– 7 til 9pm, Monday 9th March

- Dempseys Pub, opposite the castle

- £2 entry (to cover room hire)

Alan Gillard and Daniel Stollar from Gillard Associates, a Cardiff based firm of sustainable architects, will be presenting their ideas on community based housing and low carbon design and refurbishment.

Followed by an opportunity for questions and facilitated discussion.

The Bioenergy Action Plan for Wales aims to generate at least 5 terawatt hours of electricity, about 20% of our current needs, from renewable biomass by 2020. It also aims to have biomass provide 2.5 terawatt hours of usable heat energy, about 3% of our current needs. This will result in a reduction of about 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year in comparison with generation based on fossil fuels. It will also create new jobs.

Biomass is organic material that can be used to create renewable energy. This includes plants, trees and vegetations, as well as sewage and animal waste. Biomass is ‘carbon neutral’, in that the amount of carbon it absorbs while growing is the same as the amount it produces when burned. The Assembly Government wants to ensure that biomass is obtained from sustainable sources, whether these are in the UK or overseas, and take into account the carbon emissions associated with growing, harvesting, processing and treating it.

Welsh designers are making a strong showing with show gardens designed by some of the country’s leading gardening talents. Confirmed show gardens include one from South Glamorgan-based Michele Fitzsimmons and Sara Bentley. ‘Eats Shoots and Leaves: A Permaculture Garden in April’ is a garden based on the main themes of permaculture: productivity, lower maintenance, multi-functionalism, use of local resources and biodiversity.

Last year’s Gold medal winner Anthea Guthrie will also be at the show with ‘Slugger Off’ – a garden resistant to slugs. Another highlight is a garden from a Category B local prison in Bridgend – HMP & YOI Parc. The prison’s horticulture team is designing a show garden called ‘Choices’ based on the choices made by individuals while incarcerated. A water feature using stepping stones will symbolise personal journeys and after the show the entire garden will be rebuilt within the internal grounds of the prison.

Doctor Who’s Tardis will also be touching down at the show, with the ‘Garden in Time’ garden featuring a time travel theme. Much of the BBC series has been filmed in Cardiff and this is the perfect chance for those who missed the garden’s debut at the world famous RHS Chelsea Flower Show to enjoy the garden.

Visitors can also sample the true taste of Wales in the Experience Wales marquee which will once again filled with the very best Welsh food, drink and crafts. Other highlights at the show include the Interactive Allotment which returns by popular demand. Nature trails, street entertainers and live music will also be on hand to keep the whole family entertained.

Thursday 26th February, Glamorgan Business Centre, University of Glamorgan

The conference will address key issues in contemporary regeneration policy and practice. The primary function of the conference is to explore the links between physical, social, cultural and economic regeneration and to identify the barriers to achieving more integrated approaches to the regeneration of our most disadvantaged communities. A central concern will be to identify methods for securing long-term economic, social and environmental sustainability.

Key note speakers (including Peter Head, ARUP) will set the scene. However, the emphasis will be on a series of forums which will promote debate on the main conference themes. The themes are:

• Skills and Regeneration
• Transport and Regeneration
• Education and Regeneration
• Health and Regeneration
• Communities and Regeneration
• Poverty and Regeneration
• Housing and Regeneration

The University’s new Centre for Regeneration and Sustainable Communities will be launched during the event.

Journalists and photographers are welcome at the event.

For further details contact Alison Tobin, Research Communications Officer on 01443 483562 or atobin@glam.ac.uk

Feeding cities has a greater impact on us and our planet than anything else we do, yet few of us are aware of the process. Industrialisation has made it seem easy, but with peak oil looming and climate change upon us, that illusion is wearing off. We urgently need a new urban model – one that treats city and country as a single, organic whole.

Carolyn is an architect and prize-winning author. She has run successful design units at Cambridge University, London Metropolitan University and the London School of Economics, where she was inaugural studio director of the Cities Programme. She was Rome Scholar in 1995-6, researching the historical urban order of the Ghetto. She has presented on BBC TV’s One Foot in the Past, has written for Blueprint Magazine and is a regular columnist for Building Design. Her book Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives (2008), won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-fiction and was recently featured on a special edition of Radio 4’s The Food Programme.

