Greening Levens - campaign update March 2022
Greening campaign phase one: engagement and behaviour change
With the support of Levens Parish Council, a steering group ran this in autumn 2021 coinciding with COP26 in Glasgow. 30 scarecrows were made to illustrate different aspects of the Greening Campaign, with Suzy Seawaste (Alice Sharples and family), Bee (Annie Rawlinson) and Keep calm and a toast to Levens (Jen Harris and family), the winners of the competition.
Other noteworthy scarecrows were Swan Blonde (Fiona Clucas) who sat outside the Hare and Hounds, Connie Sumer (Amanda Green) at the Village Shop, and Graham Greening (lent to us by PEAT) outside the Village Hall. See more photos.
We chose our five small action challenges and 48 of us put cards up in our windows to show our commitment to doing these for the next year. The Greening Campaign calculated that we have saved an additional 26.37 tonnes of CO2 and, if everybody had put their money into a pot, it would total £13,800.
There has already been considerable activity to combat climate change in the village:
St John’s church is an eco-church running activities such as recycling coffee mornings, free exchange, with an environmental policy for its building and land. It promotes toilet twinning.
The Primary School has an environmental team running activities with the children (eg saving water)
The Parish Council provides allotments, is including renewable energy in the design for the new Village Hall and planning a community orchard (to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee) on land on Underhill adjacent to the new social housing
Plants on the Green encourages local people to sell and exchange plants, seeds and gardening items for charity (currently the Kendal Food Bank)
The Village Shop is promoting refillable goods (washing up liquid etc etc)
The Playing Fields and Methodist Church are planning community gardens
We have joined Cumbria Action for Sustainability (CAFS) Sustainable Network and beginning to join in their activities (training; information-sharing; access to funding)
From the Greening Campaign, we are starting to identify some shared interests and key priorities including:
Green and the Playing Fields: community orchard (supporting the Parish Council’s proposal for a Jubilee orchard on Underhill) and tree planting
Biodiversity and rewilding: building on the Environment Review, promoting and protecting verges etc around the village
Getting active: supporting walking, cycling and using public transport rather than cars
Energy efficiency: facilitating the provision of advice to local people on insulation and renewable energy (solar panels etc) and supporting local public buildings (eg the Village Hall)
Electric car charging points: noted that it is planned to include them in the new Village Hall but also promoting the possibility of their provision on SLDC land in the village centre.
Greening Campaign Phase Two
Protect your local environment; retrofit your home; support human health. Although we’re interested in this, at this stage we are planning on developing our local initiatives.
New for 2022
‘Green Levens’: We are looking at setting up an interest group to learn more about sustainability and leading a more environmentally-friendly lifestyle, with a first meeting planned for Monday 11th April at 7.30pm in the Village Hall, with a talk on sustainable and community gardening, sharing information about current activities and planning future meetings.