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Time and energy yield green power
Some time ago, we reported on a moors village seeking green power. Chris Berry returned to see how they were getting on.
Saving the planet by wearing a token "green" badge may be all right for vote-hungry politicians. But if you want to see what it means to actually try to put a green scheme into practice, look no further than Appleton-le-Moors on the fringe of the North York Moors.
Residents have no gas supply, their heating comes mainly from electricity and oil. Electricity is supplied by an overhead 11,000 volt power cable that is vulnerable to the weather.
About five years ago, a handful of this small rural community's residents got together to discuss how they could reduce the village's carbon footprint and how, in doing so, they could benefit everyone with reduced heating costs and increased village income and contribute, in their own small way, to saving the planet.
They set up a Community Energy Group which investigated harnessing wind power and the possibility of a wood chip burner that would provide hot water for part of the village.
Neither project came to fruition. They were stymied by the cost base and a thumbs-down village vote. But some good has come out of their years of work.
Jim Hall, who moved to Appleton-le-Moors from Hartlepool 13 years ago, is one of the instigators of the group. "There are about 65 houses in the village and we have around 170 voters on the parish register," he says. "We're not a honey pot village like Hutton-le-Hole but we get a reasonable number of visitors. We have a church, pub (The Moors Inn), village hall and a quaint reading room that hosts a fortnightly jazz club. We are blessed with an excellent spirit in the village and nearly everyone gets involved in some way."
That spirit has been sorely tested at times, particularly over the past year and a half, as the Community Energy Group sought to follow through its ideas.
"The village heating scheme we had in mind, to provide a wood-burning boiler which would have pumped hot water to part of the village, was prohibitively expensive – even with grants and other monies from elsewhere. Putting pipes through the village was just not feasible. Appleton is largely built on rock and is very unyielding as far as excavation is concerned."
Costs had been estimated at about 2.5m. The idea was thrown out, leaving wind power as their main focus.
Wind turbines unleash conflicting emotions in people and Appleton-le-Moors is no exception. The group did not find the support it needed for its proposal of perhaps one, or even two, 152ft turbines at the nearby Spaunton Quarry.
"It would have been a single leg turbine. Not a small domestic one, but equally not as big as an offshore one," says Jim. "The idea was that the money gained from it would have been used for the community. We would have had a company that would sell the energy to the National Grid.
"Unfortunately things became quite personal for a while and there were some who felt that there were ulterior motives in the proposal of the turbine.
"Eventually we held an independent village vote, run almost like a local election, and it went against the wind turbine by 2 to 1."
The ramifications of the politicking during that time led to the enthusiasm for the group dropping a little. But Jim believes that it is all behind them now.
"We are presently putting our efforts into two main projects. One is the usage of woodland and wood-burning stoves, and the other being the encouragement of greater loft insulation."
The Appleton-le-Moors Community Energy Group has now been reconstituted as a Community Interest Group with the role of encouraging residents to conserve energy and use renewable energy.
"The National Park has a pot of money and they have put on record that if individuals can prove that they are lowering their carbon footprint they will provide a subsidy. If you put in a wood-burning stove with a back boiler, instead of oil-fired central heating, you qualify.
"Originally we had six houses in the village with wood-burning stoves. Now we have 30. They are not all using wood as their primary source of heating, but they are reducing the amount of oil being used.
"We have been fortunate in that two of our local suppliers have been providing wood for us as a form of community service. But that supply has dried up recently as they have their own businesses to run.
"We didn't have a readily available source of timber purely for the village. But one of our residents, local landowner Ann Procope, who owns Bishop Hagg Wood just outside the village, has come forward and offered her woodland for the good
of the village."
This has now given rise to the Appleton-le-Moors and Spaunton Community Wood Project. "It is a broadleaf wood and has not been managed in the recent past, so it will take a time for the right amount of wood to be readily available, but it is a huge step in the right direction.
"It will provide wood with a local footprint and in turn Ann will have a decently-managed woodland."
The group at Appleton-le-Moors may not have achieved their initial grand designs. But their resilience appears to have paid off.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -2 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North west
