassic Coast, England's first natural World Heritage Site.
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The Parish Council meets on a monthly basis (but not August or December).

Parish Boundary markers
Parish boundary markers (below) have been installed along the West Dorset Coast Path in a project started and led by Tara Hansford. Some of these markers are in our parishes - details on all of the parish boundary markers can be found here.   

Search this website

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• Parish Council Meetings in 2023
• Parish Councillors
• Election information
• Planning Applications

Char Valley Parish Council campaigns actively for the parish and its human and other residents. In recent months we have responded to / campaigned on the following issues:

• Dorset Council's Climate and Ecological Strategy and Action Plan 
• ​​The Government's Future of Transport: rural strategy​ Call for Evidence
• Dorset Council Draft Cultural Strategy 2021-2026​​

See also

• Transport news and updates 
• Bridport Local Area Partnership Bulletins (BLAP)
• Current and previous issues of Char Chat
• Local History
• The River Char Community Project
• The Lifelines project for chemical-free corridors in the Char Valley

• Minutes of past Parish Council Meetings
• Our response to the Dorset Council Climate and Ecological Emergency Strategy and Action Plan

Parish Council Documents Archive

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CVPC's response to Dorset Council's Community Governance Review (October 2021)