more … ]]> The ongoing campaign by Winchesters Liberal Democrats has secured funding for a pilot study, on Park Home insulation and heating efficiency technologies, to be situated in Winchester.

The Winchester MP and Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidates for Winchester and the Meon Valley, Martin Tod and Liz Leffman, launched their Park Homes campaign in October and since then have contacted all Park Home residents within the constituency.

By bringing together National Energy Action and Winchester City Council they have been able to identify appropriate sites and start the ball rolling for a pilot study to get underway. It means that some Park Home residents in Flowerdown Park, Littleton, will soon be benefiting from new technologies aimed at reducing emissions, reducing bills and better insulating their homes.

The aim of the project is to demonstrate that low cost methods are available to help insulate Park Homes so that they may be included in Government schemes. At present Park Homes are classified in such a way that they are excluded from the vast majority of Government assistance to those in fuel poverty, such as Warm Front.

While Mark Oaten has been raising this issue in Parliament through Early Day Motions and in debates, locally discussions were under way to site one of the pilot studies taking place across the country within the Winchester constituency.

Mark Oaten commented:

“This is all about showing the Government that the technologies exist to help Park Home owners the same as any other home owner. Excluding them because of legal technicalities just isn’t fair.

 “I’m pleased to say that there does appear to be some movement from the Governments side but this needs to happen faster. The latest cold snap reminds us all again, if that was needed, just how important it is to be able to afford to heat your home.

 Martin Tod, PPC for Winchester, added:

 ”Winchester has one of the highest carbon footprints in the country so ensuring we can all do our bit to change this is vital. At the same time far too many people are still living in fuel poverty.

 ”So I am delighted that Winchester has now got the funding to take part in a pilot study for new insulation technologies. Lets hope that the Government sit up and take notice of the results and make the necessary changes to their schemes.

more … ]]> Winchester Liberal Democrats are today launching a campaign to stop Government neglect of park home residents who are currently unable to apply for many of the grants available aimed at helping people pay their heating bills.

Park home residents are particularly likely to live in fuel poverty (spending 10% or more of their disposable income on heating bills). This is because park homes are particularly expensive to heat and up until 2005 insulation standards weren’t included in the British Standard for park homes with 95% of homes built pre 2005.

Furthermore park home residents generally use bottled gas, LPG, to heat their homes which is one of the most expensive forms of heating fuel. With winter fast approaching many residents will again be fearing that it is simply unaffordable to heat their homes.

Within this context the Government treats park homes differently from others so that the main energy efficiency programmes do not actually benefit park home residents. For example most measures under the Government’s fuel poverty programme Warm Front are not suitable for park homes and to date they have not been included under the main part of the suppliers’ obligation, the Carbon Emissions reductions target (CERT).

There are readily available solutions out there which can help park home residents afford to heat their home and reduce their carbon emissions at the same time. These measures include light weight external wall insulation and low carbon technologies such as air source heat pumps.

Fuel Poverty charity National Energy Action has been involved in developing this package of measures and local MP Mark Oaten together with Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary candidates for Winchester, and the Meon Valley, Martin Tod and Liz Leffman, are taking action to raise the issue.

In Parliament Mark has tabled Early Day Motion 2037 which calls on the Government to treat park home residents the same as any other home owner giving them access to the grants that are out there.

Locally Mark, Liz and Martin will be writing to every park home resident within the constituency telling them about the action and encouraging them to sign a petition to be handed into the Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Change in the near future.

Finally the Winchester Liberal Democrats are bidding for a National Energy Action group pilot study to be carried out on some of the park homes in Winchester and are hopeful that a site can be identified by the council and a positive announcement can be made soon.

Mark Oaten commented:

“By treating park home residents different from other homeowners the Government is neglecting this group of people and making hating their homes and paying for their heating bills all that more difficult.

