News stories for July 2000

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20^th July 2000 – A Double Discovery

HHP was the subject of two Discovery programmes in July. Discovery Today, part of ITN Factual programmes (what are the rest?!) included a feature looking at both HHP and the Autonomous House, Southwell. Later in the month a programme was broadcast by Discovery Europe with a much longer feature on eco-housing called ‘Village Green’. It was focused primarily on the homes being built at Findhorn eco-village, Scotland, but a long feature on HHP sandwiched in the middle. It concentrated very much on the passive solar design.

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15^th July – Prizes awarded for respondents to Sustainable Community questionnaires

Everyone that completed a questionnaire for ‘The Sustainable Community’ project was entered into a prize draw, partly as a thank you for his or her contribution.

Individual Questionnaire –

5 winners, each receiving a copy of ‘Low Impact development – Planning and People in a sustainable countryside (Simon Fairlie)

Organization Questionnaire

1 winner of Robert & Brenda Vale’s new book – ‘The New Autonomous House’

Many thanks to everyone else that sent in a questionnaire – all of you will be sent a complimentary copy of a guide to setting up a sustainable community (early 2001).

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July 2000 – Key Findings from ‘The Sustainable Community’ project research phase

‘The Sustainable Community Project’ which HHP is engaged in this year is looking at developing services to assist individuals and small groups develop there own sustainable communities. The first phase of the work was to identify through a series of questionnaires how best this could be achieved. In all 126 individuals and organisations responded to the questionnaires. A few of the findings were:-

• There were many reasons why people were attracted to community living. Most common reasons were sharing resources, social benefits and mutual support. On the other hand a fewer number found it less attractive being concerned about issues such as lack of personal space and preference for an independent lifestyle.
• Clearly the most useful organisations from those listed on questionnaire are ‘Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT)’ and ‘Hockerton Housing Project (HHP)’ itself. Excluding HHP since we targeted people that already knew of us (although reassuring that we were considered so useful by those that had already contacted us), CAT was about three times more useful than any other organisation.
• A number of other specialist organizations scored well such as, e.g. Ecology Building Society and Co-operative Bank (eco-finance), AECB (eco-construction), Shell Better Britain Campaign (community support) and Chapter 7 (planning).
• The most concerning organisation scoring ‘not useful’ was ‘your local authority (e.g. agenda 21 officer)’, with nearly a fifth of all respondents. This may reflect a wide variation in ability, interest, and awareness of local authorities around UK in supporting sustainability. Some authorities are obviously providing good support, but this outnumbered by those not doing so. This must be a concern, since it is a key part of government strategy particularly at a local level, co-ordinated by local agenda 21 officers to facilitate sustainable development. People are obviously turning elsewhere for support!
• It was generally felt hat there is not an adequate support network of organisations for sustainable communities
• There was a general consensus that government at all levels is not doing enough.
• The publication that was found to be most useful was ‘Permaculture Magazine’.
• The services that individuals seemed most interested in HHP providing were a site visit to the project and producing a guidebook.
• In terms of a HHP site visit the most popular elements were ‘demonstration of homes’ and ‘tour of water and energy systems.
• The website was considered to be a useful/very useful by over half of the respondents. This may indeed increase as more people ‘get on line’ and get more familiar with using email and the internet. There is a great opportunity here for collaboration with partners to make the website more useful as a tool for obtaining information. It is expected that the website will evolve over time, but start with the most useful elements – ‘exchange facility with like minded individuals’ and ‘news updates about developments with other sustainable communities.’
• Organisations were interested in a different emphasis on proposed HHP services. Site visits were scored much lower, whilst a website much higher. This would make sense in that organisations can compliment each other easily over the Internet, by supporting each other through mutual links and reciprocal promotions.

Personal Comments about HHP

Thank you for the opportunity to complete this questionnaire - I admire the work of HHP and wish you continued success.

Well done – this has great possibilities. The potential ‘out there’ is enormous – The Henley Center reckon on 15 million people at any one time want to live in a ‘community’ in the UK. If we can contribute in any way please let me know.

Good luck with this new project. It’s very worthwhile.

Until reading this (questionnaire) – I didn’t realize just how many groups and organisations there were, actively involved with projects such as yours. It’s wonderful. Please keep in touch.

Sounds great…..keep up the brilliant work

Hockerton is Centre of excellence for sustainability in Notts. We need similar Centres all round the UK – who can then network with each other and offer practical case studies to bombard the Local Authorities and Volume Housebuilders & Public with.. Keep in touch!

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July 2000 – A flurry of international visitors

The project has always attracted international interest. However July saw a greater number of non-UK visitors and enquiries. Robert Vale (architect for HHP) visited us from New Zealand with a Brazilian who he had met at a conference. A Japanese gentleman added some extra days to his visit to UK to join one of our site visits. We also had some help on our organics area from a French woman. Enquiries have been received from Canada, USA, Germany, Australia and Italy. Some of this additional international interest is no doubt due to our website.

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July 2000 – Electric Car show of strength

Towards the end of June, HHP joined many other organisations and companies to demonstrate the success of the ‘Millenium Electric Vehicle Project’ by bringing many of the cars and vans together in one place. The cavalcade drove along Nottingham’s embankment demonstrating one of the highest concentrations of electric cars in Europe. HHP and others are increasingly assisting each other by acting as charging points during visits in and out of Nottingham.

Nottinghamshire County Council in partnership with PowerGen, the Energy Saving Trust’s (EST) PowerShift Programme and Nottingham City Council have secured funding of £300,000 to purchase electric vehicles and promote green transport. HHP has received a significant grant towards the costs of this vehicle.

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3^rd July 2000 - Weave your way onto a HHP basket-making workshop

HHP is planning to work in collaboration with a local expert on willow crafts to run workshops on basket making based at the site. One of HHP's project members, Sandy Martin, will be working closely with Ray Lister for each workshop. It will obviously also be a good chance for people to view the project whilst attending on the day. To ensure all attendees get the most out of the day and receive a high level of supervision we are restricting numbers to 10 per day. The proposed dates are: -

Saturday October 14^th (10-4.30pm)

Saturday November 25^th (10 - 4.30pm)

We are offering these workshops at a reduced introductory price - Costs are £35 + cost of materials (approx. £5). Material costs depend on amount of willow used and will be charged for on the day.

If you are interested in booking a place please contact HHP by Tel. 01636 816902 or email hhp@hockerton.demon.co.uk.

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