You can now contact Jane and Sandra on our new email address – sustainablependeen@gmail.com or ring Sandra on 787899

Join in our Celebration of Brilliant Pendeen Ideas

You are invited to a free film show on Friday 12 May

PENDEEN SCHOOL ORCHARD

Our Celebration!

Sustainable Pendeen has worked with Pendeen School and our joint orchard funder, Love Trees Cornwall, a local charity which encourages tree knowledge and planting. , to make the little orchard. It has been a truly collaborative community effort. Local, professional gardeners ‘Nic’ Nicholas and Pip Morse gave their time and expertise to clear the site, remove truckloads of brambles and roots, dig it over and grass seed it last autumn. T A Sonja Cooper and Pendeen School children worked hard with us planting them ,on a breezy day in January, then last month more children came to plant herbs and wildflowers around the trees. Local sign writer Cyril ‘Squirrel’ Nicholas has painted us a sign and Della , from the Pendeen W I has donated apple cake for the celebration.

A little Celebration was held at the orchard on 26th May this year to thank everyone who contributed, especially Sonja Cooper from the School and all the children who have been involved. The Orchard would not be here without all their hard work.

It will be a couple more years before the trees can start bearing any fruit but eventually children will be able to see the lovely blossom in the spring and harvest fruit in the autumns to come. Most of the trees are eating apples but there are 2 Bramley cookers, so we hope to see some apple pies coming home from school! There is a crab apple for the birds, a damson tree, a rowan and some elder bushes(for elderflower champagne perhaps?)

—————————————————————————————————————-

Through 2022 we met and liaised with Chris Wilson, Headmaster at Pendeen School, to discuss and plan the planting of a small orchard there. Work started on an overgrown site in the Autumn when Brian ‘Nic’ Nicholas and local gardener, Pip Morse, kindly volunteered to clear and grass seed the site, which was quite a task! Jane, from Sustainable Pendeen, sourced various fruit and berry trees, which were financed by Sustainable Pendeen and local charity ‘Love Trees Cornwall, and The Land’s End Forest Garden in the Cot Valley donated a rowan tree. The trees were planted just into 2023 by Jane, her son , Ben, school staff member, Sonja, and three Pendeen school children who worked very hard and got nice and muddy but all laughed and learnt a lot. Cyril Nicholas of Squirrel Signs has kindly painted a sign for the orchard and this is an ongoing project for Sustainable Pendeen and Pendeen School.

Photos of planting the orchard.

Then, on a sunny day in April, we helped the children at Pendeen School plant herbs and wildflowers around the new apple trees.

PROJECT OF THE YEAR COMPETITION

In the Autumn of 2022 Sustainable Pendeen entered a national competition for ‘Project of the Year’ run by the ‘Wonderful Villages’ podcast (all about developments and stories from village halls throughout the country). The competition was sponsored by Allied Westminster. Sustainable Pendeen won and received an award of £1000.00 for The Centre of Pendeen. Jane and Sandra are due to be interviewed on the podcast about their work at some point in the Spring of 2023, we’ll let you know when.

TWO FREE TALKS IN OCTOBER

AT THE CENTRE OF PENDEEN

On Friday 14 October 7-9pm CORNWALL WLDLIFE TRUST

Dan Ransley talks about the work of the CWT.

Then on Friday 28 October 7-9pm HEDGEPIGS AND HOGLETS

Jill Dodds tells us about rescuing and releasing hedgehogs locally.

These free Talks are part of our ‘Go Wild in 2022’ series of events.

It is essential to book your free seat for one or both of the Talks, by ringing Sandra on 01736 787899 , as places are limited

IN SEPTEMBER AT THE CENTRE OF PENDEEN

TWO FREE ENTRY ILLUSTRATED TALKS WITH ROGER HOOPER

FROM THE RSPB AND BUTTERFLY CONSERVATION

On Tuesday 6 September 7.30-9.00pm WEST COUNTRY BUTTERFLIES

On Tuesday 13 September 7.30-9.00pm WEST COUNTRY BIRDS

Booking is essential. Ring Sandra on 787899 to book your free seat.