“It makes no sense to exclude them from government help that others are entitled to. There are solutions out there for park homes so schemes like Warm Front need to be extended out to include these. With winter fast approaching the government needs to take action now and I’m going to keep up the pressure on this.

Lib Dem PPC for Winchester Martin Tod added:

“Climate change is the biggest challenge we face, and everyone should be getting the help they need to cut how much fuel and energy they use. Many park home owners are elderly, which makes it doubly important that they get the same help as everyone else to keep warm and cut their bills.

Liz Leffman, PPC for the Meon Valley, further commented:

“It is unfair that people living in park homes should be forgotten by the Government in this way. Now more than ever it is important that people, particularly the elderly, are able to insulate their homes effectively and cut down on their heating bills. People living in park homes need help with this in the same way as other people do.

EDM 2037: PARK HOMES AND FUEL POVERTY

14.10.2009

Oaten, Mark

That this House notes park home residents across the country are more susceptible to fuel poverty; further notes that park homes are not deemed to be dwellings and do not currently benefit from the majority of the Government’s fuel poverty measures such as Warm Front or the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target; welcomes the recent investment in trials to establish the technical feasibility of products to reduce fuel costs in park homes and applauds National Energy Action and others for their work in this area; and calls on the Government to commit to including park homes within fuel poverty and energy efficiency measures as a priority.

more … ]]> Liberal Democrat Prospective MP for Winchester, Martin Tod, joined Winchester Friends of the Earth campaigning to fix the food chain on Sunday, October 4th outside the Cathedral Close.

Friends of the Earth are campaigning to get MPs to support an Early Day Motion which will encourage the use of local feed for livestock instead of soya produced by clearing areas of Amazon rainforest.
Over 200 local people signed up to back the campaign.

Martin Tod commented:

“Tackling climate change is one of the most urgent challenges we face – and fixing the way we get food is part of that. Certainly, if we can’t fix the food chain in this parliament, then we need to do it early in the next.

“The impact of livestock farming on climate change varies a lot according to the methods and feeds that farmers use and how far the resulting meat and dairy products have to travel. It makes a real difference to buy locally produced food reared with locally grown feed.

“Most of the farmers I’ve spoken to locally grow their own feed, or are buying their feed locally – and for as much of the year as possible, feed their livestock on good Hampshire grass. It’s this kind of farming we need to encourage, not intensive farming by big agri-business using soya grown by cutting down rainforest.”

more … ]]> A quick update on some more environmental links:

• If you’ve not already visited Winchester Action on Climate Change, please do!  They’re currently trying to get as many people as possible to measure their carbon footprint and then publish it.  It makes interesting reading.  I’ve done it – and once I’d recovered from the shock, it was definitely worth doing and gave good guidance on how to cut my carbon. The site also got a good write-up from John Grant’s GREENORMAL blog recently which was also very encouraging.
• If you were as horrified as I was by the Government’s decision to go ahead with Heathrow’s third runway, you may want to sign up for a bit of land at the Greenpeace website. Very satisfying (although I’m intending to get up there in person at the next suitable demonstration as well).
• The Greening Campaign is really taking off round the Winchester district. Very inspirational.  Find out about the main campaign here, and the campaigns in Fulflood, Oliver’s Battery, Colden Common and Alresford.
• I had great success giving Owl electricity monitors to my brothers and sisters. It’s a nifty handheld monitor that tells you how much electricity your house is using. Their children have since been charging round their houses switching things off – which can only be a good thing.  If you want a cheaper option, I’ve had good experience with this plug-in power and energy monitor meter that you can buy on Amazon.
• I was very excited by the solar LED lights, presented by local company Light-Solar-LED Co. at the recent Colden Common Greening event. They have potential to dramatically reduce our energy consumption for lighting.
• During last year’s Winchester’s bike week (this year scheduled for 13th-21st June) I had a go on a Cytronex electric bike – developed by a Winchester company. They’re not cheap, but there are grants available, and very, very tempting to a regular Winchester cyclist – and if they get more people cycling rather than using the car, will make a very helpful contribution to reducing our carbon emissions!

