Great weather for ducks – and for a green cup of tea

Mingled in with tales of a dog (Gelert) that saved a baby from a wolf and the literal meaning of the name Hafod y Llan (farm in the sacred place) was a casual chat around the benefits of hydropower.

A brief conversation with our taxi driver Vincent, while en route to a renewables open day at a farm in Snowdonia this week, showed how green energy has become a normal part of life for communities in North Wales.

Hidden among the bracken, conifers and grazing cattle at the National Trust’s steep and rugged farm estate of Hafod y Llan are stacks of nifty renewables. Solar panels light up the lamb orphanage, a wood pellet range cooker warms pies and kettles for cuppas and a small scale hydro, which runs off a nearby waterfall, powers-up the farm’s office and homes of three tenant farmers nearby. It is a centuries old solution to a modern day problem – spiralling fuel poverty.

Our first tour of the day took us on a steep climb from turbine to weir (here come the technical bits)…

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Now the Trust is investing in another hydro scheme at the site, but this one will be around 40 times more powerful. At a cost of £1.5m to implement it is expected to raise around £360,000 a year by selling the electricity it generates back to the grid (FiT and export tariff). This covers the cost of powering all of the National Trust properties in Wales, including castles, mansions, gardens, 45 holiday cottages and 200 farms. And it means more money can be spent on securing the future of Hafod y Llan farm and can be ploughed back into the environment and the Trust’s wider conservation work.

Already several hoops have been jumped through by a skilled and enthusiastic team to get near to completing this project – surveying, planning, legalities, finance and of course construction, including a mile’s worth of large pipe – not an easy task when you are building up the side of Wales’ highest mountain.

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And sharing this learning about installing renewables into sensitive landscapes – or “seeing under the skin of what’s happening,” as Wales Environmental Practices Advisor Keith Jones said – was a key part of the open day.

Despite the constant showers (no wonder hydro is popular in North Wales) and those infernal midges (if only we could run biomass systems off them), around 200 hundred National Trust staff, energy providers, community groups and various environmental practitioners were not deterred from attending the event.

What they were looking for varied, but the question remained the same – how?

• Find out more about the processes and practice of installing small and large renewable schemes in your home, business, community or region at the NT Going Green blog .
• Help the Trust to discover and share the power of nature by making the switch to green energy provider Good Energy – for every switch made, up to £40 will go towards our pioneering renewable energy generation projects.

Local power in wind farm planning is step in the right direction

Today’s announcement by government that local people are to get a stronger voice over planning decisions on wind farms is an important step in the right direction.

We have long advocated the need for a robust planning system that values the opinions of local people and gives them a say on what type of developments they want and need for their own communities. And this move by government towards engaging and empowering communities in decisions around renewable technology is really important.

View along the Whitehaven coast, Cumbria towards wind turbines ©National Trust Images/Joe Cornish

The National Trust believes in the need to grow cleaner, greener energy to tackle the damaging effects of fossil fuels on our environment and wellbeing. That is why we have pledged to generate 50 per cent of our energy from renewables, including biomass, solar and hydro technologies, by 2020. It is also why it is important that this move does not signal a major backward step in the Government’s commitment to expanding renewables. Fewer renewables to be replaced by any anticipated bonanza in fracked shale gas would be a serious blow to the Coalition’s low carbon credibility and do nothing to help us all tackle climate change.

We also believe there is a place for well-sited, well-designed wind technology as part of a mix of renewable energy schemes, but that this should not be at any cost.

So we welcome the communities and local government minister Eric Pickles’ statement today, in which he says: “Meeting our energy goals should not be used to justify the wrong development in the wrong location.” And also his strong support for clear policies in local plans which will ensure that “impacts from wind farms developments, including cumulative landscape and visual impact, are addressed satisfactorily.”

As a leading conservation organisation, we have a duty to protect beautiful places for ever, for everyone and believe that great care needs to be taken in the siting of any renewable technology, wind included, to ensure that the special character of our most sensitive places and landscapes is not compromised.

