Hydro-power in Wiltshire, Yorkshire, Somerset, Devon – and now Hall Green, Birmingham?

Until the 1950s many towns and villages generated electricity using water wheels. Most were disconnected with the post-war expansion of the national grid, but there are still 20,000 sites in the UK that could be used to harness river and stream power to help to meet Government renewable energy targets. 

When the writer visited Sarehole Mill, in Hall Green years ago, she  met the miller who was grinding flour.

She admired the setting and the building. The huge water-wheel, mill gears and grinding stones and bakehouse were an impressive sight. 

It was a great pleasure to read this month that – with a grant of  £50,000 from Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery Development Trust – work will be done on the mill’s waterwheel so that it can be connected to a motor and generate hydroelectric power for nearby houses. 

Other work is needed: three broken sluice gates must be replaced and the mill pond desilted, but other projects around the country show that with determination this one also could be successful. 

In 2010, the Government’s Feed In Tariff was extended to domestically generated hydro-electric power and there are loans from several organisations, such as the Energy Saving Trust, enabling householders to borrow money to install a turbine or water wheel. 

Some years ago the writer met Paul Lysley, a farmer who wanted to restore the old mill leat to produce electricity at Colham Mill in Wiltshire and also spoke to a member of the South Somerset Hydropower Group which is dedicated to bringing back mills into working condition. 

With help from the local district council and part-funded by the Energy Saving Trust, this group has been installing new turbines, restoring blocked water-courses and repairing sluice gates in order to generate electricity.

The first community-owned micro-hydropower project (2009) now provides half the electricity needed in Derbyshire Co-operative Group’s food store. store, using the River Goyt’s fast flow. Grants were made by the Co-operative Fund and the Co-operative Bank. The Co-op plans to extend this support to other micro-hydro schemes across the country. 

The Co-operative’s Yorkshire project at Bridge End Weir in Settle will use a modernised version of a 2,000-year-old Greek invention – the Archimedes screw, which easily pumps water to higher level – to generate electricity. 

Hydro-electric projects have advantages over wind power, generating electricity whatever the weather. In October 2010, Climate Change Minister Greg Barker explained: ‘Our ambition is to have local communities, families and households generating their own energy and one of the most overlooked sources is water.’ 

David Timms, Friends of the Earth, said the scheme ‘means we can use part of our industrial and pre-industrial heritage to create a low-carbon economy for the 21st century’.

The Clevedon Community Bookshop Co-operative

 A new community run bookshop – the first of its kind in North Somerset – has opened in Clevedon.

 

After the retirement of the owner of Clevedon’s only second-hand book shop in Copse Road, residents, members of the Clevedon Society of Friends and Transition Clevedon formed the Clevedon Community Bookshop Co-operative. 

Local residents flocked to the launch meeting of the new business buying £3,000 worth of shares and offering £7,900 in interest-free loans. The business has also been given £1,500 from Co-operative Action Ltd, taking their total to £12,400.

£20,000 is needed to renovate and refurbish the store. 

The Clevedon Mercury reports that members contacted the Plunkett Foundation, which supports such community initiatives and through the Co-operative Business Hub were offered the services of a member of staff from the Co-operative Development Agency in Bristol. 

For several months, members have worked with agency staff to register the co-operative with the Financial Services Authority and to develop a business and funding plan for the bookshop. 

Members have already spent £8,000 on buying around 8,000 books and shelving for the shop and it is ultimately hoped to stock around 16,000 titles. 

A prime mover is Angela Everitt who used to run a bookshop cafe in Wigtown – Scotland’s national booktown – in Dumfries and Galloway for 12 years. Ms Everitt, secretary of Clevedon Community Bookshop Co-operative, said: “It is intended that, as a social enterprise, the bookshop will be sustainable. It will generate turnover to cover ongoing costs such as rent, rates, stock purchase and heating and lighting. 

“To enhance turnover, books will also be sold on the internet as well as from the shop. Members of the co-operative, including the management group, will work in a voluntary capacity for and in the bookshop. Any surplus over and above ongoing costs will be ploughed back into the bookshop to further develop its stock and improve the shop.”

