Well I've talked before about the wonders of leaf cutter bees in my garden - see here their homes made in my homemade bee house - and here how to make a bee house. This film below is a few moments of a bee with leaf they had just cut - but also look at the second photo showing the inside of one of those holes in a log or bamboo..
Amazingly the bee creates a series of individual cells - as many as the space will allow.
Each cell is made from circular disks cut from plant leaves using the bee's mandibles, hence the name "Leafcutter". While the bees do not store honey, females do collect pollen which they store in the cells of their nests. Each cell contains one pollen ball and one egg. The larva develops rapidly, consuming the pollen ball and entering diapause when the pollen is fully consumed. The next spring, the mature larva pupates and completes its development. Once the bee is developed it cuts its way out from the nest. The incubation period is approximately 30 days and requires a constant temperature of greater than 30°C (86°F) - I can't remember which are laid at the back - was it male or female - anyhow the ones at the front hatch first so allowing the others out....just loved watching this bee at work...next time hope to get it making the nest...
The excellent one minute video by Randwick resident Tony Wilton showing how some of the housing proposals would impact on Randwick, Whiteshill and Ruscombe is now on youtube and below: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGeEyNVnYwM
Of course now this is all up in the air. With the new coalition Government, Eric Pickles has said councils will now be given the freedom to make their own decisions about planning and would not be “bossed around” by regional quangos.
In the Queen’s speech, the government announced its intention to introduce legislation to abolish regional strategies, which contain centrally imposed building targets.
In 2007, the previous government announced a target of building an extra three million homes in England by 2020 to deal with the growing demand for houses. This led to the creation of regional strategies for each of England’s nine regions, outlining targets for a 15 to 20-year period. As we've seen that has meant 2,000 more in Stroud District and hence the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment. See previous summary re this area under key issues point one here.
Mr Pickles has told councils they now have the freedom to regard the commitment to end regional plans and housing targets as a material planning consideration in any decisions they are currently making on building in their area. Of course we don't now really know what that will mean....Stroud has not completed it's replacement of the Local Plan so this could open the door to all sorts of problems. Some commentators are understandably concerned that this will mean we cannot respond to housing needs - see here.
It seems to me that some initial work has been done including consultation with residents on suitable sites for housing, it would be foolish to throw all that out. In the coming weeks we will be exploring what all this means to Stroud.
Council housing threat
Meanwhile there is also some bad news re Council housing - already in short supply it now faces cuts - see here and here. I hope the mistakes of past will not be repeated - we need more social housing and it is a pity more incentives are not being put forward for that.
Apologies for my terrible filming and the dire sound quality but here is a taster of Ricky from outside the pub at the launch of the Gloucestershire Euro election campaign - see previous blog entry here with full details and photos from the evening.
This video shows many local folk giving the lowdown on Transition stuff - it finishes with Stroud Transition Coordinator Helen Royall. One of the issues raised is about how we bring about wider change - and as folk may remember I was involved with the Business and Government Group of Transition - they have been continuing meetings with the District Council in an effort to get these issues embedded in policy.
Just out is a good article that looks at the relationship of local Government with Transition and quotes stuff re Stroud. Here is the article below but go here for full article with links.
Peaking too soon?
Peak oil is the moment when global oil production will reach its maximum level and then go into decline. This could happen as soon as 2010 so what are the implications for local authorities? Andrew Ross finds out about transition initiatives and the Transition Network.
The UK boasts more than 80 transition initiatives (TIs), which is the new name for 'transition towns'. The first was set up in Totnes in 2006 and the number is rising.
Rob Hopkins is the founder of the TI movement, and runs the organisation Transition Network. This helps communities adapt for the end of cheap oil and gives individual TIs their ‘official’ accreditation.
He will be giving a keynote presentation at the Improvement and Development Agency’s (IDeA’s) national conference for local sustainability practitioners, in Liverpool on 5 and 6 May.
Hopkins says that the TI primer – published by Transition Network and now in its 26th version – is proof that the movement is a work in progress. He adds:
“We have no idea if this works.”
The transition initiative movement has emerged from a desire by communities to highlight and act on two pressing concerns – climate change and peak oil. Local government now has a mandate to tackle the first of these. But the concept of peak oil –and its implications for local areas – is less well understood.
It is not that we are about to run out of oil, but that we are running out of ‘easy-to-get, cheap oil’. The TI movement believes that the implications of this for communities around the globe are dramatic. The solution they propose requires a radical ‘relocalisation’ of activity and production, so that communities can cut energy use.
The 'Transition Initiative Primer' says that local government should be ‘supporting not driving’ TIs in their area. But what are local authorities supposed to be driving? And how?
What councils are doing
Somerset and Leicestershire County Councils have both passed a resolution endorsing the authority as a ‘transition council’. Somerset’s statement includes allocating funds to assist in achieving the outcomes of the transition initiative movement.
It requires:
“all directorates to engage with and provide support for transition initiatives in Somerset”.
Transition Stroud has developed an informal relationship with Stroud District Council, involving regular meetings to swap information on progress. The local strategic partnership (LSP) has set up a ‘Global Changes Think Tank’, which considers ‘the twin impacts of climate change and peak oil’.
