POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

The news that Llangattock Green Valleys project won the Welsh final of the British Gas challenge in 2009, and also won the UK title as well is good news. It shows what's possible and what can be done when people have ownership of a local community beneficial project. Winning means that Llangattock (Powys) has won £100,000 to spend on a local environmental project.The village was chosen from 100 projects across the UK to be one of the final 14 communities who would go head-to-head over 14 months as part of the Green Streets challenge, a project which helps communities not just to save energy but to actually generate their own energy. Combinations of solar panels and 100 radiator panels were installed at the village school, along with an source heat pump to the village hall, and 43 homes in Llangattock installed 655 energy efficiency measures including insulation, solar panels, a biomass boiler, multi-fuel stoves and new boilers. As a result the community is expected to save £62,000 over five years and nearly 200 tonnes of CO2. All in all that's actually pretty impressive and is literally case of power to the people!