Ottery Opens Homes for Environment Week

Homes in Ottery St Mary will be opening their doors on the 5thand 6thOctober to showcase energy savings ideas and technologies, showing visitors how easy it is to save money and become energy efficient at home.

Open Homes is part of Sustainable Ottery’s Environment Week, which will run from the 5th-12thOctober. Other events include former River Cottage Head Chef, Tim Maddams and Robin Rea from the Rusty Pig working with Ottery school children getting hands on with unusual ingredients, as well as speakers, stalls and demonstrations.

Supported by Ready for Retrofit, a programme run by the Energy Saving Trust, the Open Homes Energy weekend has been set up to inspire visitors to become more energy aware and find out how to use new technologies in the home. 

Ranging from energy monitors that feed information to your PC through to solar panels and a ground source heat pump, there will be a variety of technologies to see installed and working with the householders on hand to explain how their installations work for them. 

Jon Rattenbury, Ready for Retrofit Manager said: “Open Homes is a great opportunity for visitors to find out for themselves the benefits how new energy efficiency and microgeneration technologies work in the home and how much they can save, instead of only seeing it on TV.

“Ready for Retrofit helped out with advice and basic training as part of our remit is to support community organisations. We felt this was a brilliant showcase for local businesses and installers to meet the public and encourage other householders to take their first steps into becoming more energy efficient and even begin generating their own power.”

Tim Maddams, who now runs his own company, Green Sauce is also the keynote speaker at Ottery’s Environment Day on the 12thOctober, which marks the end of the week’s activities. He is familiar to viewers having worked with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on his River Cottage TV series, but has also worked for Alistair Little and Marco Pierre White.

Other events include a trip to Bicton Earth (10th) to see renewable energy technologies in action and an exhibition (12th) with speakers from the Met Office, You-gen and local food producers. Visitors can also view an eco-house under construction and a vegetable oil powered car.

Rupert Bannister, Chair of Sustainable Ottery said: “We are very excited about Ottery Environment Week. We’ve brought together a series of events that will appeal to everyone from the chefs getting involved with our schoolchildren to seeing technology in action in the home.

“We have focussed on food and energy security which are fundamentally important in this difficult economic climate, with soaring prices and the danger of brownouts when energy demand outstrips supply.

“The aim of the week is to inspire people. Becoming energy efficient doesn’t just help the environment but can save money. We want to show how easy it can be to make the switch from just consuming energy to actually generating it ourselves.”

Ottery Environment Week has been sponsored by Ottery St Mary Town Council, Gilbert & Stephens Solicitors, Recycle in Ottery (Rio) and Sustainable Energy Across Common Spaces (SEACS).

To find out more about Ottery Environment week, please visit www.sustainableottery.co.uk/ottery-environment-week

For more information on Ready for Retrofit please visit www.energysavingtrust.org.uk.

For more information, please contact Julie Everett at Coast Communications on 01752 847135/ 07866 002635 or email julie@coastmarcoms.co.uk

Ready for Retrofit

Ready for Retrofit is a three-year project offering a new funding opportunity for social landlords in the south west of England (except Cornwall) to improve the energy efficiency of their existing stock. The aim of the project is to grow the local supply chain for low carbon building retrofit by stimulating demand and supporting local SME businesses, in order to create a sustainable domestic energy efficiency and microgeneration sector. We are also helping to grow the market locally by working with local authorities and community groups.

ERDF

The Ready for Retrofit project is part financed by the SW Competitiveness European Regional Development Fund Programme 2007 to 2013. The Department for Communities and Local Government is the managing authority for the European Regional Development Fund Programme, which is one of the funds established by the European Commission to help local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support local businesses and create jobs. For more information visit www.communities.gov.uk/erdf