Long overdue is a national debate and then clear plan – organised by regions – which aims to set out where large scale renewable technologies could be located. This would take so much of the understandable heat out of the current situation where scattergun and speculative approaches to, for example, wind farm development are creating incessant pressures on some local landscape and their communities. The best development proposals engage local people early and help them take part proactively in the what, where and how of any major interventions.

While today’s announcement has prompted concerns that higher incentives from wind farm developers to communities might lead to distorted planning decisions – and it is important that the government ensures this does not happen – there is a need to recognise the benefits that can be gained from energy providers working with local people on developing models for sharing the dividends of local, community renewables.

We support the principle of local energy tariffs, where communities which host schemes can benefit from access to cleaner, less costly heat and power. Our new energy partner, Good Energy, is already a pioneer in this approach, and we are working with them in exploring how our new hydro schemes, for example at Hafod y Llan in Snowdonia, might embrace this concept of local, mutual advantage.

By Patrick Begg, Rural Enterprises Director

‘Stop the Spread’ catches on at RHS Chelsea Flower Show

In the words of the Counting Crows, ‘don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?’

The ‘Stop the Spread’ garden, which won silver at Chelsea this week, gave nature lovers a glimpse into the fate of our wildlife if we do not take action now.

The message was clear; if we do not fight the sneezes and diseases that are spreading from non-native species in our gardens and countryside, such as Chalara ash dieback and Oak Processionary Moth, the landscapes we love could be lost forever.

The Food & Environment Research Agency’s show garden, which was sponsored by the National Trust and created by award-winning designer Jo Thompson (this was Jo’s fourth Chelsea design), showed a stark contrast between ‘beauty’ and ‘ugliness’.

A lush and vibrant sunken spring garden, bordered by native trees and shade-loving plants was juxtaposed with a dark avenue of dead trees and a lifeless black pool, which featured an island holding a single sapling.

“The garden is meant to be thought provoking,” Jo said. “I designed it to creatively show what impact plant pests and diseases and invasive non-native species can have on our environment now and for future generations.”

See her design coming to life in the video below:

Ian Wright, the Trust’s garden adviser in the South West said: “Plant pests and diseases are a huge issue for the Trust as we care for 250,000 hectares of land across the UK and over 200 gardens – much of which could be at risk from various diseases.

“By working together we will have a better chance of identifying any issues quicker and have a better chance to do something about it, helping to protect our landscape and gardens for future generations.”

Other partners supporting the Fera ‘Stop the Spread’ garden included Defra, Forestry Commission, Welsh Government, Scottish Government, Woodland Trust, Horticultural Trades Association and Timber Packaging and Pallet Confederation.

The Chelsea Flower show runs until tomorrow, May 25.

Find out more about how you can help to protect our landscape and gardens here.

Does money really grow on trees?

If you could put a ballpark figure on the value of our nation’s green spaces what would it be?

According to Chelsea Flower Show gold medal winner Homebase, green-fingered Britons have already spent more than £20billion on their backyards this year alone.

And it is no wonder, as flower power is estimated to add nearly one quarter to a home’s value.

Money grows on echinops and butterflies according to a National Parks England report

Beyond our garden fences and window boxes, green spaces are proving to be a boon for business.

A new report published today by National Parks England shows the importance of National Parks not just as iconic landscapes and part of our national identity, but as thriving rural economies contributing to national prosperity and wellbeing.

The study revealed that England’s National Parks contributed up to £6.3bn to the economy last year – equivalent to the UK aerospace industry, or the bustling city of Swindon where the National Trust’s headquarters is found.

It is doubtful that the 95million visitors to our valuable ‘breathing spaces’ will care less about these figures while walking amongst some of our nation’s most spectacular wildlife.

The value taken from hearing skylarks on Cheviot Hills or from catching your breath before the rolling panoramic views at Latrigg summit is not something that can be measured by pounds and pence.

However, the £3bn spent by visitors who love to explore beauty certainly can be. And it is our nation’s natural beauty that drives tourism in these areas.

Skylark collecting nesting material

Planning policy currently gives special protections to National Parks to ward against unwarranted development.

