January 2016 Newsletter

A round up of news and views

Air Quality Public Meeting - Wednesday, February 10th starting at 7.30pm in the Town Hall. Please come along. We want to hear your views on our 8 recommendations and give residents the opportunity to come up with their own suggestions for reducing traffic congestion and improving air quality in the town. Read about Bridget's experience of living with high levels of air pollution, here... On Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd January, PM10 and PM2.5 levels were well over the safe limit in London Road and were as high as those in Camden and Islington in London town! You can check out current air pollution levels on Wiltshire Council's website, here...  

Save Our Buses: Support 'Option 24/7' - Wiltshire Council is currently consulting the public on how to reduce the amount of money it pays in bus subsidies. Government cuts mean that Wilts Council has to save at least £2.5 million from its transport budget.  One of the options that they are proposing is to cut all subsidised buses, which would mean even more cars on our roads, reduced access to employment for those without cars and leave the elderly stranded in villages.  A more viable alternative is being proposed by the indepent TransWilts Community Interest Company. This alternative, known as Option 24/7, would allow the whole of Wiltshire to have decent bus services, whereby the profitable routes would pay for the unprofitable ones...  Read more and follow the link to Wilts Council's consultation, here...

Permaculture Course - Spring will soon be here and this year's permaculture course starts on Saturday 19th March.  This is a great opportunity to share ideas and pick up new tips with fellow gardeners. It's not too late to sign up, click here... to see the full programme. It costs just £35 for the full 10-week course, including a free book by Patrick Whitefield. Please write to permaculture@transitionmarlborough.org asap to reserve your place. 

Oxford Real Farming Conference - Milly, Jane and Sam went to this inspiring conference.  It was attended by people from across Europe who are involved in non-industrial agriculture, i.e. agroecology, organic or permaculture. There were so many different concurrent sessions that it was hard to choose which ones to go to. We contributed to the debate on Food Sovereignty, learned about community-supported agriculture and got fired up by George Monbiot's attack on maize growers who are destroying the environment. Read more, here...

KCEL: Open Letter to Claire Perry MP - A group of TM members have written to Claire Perry MP informing her that the recent cuts to the Feed in Tariff and the abolition of tax incentives for small investors into renewables, means that our community energy company cannot develop any new projects.  Ms Perry had supported these cuts on the grounds that domestic fuel bills must be kept 'affordable', however evidence recently obtained shows that the government already knew that the cost of electricity would be falling over the next 4 years, due the drop in fossil fuel prices... You can read our letter, here...

Thanks

The Transition Marlborough team