Turner's Eco-Lodge

Late summer/ early autumn has seen some exciting developments down at Turners Eco-lodge. We have selected a local contractor by competitive tender to undertake the work – JNR Construction. In August JNR Construction completed the preliminary strip out work, allowing the structural survey to be completed including an investigation of the roof. Our Architect Lesley Mattin has completed the next set of drawings, and we are ready to go. We are seeking the remaining funding for the project.

What’s happening now – April 2011

Over the past few months we have been busy writing and submitting funding applications, and have had some great success. Thanks to Lend Lease for the £1.5K they have donated, and to the Peak District SDF for the £16.5K grant. We are about half way there now in securing our funds, taking us ever closer to our goal. To help keep costs down we have contacted our suppliers and asked for donations and discounts, which have been graciously given to us on the whole.

We are busy writing the specification for the building, with our newly appointed Quantity Surveyor on board. We met with the planners last week to gain clarity on some of the conditions, and we have had some fun dowsing to find the location of the river culvert beneath the site, and the drains. You can see from the photos that we had some success, and have drawn on the location of the river in chalk.

Finally, we have undertaken what we believe to be the first ever transaction of its kind, using toilets in place of currency. In exchange for the old toilets (leaving one behind of course for us to use in the finished building!), we have received some free consultancy from the South Yorkshire Energy Efficiency Advice Centre. Thanks go to Heeley Farm and the SYEEAC.

Our bog – the story so far

The old toilet block at the end of Shrigley Road in Bollington was closed down around seven years ago. Since then it has been boarded up, unused but not forgotten. Its in a prominent place next to the bus stop at the top end of Bollington, and, for a toilet is quite an attractive building, built of local stone in mock Tudor style. A 99 year lease was secured by Registered Charity Bollington Initiative Trust in 2008 from Cheshire East Council, with the view to renovate the building for the benefit of the community. A number of ideas were floated, and then our group, the Bollington Carbon Revolution which is a sub-group of the Bollington Civic Society got involved, with the view to make the building as “green” as possible. We then struck on the idea that we could use it for our Head Quarters.

Our vision is to have this as an exemplar sustainable building, well as exemplar as we can get it given that its an existing building and they are always more tricky to green than a new building. We will record everything that we are doing, and produce information sheets of all the products and materials that we use, so that others can learn from our experience, and hopefully apply the methods in their own homes and offices. Its designed very much as a show case low carbon building. For example we are using three types of solid wall insulation, sections of which will be visible through honesty windows, so people can see what has been used, as well as learn how much it cost and how easy or difficult it was to install. This knowledge is very much needed n Bollington, where a large proportion of the housing stock is made up of solid walls. It will also be possible to see the insulation that we are using in the floor, and how deep it is, as well as pick up information about the other products and materials we are using, such as a sun-pipe, air source heat pump, low flow taps, eco-pains, eco-textiles and a kitchen work surface made out of recycled yogurt pots. Our lighting will be on two circuits, one with LED bulbs and one with normal bulbs, so people can see for themselves that there really is no difference in the lighting effect between the two , but they can see how much energy and money they will save from having low energy bulbs fitted. We will use a local contractor, and source our materials from the region, helping to tick the economic sustainability box.

So what will we use the building for? Well we will base our activities out of there, including our regular team meetings, and our Ecoteam meetings. Ecoteams is one of our most successful behavioural change programmes that we run, taking groups of householders through a four month programme learning what their impact is on the environment and making changes to reduce this, measuring the difference they make as they go along. Ecoteam members don’t just come from Bollington – we have had members from as far as Buxton and Manchester , and regularly have people join us from Rainow, Macclesfield and Pott Shrigley. We are also looking to open the building up to the wider public every Saturday morning, where they can come and learn about what we have done, and pick up information on who can help them make similar changes to their property. We have many more activities planned as a group, building on the success of the last four years since we formed our group in September 2006. This includes generating hydropower and creating a social enterprise, generating low carbon energy for our community and re-investing any revenue created back into low carbon projects.

Our activities are managed entirely by volunteers – a group of like minded people who want to understand their own impact, as well as helping the community understand and reduce theirs too. In our society we all on some level are battling to come to terms with the messages that our Government and the scientific community are giving us about climate change. Some believe its happening, and some believe its not. I believe it doesn’t actually matter – we are all united on the idea that we want our energy and water bills to cost less so lets focus on that first, and together we can have a huge impact just in these two areas. There is a lot of confusing messages out there, and people genuinely don’t know where to go. Our toilet block will give our community and visitors coming into Bollington a focus, showing people what they can do to reduce their environmental impact, and get them on the right track.

What’s happening now – December 2010

Over the past few months we have been working on the designs, using local architect Lesley Mattin from millennium3 design studio, which concentrates on sustainable architectural design, to come up with a low carbon sustainable specification. We have also called in Nick Parsons, who is based in Sheffield and created the “eco-house” at Heeley Farm in Sheffield , which is now the South Yorkshire Energy Efficiency Advice Centre. Between them Nick and Lesley have a great deal of knowledge on sustainable buildings. In our team we also have me – I work at Bovis Lend Lease, a large construction company, in the Sustainability Unit, and have a good knowledge of sustainable construction techniques, as well as Sonia Mysko, who has recently completed an MSc at the Centre of Alternative Technology in Sustainable Architecture. We have Jon Weston, from the Bollington Initiative Trust – our landlord who runs is how financial services business Bradshaw-Bennett Ltd, and Ted Clun, a local councillor and well known developer in the region, who is part of Ingersley Vale LLP, the company who are developing the local disused mill into Code for Sustainable Homes Level 6 housing – the highest level of sustainable housing there is. Finally we have two other members of the Carbon Revolution helping – Liz Khatri who is helping us with a number of activities, including researching and designing the interior, and Steve Wood who is helping us with the communications.

There is a lot going on at the moment. We have resubmitted our designs to Cheshire East Planning Department, as we have made some modifications to the original design which was granted planning permission. The changes include creating an additional room at the rear of the building, between the former gents and ladies toilets, to create a storage cupboard for all of our Ecoteam materials, amongst other things. We have completed the specification and have invited three local contractors to tender for the work, and are awaiting their response. We have also already secured a good portion of the funds needed, and are currently writing applications for a number of other funding sources. Our aim is to be on site and start work by the end of April 2011.

If you would like more information, or would like to join our toilet block project, or an Ecoteam, please get in touch with nicolapercivalbcr@yahoo.co.uk

The tree pollarding  around the building will start on this date.  Permission has been granted by the Council.

We would put the next update here………..