That’s it for now.  Please let me know if there are any other sites (or green things) you think I should link to.

more … ]]> Just over a week ago, I took a break from our one week holiday and went to the ITV Millbank studios to record an episode of ‘The Last Word’ for ITV Meridian.  The whole thing was shot in half an hour – we discussed Damian Green, the economy and the Queen’s Speech – and the attached is the result!

more … ]]> Nudge – and similar books of behavioural economics are getting a lot of attention at the moment.  I’m particularly interested to see if they can provide any help to the work of the Communications Team of Winchester Action on Climate Change.

If you’re interested in getting a copy, here are some links:

• Nudge – by Robert Thaler
• Predictably Irrational – Dan Ariely
• The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert Cialdini

Here’s a link to the Cabinet Office paper titled Personal Responsibility and Changing Behaviour referenced in the Guardian article on ‘Nudge’.

Other works on behaviour change relating to climate change worth looking at… WinACC recently highlighted ‘Weathercocks and Signposts: The environment movement at a crossroads”. DEFRA’s Framework for pro-Environmental Behaviours is also useful reading.

more … ]]> We’ve decided to switch our office to using electricity from Ecotricity – so the press turned up yesterday to take some pictures in the back garden of our office.

Reassuringly, it doesn’t cost any more than the standard tariff from a non-green supplier.

We’ve had pictures of Mark and I waving low energy lightbulbs around before when we switched all the bulbs in our office.

Here’s one of the rare pictures from yesterday where we’re not all waving light-bulbs around – only one of us is:

On a more substantive note, the head of ecotricity has a thought-provoking blog at zerocarbonista.com. His view is that the biggest barrier to more wind energy in the UK is the planning system – not lack of feed-in tariffs:

Two thirds of all wind projects are refused by District Councils at the planning stage, and two thirds of all appeals are upheld by the government – a lot of bad decisions being overturned, eventually.

And wind energy is the only major generation source that depends for planning on District Councils – the government deals with all others for very good reasons. District councils are not up to the job, on the whole.

I’m loth to see any decisions move towards central government without a very good reason – overall, I’d like to see more local decision-making, not less – but there may be a case for making it a county council decision – like minerals and waste.

I’d also like to see CO₂ as an explicit factor in all relevant council and government decisions. Crediting new wind turbine developments against councils’ carbon targets could be another, more local, way to address the issue.

More on the zerocarbonista blog about feed-in tariffs and planning here.

Another green energy supplier used by Lib Dems (including our national office) is Good Energy.

more … ]]>

I popped along to the launch of the new Whizzgo car-club scheme at the Guildhall this morning.

As the Council’s press release says:

Car Club members will have access to a brand new Citroen car, for less than £5 an hour – including petrol, mileage, road tax, insurance, servicing, breakdown, recovery, maintenance and cleaning. What’s more, independent research shows that Car Club members can cut their total transport bills by half.

As well as cutting transport bills in half, separate studies have also demonstrated that the provision of Car Clubs results in a significant reduction in car miles driven, with members walking or cycling more, using public transport more often or simply re-arranging how they make journeys.

The first WhizzGo cars will be available for Car Club members in specially designated bays provided by Winchester City Council in their off-street car parks in Gladstone Street, Jewry Street, Colebrook Street and Middle Brook Street.

At this morning’s launch, they explained that joining Whizzgo also lets you use cars in Leeds, London, Brighton, Liverpool, Southampton, York, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Newcastle, Worcester, St. Albans and Belfast.

All in all, a very interesting offer.

Since my latest two car service bills alone have added up to more than my current car is worth (admittedly this is not a particularly high benchmark), it may now be the time to get rid of it and go with Whizzgo!

more … ]]>

Conversations at various WinACC meetings, while out campaigning with Winchester Friends of the Earth for aircraft emissions to be included in the climate change bill (see above) and in Green’s after the monthly Winchester Friends of the Earth meeting have thrown up several interesting local environmental websites.

