Rick Battarbee reports on the work of Climate Action Addingham a year after its launch.

WE had a full house for our Climate Action Addingham (CAA) meeting “How Green is our Village? One Year On” in the Memorial Hall on Thursday 16th November.

Following its very successful launch in November 2022 CAA is now taking shape. Its aim is not only to tackle climate change but also to restore nature, minimise waste of all kinds and manage water wisely, in other words to help residents live in a more environmentally sustainable way.

After one year CAA has established a checklist of environmental sustainability goals (listed on the CAA website), used a random sampling approach of village households to survey steps being taken by residents to reduce their carbon footprints, and invited representatives of village community groups to join CAA as partners, along with founder members, the Parish Council, the Civic Society and the Civic Society’s Environment Group.

The One Year On meeting was an opportunity for many of these groups to describe the actions they are already taking or planning to take to become more environmentally friendly.

Anne Hodgson and Lucy Comerford from St Peter’s Parish Church described the Church’s plan to reach a carbon emissions target of net zero by 2030, as required by the Diocese. Adding battery storage to the solar panels already on the Church Hall roof is being investigated as a first step.

Rita Leleux of Addingham Garden Friends spoke about moving away from the use of bedding plants to grow pollinator attracting perennials in the pocket gardens they manage along Main St. and beginning to use harvested rainwater for watering rather than tap water.

Ross Pearson of Bracken Ghyll Golf Course explained the difficulty of managing every aspect of any golf course in an environmentally friendly way but stressed the club’s commitment to the principles of sustainability. Finding ways to cope with increasingly extreme weather conditions is a challenge and discussions within the club to increase water storage on the course are ongoing.

For the Beer Festival, Richard Hunter-Rowe described the steps taken this year to minimise waste by reducing the use of paper, reducing the number of T-shirts being given to volunteers and taking care not to order surplus supplies. As there is always some beer left-over, one question was how it might be used rather than poured away.

Geoff Mills of the Allotments and Gardens Association described how the Association had been successfully re-launched by a new committee and was ready to explore ways of encouraging members to manage their gardens and allotment plots in a wildlife friendly way, eliminating, for example, the use of harmful chemicals.

Addingham Primary School Year 6 pupils with headteacher Linda Spinks and Year 6 teachers, Mrs Whelan and Mr Hughes, also contributed to the event bringing in their work in school on environmental issues for display. Issues highlighted in both a local and global context were waste, recycling, flooding and air pollution. Miss Spinks said “it was a fantastic opportunity for our Year 6 children to present their work to members of our community, sharing their learning and passion for the environment. Global Mindedness is one of our school values, we have a global outlook. We think about and care for all of humanity and our environment. Our children want to be partners in creating a better world in our local, national and global communities. I was very proud seeing the children filled with knowledge discuss this topic so confidently.”

Other displays were by the Environment Group including a demonstration of the Group’s thermal imaging camera used to detect heat loss in homes (Ian Viner), a display of the results from the village climate change survey (Malcolm Secrett), the pop-up refill shop selling laundry liquids and soap bars (Jan Hindle), a demonstration of a wormery and a Bokashi bin for dealing with food waste (Briony Holdsworth) and maps of the whereabouts of compost bins and water butts in the village (Dave Johnson).

Friends of Wharfedale Greenway brought their pull up stand and Sallie Lloyd, clerk of the Parish Council, promoted the Council’s Bin and Butts Project, signing up residents wishing to have a free water butt, compost bin or waste food caddy.

The event concluded with a keynote talk from Miranda Foster of JBA Consulting (and formerly Yorkshire Water (YW)). She spoke about “Valuing Water” explaining how water supply reservoirs are connected and managed throughout the operational area of YW and the complexity of managing water abstraction at Lob Wood in the face of increasing variability in rainfall and natural riverflow. Finding a balance between maintaining water supply to the Bradford treatment works and maintaining environmental flows in the river is especially challenging. She described attempts by YW to save water by reducing leakage from pipework and outlined ways YW are encouraging customers to reduce their water consumption, aiming to decrease per capita usage from an average of 130 litres per day at present to 110 litres per day by 2050.

Dr Foster answered questions after her talk on a range of topics including understanding rapid variations in Wharfe river levels in Addingham, the viability of building a national water grid, the effectiveness of metering to reduce household consumption and how leakage in pipework is estimated.

Special thanks to Simon Tennant (Parish Council Chair) and Roger Seddon (Civic Society Vice-chair) for introducing the two evening sessions respectively and to members of the Civic Society for serving refreshments.

For more information visit: https://www.climateactionaddingham.info/. Alternatively email Sallie Lloyd (clerk@addingham-pc.gov.uk) or Rick Battarbee (aeg@addingham.info).