www.staffordbc.gov.uk/sustainability

DECEMBER 2015

Size doesn’t matter in Eco-awards! What have a small village school and a £250 million pound rail project got in common? They were both winners in the Green Awards!

The annual awards, run by the Borough Council, celebrated the work of over 30 organisations working hard to protect the environment. This year a fruit and vegetable growing project, linked with cookery lessons, was a winner for Church Eaton Primary School - and in the ‘Business’ category, Staffordshire Alliance, came top for their £250 million programme of rail improvements. Cllr Frank Finlay, Cabinet Member for Environment and Health said ‘It is wonderful to see the success of such contrasting schemes coming together to help protect the environment and contribute to a more sustainable borough’.

Winners were selected in four main categories - Business, Community and Wellbeing, Youth and Education, and Public Sector. The ‘Public Sector’ award was won by the Borough Council’s own recycling initiatives and Derrington Way Ahead scooped the ‘Community and Wellbeing’ section for a wide selection of events and activities in the village. A number of ‘special awards’ were presented, to recognise great work in the following areas: Wildlife, Green Travel, Sustainable Tourism, Energy Conservation, Best Newcomer and Green Purse. New for this year, a ‘Let’s Recycle!’ prize was also awarded.

The awards, launched in 1996, received more than 30 entries. The competition is open to all groups operating in the borough and has played a key role in the Council’s agenda on issues surrounding carbon reduction and sustainable development.

There were some excellent eco-themed prizes and all the winners received certificates from the Mayor of Stafford Borough, Councillor

Peter Jones.

A full list of winners and projects is available at www.staffordbc.gov.uk/green-awards.

Please take a look!

WelcomeWelcome to the winter edition of ‘Newsleaf’. This was being compiled as leaders from more than 190 nations gathered in Paris at the UN’s Climate Conference, to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change. The summit has stirred hope that countries across the world will work together to tackle climate change. Locally, there are many initiatives underway to help address this vast issue and you can read about some of these in this edition of Newsleaf.

In addition, we are pleased to bring you the results of the Green Awards, plus items on local wildlife conservation projects, a landscape photography competition, how to give your home a health check and details of forth-coming events. Happy reading!

House of Bread, higly commended in the Community and Wellbeing Category

Flagging up the UN Climate Change TalksTo mark the opening of the UN Climate Change talks in Paris a number of volunteers organised a stall in the Guildhall Stafford on Saturday 28th November.

People stopped to share their concerns about the major global environmental issues we face, including climate change. Each wrote their own ‘pledge for the planet’ and these were then collected and displayed on a Christmas tree, as messages to delegates at the Conference in Paris.

Around the County in 80 Landscapes The Staffordshire branch of the CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England) is holding a landscape photography competition in celebration of their 80th year anniversary, coming up next year.

The CPRE campaigns for a beautiful and living countryside. They work to protect, promote and enhance our towns and countryside to make them better places to live, work and enjoy, and to ensure the countryside is protected for future generations. The Staffordshire branch based in Tipping Street, Stafford, always welcomes new supporters. The competition will run through to 30th June 2016 and the ‘best 80’ photos taken of the Staffordshire landscape within the last two years will be exhibited.

Categories are available for 18 and under and adults and the most popular photographs will be printed in a CPRE Staffordshire Calendar in 2017. Winners will receive a free copy of the calendar and a selection of fabulous prizes. Competition entry is free and you may make multiple submissions.

For further details and to submit photographs please contact:

Sue Kneill-Boxley, Publicity Officer | CPRE Staffordshireemail cprestaffs80@outlook.com | call 07961 814 426

A Greener Christmas We know Christmas is bad news for the environment. But there are ways to reduce our festive impact. The Guardian has produced an extensive list of ideas for a greener Christmas, that will help you minimise your energy, consumption and waste. To find out more visit www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2009/dec/01/green-christmas

Sustainability Matters takes Farmer to Church! On Wednesday 7th October, a sizeable audience gathered in Trinity Church, Stafford, for the AGM of local environmental organisation, Sustainability Matters.