First off, there’s Dave Walker-Nix’s ‘One World’ website at http://www.wwn-oneworld.co.uk. Dave organised the Friends of the Earth aviation demonstration in the town centre (that’s him on the left wearing the mask).  His site has a collection of fascinating inventions for tackling climate change. Very thought provoking and well worth a read.

David Morgan turned up to his first WinACC open meeting last Saturday.  He has an environmental blog at http://www.reallifenews.com/environment/ as part of his real life news website with a local and personal take on living a greener lifestyle.

The Greening Oliver’s Battery team has set up a website at http://www.greening-ob.org.uk/.  It’s great to see Terena Plowright’s inspirational Greening Campaign starting to roll out across the area.

I served on the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Executive with Donnachadh McCarthy at the time of the Iraq War.  He’s now left party politics and is a full-time eco-auditor. He recently came to speak to WinACC about his work and to give advice on a greener lifestyle.  You can find out more at his website http://www.cix.co.uk/~dmccarthy/

The final site isn’t strictly an environmental site, but WinACC wouldn’t be what it is without the brilliant facilitation of James Martin-Jones. WinACC open meetings are fun, constructive, inclusive, positive and action-focused – and also run exactly to time (always 90 minutes!).  The next one is on June 7th.  Several people I spoke to after the last one commented on how much better they are than ‘normal meetings’.  This wouldn’t happen without James; you can find out more at http://jamesmartinjones.com/.

That’s it for now.  As I find more, I’ll post them up and add them to my links.

(Needless to say, none of these links imply that any of the sites, organisations or people mentioned endorse me or anyone else – they’re just sites I hope you find interesting)…

more … ]]>

One piece of good news today.  The Government has made it clear that Micheldever Station is not going to be one of its new eco-towns.

I’m really pleased.  This was an eco-town proposal that wasn’t eco.  It was going to have an appalling effect on traffic congestion and emissions.  It was going to concrete over the countryside – rather than using brown field land as per the original specification.

In essence, it was a half-baked greenwash of a bad idea that had previously been repeatedly rejected.

Most of the credit for this belongs with the Dever Society and particularly their very impressive vice-chair, Tessa Robertson, who got a big round of applause today at the celebration meeting (or, more accurately, celebration walk across some fields that were threatened with being concreted over).

There was also huge public opposition.  The online petition against the proposed Micheldever Station eco-town got more support than any of the other petitions around the country opposing local eco-towns.

The Dever Society is intending to continue campaigning until Zurich Insurance and Eagle Star give up on their plans.  I certainly intend to keep doing what I can to support them. They need members and support: the more the better.  If you’d like to join, the membership form is here.

more … ]]> A good article in Saturday’s Guardian by Tristram Hunt on the ‘un-eco eco-towns’:

All too predictably, Britain’s leading developers are using the eco-town template to dust off long-rejected proposals and re-submit shoddy housing schemes.

The potential loss of countryside around Micheldever is not the only problem with the proposed Eagle Star development. Despite the railway station, a large new eco-town equidistant between Andover, Winchester and Basingstoke will also be very bad for traffic.  There’s a good briefing from the Dever Society on the issue here.

My fears about Housing Minister Caroline Flint’s forthcoming decision on Micheldever are not just driven by concerns about the Government’s desire to be seen taking some symbolic ‘green’ action.  What worries me most is the combination of this desire to appear green with Labour’s love of large top-down solutions to any problem (in this case housing) and their strangely obsessive desire for approval by big business (in this case a company that has just appointed Tony Blair as an advisor on climate change).

more … ]]> I went to the annual general meeting of the Dever Society last night. Steve Tilbury, the Head of Operations at Winchester City Council was there and made an excellent and informative presentation. As part of it, he referenced an article by David Blackman and Joey Gardiner in Building magazine – which accurately captures the general mood locally about the Micheldever Station Eco-Town:

