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Do you car share?

VREN would like to hear your experiences. How do you apportion costs? Do you have difficulties with insurers? Who wins when two want to use the car at the same time, in opposite directions? What are the financial/social/other benefits?

Habitats and Hillforts

Last year, Cheshire County Council succeeded in receiving funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund for a new Landscape Partnership Scheme 'Habitats and Hillforts'.

The 3 year scheme is based within the Sandstone Ridge Area, and focusing on the six iron age hillforts along the ridge. There are four main programmes, Habitats, Hillforts, Access and Interpretation and Training.

There's a training programme, aiming at providing training for people within the local area and the vicinity of the hillforts.

See website - www.habitatsandhillforts.co.uk. Also, some documents are available at http://www.vren.btik.com/documents/1518663514.ikml.

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Incinerator?

Consultation on Viridor's plans for an MBT waste treatment plant in Lostock, to feed RDF to a Runcorn facility. http://www.viridor-consultation.co.uk/index.php?contentId=141

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Plastic Recycling

There's a nice map of recycling sites here,

hover over a site to reveal what it takes. Ones that take other than bottle-shaped plastic are rare! Which means they want PET and HDPE, codes 1 and 2. (But PET and HDPE come in other shapes too...) Let us know if you find a local one that welcomes other shapes and plastics!

International Year of Biodiversity, 2010

For a wide range ideas of how you can help (allsorts: gardening, walking, eating organic, hunting old trees, identifying species),

see the National History Museum's webpage

 

Chinese Lantern Kills Cow

A rare breed cow belonging to a Chester farmer has died after eating a flying Chinese lantern. Huw Rowlands, of Grange Farm, Mickle Trafford, found his Red Poll cow unwell; she died a painful death 2 days later, the wire of the lantern having penetrated her oesophagus and punctured her windpipe.

Flying Chinese lanterns are inexpensive and used at celebrations: when their candles are lit, they can float off into the sky for maybe 20 miles. Being made externally of bamboo, cattle mistake them for food, and with their chewing of the cud, the wire has plenty of opportunity for causing damage. Huw said another farmer, on the Wirral, had similarly lost a cow. The lanterns also pose a fire risk to crops in summer.

Full story at http://www.chesterfirst.co.uk/news/82856/chester-farmer-s-dismay-as-chinese-lantern-kills-prize-cow.aspx

Another report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8490524.stm 

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Jump to our Newsletter section 

 

 

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Cheshire Landscape Trust

Has moved. They're now at:

Redland House,

64, Hough Green,

Chester, CH4 8JY.

phone 01244 674193, email (unchanged) cltoffice[at]tiscali.co.uk

They've got a website under construction - watch this space. Meanwhile we're hosting their Free Trees leaflet in our Downloads section.

They're announcing Tree Council grants for 2009 plantings - see www.treecouncil.org.uk

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CRB Checks

Standard and Enhanced Disclosures for Criminal Records Checks are available free for volunteers, but when should they be used, and can they be carried from one organisation to another? Guidance on these matters and more can be found at http://www.crb.gov.uk/pdf/OTS_CRB%20Volunteer%20Guidance.pdf 

And the press release at http://www.crb.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=5061 

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Scrap Scrappage

According to reports, we should not be paid to scrap older cars. Tried in Germany, it results in people buying bigger, less efficient cars. It adds to material throughput by industry, and creates fewer jobs because there's less maintenance needed. Rather, the forthcoming green economy needs jobs on that front. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development found that "these schemes have a high average cost per ton of pollution avoided, and do not compare favourably with other alternative policy tools on purely environmental grounds." The scheme is currently funding 1000 new cars a day/1000 scrapped cars. £300m of government money has been allotted to the plan, at £2000 per car (half gov't, half car industry), which lasts until March 2010. Oddly, you qualify if you scrap a VW Lupo TDi 3L (81g CO₂/km) for a Porsche Cayenne Turbo (358g CO₂/km).  See

Scrap scrappage! - pre-budget comment where you'll find a link to a petition.

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Sign up to 10:10! Reduce your emissions 10% (or more) during 2010 - with many others, show it can be done, and that we mean business!

Latest imagery of the Arctic: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Two German ships cross the Arctic: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE58B01K20090912

Two metre sea level rise unstoppable, say experts

Scientists, having examined data for comparable warmer periods in the Earth's past, conclude that man-made greenhouse gas emissions will cause at least 2C temperature rise, and that the oceans will rise, in time, over at least 2m - 1m this century. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LT378746.htm

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King Street Energy -

gas storage and brine pipes

There are concerns being raised about the pipelines, due to run between the King Street (SE Northwich) site and the Mersey estuary. They'll be carrying seawater one way, saltier seawater back.

One complaint we've heard is their proximity to Cuddington Brook, Crowton. Although rejected, the applicant is appealing as of 20th January 2009. Comments made previously will be carried forward. Changes to those comments, their withdrawal, or further comments, need to be submitted by 3rd March to the Planning Inspectorate, Temple Quay House, 2 The Square, Temple Quay, Bristol BS1 6PN, quoting appeal reference APP/ZO645/A/08/2093465. (Any queries to Jon Sutcliffe, 01244 973135, plancontrol[at]cheshire.gov.uk.) Have a look at the low-definition maps in our Downloads section, see the 40MB high definition map on www.kingstreetenergy.com.

For the planning application, with documents, see http://tinyurl.com/KSE-plans  

The applications for the 58km pipeline and the construction of 10 underground storage cavities had been refused locally, but the Secretary of State, following an appeal by the company, has ruled that the national need for gas storage outweighs other considerations. 

Other Planning Matters

There's a consultation on a draft Historic Built Environment Supplementary Planning Document, and

Information on 5 SPDs adopted last year - Affordable Housing, Managing Housing Land Supply, Developer Contributions, Landscape Sensitivity and Wind Turbine Development, and Landscape Character -

both at www.vrencons.blogspot.com.

A Community Garden?

Groundwork is working on a community project at Dane Nurseries, a council site derelict for the past 15 years. Currently called 'Grozone', the plan is to create a welcoming green oasis for the community. It could provide activities to benefit health and wellbeing such as food growing and outdoor exercise, with possibilities for including a healthy food cafe, meeting space and new wildlife habitats.

See www.groundworkaction.org.uk/grozone