Sustainable buildings: healthy homes At our meeting during Great Big Green Week, 'Renewable Energy & Creating a Healthy Home', Jenny Morisetti described the possible steps that might be taken to make an older home fit for the 21st century. She shared her own experiences at Hawkers Farm and her illustrated talk and the Q&A that followed it covered a wide range of topics (lighting, water, draught reduction, insulation, forms of heating, renewable energy, up-front & running costs, choice of healthy materials ...). Several participants lingered to find solutions to the practical challenges they had encountered when considering changes to their own homes. Do you have experience you could share? Dorset CAN (climate action network) aims to provide more opportunities through another 'open greener homes' event this September. Co-ordinator, Sam Wilberforce, is looking for additional hosts who have experience of taking steps to green their home and we need some of these to be accessible to Shaftesbury. Homes don't have to be perfect - low-cost improvements or seeing work-in-progress can be as interesting as a dream zero-carbon home! Feedback from previous years suggests that people really appreciate unbiased advice, learning what worked and what didn’t, and the unvarnished truth of the host's journey. Sam would like a range of ages of homes and types of green initiative and says that hosts can offer to open from half a day to all 4 days of the two weekends Sept 14/15 & 21/22, or by appointment at other times. To find out more about joining in, contact Sam at dorsetgreenerhomes@gmail.com Reimagining existing buildings rather than building new is the topic of an architecture symposium at Messums in Tisbury on September 7th. The event and booking details are on our website. |
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Food & Farming Eat well: Planet Shaftesbury's response to current concerns about our health, the food we eat, climate change and nature loss promotes local independent food outlets and 'food that's healthy for you and healthy for the planet'. The aim is for the information leaflet to be ready for distribution by the end of this month. Six Inches of Soil is an acclaimed film that follows three young British farmers as they take a regenerative approach to their first year of farming - in different parts of the country and on very different farms. We aim to show the film in Shaftesbury this autumn - becoming part of the national campaign to advocate for alternative food systems. Provisional event details/date are on the website. The Food Conversation: The Food, Farming & Countryside Commission (FFCC) is offering resources to community groups so that they can host conversations that find out what people want from food. The topics covered can include food security, diet-related ill health, the impact of food production on nature and climate, food bank usage and more. See more here & here. We're exploring dates and venue for a Shaftesbury food conversation in October - to get involved please email planetshaftesbury@gmail.com |
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Shaftesbury trees, biodiversity & impact of new development Please watch over these old oaks: Development permission exists for homes at Enmore Court adjacent to protected old oak trees along Woodlands Lane and separately on a triangular piece of land by the A350 south of the Royal Chase roundabout. Shaftesbury's Tree Group (STG) is asking that we're all watchful to ensure that the roots (which can extend as far as the crown of the tree) are not damaged during the construction work when it happens. Responding to and influencing planning applications?: Bernard Ede is vetting and responding to applications from the big housing developers, keeping an eye on any divergences from the original plans and informing the Town Council. With the demise of Shaftesbury Civic Society, there are fewer locals monitoring planning applications and Shaftesbury could be vulnerable. At a recent Tree Group meeting, questions were raised: How do we best respond to planning applications? How do we safeguard biodiversity, green space and trees in and around the town? STG would like to widen this discussion. Management of old trees is changing: Angela King of STG has shared this quote: “…the UK’s single greatest national and international obligation to the conservation of biodiversity and biological continuity, both visible and invisible, is the preservation of our ancient trees.” Ted Green, Treetime, 2023. Mike Cummings reports that until now, old and vulnerable trees have often been felled if they are near a footpath/people, however, a new formula has been devised to guide people away from the tree: 'to move the people, not the tree’. Where to plant new trees/making Shaftesbury an Orchard Town? STG's tree planting programme on town land is completed. The group is now on the lookout for places to plant more trees, including fruit trees and hedges, and they ask for suggestions of anywhere you think might be suitable. Contact Shaftesbury Tree Group c/o planetshaftesbury@gmail.com |
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Councils, strategies & plans Shaftesbury: our new town councillors are starting to develop a new Strategic Plan to provide the vision for the town that will guide their work over the 5 year term of this council. The recently adopted (and soon to be reviewed/possibly enhanced) Sustainable Shaftesbury Vision and Action Plan will be part of both the new Strategic Plan and the Neighbourhood Plan now under review. The Sustainable Shaftesbury Advisory Committee (SuSAC) will support councillors to recognise the many ways that aiming for greater sustainability can be integrated with the broad range of council activities and plans. Already, the council has agreed the following recommendations from SuSAC. (Implementing these will draw heavily on individual volunteers within the advisory committee, stand by to respond to requests for support!) Include comprehensive land mapping where appropriate in the Neighbourhood Plan. This could provide detail of land use, area, ownership and more with the potential to identify opportunities and trade-offs for energy, nature, food and connectivity. Make a start on a possible community energy initiative. Stage 1 will be a public meeting to assess the level of interest, inspired by an approach from the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE). Explore the feasibility of including the 'Orchard in the Park' within the management plan for St James Park. Support Shaftesbury, in principle, to become the first UK Nature & Wildlife Friendly Town. |
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Dorset: It is now over 3 years since Dorset Council consulted on a draft Local Plan (to guide decisions on future development proposals) which attracted criticism, being widely viewed as chasing housing numbers rather than responding to local needs and environmental concerns. Dorset Deserves Better (DDB) is an alliance of local organisations and councils established at that time to persuade Dorset Council to rethink their draft Local Plan. There has been little progress. With a new council now in place, DDB wrote last month to Shane Bartlett, the Member for Planning and Emergency Planning, to urge a fresh approach and seek an early meeting. To become involved contact DDB through the Dorset CAN website https://www.dorsetcan.org/ddb Council Scorecards: Climate action by local and regional authorities is monitored using scorecards developed by Climate Emergency UK. The organisation is seeking to recruit additional volunteers, closing date 9th September. Details here. |
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Visit Brownsea Island with others from across Dorset CAN. Details of our invitation to join this summer social on 13th July are on the website. |
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Plantlife is a charity that seeks to protect and restore a wide variety of wild plants and fungi. They manage a number of nature reserves, including 38 acres of flower-rich hay meadows and unimproved pasture, enclosed by thick hedgerows and ancient woodland at Ryewater Farm in Dorset. They now have the opportunity to extend this reserve by purchasing an adjacent 4.45 acres of grassland and hedgerows and transform them to a vibrant, thriving ecosystem and are seeking donations here. |
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Deep Sea Mining: the next climate disaster no-one is talking about - an informative 11min TEDx talk here. Recommended by Jocelyn Elson-Riggins. |
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This newsletter appears once or twice a month. Please send news or event details to planetshaftesbury@gmail.com for sharing across our network |
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