Environment Forum

We are working as a part of our community to maintain and improve the local environment and the wider sustainability of our planet.

Amongst our first priorities are:

• Establishing our community’s carbon footprint
• Increasing the insulation in all houses in Wells by 2013
• Supporting local renewable energy sources
• Building the communities resilience to climate change and peak oil
• Monitoring and reducing threats to our local wildlife

Some of the activities we have planned to help us achieve these priorities are:

• Raising Awareness – Hold showings of An Inconvenient Truth and other influencing films followed by open forum / question and answer sessions.
• Carbon Footprint Survey –Conducting a snapshot survey of at least 250 homes and businesses (10% of total properties) to calculate the Carbon Footprint of the area. 
• Support the Field Study Centre in running a local Eco Open day in April 2009
• Plan events and activities in line with the Transition Town Movement to help the community build resilience to peak oil and climate change

Meetings

We meet every fourth Thursday of the month at various location around Wells. New members are always welcome so please contact the WAP Office on 01328 711378 to find out the time and location of the next meeting if you would like to join us

Progress so far

Awareness Raising Projects – The Environment Forum has showed An Inconvenient Truth and The Age of Stupid as part of the Film Next to the Sea season in Wells. Both films were a big success with about 40 people attending each one, many of whom stayed afterward for the discussion forums.

The Forum has also started to plan projects that relate to the Transition Town movement. The first priority is to deliver a project that highlights the need for sustainable food. Over the busy summer months the WAP Environment Forum helped a small group of allotment holders to sell their surplus produce from a stall at Whin Hill Cider. The owners of Whin Hill, Pete and Jim, kindly supported this project that aimed to help reduce food miles and enable residents and visitors to buy locally grown produce.

The stall supplied various fruits and vegetables throughout the summer and demand for produce outweighed the amount of food supplied by the allotment holders. Due to its success the forum is now hoping to expand the project for next summer and encourage more allotment and home growers to get involved. The aspiration is to get enough local support to run a weekly Allotment Market in Wells town centre where local growers can sell there surplus produce and at the same time raise money for some longer term environmental projects.

Carbon footprint Survey – We have recently launched our Carbon Footprint Survey. This is a really important first step in what’s going to be a long term project for Wells and the WAP Environment Forum so please get involved and support us by filling in a Carbon Footprint Survey, use the link to find out how to complete a survey on behalf of your home or business and the story so far!