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