Sustainable September - events in Abbotswood and nearby

Abbotswood Action Group have announced their programme of events for "Sustainable September" - there's lots to interest all the family. The first event is this Sunday, 1st September:  “Lines In The Landscape: A time trail walk exploring how people and nature interconnect in our modern town and countryside” The walk will set off from outside St Nicholas Church, Abbotswood at 2 pm.

A walk of about two hours at a gentle pace from Abbotswood to Wapley Bushes and back. Discover disused streams and ancient hedges in the built-up area, and see how wildlife and people use pathways, beelines and wildlife corridors in the Nature Reserve. Please wear suitable footwear and dress according to the weather.

If you’re interested, other events during the month include wildlife talks and a Bicycle Safari (think “nature ramble on wheels”)

Renewable energy

It was good to see the new wind turbines installed at Avonmouth recently. They're certainly an impressive sight - this photo was taken from Portishead.

In the meantime, we're doing our bit to make small-scale renewable energy cheaper. A while ago a £50 fee was introduced for people wanting advice about permitted development - in other words, whether or not you need to put in a planning application. It turned out that they were even charging for advice on applying to put in solar panels and the like - just the wrong message when you want to encourage them! Now, after pressure by Lib Dem councillors, the charge has been removed completely for advice on renewable energy proposals.

P.S. Those wind turbines weren't the first renewable energy project at Avonmouth. Back in the Eighties the Wessex Water sewage treatment works, which generates electricity from methane, was connected to the mains network. The Evening Post headline at the time was "Power from the people"!

Climate Change as entertainment?

After Dodington Parish Council showed Al Gore's climate change film "An Inconvenient Truth" locally, we asked Steve Webb to try to get it shown on network television. He's received a reply from the BBC's Deputy Director-General as follows:

"While I am sorry to disappoint Councillor Hulbert and his colleagues on the Council, I must report that at the moment the BBC has no plans to broadcast this film. I understand however that it is considered likely that it will indeed receive an airing on national television in due course"

We suspect this means that someone like Channel 4 got in first.

However according to the newspapers the BBC is planning a big show provisionally entitled "Planet Relief" for January 2008, maybe with Ricky Gervais and Jonathan Ross. Instead of asking for donations, the idea is to get people to switch off all unwanted gadgets. The floodlighting on major landmarks will also be switched off. They hope to be able to switch off a major power station with the electricity saved.

There has been criticism that this is not the sort of activity that the BBC should be involved in. The editor of the BBC's own Newsnight programme, Peter Barron said it was "not the corporation's job to save the planet" ( Daily Mail, 27 August )

But isn't this one reason why we have public broadcasters? To "inform, educate and entertain", as their mission statement says?

Anyway, if this sort of show isn't to your taste, you could still join in - switch off the TV instead and save a bit more energy!

P.S. It must be better than yesterday evening. At midnight BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 were all showing films at the same time - not a scrap of original programming on terrestrial TV.

Start local and save the world?

Paul Hulbert and Mike Gregory at Abbotswood
with energy saving light bulbs

Dodington Parish Council has arranged a FREE showing of Al Gore’s film about global warming “An Inconvenient Truth” at St Nicholas Church, Abbotswood, Yate on Saturday 12 May at 7 pm.

The former Vice-President’s award-winning documentary discusses the global problem of climate change and what we as individuals can do to reduce our impact.

Parish Council chairman Mike Gregory said “The environment is a major theme of our work on Dodington Parish Council. If we each do a little bit to ‘walk more gently upon the earth’ we may be able to avoid the consequences of global warming”

Cllr Paul Hulbert, chairman of the council’s Environment Committee, commented “The keys to this issue are local action and raising awareness. The next generation won’t thank us if we just ignore this major problem. We have to do something now to tackle it. We hope to see lots of local people at St Nick’s to start the ball rolling”.

There will also be information available on the night on ways to reduce carbon emissions and become more energy efficient, including an opportunity for people to pledge to take action.

The film is being shown thanks to support from St Nicholas Church, the Thornbury Picture House and South Gloucestershire Council. Tickets are limited, so people are asked to ring Dodington Parish Council on 01454 866546 to make sure of getting seats.

We read it there first - Steve Webb's blog and the Sustainable Communities Bill

Blogging is a good way of keeping people up to date. Yesterday Steve Webb's blog reported the debate on the Sustainable Communities Bill at least an hour before it was reported on Radio 4.

This Private Member's Bill, which has wide cross-party support, aims to give communities powers to tackle issues like the closure of post offices and independent shops, and threats to build on valued green spaces.

To take one example, between 1999 and 2004 no fewer than 3700 post offices closed - that's one in five. Many closed because the Government took services away and made them uneconomic. Other local post offices closed because the shops they were in were taken over by big supermarket chains that didn't want to run post offices. Now the Government is talking about closing up to another 2500.

But will the Government give this bill parliamentary time, or will they kill it off? (like they did with the recent bill to bring mobile phone masts under normal planning controls) - we'll have to see.

To read more about the Sustainable Communities Bill, click here.