TRANSFORMING VENEZUELAN AGRICULTURE – the ultimate goal is food sovereignty

In January 2011, President Hugo Chavez launched Mission Agro Venezuela to manage the transition from a profit driven, exploitative food production system to one based on solidarity among producers, sustainable cultivation of a variety of regional crops and participatory decision-making. 

According to Jose Guerrero, regional coordinator for Mission Agro Venezuela, the mission’s strategy is to purchase idle lands from large estate owners and transfer these lands to collectively organized farmers. 

Then it coordinates training and low-interest financing for networks of farmers – not individuals – and provides these groups with low-cost fertilizers, irrigation materials, and other supplies through Agropatria, the state’s agricultural supplies organisation, which will assist in  developing distribution networks with the aim of creating “Venezuela’s own model of production”

“We are in the tropics. We have to move away from the Anglo-Saxon food system that was established in South America, a model based on four seasons that do not occur here. That model is totally contrary to our own. We also need to substitute agro-toxins for sustainable agricultural inputs, Guerrero told Correo del Orinoco International. 

The ultimate goal is food sovereignty 

The ultimate goal, Guerrero said, is food sovereignty – the country’s ability to autonomously satisfy 100% of its food needs. One of the main challenges to achieving this goal is the arduous process of “constructing new social relations of production . . .What will be the relationship between those who produce and those who consume? What will be the relationship between the industry and the producers, and in whose hands will the means of production lie – in a few hands or in the collective, with all the people?” 

To spur this process of transformation, the government has designated particular areas where the farmers are especially well-organized to be “motor districts”, providing an example and helping to promote the new model of production in other parts of the country. 

Mission Agro Venezuela released a public record of its achievements since its inception eight months ago 

Finance plans include 105,000 credits granted by the Agricultural Development Fund  FONDAS and the state-owned Agrarian Bank of Venezuela; 14,000 credits for machinery, tractors, and other harvesting tools; and the free provision of services such as immunizations for cattle, irrigation systems, and assistance in pest control. 

Approximately 775,000 hectares (1.9 million acres) of land have been put into cultivation of corn, rice, soy, sunflower, green leafy vegetables, sugar cane, coffee, cacao, chicken, eggs, pork, milk, lamb, beef, fish, tuna, and shrimp, Sanchez said. Juan Carlos Jimenez, president of the state-run Venezuelan Food Corporation (CVAL), reported that the government has purchased one million tons of food from small and medium sized farms in the states of Lara, Zulia, Tachira, and Trujillo, helping to spur local production.

Small-scale, low-tech farming shown in a picture taken from a widely read and comprehensive article by Australian Alan Broughton following a visit to Venezuela.  

Venezuela has signed 55 international cooperation agreements that include the transfer of technological expertise, intellectual property, and machinery in order to empower Venezuelan producers and reduce dependency. 

A new campaign to promote urban agriculture 

Meanwhile, another government institution called the Foundation for Training and Innovation to Support the Agrarian Revolution (CIARA), announced it would launch a new campaign to promote urban agriculture. Below: growing food by the Caracas Hilton.

 

“Urban agriculture is an alternative in the cities, to take advantage of those under-utilized spaces in order to produce foods that are free of agrotoxins”, said CIARA President Martha Bolivar. “Let’s plant seeds in our own spaces, produce our own foods, get information in the Agriculture and Land Ministry… and make the urban agriculture explosion”. Bolivar said food produced in urban areas could be consumed by its producers or commercialized in urban communities in Venezuela’s largest cities, including Caracas, Maracay, Valencia, Maracaibo, San Cristobal, Puerto la Cruz, La Guaira, and Barcelona. 

Read more:

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6578 

http://www.cityfarmer.info/2008/01/23/caracas-venezuela-embraces-city-gardening-for-improved-nutrition-jobs/#more-89 

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/tag/venezuela-land-redistribution/

Phoenix Community Housing Co-operative

First published today on the Concerned Co-operators website.  

Cheering news from Co-operative and Community Finance, which “provides sympathetic loan finance to help people take control of their economic lives and create social benefit”.

CCF is helping to finance an innovative property refurbishment project in East London by Phoenix Community Housing Co-operative, set up in 1980 and now providing low cost rental accommodation to about 300 people in Hackney and Tower Hamlets. 

Loans from the Community Capital Fund and the Co-operative Loan Fund will be used to buy materials and employ two members of staff (site manager and training co-ordinator).  Phoenix will then use the rent collected from the new tenants to repay the loans. 