After hearing about the group’s wealth of activities over the last 12 months, Charlotte Hollins was invited to talk about Fordhall Organic Farm, Market Drayton - England’s first community owned farm - featured recently on the BBC’s Countryfile. Charlotte explained how Fordhall Farm led the way in organic farming after the war, pioneered British yoghurt production in the 1950’s, and after being saved from development in 2006 through a pioneering national campaign, is now owned by over 8000 community shareholders. Charlotte was also asked to focus on how organic farming methods have benefited biodiversity, and what lessons can be learned by the wider farming sector from their experiences. Her presentation delivered this in both an entertaining and scientifically sound way. The farm is open all year round and offers group tours, educational visits, events, courses, weddings, care farming and volunteering opportunities - and has a popular café! It’s a short trip from Stafford and definitely worth a visit. www.fordhallfarm.com

To find out more about the work of Sustainability Matters please visit their Facebook page Sustainability Matters

A strong advocate for the CPRE was poet, Philip Larkin, whose words ring true today more than ever.

‘It seems, just now,To be happening so very fast;Despite all the land left freeFor the first time I feel somehowThat it isn’t going to last…’

Philip Larkin 1922 - 1985, in ‘Going, Going’,

Victoria Park Plans Green Future Victoria Park is hoping to go greener!

Stafford Borough Council has been successful in securing funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to draw up plans for how the park can be restored and enhanced so it will be around for another one hundred years. As part of securing the future for the park, investigation into how renewable energy might be harnessed will be undertaken, along with other sustainable measures.

To help us with this we have hired ‘The Environmental Partnership’ who provide environmental planning and design advice, to work with us on the plans. Parks are a priority for the HLF and since 1996 they have awarded over £620 million across the UK, with the Big Lottery Fund joining them to invest a further £80 million in England.

Study the Countryside at Stafford College Stafford College offer a BTEC level 3 course in Countryside Management that may appeal to people who are interested in being outdoors and like the countryside.

The course has a high practical content and students spend a considerable amount of time working alongside rangers and wardens in real work situations. This has been developed through good partnerships with organisations including Staffordshire Wildlife Trust and Stafford Borough Council. Past students have successfully gone on to working in conservation and to join related university courses. For further details please visit www.staffordcoll.ac.uk or email Liz Stanhope l.stanhope@staffordcoll.ac.uk

Art inspired by nature

College kids show conservation in action

‘There is No Planet B!’ ‘There is No Planet B!’ Stafford’s popular, annual ‘Green Arts Festival’ will take place next year from Saturday 27th February to Saturday 5th March.

The event takes place at St Chad’s Church and Food for Thought Café, located just around the corner, and will include a wealth of artwork to inspire and motivate - including visual arts of all kinds, sculptures, weaving, ‘natural art’, ‘scrap-art’, performances, poetry, music, dance. As well as an amazing variety of artistic offerings, all with unique and insightful messages about why we need to protect our planet, there will be a rich programme of activities and performances on both Saturdays, and workshops through the week. Organising groups include Sustainability Matters, Stafford Borough Council, the Stafford Borough Eco-Schools Network, St Chad’s Church, the Three Fairies and Quest Day Opportunities, who joined the partnership last year, offering their super venue, Food for Thought Café, for the display of adult artwork. This year we are thrilled to welcome Gainsborough Artworks to the partnership. If you’d like to get involved, to share your artwork and ideas, to perform or to help organise, please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you!

For further details visit: www.staffordbc.gov.uk/sustainability and click on other initiatives and projects. There is also a ‘There is No Planet B!’ face-book page with great photos.

call 01785 254 936 or 07908 924 144email netta.cartwright@ntlworld.com

Home Energy Extravaganza! ‘Stafford Area Save Your Energy’ teamed up with the Borough Council in Stafford Market Square on September 12th to give first-hand advice to the public, in their first ‘Home Energy Extravaganza!’ event.

Arranged to mark national ‘Community Energy Fortnight’, we were joined by Oliver Rothwell of Marches Energy Agency, to answer queries on a range of energy topics raised by shoppers and visitors to the town, throughout the day. Energy issues are becoming an increasing concern for everyone - fuel bills, security of production and supply, environmental impacts and climate change are now in the news on a daily basis and affect everyone at the household level. If you live in Stafford Borough and would like to chat to a specialist advisor about home energy - whether it’s about bills, staying warm, or saving energy, call 0800 677 1785 orvisit www.staffordarea.saveyourenergy.org.uk

Give your home a health check

Could your home be affecting your health? Then why not give it a health check!