Only builds that are of benefit to the local community and to the preservation of wildlife and beauty can be allowed on these highly valued landscapes.

Rather than this protection strangling economic growth, the report states that a significant majority of planning applications in National Parks are being approved by local park authorities (89%, compared to 87% for England as a whole).

These are developments that are fit for the future and contribute to the conservation of the environment, with ecosystem services that underpin activities such as farming, forestry, reduce costs to society by improving health and wellbeing, and help to maintain a healthy environment in which people can live and work.

The National Trust believes it is vital that we have a planning policy that really values all of our green spaces as treasures and recognises the wealth of benefits they can hold for our wildlife, for our communities and for our economy.

• What value does nature hold for you? Let us know by commenting below or tweeting @NTExtAffairs

Why did the brown moo cows cross the road?

In this blogpost the National Trust’s Head Ranger for the East Devon Coast and Countryside, Pete Blyth, talks about the “brown moo cows” that inspired him to help others forge a lifetime connection with special places.

Cows have been grazing at Hughenden park, High Wycombe, since the early 1800s

Why would a grown man be moved to tears by a herd of cows?  Because they are special cows, obviously.  Okay so slightly more information might be needed here…

My lifetime connection to the countryside and the Trust started aged about three, when my mum used to drive me past the Trust’s Hughenden manor on the way to go shopping in High Wycombe. I don’t remember exactly when it started but on one of these trips we were lucky enough to see the herd of cows crossing the road from the Trust’s parkland to the farm to be milked. That was it, I was transfixed, and my poor mum had to make sure we timed all future trips to see “the brown moo cows, crossing.” If we missed them it was a major catastrophe.

The life changing event for me came when aged about four, mum took me to Hughenden for a visit and I was privileged to meet “the man who looks after the brown moo cows.” This member of Trust staff took the time out of his busy day to explain to four-year-old me why the Trust had cows, and how important they were in managing the estate.

I already knew about the countryside, but that was the moment when I realised that it didn’t just happen, but was managed and looked after – and that was what I was going to do. While my friends all wanted to be pop stars, or engine drivers, or fighter pilots, I was going to be “the man who looks after the brown moo cows.”

Fast forward 36 years, I am driving past Hughenden and there they are. The next thing I know I have tears of joy streaming down my face while I incoherently explain to my bemused colleague that it’s “the brown moo cows” and even better still, “they are crossing the road!”

Having fun in Salcombe hill woods (Credit: Claire Mountjoy/Ecoexplorers)

As part of our work to get people outdoors and closer to nature, my team is supporting a local business “Ecoexplorers” in running a pre-school forest school playgroup in our woods at Salcombe Hill, East Devon. We’ve busted out a story time circle for them from the undergrowth, and furnished it with logs and branches from our woodland operations. Every Wednesday morning the site rings to the sounds of young children getting the chance to build dens, toast marshmallows over open fires, sing songs, make leaf sculptures and collages, and generally have fun doing all the things that I did as a child, but which many kids today wouldn’t otherwise get a chance to do.

Children from Ecoexplorers get to grips with nature (Credit: Claire Mountjoy/Ecoexplorers)

A few weeks back I was at the site just as the session was ending and a little boy came up to me and proudly said, “Look I’ve got a stick.”  I agreed that yes indeed he had, and a very fine stick it was indeed. Pointing at the trees around the site he asked, “How do the big sticks become little sticks?” Seeing how important this was to him I put aside my woodland grant scheme paperwork and spent maybe 15 minutes explaining in simple terms how we manage the site, why we cut trees down and plant new ones, and how the work we are doing now will mean that there’ll be a woodland for him to enjoy with his kids when he reaches my age.

A young Ecoexplorer investigates Salcombe Hill woods (Claire Mountjoy/Ecoexplorers)

I met his mother again more recently and she told me that he hasn’t stopped talking about our encounter and how he wants to “help make big sticks in the future.”  This was the moment when I realised that I’ve achieved my dream. I may not have actually become “the man who looks after the brown moo cows” (though as a member of the Trust family I am proud to count him as a colleague), but instead I’ve become “the man who looks after the place with the big sticks.” Now its my responsibility to ensure that local kids have a chance to forge their lifetime connection with our special places, and if our sites and experiences have as much meaning for even some of them as the “brown moo cows” have had for me then it will have been a success.