The list of sites put forward by developers reads like a greatest hits of planning applications gone by. The communities department refuses to publish the list, but an investigation by Building has uncovered nine, all of which bring on a sense of deja vu. Micheldever, for example, the proposed site of a 12,500-home town, was put forward to two Hampshire structure plan inquiries in the late nineties, before being rejected in 2000 …

It looks like developers and councils have leaped at the chance to build on sites that have lain fallow for decades, dusting off old schemes, tarting them up with low-carbon jargon and bolting on eco-bling. Conservation groups on the other hand, are horrified.

Elsewhere in Building magazine, Mark Brinkley confirms the traffic concerns I posted about earlier this month (from a position of considerably greater expertise!) ; in particular, he highlights the consequences of the Government’s requirement that “Eco-towns must be new settlements – separate and distinct from existing towns but well linked to them”:

Why throw that into the mix? What is remotely eco about it? In terms of transportation, building away from existing urban centres is very bad news. It requires much more infrastructure and adds to travel and commuting times. Why abandon the policy thrusts towards urban extensions and regenerating brownfield?

The CPRE has also come out against the proposal. My friend, and former neighbour at University, Tom Oliver, is now their head of rural policy and was quoted in this Independent article which summarises many of the arguments against the Micheldever proposals (although is a bit light on the transport issues).

Tom Oliver, the head of countryside policy for the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said such a new town “would overshadow a huge swathe of rural Hampshire”. He added: “The site has been rejected repeatedly as a possible major new development and has only returned as a figment of corporate opportunism. To decorate this proposal with ‘eco-bling’ is cynical and undermines the credibility of the Government’s eco-towns competition.”

One final tidbit. The news broke today that Tony Blair has been signed up by Zurich – the parent company of the Micheldever development – as an environmental advisor. Given Blair’s record on the environment, I’m tempted to repeat Tom Lehrer’s reaction when he heard that Kissinger had won the Nobel peace prize.

Because Eagle Star’s plan to trash the environment and increase the Winchester district’s carbon footprint will likely make them north of £1 billion were they to get the go-ahead, there’s plenty of money in this project (at least on their side) for endless consultancy (possibly including Blair) to try and push the project through – even if they assume a very low chance of success. Although the Dever Society has done a great job of fundraising, Eagle Star is an incredibly expensive company to take on, so if you feel like becoming a friend of the Dever Society in order to support their opposition to the proposals, the membership form is here. If you haven’t already signed the petition against the Micheldever development, you can do so here.

PS: I particularly like the term ‘eco-bling’ used by Tom and in the Building magazine article. In the US last week, I heard another new eco-term for the first time: ‘green-collar worker’. When I contacted Tom after reading his quotes in the Independent article, I emailed to ask (among other things) if he was one. He answered happily to the lunch I suggested in the email, but, to date, is strangely silent on the ‘green collar’ issue.

more … ]]> The Dever Society has launched an online petition against the proposed Micheldever Station Eco-Town.

Despite the Town’s supposed environmental credentials, I’m also opposed and have signed the petition, primarily because the Town’s environmental credentials are a sham: the proposal is not environmental at all. By creating a new transport node equidistant between Basingstoke, Andover and Winchester, the new town will create a huge amount of extra journeys. As and when we require further housing, our priority needs to supporting sustainable lifestyles in our existing town centres – this plan does the exact opposite.

One element that takes a while to sink in is how completely enormous the proposed town is. Eagle Star (the owner) are proposing to have 12,500 new houses and close to 30,000 residents.

When I hear the word ‘market town’ in this part of the world, I tend to think of Alresford, Whitchurch or Wickham – but this proposal is bigger than Alresford, Whitchurch and Wickham added together! Compared to the 12,500 houses proposed for Micheldever Station, there are 2,300 houses in the town of New Alresford – around the same number in the town of Whitchurch, slightly fewer in Wickham and only 14,500 in the town wards of the city of Winchester. This is an absolutely huge development.

