This Saturday, 25th June 2022 at the Foxlowe Arts Centre between 10am - 4pm there will be a range of activities, stalls and workshops during the HUG Moorlands Green Arts Festival! The overarching theme is ‘green arts’, developing rich cultural connections with nature and the environment.
See the schedule here: HUG Moorlands Green Arts Festival schedule
See the full programme with descriptions: HUG Moorlands Green Arts Festival programme with descriptions
The Transition Movement is one with very similar aims to those of MCA, so this looks like an interesting and exciting summit.
"Join us to unleash the power of what we can do and be together. If the last two years have left you feeling exhausted, powerless and overwhelmed by the challenges of our time, we have exactly what you need.
We can’t do much in isolation, but together, we can. Together, we can rise to these challenges we face. Together we can find and activate our hope and power. Together we can, and will, build a better future."
For details of the Summit see: transitiontogether.org.uk/events/summit2022
About Transition Together
Transition Together supports the Transition movement across Britain to develop and grow. We do this through helping groups to connect and learn from one another, amplifying inspiring stories, giving out seed funding grants and running workshops and events. We will also support the emergence of a democratically representative structure that can coordinate the movement across England and Wales.
If you are based in Scotland, please connect with our Scottish partners Scottish Communities Climate Action Network who deliver training, support and advice for the Transition movement in Scotland.
We are part of the CTRLShift Coalition and work with other community organisations across Britain to build community resilience and move towards a just transition.
We didn’t plan it this way and it’s a tragedy that it has taken the horrors in Ukraine to push Energy onto the front pages and people’s TV screens. But Moorlands Climate Action’s very first Energy Fair at the Foxlowe in Leek in April took place against a background of this heightened urgency. The desperate need to move away from gas as our primary source of energy supply is now a matter of security and affordability as well as the overarching imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
At the Energy Fair we aimed to bring this discussion into the local arena (for a snapshot of what went on during the day, please read First Ever Energy Fair in the Moorlands). Local authorities know their area best. Despite the British habit of moaning about the council when they get bored of complaining about the weather, local authorities are, in fact, remarkably well-trusted – certainly much more so than energy companies and national government. For contrast, just look what happened to the last Green Homes programme when it was entrusted to an offshored private sector provider.
Yet too many of them stand paralysed at the moment, lacking the framework and the resources to do what is needed. Staffordshire Moorlands is a member of UK 100, “a network of highly ambitious local government leaders, which seeks to devise and implement plans for the transition to clean energy that are ambitious, cost effective and take the public and business with them”
UK 100 did not hold its punches when chief executive Polly Billington described the government’s recent much-delayed Energy strategy as: “At best, a missed opportunity to harness the power of engaged local leaders to achieve cleaner, cheaper and more secure energy. Local authorities are a vital piece of the puzzle. Despite being vital partners in delivering UK energy security and net zero, the strategy virtually ignored them.” Billlington points out that local authorities are mentioned just twice in the whole document.
Nowhere is this need more apparent than in the question of retrofitting the UK’s housing stock. Again, UK 100’s CEO puts it better than we could. “We desperately need more,” says Billington. “With only 2.8% of homes due to be retrofitted in the next three years, it begs the question: why are we waiting until 2050 to make the other 97.2% energy efficient?”
Local authorities are undoubtedly lacking central direction, powers and resources in this area, but some are doing what they can with the limited powers they have. Just over the border in Derbyshire, for example, we see close cooperation with outside bodies such Marches Energy Agency and the Energy Savings Trust, moves towards fostering local energy projects, and we see the first steps being taken to setting up one-stop shops for retrofit.
Given the alliance between SMDC and High Peak councils we are confident that officers are at least aware of these initiatives. We hope that with a new spirit of openness and endeavour at the leadership levels of the council we may see movement this side of the county line.
The way that many residents in the Moorlands heat their homes and get their water hot is set to change significantly over the next decade - if national government plans are to be believed. New gas boiler sales will be banned from 2025, other energy sources such as heat pumps will be encouraged.That is just part of a dramatic shift in the way that we make and use energy over the next few decades. The National Grid already relies on renewables for over 50% of its output on some days and that proportion is only set to rise.
