What is Community Energy?

This article was written for the Haslingfield Parish Council quarterly newsletter, Spring 2025

At a recent East West Rail public meeting organised by Haslingfield Parish Councillors, funding for a local solar farm came up as a possible offsetting “ask”. This sparked some comments and questions, such as, how can that benefit the whole community? Haslingfield and Harlton Eco Group has been looking into the idea of Community Energy, so here is a quick rundown of what that means, to help people decide if it’s something they might like to see locally.

Community Energy is any energy producing (or saving) initiative which provides benefits directly to people instead of to commercial energy companies. Most solar/wind farms currently are owned by energy companies, including fossil fuel companies. The local community may have no say in where these go or what they look like. Community energy projects can put communities in charge and send profits back into community coffers.

Some local examples of community energy include:

Gamlingay Community Turbine, operating since May 2013. Community funded from a combination of loans and investment, it cost £900,000. It generates a 6% rate of return for its investors, and as of 2023 had donated £77k to community projects.

Reach Community Solar Farm, operating since January 2016. Owned and run by a Community Benefit Society made up of local people, it generates enough electricity to power 50 houses. The farm cost £340,000, invested by 112 local people. While providing a good return to investors, it donates some of its income to a Community Benefit Fund to be spent on other local projects.

Whittlesford Memorial Hall Solar Array, operating since January 2012. A 40 panel, 10kw system, it has generated in excess of £50,000 so far for improvements to the hall and community initiatives.

Haslingfield parish can’t install wind turbines because of restrictions around the radio telescopes (these have also paused the UC solar farm planned off Barton Road). However, we could partner with another village, have a solar farm farther from the telescopes, or look at an expanded solar array over the village hall/car park/play area. We could also look at community bulk buy, for solar panels or retrofitting. Interested in helping us scope the possibilities? Write to Michelle Golder at michellegolder@gmail.com.

And some good news for our Parish: according to the Centre for Sustainable Energy’s Impact community carbon calculator, our parish emissions have fallen from 14,089 tCO2e (tons of CO2 equivalent) in 2023 to 10,304 presently. In 2023 we exceeded average South Cambs emissions in every category, but we are now slightly below average emissions for the region in every category but housing. We do still exceed the national average figures, but by less. It’s impossible to say exactly why this might be, but it’s good news nonetheless!

Struggling to Make Sense of East West Rail Maths

Below is my full submission to the January 2025 East West Rail consultation. This was also emailed to our MP, Pippa Heylings. If you have comments or critiques I would love to hear them.

As a local environmental activist for 10 years now, I wanted to support this railway when it was announced. I support public transport and believe 100% in the need to get cars off the road to make room for buses, trolleys and bicycles. But the more I have looked into it, the more complicated my feelings and opinions have become. Do the reasons behind it make sense? If so, is the route the right one? Is it about getting cars off the road, or is it just about facilitating local growth?

I think I understand the arguments for the need for growth, and that without it we face at the least an economic crisis, with impacts across all but the very richest levels of society, with all the ramifications of that. Our system is based on profit, profit requires growth, without profit the whole system grinds to a halt. However, I also understand a law of physics: only a limited global emissions “budget” is left to keep warming to a level beneath catastrophic. We are caught, therefore, between two bad choices. One – stopping growth - could shake the foundations of our current civilisation, but the other – unchecked global warming - could still do that, while also destroying many or most of the earth’s ecosystems which support life. Neither choice is great, but that’s where we are at, and for me the first option – putting a hold on growth - seems better. What’s more, smart people are looking at ways of making it work.

The Danish building industry, for example, took this dilemma seriously. Working in partnership with advisors, research institutes, architects, and NGOs, it launched a project – the Reduction Roadmap - to translate the Paris Agreement and the Planetary Boundary for Climate Change into industry-specific reduction targets for new Danish housing projects.

The project reached a shocking conclusion though. To stay within its share of the planetary budget, the Roadmap concluded, the Danish building industry needed to reduce its emissions by 95%. In effect, construction, as it had been done, was off the table. New materials needed to be developed, the supply chain circularised, construction transport needed to be decarbonised, and a different approach to the built environment needed to be taken – one based on reuse and remodel, rather than new build.

