Community Events

Alan Simpson MP (On right)  formally opens turbine

Communication Strategy

Background 

People from the Hockerton area have been meeting since July 2006 to promote a more sustainable Hockerton; Meetings have always been open and have been advertised in the village hall notice board and by leafleting residents. So far 46 people have attended at least one of the nine meetings held between 7/7/06 to 5/7/07. A name for the group has been chosen - Sustainable Hockerton.

Aims and objectives have also been formalised. The aim of the group is to make Hockerton a more sustainable village and reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. This would include supplying its own energy needs from renewable sources. The objectives of the group are; in brief:

• A reduction in energy demand.
• Renewable electricity generation.
• Renewable heating methods.
• Reduced impact from travel.
• Increase in the use of local skills and resources.
• Reduction in the amount of waste produced.
• Increase the amount of self sufficiency in water and water treatment.
• Raise the awareness of sustainability issues through education.

It is this group that has put forward the idea of a wind turbine to generate clean electricity for the parish and use any profits from this scheme to promote the other objective. A wind turbine is a potentially contentious solution so it was felt a survey of  parish residence was necessary to clarify the situation.

To assess the mood of parish residence a survey was carried out in February 2007. All the residents of the parish were given a pamphlet describing the ideas of the group and asking for comments on them. The “Have Your Say” Pamphlet (See Appendix 9) responses were summarised by Pete Cooke at a community meeting, and are shown below.

Parish Survey

Some clarification points were made: The responses are from people not households. Input from children has been accepted. Children who put down they would like to invest have been left off the investment list. Some discussion was held: If partners had responded it is thought that there may have been 6 negative responses. Positive responses may also have increased in this way. The responses came from 28 adults out of a population of about 110 which is a 25% response rate. It was felt that this was a reasonable response. The most positive figures were the number of people wanting to invest in the project. It’s one thing to say you want it; it’s another thing to want to put your money into a scheme!

The group has understood these responses show a clear majority in favour of taking action and putting up a turbine.

Planning Advice
Pre submission planning advice on this application was obtained from the duty planning officer (Neil Clearly) at NSDC Planning Department.

Key players

The key players in a community scale renewable energy project would be primarily the local residents, land owners and financiers if needed – large outside developers would be avoided if possible.