Environment Awards Presentation at Felbrigg Hall

13 July, 2006

North Norfolk District Council will reward local projects for good 'green' practice tomorrow (Friday, 14 July) with a special ceremony at Felbrigg Hall, near Cromer.

Schools, businesses, community groups and 'green' buildings from across the District are in line for North Norfolk Environment Awards, along with entrants in a new 'open' category, designed to suit the kind of projects that would not otherwise be considered.

The Environment Awards have been running since 1994, and recognise the work done right across the community and in many different ways to preserve and enhance the precious North Norfolk environment - an attractive and productive environment upon which so many local livelihoods depend.

The presentation will be at Felbrigg Hall on Friday, 14 July, starting at 2.30pm, and the media are welcome to attend. The event is not open to the general public, however. Please note the change of venue this year. The winners will not be announced before the ceremony.

This year's entrants in each category are as follows:

GREEN BUILDING - Category supported by the CSV Action Desk at BBC Radio Norfolk

• Friends Meeting House, Sheringham: Disabled access had to be improved, so the opportunity was seized to improve energy efficiency with insulation, a special boiler and natural roof lights, while recycling some furnishings into new kitchen surfaces. A sensory garden is now being built.
• Boundary Farm, Gunthorpe: A sensitive barn conversion which retains original features while incorporating innovations like a 5kW wind turbine and ventilation brickwork that allows space for nesting birds.

SCHOOL - Category supported by the North Norfolk News and Dereham and Fakenham Times

• Colby School Travel Plan: Norfolk schools have to produce travel plans. Colby School's eco-committee worked to find safe routes to school and encourage bus use and car sharing. Pupils seized an opportunity to get a road widening project a short distance away adapted to include parking, to cut down traffic right in front of the school. They got a grant for a shelter for parents to wait in.
• Langham Village School Wild Garden project: A new wild garden incorporates a bird hide overlooking a pond (for the sake of curricular studies). Flowerbeds are maintained by volunteer parents and a small mound has been planted with apple trees. The school plans to improve its kitchen facilities.
• Little Snoring Wildlife Area: A playing field has been brought into use for environmental education, with newly-dug beds for flowers and vegetables. The project has brought the school community together for fundraising, and the school plans to introduce other features, including a bog garden to encourage wildlife.
• Millfield Primary School Travel Plan: The school, which has poor road access, has encouraged pupils to walk to school and its environmental club made a film to promote the advantages of walking. The school won a North Norfolk District Council Green Build model-making competition after studying green build issues.
• Neatishead environmental studies: Links have been established with local farms, food producers and wildlife reserves to encourage children to find out more about the environment and where food comes from. The school plans to create a vegetable garden and wildlife areas, and visited Cromer Crab Company.
• Tunstead school grounds improvements: The school has planted hedges, it has a pond with an adjacent wild patch where butterflies and other forms of wildlife are encouraged, and it has put up bird boxes as part of its affiliation with the RSPB. Families have donated apple trees and there is an organic gardening area to be used in healthy eating initiatives.

COMMUNITY - Category supported by North Norfolk Radio

• Beeston Back Common, Sheringham: An area formerly used for rough parking has been transformed by the local community into a wildflower patch that is also attractive to wildlife.
• Brinton Nine Holes: An old surveyor's allotment (a roadside area once used for storing road maintenance material) has been transformed from a fly-tipping blackspot into a family picnic area thanks to clearing, rubbish-picking and maintenance by villagers, who can now enjoy harvesting wild fruits for jam-making. Bat boxes have also been installed.
• Edgefield village pond and surroundings restoration project: The pond was dug out, lined with clay thanks to a donation from the Waste Trust, and planted with native species, attracting a range of amphibians, insects and birds. The village hall wall, which had become dangerous, was rebuilt to help create a picnic area.
• Field Dalling pond improvements: A pond at the edge of the village has been fenced off and cleared of rubbish to allow the surrounding grass to be grazed by sheep. The pond is a haven for ducks, and for villagers who enjoy feeding them.
• North West Norfolk Ringing Group: Local volunteers are monitoring bird populations and compiling reports for farmers and interest groups. Nest boxes are being provided for barn owls as new development springs up, giving the owls sanctuaries while also allowing chicks to be ringed.

BUSINESS

• Salthouse Heritage Orchard: A field on Salthouse Heath has been planted with Norfolk apple and pear varieties that have been in decline or lost locally over the years. A pond area has been dug to take water from the roof of a barn that is being built to store future crops, and the intention is for the site to become an educational facility as well as producing crops.
• Saxthorpe Recycling: A 400-head dairy herd was sold in a radical diversification for this farm, which now takes wood, road sweepings and green waste for shredding and composting using large plastic 'sausages' which maintain high temperatures and limit smells.

OPEN CATEGORY

• 'Setting an Example': This individual has made lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions, through radical changes to his car use.
• 'Educating the Decision-Makers of Tomorrow': The Kingswood Centre at Overstrand runs environmental education courses for schools and colleges, and has introduced environmentally-friendly measures including recycling, energy-saving, and water-saving practices, along with grounds improvements through new planting and maintenance regimes.

Councillor Virginia Gay, NNDC's Cabinet Member for the Environment, said: "Every one of these projects deserves huge praise and sincere thanks, because we all get the benefit of what these keen people have done and because they have been an inspiration to all of us.

"Even projects undertaken at a very local level make North Norfolk as a whole a better, brighter place. That makes it a better place to live and work, and a better place for people to visit and spend money. Our environment is an asset we need to maintain, so we can build and sustain a good quality of life. I wish all this year's entrants the very best of luck."

• For more information, contact the Environment Awards' organiser, Hetty Selwyn, on 01692 400937 or email hetty@farmerslink.org.uk

• For comment, contact Councillor Virginia Gay on 01692 402572.

ENDS