Life among landslides: what does nature’s kick mean for our coastline?

We recently blogged about ‘Jurassic Toast’. In this post we talk to Tony Flux, our Coastal and Marine Advisor for the South West, about the rise in coastal landslips and what the power of nature means for this changing coastline.

Walkers are warned about the recent landslip at St Oswald’s Bay, which is owned by the Lulworth Estate

As a piece of one of Britain’s most trodden coastal paths crashed into the English Channel last week, it served as a startling reminder of the indomitable power of nature.

The plummeting of some 80 metres of Dorset cliff, just a few hundred yards between the tourist hotspots of Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove, was the latest in a line of landslips to have hit England’s south coast.

While coastal erosion has always shaped our shores, carving out a wealth of geological interest along the Jurassic Coast, landslides are seemingly on the rise and experts are pointing to last year’s heavy rainfall as the trigger.

Research published this week by British Geological Survey, revealed that in the past four months there were 16 cliff falls between Bridport and Chichester, compared with 22 for the whole of 2012.

The Trust’s SW Coast and Marine Advisor, Tony Flux, said: “There’s definitely some correlation between extremes of weather and increases of landslips.

“In the last 12 months we have seen a spike in rock falls at places, such as Sidmouth, Hive Beach, Portland and at Swanage. Over at the Isle of Wight there have been slips and slumps and falls. And even when you get to Sussex and the White Cliffs there have been falls there.

“But it shouldn’t be interpreted that the world is falling apart and the south coast is being lost – that’s just not the case,” he added. “The Jurassic coast is continually renewing itself and we have had fall after fall after fall over thousands of years.

“It would be wrong to try to prevent or stop these landslips from occurring because it exposes new material, new fossils and new excitement for people.”

The National Trust cares for around 700 miles of coastline, including a quarter of the Jurassic World Heritage Coastline and numerous coastal sites within the Cornwall and West Devon Mining World Heritage Site.

Caring for this active coastline costs the Trust more than £1,800 per kilometre every year. But we think it is worth it. And we are not alone because since 1965, when the Trust’s Neptune Coastline Campaign was launched, more than £20m has been raised and thousands of volunteer hours have been donated to support our coastal and conservation management work.

“We’re not in the business of trying to prevent people from exploring our beaches and coastline. We have a wonderful South West path that people can explore at no cost,” Tony said.

“But there are safety issues, so we’re going to great lengths – not just the National Trust, but in cooperation with the Coastguard agency, local authorities and all the rescue services – to educate people and thereby avoid and reduce any risk.

“For a number of years we’ve done risk assessments and we have warning signs where we think there’s a heightened risk. But it would be a crime to start building concrete walls and fencing, which would stop people from seeing the beauty of the cliffs as they are. Really it’s about common sense – which 99% of the general public have.”

To find out more about the National Trust’s coastal and conservation work, click here

Singer Laura Mvula: Why feeling grass between your toes is a city essential

“I’ll fly on the wings of a butterfly, high as a tree top and down again, putting my bag down, taking my shoes off, walk in the carpet of green velvet,” sings rising British star Laura Mvula.

The spellbinding singer-songwriter’s single Green Garden, taken from her debut album Sing to the Moon, is a breath of fresh air in more ways than one.

Birmingham-born Laura told the National Trust the track was inspired by memories of getting outdoors and playing in the garden as a child with her two siblings at their family home.

Recent studies have shown that parks, gardens and green space in urban areas can improve the wellbeing and quality of life of people living there.

The National Trust’s co-founder Octavia Hill fought for the protection of woodland, parks and green spaces for urban dwellers in the nineteenth century.

Now with the government’s current drive to boost housing figures under the National Planning Policy Framework and “growth duty”, coupled with cuts to park maintenance budgets, the protection of these valued green spaces are still at risk.

