Firstly, a big thank you to everyone that attended and contributed at the Climate Change workshop on the 19th, it was great to see many passionate and committed villagers and also thanks for the input from others who could not make it on the evening.
We had some 10 or so villagers from across the parish turn up, varying in ages from under 16 to over 60. After a brief introduction we spent about an hour and a half brainstorming and discussing potential ideas for addressing climate risks that we could carry out locally and that would make a difference in five key areas of Transport, Energy, Waste, Food and Nature.
There were some 20+ ideas, that varied from things as simple as tree planning to as complex as setting up our own community energy supply company. None were ruled out at this stage and all ideas were captured and discussed by the group. The ideas included; a segregated central recycling facility, local food waste collection for the anaerobic digestion plant, a digital community hub covering all aspects of climate change to provide advice and support, a service to allow sharing of unwanted but serviceable items, an “Eco-friendly” dry goods/cleaning products buying club, a study of the feasibility of solar power for some of the communal village buildings, a flood study for the village flood “hot spots”, further allotment space, a monthly community market of local produce held somewhere central, a community wide exhibition to help educate on the things that can be done locally to help tackle climate change and a bug hotel on Herriard Green amongst others.
The group that met last week, together with the wider Parish Council, will now review the full list of potential actions and look at some way of grouping and shortlisting them so that we can take some forward. Not all may be practical but I am sure many will be. Once this is completed we will let people know what we are planning next and will update you all at future Parish Council meetings and here on Facebook.
Thanks again to everyone who attended or input and if anyone else is interested in getting more involved in this initiative, please contact either Gill Hill (Chair@herriard-pc.gov.uk) or Simon Wills (simon@herriard-pc.gov.uk).