Global media coverage for Ashton Hayes

On 21 and 23 August the carbon neutral aspirations of the village were featured on the front page of the New York Times and the Daily Telegraph. Tatiana Schlossberg of the NYT spent two days in the village in July and we'd like to thank everyone who took time out during the village fete to speak with her. The photographers also took many photos but only used a few, sadly.

On 23r August the village will also feature on BBC World Service Breakfast radio. 

School gets new set of PV panels from Ashton Hayes CEC

Over the Spring Bank holiday, Ashton Hayes Community Energy Company (AHCEC) successfully arranged for the installation of a second bank of solar photovoltaic panels on the primary school roof. The new panels will generate over 14kw of green energy for around 25 years. The school will benefit from a long-term free electricity supply, saving on running costs, while our not-for-profit AHCEC will benefit from Feed-In-Tariff (FiT) income and reduce our carbon emissions. The cash generated from FiTs will be reinvested in future community energy schemes. 

The installation was not straightfoward, as it required Scottish Power Energy Networks (SPEN) to connect a new low-voltage line to the Church Road electricity network. AHCEC kept the costs of this work as low as possible by digging and backfilling a new cable trench that runs along the grass verge to the right hand side of the school driveway.

AHCEC would like to thank everyone for their help and support with the installation. The school team - Matt Hover, Diane Stubbs and Doreen Salt were incredibly flexible, Dominic McDermott of Nettleridge construction provided the digger and support when needed and the SPEN team, led by delivery engineer Carlos Javier Martinez de Ilarduya Mugarza provided wonderful customer service. Raine & Shine (Graeme Raine and Kate Monkman) carried out the panel installation on budget and on time and coordinated the scaffolding.

The AHCEC board members also deserve recognition for the hours of volunteer effort that went into the project.

Charles Simon from Eden Mills makes a return visit

Garry Charnock (left) was delighted to host a very quick visit by Charles Simon (right) of Eden Mills in Ontario, Canada - our twin town in North Ameria. Charles visited back in 2007 to discuss the GCN project and then went back to Eden Mills and started a village project there. They had achieved great things and are now hoping to be the first carbon neutral community in North America as this document explains. Well done Eden Mills.

View our latest film online

We had a great turnout for our 'End of Decade Celebration' at the Primary School in Ashton Hayes on Thursday 28th January - 10 years to the night since we started. We have managed to cut our carbon emissions by 40% and the film explains this and other measurements we have made about village life.

See the movie here

Free raffle tonight - veg men and shop donate hampers

To support the 10-year anniversary of the Going Carbon Neutral Project (tonight 28 Jan), the veg men have kindly donated a veg box for the free raffle tonight. Everyone attending the meeting at 7pm in the school will be entered.

The community shop is also celebrating its 6 year anniversary and is donating a lovely hamper to the raffle.

So come and have a drink, get your free memory stick with the new film loaded and enter the raffle.