Incinerator Planning Application January 16, 2008
Posted by Philip in : Resource Group News , 1 comment so farViridor have now lodged their planning application for an ‘energy from waste’ incinerator at Oxwellmains. They are proposing that this should take all municipal and a large amount of commercial waste from Edinburgh, the Lothians, the Borders and beyond. This completely goes against our philosophy of seeking local solutions and of working for a zero waste community and won’t even make efficient use of the energy in the waste.
You have until the middle of March to lodge an objection. To find out how to do this and for more information, please visit the IRATE website
Please do this now! Thank you.
Meeting Notes January 14, 2008
Posted by Philip in : Co-ordination Group News , add a commentIt was agreed should use the evening to
1. remind ourselves of what we are trying to achieve
2. review the past six months, including report backs on the various talks / events and sub- group activities to date.
3. plan our next steps - this should include boring things like the role of a steering group, formalising Sustaining Dunbar’s structure / constitution, as well as awareness raising, training, etc.
Main points
1. We originally set out to
spread understanding of the challenges facing us in the future
arrive at a collective vision of what a zero carbon, zero waste Dunbar area would look like in 10 – 15 years time
think through the implications for us in Dunbar for…food, energy, housing, employment, youth, health, education etc.
We need to
figure out what we need to do now, next year and the year after to make this vision a reality and record this in an ‘Energy Descent’ or Community Plan.
focus on opportunities, solutions and develop a sense of collective purpose and action.
2. Since inception, we’ve had
an envisaging session facilitated by Sue Guy and Sarah …., out of which came the main themes – energy, food, resource use, transport and enterprise and sub-groups have been set up to take these areas forward.
a website and Yahoo group has been set up; the website already has lots of interesting information and links to similar groups in the UK and Ireland. Morag will set up and train somebody from each of the sub-groups so that each group can add information and manage their ‘page’ independent of Morag.
A talk by Ben Brangwyn, co-founder of the Transition Towns Network
An informal discussion with Morris Bradley which looked at the psychology of tackling climate chamge
3 meetings of the Food Group where one of the main activities is to try to set up a community allotment. Sarah has made contact with Stuart Pryde at ELC, who has recently written a new policy on allotments for the Council and is very keen to be involved with this venture. Other areas of discussion included how to involve the schools, seed-sharing, skills-sharing, making a calendar of seasonal veg (reference the Fife diet)..
no formal meeting yet of the Energy Group although Philip and Liz attended the Community Action for Energy conference in Newcastle which provided lots of ideas for how to go about auditing individual and community carbon footprints as a prelude to reducing them!
No formal meetings yet of the other sub-groups
3. Our next steps
Food group - convened by Sarah; continue work on allotments, identifying and acquiring land; arranging visits to other allotments (Bridgend in Edinburgh; ….other?) Contacting Graham Bell and arranging visit to Permaculture Centre in Borders or workshop with GB; event to show the Cuban DVD ‘ The Power of Community’ and general awareness raising of food issues.
Energy group – convened by Philip; A meeting to be arranged as soon as possible with Community Windpower to discuss how proposals for auditing energy use in the town could be taken forward; Philip and Liz will report back following their visit to the Centre for Alternative Technology (authors of Zero-Carbon Britain) at the end of January and Liz will give a talk at JM Birthplace on 21 February at 7.30pm. The group was also contributing to the case against the Energy from Waste Incinerator being developed by IRATE in Innerwick.
Transport group – convened by Morag; yet to meet. Paul noted that ELC is looking at traffic patterns in East Lothian and would be drawing up a Green Travel Plan to reduce impact from future demand. Discussions about integrated transport, car pooling, local buses etc to be carried forward.
Enterprise group – convened by Jo Mac; - yet to meet. Jo noted that the Council is looking at surveying the impact of Asda on town trade….Dunbar was invited to participate in the forthcoming 3 harbours festival aiming to keep interest in the High Street. Jo M noted that Visit Scotland had a remit to encourage local organisations to work towards developing green businesses. Morag suggested that more could be made of the Christmas Lights switch-on event with shops encouraged to stay open, street entertainment etc.
Civic Week; it was decided to arrange a series of awareness raising events and activities during Civic Week. Ideas for ..displays about Sustaining Dunbar; films; bike workshop; school eco-group activity. Publicity and active involvement needed to make this a success. A planning group was set up – convened by… ?
formalising Sustaining Dunbar’s structure / constitution: it was agreed that Sustaining Dunbar would officially join the growing Transition Towns network.
