They are consulting with residents on their preferred species.  If you’d like to let them know your views, read about the local planting schemes here, and the tree choices here.

Even if you don’t want a tree yourself, you can help them get going by telling us where existing apple trees are, as planting them within 50m of other apples will give them the best chance of pollination.  Do you have an apple tree in your garden?  Does your neighbour?  The type of apple doesn’t matter – we just need to get plugged into the bee routes!

If you’re interested in being part of a cluster, or know the address of an existing apple tree, please let us know in a comment below or by emailing urbangreening@transitionmontpelier.org.uk.

Minutes from our Spring planning meeting last week are here.

“Perhaps this is a good time to remind everyone that Montpelier, like the whole of the Bristol City Council area, is a Smoke Control Area, so:-

• Open fires may only be used with smokeless fuel – i.e. not wood. They are an inefficient and unsustainable form of heating.
• Wood may only be burned in modern woodburners specifically approved for use in smokeless zones (these consume their own smoke, are far more efficient and avoid air pollution.

Smoke Control Areas were introduced following a series of Clean Air Acts (from the 1950′s to the 1990′s) for very good public health reasons – before that, life-shortening respiratory illness was common and buildings were black with soot.

Now air quality in Central Bristol is once again unacceptably poor and does not meet EU standards. This is mainly due to traffic (including air traffic) but open fires and out-of-date stoves contribute too.

If you are tempted to light a fire, please remember that though a blazing log fire is undoubtedly a traditional and heart-warming sight, it is unsustainable, illegal and likely to be aggravating your neighbours’ asthma.

Also, emitting smoke from a chimney is an offence with a maximum fine of £1000.

More information is available from Bristol City Council’s Environmental Health Department and their Clean Air Team, and also the DEFRA website.”

• Would you like a free home energy audit?
• Do you know anyone local who runs home energy audits?
• Could you write a letter of support?

The energy team are off and running, pulling together a whole raft of information for a LEAF grant bid.  They’re applying for £35,000 to run over a hundred energy audits in Montpelier, picking homes that give a representative sample of the buildings here.  If the bid is successful, you could be one of the lucky ones that gets a free energy audit worth over a hundred pounds!  Sign up here to register your interest.

And even if you aren’t lucky enough to win a free audit, if the bid is successful the results will be available for us all to learn from, so we’ll hopefully be able to match your home to similar ones that have been audited so you can see exactly where you can start saving energy and cash too.  The idea of the fund is to get communities ready to take advantage of the Green Deal that’s coming in the autumn; whatever your views are of this scheme, an energy audit of your home will help you save money, reduce your energy use and may even show you how you could make money with renewables.

They’re on a very tight deadline; if you can help them by writing a supporting letter as a resident of Montpelier, or as a business based here, it will make their application even stronger.  A draft letter is here if you want some inspiration; please email yours to admin@transitionmontpelier.org.uk or post it through the door at 53 Ashley Road by Thursday 19 January.  These really will make a big difference; please send one if you can!

Finally, the team have found a company to run the energy audits, but what they’d really like is to be able to pay local people to do them for their neighbours.  Do you know anyone who is qualified to run an energy audit?  The more the merrier!

All welcome to get involved for 2012!

Cheers,

The Urban Greening team

It’s designed to “finance projects that increase understanding and uptake of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies and help to make energy supply secure and affordable for everyone in your community”.  Amongst other things, it aims to fund large-scale energy audits of homes in a community, demonstration of renewable technologies in homes, and publicity events.

Grants of to £50,000 are available, and the Centre for Sustainable Energy can help with both writing the application and running the audits.  Montpelier is ripe for this: can you help it happen?

The deadlines are tight:  the first phase for applications closes on 22 December, the second on 20 January.  Money must be spent (ie work completed) by 31 March.  With CSE’s help, these deadlines can be met.

If you’re interested in making this happen for Montpelier, leave a comment below, contact us here, or come and talk to us at the Picton Street Winter Fayre on Saturday 17th December between 12 and 6pm.

It’s going to be a whopper of a market with loads of your lovely local crafts and fayre too!  Stalls are getting booked up fast, so if you’d like to be part of this magical day, print off an application form here and hand it in to 49 Picton Street.  Sorry, no hot food, open flames or alcohol.  Get your skates on, stalls are selling as fast as a gingerbread man on fire!

Please do not hesitate to contact the winter fairies (winterfayre@gmail.com) if you have any questions.

And here’s a poster for your window.

We need YOU to help get them into the ground.  Come to the Station Path, next to Montpelier Park, at 3pm on Saturday 3rd December with gloves and trowels if you have them.

If you would like to apply for a Free Tree, please read this selection guide and this planting guide.  Then fill out the application form below before 8 December.  FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED! We’ll let you know if you’ve been successful, and you can collect your tree from our stall at the Picton Street Winter Fayre between 2 and 4pm on Saturday 17 December.

Click here to apply for a free tree