It’s important that as many people as possible sign up to back the petition. Anyone can sign up – details are at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Micheldever/.

If you need to know more, the Dever Society has a very useful briefing, and extracts from the speech I made at their public meeting in Micheldever Station are below.

It’s because I’m passionate about climate change and the environment that I’m so angry about this proposal.Because although it’s talked about in terms of the environment – it’s not an environmental proposal.

This eco-town proposal is a double fig-leaf

It’s a fig leaf for the Government – because by building a few communities around the UK to zero carbon standards, they hope they can hide the fact that thousands more houses across Hampshire and across the country are not being built to the highest environmental standards.

And it’s a fig leaf for Eagle Star – because it gives them another cynical shot at concreting over the countryside

I like the idea of zero carbon housing. I like it a lot.

But introducing tough new building standards in Micheldever Station and allowing developments in Winchester and Alresford – and all the other communities in Hampshire at much lower building standards – makes no sense at all.

When it comes to climate change, we need to be raising standards for everyone. And we need to be helping people improve the homes they’ve already got.

If you remove the zero carbon edge from the Eagle Star proposal, its damaging environmental consequences become crystal clear.

The biggest problem is transport. By adding a new transport node in between Basingstoke, Andover and Winchester, the Eagle Star proposal will dramatically increase commuting and fuel usage. The strategy that’s been put forward for the South East region is right. We need to be expanding our current centres not creating new ones.

This is a classic case of a company trying to greenwash their tired old Micheldever Station proposal.

Their newly discovered love of zero carbon development gives Eagle Star another bit of the cherry…

Take the bits of the eco town specification they like. And ignore the bits they don’t like – such as the encouragement to build on surplus public sector land

An excuse to do what they’ve spent most of the last two decades trying to do…

Build all over the countryside

The only thing they’re looking for is another chance to build. To trash the Hampshire countryside and fill their boots.

Eagle Star aren’t looking to improve the environment. They’re looking for an excuse.

If I thought that this plan was going to make a dramatic positive difference to Hampshire’s environment and make a bigger contribution to reducing climate change than any alternative, I’d be standing here making a very unpopular speech this evening.

But I genuinely don’t believe this plan ever will make sense environmentally.

I’m with you on this one.

Not because I don’t care about the environment.

But because I do. Because I believe that climate change is one of the biggest challenges we face.

And because I believe that the Micheldever Station Market Town Proposal:

• Doesn’t help the environment
• Won’t help the climate
• And is ultimately a cynical greenwash of an old idea.

And I’ll do anything I can to help you stop it.

Please support the resolution before us tonight.

more … ]]> Back in March 2006, Winchester City Council, then led by the Lib Dems, put forward a carbon management programme which committed the City Council to a 50% reduction in emissions by 2012.

It had clear targets.

It had a clear baseline measurement to compare against.

And it laid out a draft implementation plan to kick off the process of delivering those targets.

The Conservatives took over control of the council a few weeks later.. and since then – silence.

Their recently published strategy paper – Live for the Future: Tackling Climate Change – and the accompanying action plan – make no reference to these previously agreed targets – nor do they set any targets to replace them. Indeed, one of its most disappointing features is that the strategy paper sets almost no targets for anything.

So, while it’s good that the Council is thinking about CO₂ levels for the District as a whole, it’s not enough. They need to start by putting their own house in order.

Rather than scrapping, sidelining or ignoring their CO₂ target, the Council should be strengthening it.

Lib Dem-led Eastleigh Borough Council is aiming for Carbon Neutrality: I’d love to see Winchester City Council do the same.

more … ]]> Back in February, Keith House set the ambitious goal of making Lib Dem-led Eastleigh Borough Council a zero carbon council by 2012. This builds on Eastleigh’s climate change action plan launched in 2005.

