When I arrived home from work the other week, my heart sank as I saw a letter from my energy provider laying on the mat. We receive our bills by email so this could only mean one thing: the dreaded price increase was coming! We'd avoided it so far, but the warnings all over the media over the last couple of weeks meant it was bound to catch up with us sooner or later. We'll have to take it on the chin for now, but I was given hope for the size of future bills when I heard about the exciting new developments at our Nagshead reserve. This week they've opened the doors to their refurbished visitor centre which is completely "off-grid"! It's not connected to any mains supply and gets its power from a combination of state of the art solar panels and a high efficiency wood burner. The icing on the cake is a "living roof" made of low growing drought resistant plants.
Hannah Morton, who manages the reserve, explains why the improvements to the centre are so important:
"Climate change is the biggest threat to wildlife globally and we need to do every bit we can to help reduce our dependence on energy derived from oil and coal. This visitor centre is a great example of what can be done with a little thought. "
These improvements were made possible by European funding distributed through Forest of Dean Local Action Group, so a big THANK YOU to them.
Being "off-grid" at home isn't something we personally can achieve at the moment, but a girl can dream...
To find out more about the centre, check out the latest post on the Nagshead blog.