This FREE talk will take place on Tuesday 17 February 2009 at 7.00pm in the Cardiff Centre for Lifelong Learning, Senghennydd Road, Cardiff. Room E0.15. All welcome – no booking required.

www.valleysgreen.co.uk

All articles and links from the old website have been moved over.

Please update any links you may have and point to the new address.

The name Valleys Green was chosen to make it easier to remember and encourage more people to use the website and read it as a ‘green newswire’.

Expect more changes to the website over the coming months …

All EVENING MEETING DATES at Llandaff Village Hall

• Tuesday 10th February at 7.30 pm Association AGM and also as an item of interest. Harold Williams will show his invention for treating Varroa Destructor with Oxalic acid fumes.
• Tuesday 10th March at 7.30 pm To be arranged
• Tuesday 14th April at 7.30 pm To be arranged

Out apiary meetings once a month during the summer. Venues needed for these please for May, June, July and August.

The Coal Minerals Technical Advice Note (Coal TAN) gives comprehensive advice for local planning authorities and applicants. It will apply to both surface and underground coal sites.

Making the announcement, Environment, Sustainability & Housing Minister Jane Davidson said:

This new advice delivers a key One Wales commitment by the Assembly Government to introduce compulsory Health Impact Assessments for open cast coal applications, together with buffer zones which will now be set at 500 metres. It places an emphasis on planners and developers working closely with local communities.

It gives us an opportunity to make sure we strike the right balance between different interests and help ensure coal extraction is sustainable.

We have always said coal can play an important role in the supply of energy, particularly as Carbon Capture and Storage technology is developed. However, the quality of life of the people and communities closer to extraction sites must also be taken into consideration. As a government we want to ensure our policies and planning decisions maintain and improve the quality of life of local communities.

Commenting on the introduction of a 500 metre buffer zone, Ms Davidson added:

Including a 500 metre buffer zone policy is a significant step towards our common goals – planning for a coal industry that works with local communities, that respects the environment and, for the immediate future, continues to contribute to a secure, diverse and sustainable supply of energy and of coke for the iron and steel industry. We also recognise that coal working can be the best way to bring damaged land back to use, and sometimes, in exceptional circumstances, this will be closer to communities.

This means putting a high value on the well-being of the people who live and work in the Welsh coalfields, their health and every day amenity while at the same time recognising the value of our coal for energy, for steel, for employment and regeneration.

The funding will help get Prosiect Gwyrdd started. The Project is a joint initiative between five South Wales councils which will look at the best way to dispose of municipal waste that can’t be recycled or composted. The extra funding for Prosiect Gwyrdd will be up to £7.8m in a full year of operation depending on the final costs of the project.

>> Simon Press, senior technical manager at the Co-op group said: “We believe that the recent losses in bee populations need definitive action, and as a result are temporarily prohibiting the eight neonicotinoid pesticides until we have evidence that refutes their involvement in the decline.”

>> Laboratory tests suggest that one of the banned chemicals, imidacloprid, can impede honeybees’ sophisticated communication and navigation systems. It has been banned in France for a decade as a seed dressing on sunflowers. Italy, Slovenia and Germany banned neonicotinoids last year after the loss of millions of honeybees. And the European Parliament voted earlier this month for tougher controls on bee-toxic chemicals.

>> Paul Monaghan, the Co-op’s head of social goals accused the UK government of failing to recognise that “pesticides could be a contributing factor” in the breakdown of nature’s number one pollinating machine.

( full story – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/28/bees-coop-pesticide )

The BBC Today programme ran a very good piece about the decline in UK honeybees. There was an interview with a senior executive from the Co-op who said that they had decided to ban all 8 neonicotinoid pesticides from all the farms which the Co-op owns – and they are going to give £150,000 for emergency research – including pesticides; they are also proposing a 10 point plan to assist honeybees in the UK, which they are planning to implement throughout the Co-op’s farming operations and stores.

The Co-op chap said that although there was no conclusive proof that neo-nicotinoids were the primary cause of honeybee collapse – what was glaringly self evident was that no serious research was going on in the UK into pesticides and honeybees.

You can listen again to this segment of the programme by visiting this page http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/listen_again/default.stm – then choose the ‘0845′ section of the programme from the menu on the page – “0845 Britain’s biggest farmer, the Co-op, will launch a 10-point rescue plan for the honeybee, after a steep decline in numbers. Science correspondent Tom Feilden reports on the package which even includes a ban on a group of pesticides.”