Team Green Britain

I'd like to bring your attention to a local development I'm involved with known as the "Our Back Field" project.  Over the last few years, the "Hunger Hill Action Group" - a very active residents association of a 180 home housing estate have successfully obtained funding and executed a plan to clear and completely transform what was an area of overgrown wasteland at the rear of the estate into a thriving nature reserve and a communal meeting area.  The spectacular results can be seen on this page.

However, we'd like to take this a step further now and create a sizable allotment area whereby local residents, school children and community groups can get involved with growing and harvesting their own vegatables.  An area of land has been earmarked for this project but funding to provide materials, tools and training for the community is needed to get this project off the ground.  This would create a fantastic opportunity for sustainable living and the hope is this could become a model for other communities to follow.

It was great to be able to visit the Olympic Park with EDF Energy yesterday. I noticed almost immediately the eco-friendly lighting along all the main concourses - solar panels and high level wind turbines providing electrical energy to power low wattage but very effective LED lighting.  As this is a concept we're wanting to pursue on our "Back Field" project, it really did make me realise that sustainable lighting is a reality.

Being able to share the fact that a project on the scale of the Olympic Village has successfully used sustainable energy to provide lighting, shows that the widely held belief that we don't get enough sunshine in the UK to warrant sustainability, has no credence whatsoever. 

When I first heard about trialling an electric bike, I definitely had mixed feelings! I'd always associated electric bikes with people who were perhaps getting on a bit and didn't quite have the stamina to use an ordinary pedal bike.  Well, this notion has been well and truly blown out of the water now.  It's an absolute thrill to ride an electric mountain bike! 

I used one of the plugs from the EcoManager to monitor the energy usage from my home PC setup (base unit, 2 monitors, printer, amplifier etc) and was shocked to find that it was using 280 watts per hour - compared to my laptop computer which used just 40 watts per hour.  As a consequence, I try to use the laptop whenever possible now unless I need to print something out.  Laptops and tablets are so much more energy efficient than desk top computers.  If you do use a desktop, make sure it's switched off at night!

We were given an eco-manager and a set of transmitter plugs to trial and this has led to some rather surprising results.  The eco-manager can collect data from up to 12 appliances and also remotely switch things on and off.  This is very handy for garden lighting and other difficult to access plug sockets.  Energy consumption data is relayed back wirelessly to the eco-manager and this is displayed on the digital readout along with the equivalent cost per hour.  In addition, the unit can be used to check what is still switched on at night before going to bed.

1. Replace any energy hungry GU10 halogen downlighters with LED equivalents - They can provide the same warm tone of lighting, last for 25 years and have a much lower running cost.

2. Use a standby-buster on your TV and home entertainment setup to properly shut it all down at night rather than leaving appliances in the energy wasting standby-mode.

3. Use a radiator booster to increase the effectiveness of a conventional radiator.  We found that using 2 boosters on the conservatory radiator meant that we didn't need to switch on the electric heater in there.

4. Line the rafters in your loft with foil-backed insulation.  It's an easy exercise using a staple gun and makes a massive difference in keeping the house (and loft) warmer.

5. Replace electric guzzling halogen security floodlights with LED ones - these make changing bulbs a thing of the past and really drive down the cost of keeping your home secure at night.

We've had solar powered lighting in our children's playhouse for some time now, so being able to trial the security light led me automatically to fit it to the front of the playhouse. The solar collector is fitted some distance away from the light itself to enable maximum solar collection. The unit becomes live at dusk and upon movement, will illuminate for approximately 20 seconds. There's just enough light to let you see what you're doing when opening up the door bolts. I would definitely recommend this for illuminating those areas which don't have an available mains supply to hand.

Here's a photo of the wooden bird and bat boxes that we built with the Lancashire Wildlife Trust for the back field project. There are pictures of pond dredging and other activities at the bottom of the page.

At the last meeting of the Hunger Hill Action Group, we decided that one of the main priorities on the Back Field Project was to provide some lighting to the social and communal areas, thus giving a bit of safety and security, particularly over the long winter nights.  

I'd like to bring your attention to a local development I'm involved with known as the "Our Back Field" project.  Over the last few years, the "Hunger Hill Action Group" - a very active residents association of a 180 home housing estate have successfully obtained funding and executed a plan to clear and completely transform what was an area of overgrown wasteland at the rear of the estate into a thriving nature reserve and a communal meeting area.  The spectacular results can be seen on this page.

However, we'd like to take this a step further now and create a sizable allotment area whereby local residents, school children and community groups can get involved with growing and harvesting their own vegatables.  An area of land has been earmarked for this project but funding to provide materials, tools and training for the community is needed to get this project off the ground.  This would create a fantastic opportunity for sustainable living and the hope is this could become a model for other communities to follow.

Hello Team Green Britain.  My name is Lee Higson and I live in Bolton with my wife and two children.  I work as an Operations Technician onboard a North Sea Oil and Gas platform.  Many of you may consider it rather ironic that I'm one of the "heroes" to be selected, particularly when my job involves exploiting the dwindling hydrocarbon reserves off our coastline and commuting by what is perhaps the most eco-unfriendly transportation around - helicopters!

However, it is precisely this background that has led me to back fully the Team Green Britain scheme and start making major changes in our home and lifestyles.  Witnessing first hand, the depletion of the Earth's finite resources made me want to do something to avoid wasting energy within my own life and preserve and protect the environment for my children.  I hope over the coming months to deliver to you a few insights into my own experiences in this field.