Sustainability and the Environment at Fillongley

Fillongley Cricket Club is lucky to play in such a beautiful part of the Country and we have always worked hard to make the ground as attractive as possible for players and supporters. We believe we play at one of the most attractive grounds in the UK and we have our founders and the many Management Committees that have come before us to thank for that.

Our journey towards sustainability began in 2018 when the Club was becoming financially unsustainable, relying on donations from ex-players and sponsors to meet the costs of playing cricket. With 3 teams we had to hire a second pitch, which meant plenty of travel and didn't help club unity. After many years of trying to buy our ground to secure our long term future we succeeded and also gained access to an adjacent field and members voted to use the opportunity to achieve financial, energy and environmental sustainability whilst helping the Village reduce flooding. The Club committed to the United Nations Sports for Climate Action. We introduced a Sustainability sub-committee and have made great strides towards sustainability.

We engaged the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust who produced a Natural Flood Management and Habitat Management Plan to direct our efforts. We ran volunteering days with the Highways Agency to help with the groundwork but members did much of the work themselves.

Five years later we are financially secure and have made dramatic improvements to carbon footprint and our environment. We built a second pitch on what had been a cattle field, employing local farmers to undertake the work rather than expensive contractors. We cleared a pond, planted 100 metres of hedging to absorb water, planted trees in keeping with our location in the Arden Forest, built a “deadhedge” for wildlife, started a wildflower meadow and a community orchard adjacent to our pitches.

With the costs of cricket now covered we were able to invest our sponsors' and Vice Presidents' income in new changing rooms. We ran a Crowdfunder to help with the costs and built an extension on the end of the pavilion, re-vamping the louge area to provide better facilities for Members and opening up the potential for ground and club house lets.

We have installed LED lighting and insulation to hot water tanks and to reduce our costs further - and to reduce our carbon footprint - we installed a solar panel/battery system, meeting our energy needs, generating a surplus and providing charging facilities for cars and future electric ground maintenance machinery. We have begun composting our waste on-site and our roof is ready for rain harvesting when the rising cost of mains water makes this economic.

Our efforts have made a tremendous difference to the Club and have also been recognised externally. In 2022 we won the Warwickshire Cricket Board Tackling Climate Change Award, in 2023 the inaugural ECB Sustainability Award and in 2024 Cricketer Magazine named us “Greenest Ground in the UK” an accolade of which we are immensely proud!