The nine studio flats to be refurbished, owned by Poplar Housing Association (HARCA), are in Spey Street, Tower Hamlets.  In return HARCA will provide Phoenix with a seven-year lease on the flats and a reduced licence fee.

 Similar flats in Spey Street

This is the second project in its Housing Plus scheme set up two years ago, which aims to refurbish disused property, providing affordable homes for people on low incomes and giving training and work experience.  

The properties have been empty for nearly 10 years and require a complete refit including new kitchens, bathrooms, damp proofing and heating systems.  The work will be done by volunteers from the co-operative and external trainees who are seeking to develop their professional skills and experience. 

Carlita McKnight, Housing Plus Development Manager, said: “We expect to provide on the job training in a wide range of practical, construction based skills to at least 30 people over the next six months and at the end of it there will be nine more flats providing good quality accommodation.”

LOCAL FOOD HUB IN STROUD

 

 

Stroudco, registered as a ‘community interest company’, started with a public meeting in Stroud on 31^st October 2006. 

It was started by two ‘activists’ who  were involved in setting up Stroud Community Agriculture (a Community Supported Agriculture enterprise) and this experience gave them the confidence and inspiration to set up Stroudco. 

Stroudco provides local people with a new way of buying good food and drink at fair prices for consumers and producers. 

It also makes a real connection between consumers and farms and other local places producing food and drink. 

This connection provides everyone involved with control, understanding, awareness, education, social links, nourishment and fun. 

See this short film for an insight to Stroudco: 

 Stroudco – Local Food Distribution  

Principles 

• Provide affordable, locally-produced food to people in Stroud
• Give producer members access to a local market at higher than wholesale prices.
• Build supportive and understanding links between producers and consumers
• Develop food culture and community strength 

 

The Ecologist: The StroudCo food hub allows local producers to sell to customers at better prices, whilst shoppers get a keener deal than they would in the supermarket.

 

Stroud Food Hub is a not-for-profit, democratic social enterprise

People Power in Balsall Heath

Many years ago the Edward Road area was familiar to the writer, a volunteer at Trinity Centre with Sr. Magdalen of Mary Road. She remembers returning at night and seeing very young girls on the streets, also watching Christine Parkinson’s valiant years setting up the Jericho Foundation and being given a tour of the ‘positives’ in the area by Dick Atkinson, who was a co-founder of Balsall Heath Forum. Most notable was the city farm and St Paul’s School, which was particularly impressive in the way it inspired children who had not prospered in other schools.

Since then we read:

•  Crime is down by 45%
• Street corner prostitution has ended.
• 66% of residents say the quality of life is improving.
• House values have risen.
• Businesses are thriving in Ladypool Rd, Moseley Rd and Edward Road
• There are 22 residents groups, 50 voluntary organisations and half the population participates in voluntary activity.
• Service providers from the statutory and voluntary sector have formed a Neighbourhood Strategic Partnership. 

However, it is pointed out that Balsall Heathans still die seven years sooner than the Birmingham average and educational and other statistics show there is still a mountain to climb. 

Dick Atkinson said, memorably, that Birmingham should be divided into its original ten villages and his thinking might well have influenced the council’s decision to devolve key services such as parks, leisure and housing from the centre to each of eleven districts – and, beyond them, to neighbourhoods like Balsall Heath. 

More information can be found on the Balsall Heath Forum website, though its ‘Last News’ section is dated 2006 . . .  

                                                                                                                                                        

John Newson, who recently advocated safe cycling corridors, also sent good news about an enterprise there: Balsall Heath is Our Planet [BHIOP] which lists the forum as one of its partners. 

BHIOP, a community initiative that aims to cut the carbon emissions of our inner city neighbourhood, has an Action Plan for reducing the environmental footprint of the area and John is its Development Officer, based at Jericho Foundation. 

Its objectives for Balsall Heath include: 

• Reduce the emission of carbon dioxide from our burning of fossil fuels, as a contribution to a low carbon Birmingham, Britain and world.
• Help those who suffer from cold, hard-to-heat homes and fuel poverty to gain control and become comfortable at an affordable cost.
• Demonstrate the use of renewable energy sources in the area, e.g. solar power.
• Assist community organisations to make their buildings and operations more energy efficient.
• Encourage low impact means of transport; walking, cycling, public transport and responsible car use.
• Reduce the problem of waste by re-use, composting or recycling, and by using wastes to make fuel/ generate energy.
• Grow more food in gardens. 