Laura told the Trust how important it was for her to have green spaces to play in while growing up in a city landscape…

Lickey Hills in Birmingham, managed by Birmingham City Council

Growing up in Birmingham, what did parks and green spaces mean to you? 

“It’s so important to have parks and green spaces in cities, especially for children who don’t have outdoor space at home. Just having somewhere to run free and explore can make such a huge difference to your childhood.

“It would be such a shame for people to lose out on communal parks and green spaces!”

 Where is your favourite/most inspiring outdoor place in Britain and why?

“One of my favourite places is the Lickey Hills in Birmingham. This is where my husband Themba proposed.”

What can we expect next from you? 

“I’m off to America for a couple of weeks to do some shows there and then this summer I’ll be playing lots of festivals in the UK, which I’m really excited about!”

Laura Mvula’s debut album Sing to the Moon was released on March 4 and is available to buy online and in stores now.

Find out more and watch the Green Garden music video at www.lauramvula.com

The National Trust’s Patrick Begg reflects on the role of wind schemes in a green energy future

Chris Goodall’s challenge to the Trust’s ambitious renewables programme (“Why is the Trust investing in renewables while fighting a windfarm?” The Guardian, 19 April 2013) raises some important questions, not just for us but for the nation in general.  In particular, his questions prompt us, as a nation, to reflect on what we want from our land in a crowded, but still in many parts an inspirationally beautiful, country.

For the Trust, we are very clear that well-designed and sensitively located wind schemes can play a part in the UK’s future energy mix.  In principle, we stand four-square behind the need for a much more assertive shift to renewables, of all types, which will hep tackle climate change and promote a more secure, resilient, low-carbon energy future for the UK.

The North Front of Lyveden New Bield in Northamptonshire

 Equally, we will continue to stand up for very special places like Lyveden, or wild areas of coastline where the views out are as cherished and sensitive as the views in.  And that’s the big point here: some things, we believe, are too important to be traded off.  Reducing the debates on future energy deployment and technologies to a simple £s per KwH equation is risky in the extreme.

 These are three-dimensional questions which, in the Trust’s view, must embrace a broader range of factors.  The power of natural beauty and the often transformational effects that experiences of wildness, aesthetic genius or true depth of history are forces for good in the UK and must have their champions.  Our core purpose asks us to stand up for beauty when it is under threat and an increasingly loose planning system has sharpened our appreciation of this responsibility.  Surely it’s also unsurprising that major landscape interventions near our places – owned in the first place by the Trust because of their national significance – carry the biggest risks.  We’ll continue to be unapologetic for standing up for their wider setting and intrinsic qualities.

Badly designed infrastructure of any kind is a growing risk to some of the UK’s most fundamental assets: our internationally unrivalled built and natural heritage which underpins some of the biggest sectors of our economy.  In a renewables context, I also worry that the polarisation of debates to an argument between climate fanatics and climate sceptics is unhelpful in the extreme.  One group is unbendingly committed to renewables at any cost; the other equally trenchantly anti. The latter using wind to obscure the wider range of options for switching to renewables, or even to underplay the need for changes in lifestyle that will reduce overall demand for power.

The Anafon river where the Aber community hydro will be installed

We believe that our programme can help bridge some of these divisions.  It’s not by accident that we’re focussing on micro-generation, mostly via hydro schemes and wood-fuel.  Most people would recognise that our 250,000 ha of land give us an unrivalled opportunity to generate energy.  We’ve looked hard at the technologies that will work with our places and are also looking at schemes where there is the potential to broaden out the benefit to local communities. We want to demonstrate what can be achieved when the landscape or heritage context is challenging.  Our hydros, for example, will produce real energy grunt, yet we believe they can be designed and fitted to local, wild settings in the fells and valleys of Cumbria and Wales. 

We have an amazing natural treasury of resources and renewable power is one of the dividends to be realised: but not at the cost of other, equally important dimensions.

