Representatives from English Heritage Building Conservation department visited Shrewsbury 3 times during February and March in order to carry out some monitoring on Victorian Housing within the town. They were on the hunt for case study buildings as part of an on-going project and it was suggested that they use some of the case study buildings that MEA are already studying as part of the SECHURBA project (which investigates ways of making historic buildings more sustainable).

The English Heritage research is to measure heat flow through typical historic buildings, and in particular through solid brick walls. It will help to understand and predict the behaviour of individual construction types and the thermal performance of buildings as a whole.

3 houses in Albert Street, Shrewsbury were chosen to test a new method developed by Glasgow Caledonian University to measure U-values using heat flux, air and wall surface temperatures. Each house had 3 small sensors attached to either side of the exterior walls for 2 weeks and an infrared thermograph of the exterior was also taken.

Once the results have been evaluated they will be included into on-going research being carried out by MEA through the SECHURBA project. Project coordinator Nicole Solomons said: "We are very pleased to have the expertise of English Heritage involved with the SECHURBA project. Our reports and recommendations will be distributed to the homeowners concerned and a workshop will be organised during June to publicise our findings to other homeowners within the area. We hope this will help to highlight the interventions that can be made to improve the energy efficiency of older homes, even when they are situated within a Conservation Area".

Full details of the workshops will be publicised on the MEA website soon

Thermographic image of one of the Albert St properties being studied

Our Carbon Forum team are busy planning the follow up to the highly successful Light Fantastic project. The new updated version will be called ‘Fantastic Home'. Fantastic Home is a mobile exhibition, which visits communities and schools. It showcases energy efficient technology and techniques, behavioural changes and renewable technology. It will have interactive elements such as a carbon countdown game for children, the energy bike and interactive aspects throughout the display. It will signpost visitors to local information and grants as well as carry generic information on all aspects of energy saving and generation. It will also be able to sign people up for home visits from professional energy efficiency installers and well as give away free energy efficiency items.

Fantastic Home is designed to bring these elements to people, rather than relying on people seeking them out. Its purpose is to actively show visitors practical measures that they can take themselves. It provides an engagement and education opportunity for many thousands of people that will not be reached by traditional means at the disposal of stakeholders.

Fantastic Home will allow people to touch, feel and interact with technology and techniques that may otherwise be surrounded in myth and mystery or simply be outside of their sphere of experience. It will enable people to fully appreciate the costs, benefits, savings and logistics of taking action on reducing and generating their own energy.

We hope to have it ready for end of July - watch this space for updates!

People living in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire are being are asked to made a pledge to cut their carbon emissions on a recently re-launched website. The Everybody's Talking Website (www.everybodys-talking.org) is the climate change portal for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and its features include:

• A guide explaining climate change
• The opportunity to make a pledge to cut your carbon emissions and to see what other people in the area are doing
• A ‘carbon-ometer' showing how much carbon and money has been saved by a number of activities taking place in the two counties and how many people have been involved
• A communities' area with features such as a monthly bulletin and downloadable resources to support local community groups tackling climate change
• An area for schools with downloadable resources
• News about climate change events that are happening in the area.

The Everybody's Talking website is funded by the Local Authorities Energy Partnership - a partnership of all the local authorities in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire - and provided and maintained by Marches Energy Agency (MEA). The partnership - and the website - are unique in spanning two counties.

Project Manager, Caroline Harmon says:

‘We're really pleased to be able to offer this website to people living Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and we're hoping that lots of pledges will start rolling in. Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing the world and local individuals and community groups have an important role to play in tackling it.'

Local climate change community groups are able to have a free online profile page on the website. Groups that are interested should contact Caroline Harmon: ccan@mea.org.uk or 07748 508704.

Richard Hammerton in the Carbon Forum team is expanding the delivery of accredited training courses.

In addition to the Level 2 course he has developed for Accord Housing Association in partnership with Walsall College he is now contributing two units to the development of a Level 3 course for the MEARS group (building construction professionals).

Fitters, plumbers, electricians, carpenters and builders from the group are being trained to be energy and climate aware as part of Accord's Fit for the Future project.

As part of a larger programme of training Richard is running four in-depth sessions on energy efficiency and climate change which he has developed for the course. The aim is to provide practically focused but scientifically rigorous knowledge as a means of addressing the knowledge gap around energy in the construction industry.

At the end of the course all successful participants receive nationally recognised Qualifications Credit Framework (QCF) Level 3 credits.

• Visitors: Approx. 48 pupils and 4 staff
• Bulbs distributed: 120
• CO2 saved (lifetime): 17140.8kg
• Retained economic benefit (lifetime): £4958.40

We provided two one-hour workshops on climate change: one to Year Five and one to Year Six. Both classes engaged well with a powerpoint presentation and discussion about climate change. They had watched a play about recycling earlier in the week and were able to link some of what they had learnt from that with what we were teaching them. They also explained some of the activities they have being doing to gain Eco School status. They really engaged in the workshops and asked lots of questions as well as supplying their own thoughts on how we should tackle climate change. Using manure to generate electricity was a popular option with the first group as were cars powered by hydrogen which they had seen on Top Gear!

The children got a chance to see a mini PV panel and wind turbine in action powering small lights and a buzzer. Towards the end of the session each child was given the chance to have a go at powering a lightbulb using our energy bike. We even managed to entice one teacher on to the bike - who was immediately surrounded by her entire class egging her on to power a lightbulb!

We will be sending the school 120 lightbulbs to distribute to each child who attended to take home.