Given the recent coverage of Winchester’s environmental footprint, you’d hope that our City Council would be thinking in similarly ambitious terms.

Last Wednesday, the Conservatives in Winchester agreed their plans for Winchester City Council (‘Live for the Future: Tackling Climate Change‘).

And their target for CO₂ reductions by Winchester City Council?

They haven’t set one. There is no target for CO₂ reductions by Winchester City Council in the climate change strategy they agreed last Wednesday!

The document is an embarrassment.

It sets one overall target – to reduce CO₂ emissions for the overall district by 30% by 2012 (even though much of what needs to be done to achieve this is outside their control and this target is barely more than the Government required minimum).

There are some specific targets on housing – although these are mostly inherited from the Lib Dem administration or mandated by government.

And then… nothing.

The officers have come up with a long list of useful ideas, but there is a complete absence of any serious overall framework and of any political commitment or leadership.

Almost all the feedback they have received has been fobbed off with waffle.

Overall, there is:

• No target for any City Council activities.
• No target for Renewable Energy.
• No target for Transport.
• No target for Adaptation Planning.
• No target for community involvement.

The one encouraging decision from the Council was to provide some grant funding to Winchester Action on Climate Change. I’ve been involved with WinACC since the initial meeting back in July and working as part of the Communications team to get the WinACC website ready for launch. (One of my contributions was the abbreviation ‘WinACC’, after it turned out that the WACC web addresses were taken by the World Association for Christian Communication and the Wichita Chamber of Commerce). It’s good to see all the work by WinACC volunteers (from all parties and none), especially the Convenor Robert Hutchison, recognised with some funding.

But, funding WinACC is not a substitute for serious leadership on climate change from the city council. And sadly, that is now proven to be seriously lacking.

more … ]]> It’s been a bit of a hectic week for media with interviews on Sky, ITV and the BBC.

The BBC and Sky wanted to talk about the WWF report on Winchester’s Environmental Footprint.

The Sky interview (below) was live and straight into a camera with a small earpiece in my ear where I could listen to Eamonn Holmes.

The BBC interview was prerecorded at home. The final shot with Tom Hepworth is shot in our living room. That’s my TV that gets switched off at the end (and, yes, it does get switched off at the wall when not in use).

WWF’s analysis showed that Winchester uses the equivalent of 3.6 planets worth of resources – above the UK average of 3 planets – and way over the level we would need to be at to be sustainable.

It’s partly a question of geography – the analysis related to all 250 square miles of the City Council area – which makes Winchester one of the largest and most rural city councils in the UK. We also have a lot of commuting and major motorways running through the city council area. But the main reason is that we’re relatively well off. It’s a great place to live – the best in England according to Location, Location, Location – but this all comes at a price.

I’m pretty certain most people locally are going to take this as a challenge. We already know we’re a great place to live. We now need to become a great and a green place to live. We need to show how it’s possible to move towards high quality, low carbon living. As a well-off city in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we need to take a lead. If we can’t change, why should anyone else? There’s a new group been set up called ‘Winchester Action on Climate Change’ which brings together government, business and individuals which is an ideal forum to make this happen.

Personally, I’d like to see action on every level. The Government needs a bigger shift from income tax towards green taxes, more support for renewable energy and to make it easier and more affordable for people to have greener homes. Research into renewable energy sources needs the same kind of priority as the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Mission. The County Council needs to get serious about public transport and stop cutting it. The City Council needs to do more: for example, start food waste recycling and set higher green standards for new commercial buildings – and we need to do more to plan Winchester so that it’s easier for people to live a low energy lifestyle. And, obviously, there’s a lot we can do as individuals – change our lightbulbs – move to lower emission cars – switch off electrical devices when we’re not using them – and travel more efficiently.

