Transcript Insulation Roadshow (with renewables, demos) – 12 votes

PROJECTS
suggested at the consultation meeting,
21st July 2009,
Miners Welfare Hall, Cinderford
Insulation Roadshow (with renewables, demos) – 12 votes
A service going out to offer impartial reliable advice to householders in the forest with
local knowledge – especially about hard to treat houses. ? is poor takeup of
insulation because of concern about quality of information ?
Display models, open house demos, fact sheets, avoiding the cowboys...
Training & advice for professionals & DIY projects
Bulk buying clubs & co-ops
Ideas about sources of funding (loans & grants) - ESCOs?ACTION:
ACTION:
Matt & Lesley will offer their houses as demos – solar, wood heating, pellet burning,
insulation
Eileen will write up the project for SWEA
Anon will find out more about the windmill at the Pludds and photo-voltaics
LAG alredy plans to get Five Acres to provide training
Links to superInsulating Newent – share expertise
Changing behaviours – practical & cultural – 9.5 votes
Need to convince general population to change – talking to people helps
They need to see the benefits for themselves & their family
The first step is the hardest, it needs to be the fashionable thing to do – find the
influencers eg “Staycations”
Need a project to find out what kind of society people want – easier to get there
if you know where you want to go
ACTIONS:
Transitions: green social events, big, small, fun and frequent
Transitions: set up a PR group, use the local media
Personal: set a good example & talk to people about it, contact Mps,
councillors, etc etc
LAG agrees – but how to do it?
Awareness raising: £ for coordination, admin etc - 9 votes
To do the work of Transition we could do with an office & at least a
part time administrator, and equipment like a projector & screen
– we could then do a serious media job
We really need more than 1 office to cover the area
We need to train people to do presentations & facilitate
discussions, eg at schools
People skills – dont take them for granted
ACTION: An empty shop would make a good temporary home Newent transition to discuss
Do a project plan for this one
Training – reskilling – 8.5 votes
Training trainers – a course – a good place to start
Skill sharing – gardening, preserving, cooking, make & mend -informal groups
(happens already in things like garden partners, and all the time in Newent)
Lots of orgs in Forest already – Hartpury, Five Acres, etc – more in vol sector.
Could use schools better as well
Community shops / markets can help with signposting & publicity
Centre for low impact living & low technology?
There is LAG money for this
ACTION: LAG could fund venues, arrange signposting, do publicity
Roger: an audio documentary on conversations between generations
Transition: skill exchange day
Sustainable Wood Supplies eg coppicing – 6.5 votes
Encourage tree planting & coppicing with Forestry Comm & other
landowners – advice on planting, care etc – multi-use trees eg
fruit, forage as well as timber
Sustainable wood businesses: charcoal, furniture, crafts, fencing,
green timber & round timber usage in play areas, barns etc
Talk to Forestry Comm to get % of timber offered to local
companies & residents
Better use of wood – training issues
ACTION: Already of interest to SWRDA and LAG
Transport – 6 votes
Open up railway stations at Newnham & Oakle St, park & ride at Elton &
Highnam & increase rush hour trains from Lydney to reduce traffic on
A40/A48
Small or post bus running round villages
Get bus to stop at Lydney station (and others when open)
'Green thumb' assured hitching scheme using mobile phones
Reduce speed limits? Reduce lorries? Cycle trails for work not leisure?
Car clubs – share costs, reduce usage
Car sharing running but not huge
ACTION: Transition could run a write-in campaign to the County (who run
transport)
Alloments: land purchase – 6 votes
Compulsory purchase of developer's land-banks for allotments
Council agreements/lease land from farmers & other land owners
Existing private arrangements either charging no rent or large
ones
Forest Allotments assn has no allotments – but people busy with
plans who could act as intermediary
LAG could fund a post to follow up leads
Needs more action at LAG
Community Biomass Heating – 4.5 votes
Mainly for new build? - No
Can replace an existing central heating boiler with a wood
pellet/wood chip boiler. Need dry storage space for fuel and a
big hot water tank.
Would need to find a group of interested participants in a village,
finance a large boiler & woodsupply to heat several homes
together – or even a combined heat & power system – using
Forest wood
Already a LAG project
Community Composting: Dean CoCo – 4.5 votes
Link to growing projects (but Newent allotments send their rubbish
to landfill!)
Local champions project failed, green bins to stop... need
something new – it's essential to improve eco footprint in so
many ways (sequesters CO2, replenishes soil fertility,
encourages biodiversity, energy saving, waste management...)
ACTION: put on hold pending new ideas?
Eco Village – A Vision of the Forest of the Future – 4 votes
The forest is potentially an ideal setting for how sustainable
communities of the future might be: forest, farmland, homes
Three stage plan:

Media project with prizes for best vision

Pilot village to demonstrate in practice

Replication across the Forest & elsewhere
Action: John S to discuss with LAG officials, Jacky S to seek
volunteers for action group. LAG funding?
Mini-holdings: very small holding – 4 votes
Needs support groups, to arrange labour swaps, equipment
sharing, marketing, seed swaps, livestock exchanges
Planning rules not helping, need to be able to live on site
Landshare scheme – encourage large landowners to lease land in
small parcels (for significant periods!)
Needs more support at LAG
Tidal Energy Research, Micro Hydro – 3 votes
Local geography makes this viable – Forest could be a centre of
excellence & knowledge.
Already at least 4 projects: Dean Heritage, Angiddy, Harts Barn,
Parkend stonecutters – so get them together & run an event,
invite suppliers to exhibition
Could work efficiently with ground-source heating – group
projects, community owned resource
Non-starter at LAG, must try harder
Mapping the big picture: What's going on, where are the
resources, where are the problems – 2.5 votes
Almost impossible to get it all in one place – Wiki2 could help
Need a “university of transition” in the Forest
Need to find out where things are coming from as well as where they are
going to – explore beginnings as well as ends and means
Awareness on 4 fronts: The negatives, community building
(relationships, people), projects about sustainability, personal
transformation and engagement
This is a LAG requirement – they need the baseline information and lots
of it is missing
ACTION: get a small group of experts together to start the thinking
Local markets: food, services, crafts – 2 votes
Have existing group (Country Markets) – is money needed?
Boast about “buying local”
Village stores & markets
Community shop in Coleford – negotiations pending – we need to
write a plan, LAG could pay the rent?
Not specifically in LAG plan
Local Currencies – 2 votes
Lewes has working local currency helping over 100 businesses
There is a time banking scheme in the County that isnt very active at the
moment – attractive to county council because it can help provide social care
services
The test: would Tesco's trade with local currency? (hope not!)
We have a project to create & launch a new type of currency combining the
best aspects of complementary currencies, called a ROC (Robust Currency
system) – supported by Bernard Lietaer.
Lots of potential here – money is energy
It would develop the local economy
Not on the economic plan at the moment