CARBON NEUTRAL STENTON now registered as a social enterprise limited company that is working towards Stenton becoming carbon neutral.
In order to ensure that everyone is kept as well informed as possible we have put together a short summary of what was presented at the recent public meeting, of where we are to date. This will be followed soon by a more in depth document.
We carried out a door to door survey asking if the community would support a drive towards lower carbon living.
Of the households visited (76.7%), 92% supported the project.
Already, over half the households in the village have had free energy audits and are receiving advice on grants and ways to reduce energy for heating and lighting. This is ongoing and people are still invited to request an audit.
From a sample of audits we have estimated that Stenton as a community has twice the UK average carbon footprint!
People felt that it is right to do something proactive towards improving the environment we are leaving for our children and grandchildren.
People are worried about household energy bills. We have no gas in the village and some of us have houses that are hard to heat.
To begin with we aim to set up our own village wind turbine so that we can put green electricity into the grid to offset what we use. This could generate a substantial income which the company will use to fund individual renewables, green heating sources for all etc. More ambitious ideas include a possible district heating scheme, fitting photovoltaic panels to roofs, help with insulation, maybe setting up an electric car pool.
Progress so far:
Having extensively researched options to finance a turbine, and we are pursuing several options.
The wind turbine would be about 50 metres high and we are looking at a number of different potential sites, At this stage the best site we have been offered in terms of wind and access to the grid, is on Ruchlaw West Mains land (see X on the map below).
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We will shortly be preparing a planning application and we are investigating grid access.
Planning officers are being predictably difficult at this stage. However, East Lothian councillors, MSPs and the government in general, are very keen for this type of community initiative to go ahead. The Scottish Government has set very ambitious targets for carbon reduction and this will only be achieved if the market is stimulated both locally and nationally. Stenton will have to be the test case that drives forward the need for a council policy on this very important issue, and already our project is expected to be a model that can be rolled out elsewhere.
We will therefore soon begin a programme of lobbying relevant politicians and will eventually include the media in the campaign. Stenton will in this way take a lead in this very important issue of communities taking initiatives.
Timing
After feasibility studies are done, the planning process completed, which includes a 12 week consultation process, we estimate we can have a turbine in place in one year. As soon as it is up we will have the money coming in to begin making the more ambitious changes and in a few years time we will all be able to reduce our overall power costs substantially, while addressing our exceptionally heavy usage and reduce our collective massive carbon footprint.
What happens next?
We will prepare an initial ‘pack’ to present to planners and will apply for permission to put up a ‘Met Mast’ on the proposed site, so that we can begin monitoring the wind. As soon as possible, and after visual information and other data is collated, we will present our planning application to the council. At this stage we will know what sort of task we have to tackle.
We need you to sign up as members of the company, which will require no obligations, but will give you voting rights at general meetings and include you in all the benefits of the project. We would also like volunteers to deliver leaflets and help keep everyone up to date with what’s going on. We need as many people as possible to have a free energy audit done and to help us prove that Stenton really means business in reducing our carbon output.
We need groups to be involved - already the school eco group is keen to get active.
The Website is soon to be activated and your input will be encouraged. We will be making all efforts to keep everyone up to date with developments and your ideas are needed!
For more information contact:
Ettie Spencer, Project Manager on 850 712 – The Old Post Office
Or any of the Directors: Nicky Hawkins 850 639, Derek McLean 850 367, Rodger Maguire 850 643 and Verity Sinclair 850 316
Coming soon. www.carbonneutralstenton.co.uk
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