A Free Entry ENERGY EVENT was held on Saturday 9 July

Those trying out the e bikes included our MP Derek Thomas and Betty from Bojewyan aged 90!

Gardening for Wildlife Visits

Gardening for Wildlife Talk

at The Centre of Pendeen

Go Wild Walks and Workshops

Go Wild in 2022

Free Workshops, Events and Walks in Pendeen and lots more through the year. Encouraging wildlife in our gardens and community spaces.

OUR PLACE – OUR FUTURE

Ring 01736 787899 for more information about these forthcoming events.

The last four in our series of six Sustainable Pendeen Heat and Energy Out-of-Doors Pop Up Clinics were held in May and September. Free expert information and advice was available between 10.00-1.00 in front of The North Inn at Pendeen in our green gazebo

On Saturday 18 September Sustainable Pendeen invited Mat Green from Naked Solar back to our Heat and Energy Clinic on 18th September to talk to local people about the costs, benefits and sustainability of solar panels. As we hoped, there was an excellent response and more people, who couldn’t make it to Mat’s first Clinic, were able to get very useful information about solar panels for their Pendeen home.

The Sustainable Pendeen Clinics are commissioned by The Tin Coast Partnership and Cornwall 365.

At our Heat and Energy Clinic on Saturday 11 September Ed Savage, Fitter for Kensa Heat Pumps, talked to people about how heat pumps work, their suitability for various local homes and about costs and savings.

On Saturday 15 May, Mat Green from Naked Solar came to Pendeen to give us the benefit of his expertise in Solar Energy and up-to-date solar panel and battery options for our various homes. We were pleased to see so many people coming to talk to him, ask questions and start to make plans. Mat held us in thrall with his knowledge and enthusiasm, if you need to ask him anything more or would like to make an initial contact, he will be pleased to talk to you on 01637 697009.

The Clinics are commissioned by The Tin Coast Partnership and Cornwall 365.

‘

The ‘Sustainable Homes’ event on 9 November drew in about 150 people into the warm and cheerful Centre of Pendeen on a grey and windy day. The event made a particular emphasis on our existing homes and the impact of our local environment. People talked to stand holders about: renewable energy systems, EPCs, insulation, switching energy suppliers, Community Land Trusts, Co-housing schemes, repair workshops, mould control systems, their Neighbourhood Plan and much more. There were also very well received and interesting, illustrated talks by local people about their experiences of managing their electricity use with the aid of technology, retro-fitting renewable energy systems and even going off grid! We are hoping to run these talks again in the New Year, so if you missed them keep an eye open on this website for dates and times.As before, we really want to hear what people think of the event and its subject matter. 50 people completed our short feedback form and a few more people put comments on our Have Your Say wall. Thank you for contributing to this, the feedback is outlined below.

Out of 50 completed feedback forms:

39 people lived in the Pendeen/St Just rea and 1 person owned a holiday home in the area.

41 people said they were better informed after attending the event and 4 said they were not. 49 people said that they were glad that they attended the event and no-one said that they were not glad they attended.

31 said they planned to act on something they had learnt or thought about more as a result of attending.

Of those who planned to take some form of action:. (some people mentioned more than one action)

13 people planned to take various water saving measures.

9 were planning/considering more sustainable heating/water systems.

3 planned to improve their home’s insulation

3 planned to switch their energy supplier

3 planned to have an up-to-date EPC

2 planned to go to the local Care and Repair Cafe

1 planned to get a green energy survey

Other actions mentioned were about -using less energy and helping wildlife.

Most people completing the forms made contributions in the box that asked – “What actions would you like official bodies such as The Town Council, County Council or Government to take to help people make their homes more environmentally friendly and sustainable?”

