A solution to inner city living?

How might you meet the demand for ‘grow-your-own’ within dense urban areas where available land is scarce? What-if: projects together with local residents of an inner city housing estate in Shoreditch have come up with a novel solution: grow your greens in a bag.

A formerly inaccessible and run-down plot of housing estate land has been transformed into a beautiful oasis of green. Seventy 1/2 tonne bags of soil have been arranged to form an allotment space. Within their individual plots, local residents are carefully tending a spectacular array of vegetables, salads, fruit and flowers. A new sense of community has emerged.

May 1st – June 21st 2008
VACANT LOT will be part of the Love London Festival
Love London is London’s greenest annual festival, celebrating projects and organisations that are making a real contribution to creating a more sustainable capital.

20th June – 20th July 2008
VACANT LOT will be part of the London Festival of Architecture, focusing on the theme of “FRESH”.

Coming Soon
VACANT LOT on BBC Gardeners World

More on VACANT LOT

If you’re one of those people who’s prone to lightbulb moments, when a bright idea pops into your head when you least expect it, your time has come. NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, has launched the Big Green Challenge, a nationwide competition to come up with innovative ways of reducing CO₂ emissions in the community by 60%.

The £1 million prize fund is designed to encourage and reward people working together to develop new approaches to saving energy. So, the competition is only open to organisations or groups of people. These will need to be formally constituted as ‘not-for-profit‘, although newly formed groups can apply for this status later.

Ten finalists will have a year to turn their ideas into action. The winner will be announced in late 2009. The first stage of applications closes at the end of February, so get together and get those thinking caps on.

Individuals can’t enter, so if anyone wants a partner for this challenge please let me know. I give great brainstorm, and I’m so easy to work with

A new community-owned hydro power project has launched a share offer today. Torrs Hydro New Mills Ltd plans to install new hydro-electric technology in the 200 year old weir at the Torrs in New Mills, Derbyshire. The company, a joint venture between Water Power Enterprises and High Peak Friends of the Earth, is an ‘Industrial and Provident Society’ which was officially formed in September 2007. It has four founding directors and has now launched a share offer to help raise £126,000 for the project. Each share will cost £1 with a minimum shareholding of £250 and a maximum of £20,000. Shareholders will get a “modest” rate of interest on the shares, but most of the profit from the project will go as grants for regeneration and environmental projects in the New Mills area.

The hydro project, only the second of its kind to be installed in the UK, will generate enough green electricity for 140 homes, as well as cash to fund local regeneration schemes. It uses a modernised version of a 2000 year old Greek invention – the Archimedean screw – to generate energy. The technology is very efficient at generating electricity from weirs, and has huge potential for installation in other old mill sites throughout the region.

Richard Body of High Peak Friends of the Earth said:

“This region’s got an abundance of water power which can deliver pollution-free energy. By investing in the regeneration of these old hydro sites we can do our bit to tackle climate change and regenerate our communities at the same time. However we also need to see the Government do much more to help renewable technologies such this flourish in the UK. They can start by introducing a strong climate change law which commits the UK to cutting its carbon dioxide emissions by at least 3 percent a year.”

Prospectus (available by download from Saturday 24th November 2007)

High Peak FoE Press releases

Water Power Enterprises

My colleague Matt has recently spoken out against the doom ‘n’ gloom merchants: “Try smiling. Think positive. Get positive. Make changes. Get involved.” Five years, that’s all we’ve got …

It’s true that for every disaster that might befall us, there’s a group taking an almost pornographic delight in talking about it as if it’s inevitable. Current favourites are climate change, terrorism, a ‘flu pandemic, Peak Oil and global financial meltdown. What steps you take depends on who you are and where you live. In the USA, you buy a remote stronghold and stock up on beans, bullets and band-aids. In the UK, you queue outside your bank and treat yourself to a beige cardigan from M&S.

Well, here’s a bunch of people who are really putting their money where their mouth is. The Lammas community is creating an ecovillage in Pembrokeshire which will become a demonstration model for low impact living.

“We aim to combine the best of the old with the best of the new. Our project is based on the traditional welsh smallholding model. To this we will also bring the latest developments in environmental design, green technology and permaculture. We are currently applying for planning permission for stage 1 of the project. We are optimistic that we will succeed.
“The proposal is for a new settlement of eco-smallholdings. It will be sited on 175 acres of mixed pasture and woodland next to the village of Glandwr. The Ecovillage will be completely independent of all mains services. All water will be sourced from the site using a combination of an existing spring for drinking water and rainwater harvesting from rooftops. All electricity will be produced on site using renewables. Fortunately there is an existing water turbine system on site which Lammas plans to renovate. All organic waste will be composted on site using a combination of compost toilets, wormeries and compost heaps.
“In accordance with Pembrokeshire Planning Policy for Low Impact Development residents will need to demonstrate that they are substantially meeting their household needs directly from the land. In practice this means that the people involved will need to be working the land to good effect. Lammas residents are proposing a range of livelihoods from the land including woodland crafts, horticulture, tree nurseries, livestock and woollen crafts.”

This group deserves all the praise and support they can get, as does the Pembrokeshire local authority, currently the only county in the UK with a low-impact policy (if you don’t count Milton Keynes!). Will their ideas and ideals enter the mainstream? I wish.

