Energy event 2010

North Berwick has about 2000 households, the local group are about 2 years old and has tried a mixture of events and is at an early stage. They have had an apple pressing event and two energy information days.

They have also been talking with other groups in East Lothian such as Sustainable Dunbar who are further along in their process and have been helpful and supportive.

Going Carbon Neutral Stirling run on the model of community engagement so a whole range of ways to encourage local people to reduce their carbon.

Quality of peoples activity is varied. Behaviour change is difficult to guage but responses do appear to be honest. The community does understand they need to reduce and is working together where they can.

Lobbying local councillors has helped too and slowly progress is being made. They are now looking to engage businesses and find local supporters to form groups and together become 'energy experts' where they live.

Also looking for investors to invest more in renewables and look at revolving funds which can go back into the community helping local groups to become more sustainable.

Charlotte from PEDAL, at our energy event.

Pedal have been around since 2006 and run an energy project along with the Energy Saving Trust. They are offering energy advice for people in tenements giving advise to individual flats and the tenement buildings as a whole.

They are also working to get planning for some wind turbines in the area.

Portobello is a conservation area.

Transition Linlithgow speaking at our energy event

Started with a few households insulating their houses and there was a ripple effect from that. After they got some funding from CCF they did some training and had 70 households participating in the project. A cross section of types of houseing in the area.

Getting in to an attic can be a challenge, some people have 10-20 years of life up there or more, some have turned them into rooms, not an easy task to fit into a government scheme - no one size fits all.

Its an ambitious project and the dream is now to encourage 1000 homes to be more energy efficient.

They take a sensitive approach and they arrange a letter to the area they are working in first so people know to expect a call. This is not cold calling but seen as a helpful service in the area.