The vast majority of these comments are about the cost of changing from fossil fuels to green energy heating and hot water systems and of alterations to homes, such as double glazing and insulation. There is considerable concern that people on low incomes, who do not currently qualify for grants/subsidies because they are not on benefits, are at a disadvantage and cannot afford to make their homes more sustainable. This is seen as a matter for central and local government to make grants for insulation, double glazing and renewable energy systems available to a much wider group of people and homes. Several people called for a revision of Cornwall Council’s policy with regard to The HEAT Project and a widening of the eligibility criteria to include those on low incomes.

There is also concern expressed that all new builds should be obliged to be as sustainable as possible; that central and local government planning policies and processes should be reviewed to enable sustainable alterations to existing homes and that heritage organisations need to consider their part in helping sustainability.

There is some concern expressed that central and local government should take more of a lead in encouraging change and supporting greener policies; that they should have more joined up policies that include community energy projects and self supporting communities, better recycling to include black plastics and food waste, regulations that support wildlife around/on new builds, e.g. swift and bat boxes, nesting boxes generally etc.

Many people mentioned the central role of education regarding sustainability and that schools should be at the forefront in this, hopefully spreading the knowledge to families and neighbourhoods.

Jane and Sandra , the Sustainable Pendeen event organisers, would like to thank all the Pendeen people who gave their time to help at our first Sustainable Pendeen event about TRANSPORT on Saturday 24 August and at our second event about making our HOMES more sustainable on Saturday 9 November . Thank you all, including reception desk staff, marshals, Paulene and her Café team, raffle sellers, stands helpers etc We couldn’t have done it without you.

Thanks, too, to our brilliant Sustainable Pendeen Sponsors . Delia Webb, of Funny Faces, who designed and helped to finance our lovely, bright green, Sustainable Pendeen tote bags which are on sale in The Centre for £2. Stuart Davis , of Penwith IT Services, for giving us his professional help with setting up our equipment, computers and projector and being so helpful and supportive.

FEEDBACK FROM OUR FIRST EVENT ABOUT ELECTRIC VEHICLES Our aim has been to encourage discussion around the topic of electric vehicles and sustainable transport and we promised to relay pertinent comments to organisations and individuals from the written and verbal feedback we received. The comments we received covered the following issues:

1. The need for central government to take the lead in promoting/subsidising/incentivising electric vehicles and charging points.
2. That all new builds should have charging points and off -road parking.
3. The need for there to be a comprehensive network of charging points that increases ahead of demand and is distributed geographically evenly and fairly.
4. That charging points need to be available to those who live in flats, terraces and other homes that may not have off road parking
5. That electric vehicles should use renewable energy and that we will need to have enough renewable energy as their use grows.
6. That electric vehicles need to be more accessible, not just for the rich/higher earners. What about financial help to cover setting up electric car shares /car pools?
7. The need for an integrated, reasonably priced/subsidised electric public transport system. More frequent and cheaper buses that include difficult to get to rural areas. Some people don’t drive, others cannot afford cars.
8. Recognising that 15% of a car’s lifetime carbon footprint is in its manufacture, and similarly in scrappage and disposal. The answer is not scrapping vehicles but to use them to the end of their lives, as long as they are running as efficiently as possible.
9. Outlaw drivers who keep their engines running while stationary, or even parked. on the ground they need the air conditioning on.

We have sent, as promised, our short report which includes details of the event and the nine points above to the appropriate organisations and individuals. They include the following: Our MP Derek Thomas, Cornwall Council’s Portfolio Holder for Climate Change and Neighbourhoods, Edwina Hannaford, the Portfolio Holder for Transport, Geoff Brown, Climate Change and Business Adviser, Ben Simpson and James Hatton, our local County Councillor, Sue James, The Town Clerk at St Just Town Council, Judith Summers at The Neighbourhood Plan, Jay Chapman at CRCC, Jill Stott The Project Manager The Tin Coast Partnership, Professor Katharine Willis, The University of Plymouth, Deborah Clarke of ACRE and the Trustees and Volunteers of The Centre of Pendeen .

Jane Haslam and Sandra Coak Event Organisers September 2019