By Patrick Begg, Rural Enterprises Director at the National Trust

Special places and beyond

Being a member of the National Trust External Affairs team, and as part of a six month internship, Eva Spear is looking at the Trust’s international cultural understanding around the historic and natural environment. Below you’ll find one of her primary observations.

Whilst researching the developments of natural and cultural heritage movements in Europe, I soon discovered that countries’ interpretation of both are not always the same. Small wonder really, Europe stands out for its cultural diversity and its variety of characteristic landscapes.

After observing that heritage movements across Europe focus on different areas, I concluded that what is regarded as a special place in England, Wales or Northern-Ireland, can be very different to the places people emotionally feel connected with in, say, the Netherlands.

In England for example, we try and sustain our patchwork-patterned rural areas, where an attempt is made to blend nature and agriculture together.

In the Netherlands on the other hand, there seems to be a much wider gap between agriculture and nature; the land reserved for farming is square and open, without much room for wildlife. Instead, the Netherlands boasts many villages and towns with picturesque, intact historic centres, which suggest a well-developed monumental preservation movement, and careful attention for urban planning.

Taking into account that the Netherlands have to make do with not such a large and densely-populated space, this more urban focus seems a logical result. Beside issues as space, and geographical make-up, there are sure to be many other factors (historical; sociological, just to name two) to be considered.

But to prove the point, is there really a difference in what the nationals of different countries think of a place as special? What really needs to be done is lay side by side people’s opinion of special places, case studies from the UK and the Netherlands. The National Trust has already undertaken to find out which places are special to a list of celebs – now, what do the Dutch think? …To be continued in a future follow-up!

A curate’s egg of a curriculum?

There’s been a fair amount of coverage and comment recently on the Government’s consultation on the National Curriculum. Andy Beer, the National Trust’s Head of Visitor Experience and Learning, provides an overview of the questions we are asking ourselves as we draw up the National Trust’s response to the Government’s proposals:

The proposed new National Curriculum is an interesting reminder of the diverse interests of the National Trust. Just about every subject area touches on some aspect of our work. Coastal change, nature education, fostering a love of history, climate change, citizenship and identity are all things that bear closely upon our purposes as a charity.

So, how do we respond? Firstly, that it’s a bit of a curate’s egg. There are some good things, but also some areas that cause us, and others, some concern. We are compiling a response by talking to our staff, volunteers and partners, but in doing so here are some of the questions that we are asking ourselves:

The consultation document asks us whether we agree that “we should free teachers to shape their own curriculum aims based on the content of the programmes of study” and this seems an entirely laudable aim. However, if that is the ambition then why does the history curriculum not look like the geography curriculum? The latter is a broad framework, which appears to have been well received, whereas the former appears a prescriptive list of tasks, perhaps best accompanied by an atlas shaded in pink.

This leads us to a second question in relation to a history curriculum, for which the answer is self evident: “can we engender an understanding of chronology (a good thing) without teaching things in rigid chronological order?” The delight felt by the National Trust’s archaeologists that prehistory is now included in the curriculum has been somewhat tempered by the understanding that it appears to only figure between the ages of 5 and 5 and half. I sense we are underestimating the ability of children to organise information and, in doing so, might we squander the chance to fire them up about history?

Nature education is also an area we feel passionate about. The science curriculum places strong emphasis on the importance of first hand experience (something we would strongly support) and is also littered with the phrase “pupils should use their local environment throughout the year” and an increased emphasis on some basic skills of taxonomy potentially providing opportunities for learning about plants and animals. Is that sufficient?

Climate change is another thematic area of study that is not explicitly mentioned. Interestingly this forms part of a wider pattern of a move away from cross disciplinary areas of study. The curriculum looks as though it is split into separate silos, which is unhelpful given that most of the problems these children will face when mature cut across subject boundaries. That said, it will be very hard to teach “weather and climate” and the interaction of “human and physical processes on landscapes” without reference to it. However, it is a curious inconsistency that students will be required to know about the Heptarchy (I had to look it up) and Wycliffe’s Bible, but that knowledge of climate change is only optional.

Find out more about the government’s consultation on the National Curriculum.