Free help and advice is available for home owners and tenants on a range of housing and health issues. The health check could help you:

• Keep warm and manage your fuel bills

• Reduce the risk of fires and accidents

• Avoid accidents, trips and falls in the home

• Get help to make essential repairs and improvements to your home

• Adapt your home to meet any disability needs

• Get some ideas about healthy eating and preparing quick meals

• Stop smoking or reduce alcohol consumption

For a free, no obligation home visit from a Health and Housing Advisor call 01785 619 000 or visit www.staffordbc.gov.uk/healthy-homes

Soaring Traffic Helps Fuel Consumption Fall!? The award-winning ‘Stafford Area Save Your Energy’ website is run by Sustainability Matters, with support from Stafford Borough Council, and provides advice on saving energy, saving money on energy bills, reducing carbon emissions and generating your own energy.

It has lots of useful information plus loads of case studies to help organisations, communities and households to become more energy efficient. The latest figures for visitor traffic to the Save Your Energy website show that it is being increasingly well used. In October there were nearly 13,000 ‘hits’ or unique visitors to the website - the highest monthly figure so far! If you haven’t visited the website yet, why not have a look.

For more information contact Rob Hine: call 01785 603 387 | email rhine@btinternet.comvisit www.staffordarea.saveyourenergy.org.uk

‘We Love Littleworth’ Have you heard of We Love Littleworth yet? The project aims to support community and environmental projects and the most recent work has included meeting employees during a ‘Meet and Eat’ session at Perkins Engines Ltd and putting up info displays and running an eco-quiz, both there, at Perkins Sports and Social Club and at Littleworth Community Centre. New links have been made with the Sea Cadets and NVS Hair Studios where energy audits have been undertaken to identify ways to save energy and cut fuel bills. There’s a lot happening at Weston Road Academy too with ideas developing around recycling and creating a wildflower meadow. If you want to find out more or get involved visit www.staffordbc.gov.uk/we-love-littleworth

Karen T 619408 E kdavies@staffordbc.gov.uk

FREE help and advicefor home owners and

tenants about a range of lifestyle and health issues

to make your home life a healthy one.

Kids intrigued by solar powered butterfly

Over the Moon for Silver Award! We were thrilled to be invited to attend the national Green Apple Awards Ceremony, held recently at the House of Commons.

In their 21st year, the Green Apple Awards have gone from strength to strength and are now considered a significant environmental event world-wide, with a growing international reach. This year, a joint submission by Stafford Borough Council and Sustainability Matters gained a coveted Silver Award, ahead of numerous other local authority projects from around the country. The project entitled ‘Stafford Area Save Your Energy’ and ‘We Love Littleworth’ has a focus on energy saving and renewable energy and a broad aim to promote and support more sustainable lifestyles, through for instance, installing cycle parking, encouraging wildlife, helping set up food growing projects - and more! The Award was collected by Karen Davies, from Stafford Borough Council accompanied by Jacqueline Perkins from Weston Road Academy, key partner in the We Love Littleworth project, who was over the moon with the day’s events.

College Students Keen to Conserve As part of ongoing management at Barlaston and Rough Close Common Local Nature Reserve (LNR), students from Stafford College have been helping to extend an area of woodland glade.

The site is low lying and fed by a natural spring and therefore has the potential to form a mire habitat. Previous clearance work two years ago has already resulted in a small marsh area being formed with plants like sedges, rushes and ragged-robin. One of the plants found this year, Pill Sedge (Carex pilulifera), had not been recorded on the site before. By removing a few more small trees on the periphery more light will be let in, encouraging further growth. The site will be monitored over the coming years.

Prior to this, students from the Animal Management Course at Stafford College had visited the site to learn about heathland habitat and the role of conservation grazing by Red Poll cattle, and to undertake some conservation work, clearing gorse and birch to help maintain the open heathland.

For more info contact: Bill Waller | Biodiversity and Ecology Officer email wwaller@staffordbc.gov.uk | call 01785 619 676

Bill Waller with students from Stafford College Countryside Management course

You can take your Christmas trees to be composted between Monday 4th January

and Monday 11th January 2016.

Fletchers Garden Centre, Eccleshall

The Allotments Car Park, Gnosall

The Green Recycling Centre, Barlaston

Jubilee Playing Fields Recycling Centre, Little Haywood

Wyevale Garden Centre, Wolseley Bridge Stafford

Trees can also be taken to Staffordshire County Council St Albans Road site

in Stafford or the Beacon Road site in Stone. For information on these sites

visit recycleforstaffordshire.org

Xmas Tree Recycling

From Barns to Boxes Barn Owls are a beautiful and iconic part of the British countryside. However, over the decades, their numbers have declined significantly.

