DEFRA LAUNCHES ‘COMMUNITY HALLS FOR RURAL PEOPLE’ ON-LINE


Defra has launched ‘Community Halls for Rural People’ on its Rural Affairs website.


It has been created to enable small towns and villages to benefit from the funding opportunities available for community halls. It has links to funding sources and suggestions both for those running local community buildings and others who are planning to fund and build new halls.


Rural Affairs Minister, Jim Knight, has declared:


“Successful village halls provide an impressive range of services and activities to meet the needs of their local communities, such as health services and sports, as well as the traditional social pursuits.


EARTHSHIP BRIGHTON GAINS AN AWARD


The Low Carbon Network has won a prestigious ‘Innovation’ award at the South East Renewable Energy Awards 2005 for its pioneering green building: Earthship Brighton. Back in October the Low Carbon Network and Southern Solar, with support from EDF Energy, installed Brighton and Hove’s first wind turbine in Earthship Brighton; it was for this and other ongoing work in the field of renewable energy that the award was granted.


The Brighton Earthship, the only building of its kind in England, is being built by the Low Carbon Network, a not-for-profit company of green builders, as a community centre for Stanmer Organics and to raise awareness of sustainable building techniques as an antidote to climate change. For Further details of the award, or for details of how you can get involved in the Earthship Brighton project visit www.lowcarbon.co.uk or contact Project Manager Mischa Hewitt on 07974 122 770.


Ashtav thanks the National Society for Epilepsy for this picture. www.epilepsynse.org.uk


“Making the local village hall a success can be a big challenge, which requires not only imagination and commitment but also practical advice. Defra’s new web resource will help, by improving access to essential information from all over the country.”


This resource that should help people who run village halls to find out more easily, how they may access, a range of funding, services and advice. ASHTAV has highlighted the need for such support.


For more infomation please visit:


‘Community Halls for Rural People’ www.defra.gov.uk/rural/communities/halls


Ian McCaskill (ex BBC weather reporter) presented the unique trophy and award certificate to George Clinton, Matt Bulba and Duncan Passmore, of the Low Carbon Network. George Clinton said, "I am very proud to see the Earthship pick up this award, to me it heralds the start of a brighter future when all the technologies the Earthship uses will become commonplace in peoples lives."


Earthships are totally self-sufficient buildings requiring no connection to regular utilities, making them extremely cheap to run. They exist in harmony with the planets natural systems – using the sun’s energy and rain to provide heat, power and water, requiring no mains water, with plants providing waste services. Earthships represent a low cost housing option with minimal impact on the environment.


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Where have all the Flowers Gone, again?


The Royal Horticultural Society has pub- lished a leaflet:


Front Gardens - Are we parking on our gardens? Do driveways cause flooding?


It is a community chest of good advice on the fraught topic that ASHTAV has raised recently. Copies may be downloaded at: www.rhs.org.uk/Learning


Percentage of front gardens that are mainly paved: North East 47 South West 31 Scotland 31


East of England 30 East Midlands 25 North West 25


Yorkshire/Hull 24 South East 23


West Midlands 21 Wales 19


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