As part of this shift the government and power companies are expecting community-led organisations and individuals to start generating and storing their own power – whether from hydroelectric schemes, solar panels, wind turbines or even their electric vehicles sitting idle. But this change will be immensely complex, involving a whole range of different players. While the direction of travel is clear, the pace of the change and the precise route that journey will take remains painfully unclear.
On Sunday April 3rd Moorlands Climate Action will stage its first Energy Fair at the Foxlowe Arts Centre in Leek. The event, which is free to all, will bring together a number of people and organisations already involved in the first stages of the Great Energy Transition. “When it comes to information on the future of energy generation and use in the Moorlands, we are far closer to Ground Zero than Net Zero,” said Moorlands Climate Action’s Mark Johnson. “There are just far more questions than answers at the moment. We cannot provide all the answers – no-one can – but we can provide some and get the conversation going on the more difficult issues.”
He argued that some of the issues are already affecting people in the Moorlands – planning applications are now coming in for new solar farms and battery storage facilities, for example, yet residents, councillors and officers have almost no knowledge of how, why, and where these might be needed. “In the future, residents may have to upgrade electrical systems in their homes and streets will have to be dug up. This will save people money in the longer term, yet it will involve uncertainty and disruption.”
A range of experts from Staffordshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and beyond will be presenting and present at the Energy Fair. The day will be broken up into three main sessions: Community Energy Production, Personal Energy and Use and Home Insulation and Retrofit. “The question of energy efficiency is a crucial one,” said MCA’s Energy group coordinator, Nigel Williams. “With the coming brutal spike in people’s energy bills, it is going to be essential to get information out to people on simple, practical ways in which they can save energy – and money.”
As we begin this new year, our group goes from strength to strength. We have new members joining every month, established projects and an ambitious work programme under development.
Later in this newsletter, you will read about our plans for an Energy Fair in April and HuG 2 in June. Our Youth Engagement team has fantastic plans to provide a week-long festival of events in our local schools, and we are starting to look into the practicalities of one (or more!) Repair Cafes in the Moorlands.
Members recently visited a repair café in Macclesfield to see how it runs and will shortly visit the Buxton café.
Our Nature team are as busy as ever with their various projects - more details later. We plan to take MCA on the road this year - taking our message to community groups across the Moorlands, to learn more about their hopes and fears.
We aim to be the true representative group for the whole of the Moorlands when it comes to the Climate Change and Biodiversity Emergencies.
As we grow, we always need more people to get involved in our projects. I hope you find this newsletter of interest. If you have not yet joined MCA, please do so - membership is £10/£5 per year. We are still mainly meeting via Zoom, but we hope to be able to restart our face to face meetings soon.
We had a fantastic year last year, despite Covid and the challenges that brought us all. Our HuG event was so well supported, and then we welcomed the wonderful Camino-to-COP walkers, followed by our biggest ever demonstration of people power in our Totally-Globally Day of Action - our contribution to the coordinated global action launched during COP 26.
We are still trying to engage with SMDC, but sadly our emails, letters and phone calls go unanswered. That Net Zero deadline of 2030 is not going to change, but the longer the council delays making real changes and investment, the harder that challenge will be for all of us.
Thanks to Nigel Williams for Chairing the group for the last two years, and welcome to Alison McCrea as joint Membership Officer and Mark Johnson as Secretary.
With hope,
Mike Jones, Chair MCA
- September-October Spotlight 2021
- Totally Globally - Global Day of Action - 6th November 2021
- CAMINO to COP – A 500 Mile Walk for Climate Justice
- Moorlands Global Day of Action
- July-August Spotlight 2021
- Events up to and Including the Great Big Green Weekend
- Pilgrimage Passes through Leek
- RED ALERT at the Great Big Green Week with Moorlands Climate Action
- HuG Festival Review
- SWOT - Moorlands Climate Action
- HûG – Green Arts Festival
- Peak District National Park Authority - Volunteer Rangers Needed