Post Comment:
WITH committed leadership from their MP Alan Simpson the people of The Meadows have been at the forefront of debate on energy-efficient living.
The community is planning its own energy company and now a new "green loans" scheme could make a real difference to local households.
As a project shortlisted for the imaginative Big Green Challenge £1m award the loans system also has the potential to generate positive national headlines for Nottingham.
The beauty of the scheme is that it involves ordinary people of ordinary means in reducing a community's carbon emission account.
Put simply, residents can apply for low-interest loans specifically to install in their homes such energy-saving equipment as double glazing, loft or cavity insulation or efficient modern boilers.
As the loans are repaid, the money is recycled into more local loans for neighbours who want to follow suit.
The scheme is up against some impressive competition, as you can see from our story on Page 4.
From the Hebrides to the South Coast, community groups are eager to make a success of their ventures in the hope of landing the £1m prize – to be invested in further energy efficient measures.
Like the wind turbine that would be built on Victoria Embankment if The Meadows scheme is judged best.
We hope the people of The Meadows throw themselves into this project with enthusiasm. They have everything to gain – and at a much lower cost than in the commercial loan market – and absolutely nothing to lose.
Comments
by Precinct, Meadows
Sunday, February 06 2011, 7:53AM
“The comment above was written in 2008. In July 2010 Alan's Meadows Ozone Energy Saving Ltd Company, connected to the Meadows Partnership trust, had its AGM. The meeting was not advertised publicly within the meadows even though MPT control the Meadows Magazine and have a Website. At that meeting the only people able to answer questions were Alan Simpson and Julian Marsh, now Chairman of MOZES. There were at that point only 25 Meadows Resident who had bought in to the scheme and many of them have quite rightly been blessed with freely installed solar panels etc... Alan led the way in this free installation when he got a top of the range £11,000 Boiler installed in his new 'ecohome' on the hill, designed by marsh:grochowski, and the £500 per month mortgage paid by his parliamentary expenses. Now, with this penny pinching government the free meal ticket has run out and Alan;s project in the Meadows is stalling. Yet, hooray, the Cavalry is coming, as right on the day of the AGM Jane Todd stepped in and signed the City Council up to be part of Alan's MOZES Ltd Company. Now they want the Flood Defences following the Ozone Project alignment to rip up every historic feature of Victoria Embankment so they can turn it into an Eco Industrial Park dominated by a wind turbine. They are tearing to shreds the trees and every historic feature along with the protections Jesse Boot insisted upon when he bought the land for the Citizens of Nottingham, dedicating it for Sports Recreation, with a Bandstand, Rest Gardens, and Nottingham Municipal War Memorial in perpetuity.”