 

Read more about the project here: http://balsallheathisourplanet.wordpress.com/about/

People power in Solihull

On a sister site appreciation was expressed for the valuable voluntary contributions of four young people to three local organisations, who could not have afforded their professional fees. Without such services their future would have been in doubt.  

The preservation of another fine community building, the Grade II* listed timber-framed Manor House in Solihull High Street, built circa 1495, is due entirely to the the borough’s people. 

 

Remarkably little is known about the history of this building and the story of its ‘rescue’ and preservation for the people of the borough is told thanks to another voluntary contribution, the writing of ‘The Solihull Manor House and its People 1900 to 2000’, by Fred Ritchie. 

The house is thought to have been built for a prosperous merchant and was purchased by Ansell’s brewery in 1938. Plans to convert it into a public house were shelved on the outbreak of the Second World War and the building was used as the local headquarters of the Home Guard. 

In 1945 it was bought by a trust with funds raised through public subscription from local people determined to save the Manor House and local volunteers have continued to maintain the property ever since. As Mr Ritchie wrote, if it had not been for their efforts the fine old house would have been demolished and replaced by a modern retail unit or office block. 

The Manor House has no council funding, as is the practice in Solihull. Though this makes the task of caring for its community centres demanding, when compared with the lavish support given in Birmingham, it does have the advantage of making them independent of sudden grant reductions. 

The writer became a ‘Friend’ of the Manor House many years ago, not only because of its charm but also because it had a telephone – this before mobile phones were in general use and a spate of vandalism was putting most public call boxes out of action. 

Drawing on the committee’s carefully recorded business papers and other sources, Fred Ritchie writes in great detail about work of volunteers over the years. 

Those involved did sterling work; this was both secretarial and ‘hands on’: cleaning, decorating, repairing and working in the garden, forming harmonious relationships over a period of years. 

The writer only met two of these volunteers, many years ago: Mario Bryanston, who set up Solihull Film Society, and Miss Joyce  Griffiths, who was, in her 80s, resisting the demolition of old houses in the town centre – including her own cottage – to make way for a supermarket. It was good to see that a room in the Manor House has been named after her – a well merited tribute.

Without labelling it as such, these volunteers and their counterparts all over the country have been realising the Cameron ‘Big Society’ vision.

 

Safe Cycling Corridors

 

By John Newson.

First published in the Birmingham Press earlier this month and reproduced with the author’s consent.

 

The public always say in surveys that it is “danger from traffic” that deters them from cycling – “especially in Birmingham”. 

We have had a test of this for many years with the Rea Valley Cycle route. This uses Cannon Hill Park and other green spaces to get cyclists all the way into the city – largely protected from traffic. The result is truly impressive. Although it is used for leisure rides on Sundays, the route is actually busiest in the peak commuting times of Mon-Fri at 8-9am and 5-6pm. The Rea Valley is the opposite of an arterial road with its buses, lorries, bursts of traffic roaring away from the lights, and strings of engineered roundabouts. It should not be surprising that people’s behaviour is quite different – feeling safe, they ride bicycles. 

In parts of Moseley and Balsall Heath, many streets are blocked off, as “no through roads”. This was done in the 1980s, to prevent kerb crawling by the customers of street prostitutes. Vehicles are few and don’t have a chance to get up speed. The result isn’t surprising – this is the area of the city with the most cyclists. Residents like the author [pictured] enjoy the peace and quiet, there are more pedestrians, children playing, songs of birds – everything that heavy traffic drives away has returned. 

Last September, the Sky Ride closed off a line of streets one Sunday right into the city centre. What appeared were 15,000 cyclists. Brummies own bikes, they are just too scared to mix with traffic on them. Behaviour is rational and consistent. Cycling is cheap, healthy and enjoyable but the demand, as economists say, is suppressed.

