Totnes wins £500,000 for low carbon community, but more is needed nationally

Transition Town Totnes has been selected as one of the 10 ‘first movers’ in the Low Carbon Communities Challenge, which sees the organisation receive £500,000 to lower the carbon footprint of the town.

The grants will pay for measures such as energy efficiency projects, home renewables, demonstration homes and the solar ‘retrofit’ of the town 50-year-old Civic Hall, and aim to sow the seed of changes in behaviour.

Called Transition Streets, and with the backing of 20 agencies, there are four stages to the project: Behaviour Change, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy and Community Awareness.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change received more than 300 applications for it Low Carbon Communities competition, which chose 20 projects to share the £10 million available.

Transition movement co-founder and one of the bid writing team Rob Hoskings said on his blog: “We are delighted that TTT [Transition Town Totnes] is now able to step up to a new level in terms of the depth and reach of its work, and to be able to be part of this vital research into the ability of Transition to bring about effective and long lasting behaviour change when given some meaningful level of support.:

However, on a more sustainable note, he said: “A pot of £10 million to be distributed to 20 projects is great for finding valuable research projects and for boosting some of the initiatives that just need some support in order to be able to ‘tip’, but it doesn’t come close to supporting the work on the ground that could happen, and is so badly needed, right across Britain.”