To inform its work the think tank asked Transition Stroud to write a report on food availability. This is one of a set of think-tank reports that the district council is using to shape its forthcoming core strategy. This means that peak oil and climate change considerations are being fed directly into the council’s planning decisions.
Meanwhile, the London Borough of Lambeth has been supporting Transition Town Brixton, a community-led initiative that seeks to raise awareness locally of climate change and peak oil. Lambeth has:
provided meeting rooms for workshops and film screenings
helped with networking
facilitated opportunities for the Transition Town Brixton Convenor, Duncan Law, to address cabinet and council meetings.
Things to think about
While the TI movement wants to develop relationships with local councils, not everyone agrees this is the best way forward. Some people believe they allow local councils to wrap themselves in a green cloak of respectability and continue business as usual.
Hopkins accepts that this could be a possibility but says:
“If we don’t engage creatively with local authorities then we’re always going to be restricted in what we can do.”
Jessica Currie, Sustainable Development Policy Officer at London Borough of Lambeth, agrees. She says:
“Transition Town Brixton could tick over on their own and in theory carry on forever having no contact with the council. But it doesn’t really make sense because the whole point is that they eventually influence services and so on.”
Many councils have welcomed their local TI. Robert Vint is a councillor at South Hampshire District Council representing a ward in Totnes and is an active member of Transition Town Totnes. He warns that the movement is potentially naïve about the political reality in which councils operate.
“It is almost too apolitical in the sense that it doesn’t have a strategy for taking on an uncooperative council.”
Conflict of interests
Transition Malvern Hills actually began life as a subgroup of Malvern Hills LSP set up to address climate change. John Raine is a councillor at Malvern Hills District Council and a member of the LSP subgroup. He says that a recent visit by a council performance officer highlighted the potential tensions which are built into the Malvern Hills approach.
“He presented a typical managerial perspective focused on ensuring that we achieve our goals. But the transition perspective was ‘we’re doing this from the bottom up and we don’t want to be driven by top down performance indicators’. It was a clash of cultures.”
Simon Allen is convenor of the Government and Business Working Group at Transition Stroud. While their work on food has been very well received locally, he is concerned about what will happen as a result. He says:
“We want to see action as well.”
Nigel Riglar, Strategic Director at Stroud District Council, accepts that if you are part of a community-based movement that is anxious about the pressing problems of climate change and peak oil then the last thing you want is a local authority officer saying:
“Our core strategy will take three years to put to bed.”
The key, he says, is to ‘not to be afraid’ of these differences.
“Transition initiative doesn’t necessarily have a culture that fits neatly into the way that local government likes to operate. You need to find people on both sides who are willing to work together and over time bring the two closer together. But it does take a bit of time to understand where both are coming from.”
What’s in it for local government?
More than 90 per cent of local authorities are signed up to at least one of the climate change national indicators. However, many still have to convince the electorate that this is territory local government should be taking on. For this reason some local authorities have decided that TI is well placed to help.
Nigel Riglar says that because Transition Stroud is self sufficient, there and it works, it has saved the council the work of trying to create that.
“If we didn’t have Transition Stroud we would have to create all that community infrastructure around these issues for the first time.”
Rowenna Skidmore is Beacon Coordinator at Worcestershire County Council within which Transition Malvern Hills is located. She says:
“People want to hear information from someone who doesn’t necessarily have anything to gain from it. If you’re a community group you may have a bigger impact in terms of people hearing what you have to say as opposed to the council.”
See the video at the bottom and photos of our wonderful afternoon today in the orchard at Humphrey's End. Some 50 people or more joined in the picking and juicing and plans are now afoot to set up some sort of community involvement in looking after the orchard (see initial ideas here that are progressing slowly).
Many helped with loosening the apples with a gentle but firm shake of branches - then it was washing the apples.
Next came the chopping of apples into quarters and then the grinder thing - has it got a special name - all including children helped with this - at times requiring the strength of Pippi Longstocking to turn the wheel.
The mush of ground apples then goes into the press in a muslin-like bag and the crank turned and turned to squeeze the juice.
Then out comes the juice - and wow what a juice - most of us tasted it there and then - a wonderful rich amber colour made from a mix of Newton Wonder and Blenheim apples. It was pretty labour intensive and with all hands we manged to create about 12 litres of the stuff - 2 of which I have here - of course it wont last so will need to be drunk within a couple of days - no problem with that!
It is probably the best tasting juice on the planet!
Anyhow more info about the day will be coming in another blog soon - hopefully tomorrow - including info on how to get involved with the project in the future......let me leave you with the video for now....OK not great quality but I am still learning this game!!
See more on my blog re Orchards here re Edwinna Bridgeman and here re Whiteshill Parish orchard.
Well I've talked before about the wonders of leaf cutter bees in my garden - see here their homes made in my homemade bee house - and here how to make a bee house. This film below is a few moments of a bee with leaf they had just cut - but also look at the second photo showing the inside of one of those holes in a log or bamboo..
Amazingly the bee creates a series of individual cells - as many as the space will allow. 
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