The Barn Owl Action Group (BOAG) was set up in Staffordshire in 2001 when it was estimated that there were only about 30 pairs of Barn Owls left in the county. BOAG is run by a small group of volunteers within the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust whose aim is to encourage the conservation of the Barn Owl in the county. To date over 400 barn owl nest boxes have been installed and a monitoring programme has been set up to determine their success.

In Derrington local people are working with BOAG to help conserve Barn Owls and this year have installed two Barn Owl nest boxes on the edge of the village - we are now eager to see who moves in.

On Tuesday 19th January Helen Cottam from BOAG will be sharing her great knowledge and passion for Barn Owls at a presentation at the Village Hall at 7.30pm. Everyone is welcome. call Roy 07816 291 201 or Karen 07854 911 929.

Jacquline and Karen with ‘the apple near the eye’

Saturday 2nd January | 10am - 2pmWildlife Watch at The Wolseley Centre Create a Creature. Aimed at 8 - 13 year oldsCall Susan, 01889 562 653

Sunday 10th January | 3.30pm - 5.30pm Wassailing at The Wolseley Centre Call SWT 01889 880 100

Friday 15th January | 7.30pm - 9.30pm Secret Wildlife of The Forest of DeanA talk by Nick Martin, in Eccleshall Parish Rooms Call 017892 680 250

Tuesday 19th January | 7.30pm Barn Owls Talk by Helen Cottam, Staffordshire Barn Owl Action Group at Derrington Village HallCall Karen 07854 911 929

Wednesday 20th January | 7.30pm - 9.30pm Talk: The Hidden Hundreds - British DeerSt Austin’s Catholic Church HallCall 01889 578 393

Friday 22nd January | 7.30pm - 9.30pm AGM and Talk: The Galapagos IslandsOulton Village Hall. Call Judith 01785 814 454

Thursday 29th January | 9am - 4.30pm Climate Resilient Communities ConferenceOrganised by Sustainability West Midlands Call 01212 375 890 Saturday 6th February | 10.00am - 2.00pm Wildlife Watch at The Wolseley Centre Winter Tracking. Aimed at 8 - 13 year olds Call Susan, 01889 562 653

Saturday 13th February | 11am - 1pm Build a Nestbox at Staffordshire Wildlife TrustCall 01889 880 100

14th - 21st FebruaryNational Nest Box Weekwww.bto.org/about-birds/nnbw

Wednesday 17th February, 7.45pm - 9.45pm It rained in Namibia - Cheetah survival and photography. Talk at St Austin’s Catholic Church Hall. Call 01889 578 393

Friday 19th February, 7.30pm - 9.30pm Talk: Mistletoe, Fact, Myth and LegendEccleshall Parish Rooms. Call 01782 680 250

27th February to 5th March There is No Planet B!St Chad’s Church Stafford and Food for Thought Café. Call 01785 254 936

For more details about any of these initiatives and to find out about sustainability in Stafford Borough contact

Karen Davies, Partnerships Co-ordinator, Stafford Borough Council, Civic Centre, Riverside, Stafford ST16 3AQ

call 01785 619 408 | email kdavies@staffordbc.gov.ukweb www.staffordbc.gov.uk/sustainability

If you need this information in large print, Braille, other language or in audio format email info@staffordbc.gov.uk call 01785 619 000

Presenting the West Midlands Green Communities NetworkThe West Midlands Green Communities Network (WMGCOM) provides advice, guidance and good practice for local community groups in the West Midlands, bringing together people who are passionate about the sustainability agenda. The Network supports projects including:

• Community energy share schemes

• Improving green spaces

• Growing local food

• Community resilience to extreme weather

• Fuel poverty, energy saving and climate change initiatives

The Network provides a platform for community groups to share good sustainability practice, promote their projects, swap ideas and have access to other networks and welcomes new ‘green communities’ too. It is supported by ‘Sustainability West Midlands’ based in Birmingham.

In October the Network arranged a workshop focusing on how community groups can be sustained in the light of funding constraints and dwindling resources. It also looked at advice on communications, including social media and websites. Presentations were given by Derrington Way Ahead and Transition Stratford, ‘whose inspiration and passion, a key part of their success, shone through’.

To see the presentations, please

visit www.sustainabilitywestmidlands.org.uk/resources/wm-green-communities-network-technical-support-workshop/