I also used the WWF website to work out my own footprint – which turned out to be 2.4 planets. Below average – but still 1.4 planets too many. Since doing the survey, I’ve got much better at switching stuff off at the wall when I’m not using it. I’m buying more at the Farmers’ Market. My next priority is to reduce my travel footprint by using public transport and my bike more – and getting a really low emissions car. My current car is pretty good for emissions – but some of the newer ones are even better.

more … ]]> I’ve just watched the ‘Location, Location, Location’ programme about the ten best places to live in Britain – and Winchester has dropped to number two behind Edinburgh.

However, we’re still the best place to live in England so I guess we shouldn’t feel too down!

I watched the show and we lost points for our carbon emissions and our road safety – two areas we’ve been campaigning on for quite some time.

Aside from our national commitments to a zero carbon Britain, I’ve already offered my time to Winchester Action on Climate Change and will be continuing with our campaign for proper 20 mph speed limits outside schools and in residential areas that want them.

more … ]]> Excellent meeting of Winchester Action on Climate Change on Saturday. There were all kinds of great people there from all kinds of different backgrounds – and real energy to get stuck in and do some real work to build awareness of climate change and what people can do about it. My background is in high technology and communication, so I’ve offered to help build a website with useful local information. Watch this space…

more … ]]>

It’s been an inspirational couple of days meeting the Christian Aid “Cut the Carbon” marchers as they moved through the Winchester constituency from Chandlers’ Ford to Alresford on the last lap of their walk to London.

The march started in Bangor in Northern Ireland in July and has been through Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff and Bournemouth. By the time they reached Chandler’s Ford, some of the walkers had already walked more than 900 miles to build awareness of climate change.

I was invited by Haulwen Broadhurst to a dinner to welcome them at Chandler’s Ford Methodist church – which was a brilliant evening. We ate well (but simply) – Martin John Nicholls (see right) provided inspiring entertainment – two marchers spoke about their personal experience – including one of the marchers who gave personal testimony about the effect of climate change in Burkina Faso. (The marchers are balanced between people from the developed world and the developing world).

I was so inspired that I asked a colleague – Jackie Porter – to come and join me in welcoming them when they arrived at St Gregory’s in Alresford. After their arrival, we got talking to two of the marchers – Geoff and Kate Davies who were marchers from the South African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute – about the work they are doing to bring together faith communities to work on the environment and social justice in South Africa – and ended up being invited to come to dinner again to continue the conversation. Once again, it was an inspirational evening. This time we heard from a speaker from Brazil about the impact of climate change in her country – and were reminded by a marcher from Britain about our responsibilities for these global problems in the west and the actions we need to be taking.

It was good to be reminded that the biggest cause of problems for the developing world is often our carbon emissions in the industrialised world, not those in developing countries – and that, although climate change is mostly hurting the world’s poor, the rich world is mostly to blame.

One of the purposes of the march is to get politicians and MPs to sign up to 80% carbon reductions by 2050 – vs the current target of 60% – and to require companies to account for their carbon emissions.

Since we’d passed policy in Brighton a few days supporting (indeed, in the case of carbon – where we want 100% reductions, exceeding) these goals – I was absolutely happy to sign up. I also promised to get people to back their campaign – so please go to their website and sign up to support their campaign if you can.

more … ]]> Just back from Robert Hutchison’s productive and enjoyable “Coffeehouse Challenge” for the first meeting of Winchester Action on Climate Change. It was fun session with a lot of positive energy and constructive, concrete ideas.

Most people in Winchester now agree that climate change is a problem – Robert has rightly identified that the challenge is to get local organisations and individuals to agree on action.

One opportunity is to learn from our neighbours. Eastleigh Borough Council has just installed their first Combined Heat and Power plant at Fleming Park and they’ve also put into place practical measures such as refunding the planning application fee to people who install renewable energy technology in their homes.

On a personal note, I’ve found the World Wildlife Fund footprint calculator an easy and useful tool to help me find ways to reduce my ‘carbon footprint’. It’s available online at http://footprint.wwf.org.uk