Lammas Home Page

A Low Impact Woodland Home

September 14-16: Clean Up the World Weekend 2007

Clean Up the World Weekend is an annual campaign supported by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The campaign encourages individuals and communities to clean up, repair and conserve the environment. Organizers estimate 35 million people from more than 120 countries will take part, in activities ranging from tree planting to educational talks.

www.cleanuptheworld.org

September 26-28: Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, New York

The Clinton Global Initiative is former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s initiative to tackle poverty, climate change, religious conflict and governance. The themes of the 2007 Annual Meeting will be education, climate change, global health and poverty alleviation.

www.clintonglobalinitiative.org

October 25: UNEP Global Environment Outlook

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) will release its annual flagship report, the Global Environment Outlook (GEO), on the state of the world’s environment.

www.unep.org/geo

November 5: Solar Plane Prototype unveiled, Zurich, Switzerland

The Zurich-based Solar Impulse project will unveil part of its prototype solar-powered plane to the press. The project aims to circumnavigate the world in 2010/11 using a solar powered aircraft.

www.solarimpulse.com

November 16: IPCC Final Report

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases its final 2007 report, examining the scale, impact and action plan for global warming.

www.ipcc.ch

The Landmatters Co-op, an eco-settlement in South Devon, has won its appeal against an enforcement notice served by the local district council after retrospective planning permission had been refused.

Members of the co-op moved to the 42 acre site near Allaleigh, ten miles from Totnes, two years ago. The community of ten adults and three children lives in yurts, benders and other timber-framed buildings. They grow their own food, compost and recycle all their own waste, use water from a borehole and generate power from solar panels and a wind turbine.

The alleged breach of planning control was “a material change of use of the land without planning permission from agriculture to a permaculture holding comprising a mixed use integrating agriculture, forestry, education and ancillary rural enterprises and residential use”. The requirements of the notice were:

• Cease the use of the land for residential purposes
• Cease the use of the land for the parking overnight of motor vehicles
• Remove from the land all unauthorised residential structures and structures erected for a use ancillary to a residential use.

At the appeal, the planning inspector endorsed the permaculture aspect of the settlement, noting that the group’s ecological footprint is far smaller than the regional average*. The permission granted is subject to a low-impact assessment. The inspector concluded that “the advantage of permaculture and sustainable ways of living facilitated by this project has sufficient potential value to outweigh the limited harm to other interests”.

If you read the full findings, it’s obvious that this was a very pragmatic decision. If the appeal was denied and the residential component of the settlement was removed, other (legal) activities already associated with the site would continue, resulting in many of the ‘harmful’ effects cited by the council in justifying its enforcement notice.

This is a victory for Landmatters, but don’t expect to be able to bypass planning laws at will just by sticking a ‘permaculture’ sign on the gate. This was a special case, which succeeded only with the help of an unusual dose of common sense from the appeal inspector.

* The Landmatters ecological footprint is approximately 46% of that of a typical UK citizen. Their average carbon footprint is 3.6 tonnes compared to the UK average of 10.92 tonnes. This far exceeds the Stern Report’s recommended target of a 30% CO2 emissions cut by 2020. Landmatters have already achieved the 60% target cut in emissions recommended by the Report for 2050.

[slideshare id=32915&doc=sustainable-food-lab-6679&w=425]

Recently, The Coffee House has given coverage to Cool Earth, the fundraising initiative to protect the Amazon rainforest (“Cool Earth-revisited“) . While acknowledging the value of the biodiversity within the rainforest, the prime driver for this project is its function as a carbon sink. For between £70 and £100, depending on location, you can ‘buy’ an acre of rainforest and lock in 260 tonnes of CO2.

You don’t really ‘buy’ the land, of course. You don’t own it, you can’t exploit it and you can’t sell it. If you go out to have a picnic on it, you get pilloried for the air miles and emissions associated with getting there. So basically, you are giving a charitable donation. From Cool Earth’s Terms and Conditions:

“Cool Earth Action is not offering for sale any land or biomass. Donors will not receive title to the land sponsored or to the ‘emissions reductions’ achieved by any of Cool Earth Action’s projects.”

I’m not knocking Cool Earth, but when it was suggested that The Coffee House team club together to sponsor their own corporate acre, I had reservations. My doubts were crystallised when an appeal letter from the Woodland Trust, a charity working to protect and expand native woodlands in the UK, came through the letterbox.

Woodland Trust have 3 months to raise £750,000 to acquire 649 acres of Brede High Woods, a large complex of ancient woods and heathland in East Sussex. A designated Site of Nature Conservation Interest within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Brede High Woods contain a rich mosaic of habitats, including rare heathland, and an astounding variety of threatened and unusual species.

This irreplaceable landscape will be parcelled up and auctioned off to private bidders if the £750,000 target is not met. It may be a little strong for the Woodland Trust to say that “ancient woodland is our rainforest”, but it’s probably the closest we can get. If we fail to act to protect sites such as this on our own doorstep, how can we justify sending our money halfway round the world to manipulate the use of natural resources in Brazil? And should we really be surprised when the locals say we should put our own house in order before telling them how to run theirs?