There was a great turn out on November 26th at the Observer Building to hear Jeremy Leggett talk about the ‘great global energy transition‘.
The donations collected online and on the night raised over £400 for Solar Aid!
Thanks to OST Energy and Energise Sussex Coast for sponsorship, Dublin and Holland for giving the Observer Building for free and doing a great job setting up the event.
Several Transition Town Hastings committee members and supporters took part in the London Climate March on November 29th. A day before the Paris Climate Talks, around 70,000 people came together calling for real action on climate change.
Transition Town Hastings and St Leonards Salon are very excited that Jeremy Leggett is coming to speak in Hastings. He will discuss his new book The Winning of the Carbon War – available to download for free online whose final chapter will coincide with the Paris Climate Talks in December – an event that has enormous significance for every living thing on the planet.
As many more new people attended we introduced ourselves and what our interests are:
SM- Too much packaging on food! Discussed the over use of plastic bags and so HEN campaign was mentioned. Hastings Environmental Network wants to start a Takeaway Packaging Campaign. Also, legislation will be passed on Oct 5th to have supermarkets charge for plastic bags. Food compost-where to put it? (Presently keeps it in freezer and a friend takes it away in bulk!) Would like to lobby HBC for food waste collection.
GH- Interested in everything TT/waste. Part of the problem is we’ve been brought up thinking a throw- away society was good, it created jobs etc.
FL- Just moved here as a HBC (Hastings By Choice), used to live in Germany where they had 9 bins outside for various recycling bits! Then lived in Manchester centre where there was no recycling at all…Interested in food waste collection too and in the sense of utilising left over but perfectly good food. Would like to form a partnership with COOP maybe, to use their food waste? (Rose Ratcliffe?)
KD- As an architect, interest in energy waste in buildings. Would be up for giving energy saving advice on old buildings.
David Almer- Interested in solar panels and other forms of renewable energy.
Tom- aerobic digester, small ones cost approx. £5,000, the problem is where to put them? Discussed how Government subsidies for renewables are being cut by about 90%. This will effect people’s investment in it in terms of buying into renewable energy and will impact the industry as many envisage their businesses ‘going under’.
AC- Heard on radio was saying Gov. subsidies too expensive as renewables have been so popular and proving efficient so too many people want the subsidies. (Wasn’t that the point!!).
William- Impressed by the book Waste by Tristram Stuart, William knows him and I thought we should connect him and Chris Coverdale together? Discussed how people are using old cooking oil to re-use and generate energy. Some guy from Rye is selling oil to takeaways, paying them back a bit to take away the used oil and then selling it on again as bio-deisel!!!
KD- talked about how to get oil tanks around Hastings for people to put their used cooking oil in, but it wouldn’t be enough for just residents it would need to be on a larger scale or not viable. And how would you police it? Someone will chuck something else in it. Talked about asking Southern Water to donate as they have problems with people putting oil down the sink-but it has to benefit people’s pockets for them to bother doing it?
Campaigns
Discussed Food compost campaign and talking to HBC
Discussed No Plastic Bags Campaign/helping HEN with theirs?
Discussed using food waste from supermarkets
Did you know that there are ‘Eco schools’ in Hastings and St Leonards? In a recent transition town energy group meeting Linda Jeal lead a discussion around the subject.
Eco-Schools is an international award programme that guides schools on their sustainable journey, providing a framework to help embed these principles into the heart of school life.
Find out more by contacting the team.
In August this year DECC (Department for Energy and Climate Change) announced a proposed cut of the Solar Feed In Tariff by 87% by January 2016.
This and other recent cuts by government to support solar and renewable energy will cause a loss of affordable clean energy choices, taking away power from people and handing it back to big energy firms.
Local community energy groups depend on these feed in tariffs to make their projects viable and sustainable.
Please add your signature to the following petition to show DECC you don’t want cuts to the Solar Feed In Tariff.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/106791
Chris C- brought along some info on his take on waste which is very much about delving into the systemic issues around why and how we create so much waste and how we can change our processes in the first place to prevent waste. Life Cycle Analysis (L.C.A.); How do we alter the system process? Barr has stopped doing bottle returns (why?); Put pressure on businesses to use re-usable/refillable containers; Proposal: set up working group to propose laws to bring in re-useable packaging; Green Growth.
ACTION-Wants to research this more and create TT think-tank to lobby HBC, laws, policies etc.
Chris P- Composting (kitchen waste); Rubbish as a metaphor for the way we treat our environment in general; Mindfulness towards refuse and how we can help support this in wider community; HBC inaction on stated policy (pressure required). ACTION- Research packaging-free shops. Share shop (Frome) -research. The People’s Supermarket – check it out and share with others.
Tom R- Companies reducing their waste by doing things more online ie banks sending multiple statements. Was working with Richard Watson on getting funding for an Anaerobic digester (turns compost into methane gas)in Hastings area, many complications and needs £50-70,000 to set up. ACTION- Research community composting clubs
Alison- Community composting, getting HBC to let people use spaces in parks to grow food, saving them money, businesses could maintain ‘plot’ too and put ad up to explain. HEN (Hastings Environmental Network) is initiating a waste campaign focusing on Takeaway packaging. I think it would be good to ask to meet HBC to discuss how we can work together on waste issues, get community involved and save them money ie. growing food anywhere we can, letting people use spaces in parks to save HBC money, community compost bins, Share Shop (Sue Dawson/McManus?)- having a shop to share and borrow tools etc (with no rates or rent from HBC), etc more ideas please! ACTION-to research what Germany are doing. Contact Adam Clamp re packaging campaign- how can we help?
Ended with a sense that we wanted this to be quite a politically pushing group?
Next Meeting- Thursday 24th Sept 6.30-7.30pm at WRH
On Saturday Aug 16th several members visited Crowhurst Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).
The project is located on a working farm: Upper Wilting Farm in Crowhurst, tenants of Hastings Borough Council.
We held our first housing meeting after Ken Davis’s talk on eco-refurbishing homes.
12 people attended and the conversation was really lively.
Here are some abridged notes from the meeting:
One member gave some background information about Neighbourhood Plans. She is Chair of the Tulse Hill Neighbourhood Plan in South London.
Some funding was made available via Locality for some initial consultation within the area (they set up a stall in Brockwell Park). They asked one question: “If you could change anything in your neighbourhood what would it be?”.
Map out an area for your plan – Tulse Hill asked all those who came ot the Brockwell Park stand and then put a pin in a map for each person to create their boundary.
Once the group has 21 people committed to the plan it’s possible to apply to be a Neighbourhood Planning Forum. A Neighbourhood Plan must relate to the established local plan but the forum writes it’s own. The plan produced is then statutory.
One attendee shared his ideas about appropriate language. He does not like the word ‘housing’ as it is not a noun. He prefers to talk about ‘making places’. He said that there are three essentials for people: Food, Community and Place.
All present in the meeting shared what things they’d like to change in the town:
What should we call this group? Making places, environment, neighbourhood, community… Ideas?