The conclusion seems obvious. We cannot put in a complete system of cycle ways as well as the street network – there isn’t room and it would cost too much. Therefore, some parts of the street network have to lose their through-traffic function. They can be blocked off with tubs of flowers and wooden railings. It doesn’t have to cost much. They would admit vehicles to properties, just no through routes for traffic. For cyclists and walkers they would provide chains of safer streets running parallel to the ‘A’ roads and bus routes. As a matter of fact, the City Council’s Walking and Cycling Map has already drawn them in. 

One can hear the highway engineers cry – you can’t do that, it’s a loss of highway capacity, where will we put all the traffic, there will be intolerable congestion etc. This ignores the fact that a good proportion of journeys by car are actually really short ones. They could be walked or cycled, except that as we have said, these feel like unsafe and unattractive options. Provide safe cycling corridors and there will be substantial “modal shift” to bicycles which require less space than cars. 

Birmingham isn’t particularly hilly or rainy. On such safer corridors, we could have the levels of cycling seen in north European cities, with enormous benefits. Women, children, teenagers, older people could cycle – it would no longer have the profile of a dangerous sport. They would get independent access to the city, instead of generating lots of short ‘taxi’ and ‘escort’ car journeys. The long exodus from Birmingham might be reversed, as you would no longer have to move out to find peace and quiet. Living near to work might return. People might find they didn’t need to own so many cars. Demotorisation could set in. Not bad for some strategically sited tubs of flowers… # 

.

If you enjoyed reading this, go to John’s paper The Real Cost of Transport.

Update: Stroud Community Agriculture

 

News following on from the first post in January.

Sam reports that Class three from Wynstones came to work on the farm through the year. This is a rewarding experience for both class three and me alike. It’s great to see these youngsters getting stuck into their work with such commitment. Class nine also came for two days and completed all the jobs I had assigned them in record time. We have plans to reseed some fields at Brookthorpe to help with the fodder shortages and an increase in the vegetable growing area.

Mark adds vegetable news: 

  

As well as the weather related problems we had two major pest problems, leek moth and cabbage root fly. The leek moth destroyed two thirds of the leek crop, and the cabbage root fly inhibited growth of the broccoli (but that was killed by the cold anyway).

Crops that were established early grew very well. Our potato crop was the biggest we’ve grown (a bit misshapen maybe), and parsnips, celeriac, squash, and brussel sprouts are just a few of the crops that also did well. We also managed to protect the winter salad from the worst of the cold.  

The SCA AGM was held in March at The Exchange, Brick Row, Stroud. It was followed by a presentation by Martin Large (Stroud Common Wealth and SCA member, Stroud Woodland Co-op) on ‘How can we secure more land e.g. via a proposed Biodynamic Land Trust? He presented the principles of Land Trusts and asked whether the SCA Membership would like to engage in a process of acquiring new farmland through long leasing from such a trust.

For more information go to the SCA website.

Local currency: the Bath Oliver

A cheerful e-message came in March from Brendan Maher:

Hi everyone,

We are printing our own currency called the Oliver and having our launch party on the 21st March. This is a joint venture between Bath LETScheme and Transition Bath, you con find out more here: www.bathlets.org.uk and www.transitionbath.org

We already have 20 businesses signed up to accept the new currency, from home furnishings, to clothes, food, computer supplies and therapies as well as a local pub! 

This was excellent news. Such schemes are greatly enhanced if a range of businesses and individuals become members.

A local councillor wrote:

“The idea is to get more local currency exchange staying in the local economy and also to enable people to sell and share skills and services. Already several local businesses have signed up to taking Olivers.  Indeed the Bell in Walcot street has agreed to take 100% Olivers when buying drinks in the pub.”

Angela Ladd, chairman of Bath’s Small Business Focus group – said:

“Anything that encourages localism is great and I would like to see the whole community joining in on it. “I think it’s absolutely great and hope we will be seeing more about it.”

Participating businesses include a green stationery company, a pub, a printing press, wood floor cleaner, deli, café, curtain fittings, books, greengrocers, printer ink and computer consumables, second-hand & antique furniture, clothes and accessories, Mediterranean tapas, cheeses, chutneys and preserves, website design and a fruit & veg box scheme.

On the left: a picture taken at the launch of the Bath Oliver.

The alternative currency is already working well in Devon where the Totnes pound has increased customers for around 70 companies in the area who accept this as payment.

See also the Stroud pound here.

 COMMENT

I love the idea of this, waiting for someone to come up with the Shropshire Shilling.