This, to me, seems the most rational lens through which to view all kinds of material economic development going forward. What can we afford to spend, emissions wise, and how can we keep within that budget? And how does this apply to East West Rail? Below are some of the questions I still don’t feel have been satisfactorily answered for me to support this project.

Question 1: How does East West Rail enable the UK to stay within its emissions budget?

The campaigning group Cambridge Approaches made a very impressive attempt to analyse the CO2 impacts of EW Rail from the information provided in its materials and comparisons to HS2. I acknowledge that this analysis is not perfect. I ran it past a transport expert who pointed out some flaws - but nevertheless agreed that (quoting under Chatham House Rules): “It may… be the case that the construction carbon emissions are higher than the saved carbon emissions over 60 years. That could lead one to conclude, perfectly rationally, that the railway shouldn't be built. However, the assumptions that lead to that conclusion are based on business-as-usual in travel patterns. Plenty of research has shown that this is not compatible with a 1.5C carbon budget (which we are on track to exhaust by 2030).”

Which leads me to my second question -

Question 2: How will EW Rail achieve and maintain modal shift and is this being communicated effectively?

As the expert’s comments above show, much of the hopes for the sustainability of EW Rail ride on it helping to achieve modal shift – getting people who are currently driving cars onto public transport, whether for work or leisure. But absent a congestion charge or road toll, it’s not clear to me how this will be assured, especially given the projected population growth. If not achieved, EW Rail will have become a gigantic boondoggle in terms of emissions reductions.

From a purely local perspective, for those of us who live along the route between Cambourne and Cambridge – those most affected by the construction and route - the train offers nothing to help us with local travel, and people are therefore struggling to see the environmental benefit – a huge challenge to people like me who are trying to make the sustainability case. We don’t gain a closer station. Worse, the diversions which railway construction will cause, as it passes over or under connecting roads between villages, may force people who currently cycle or walk back into their cars for months or years or even for good if the connectivity is not as good or better after construction.

We also struggle to understand why the EW Rail materials cite traffic reduction as one of the perks for South Cambs. Are large numbers of biomedical campus commuters from Cambourne or Bedford using southern routes like the A603 or the A1- A10 to get there? These are the routes which affect residents of Comberton, Haslingfield, Harlton, Newton, Harston, etc. I understand that EW Rail is part of a new, joined up travel plan for our region, which includes potentially expanding Foxton station and a new Park and Ride at Harston, and hopefully Cambridge South station will on its own improve the traffic situation for this side of the county. But why hasn’t this vision, if realistic, been communicated better? Why doesn’t the communication take its most likely audience (those most affected) into account? Saying EW Rail alone will reduce traffic for us feels like a falsehood.

Finally, modal shift will be hugely dependent on pricing. Whether for leisure or commuting, while it is less expensive to drive people will continue to do so, and many better off people will do so at any price. How has the failure of the congestion charge affected the projections for EW Rail? How much will the train tickets cost?

Question 3: Where is the Reduction Roadmap for construction in the UK?

As of 2023, emissions have continued to rise and the 1.5-degree budget has therefore been halved. What’s more, we have already reached 1.5 degrees of warming in each of the past two years and are projected to do so again in 2025, so the target itself has been raised to 1.6 degrees. Our current emissions trajectory, if we don’t make huge cuts, will lead to something more like 3 degrees of warming – a level that will be inconceivably bad. So we need to know how these major infrastructure projects fit into the UK’s emissions budget.

One of the expert’s criticisms of the Cambridge Approaches analysis was its inclusion of emissions from the construction of the additional housing associated with, and to some extent dependent upon, EW Rail - 100-150 thousand new “dwellings” are suggested by the Cambridge 2050 project, though not all of these would be on the train route. These needed to be considered separately, they argued, because if not built here, they might be built elsewhere. Whether that is true or not, excluding them from the emissions picture seems out of step with logic– every national sector needs to understand its contribution to the emissions budget, and how the sectors interact with each other. If EW Rail is actually a conduit for growth, then we need to know if the growth itself fits rationally into such a budget.

Question 4: How will a route choice which prioritises economic interests over environmental protection help to win people over to the changes needed?

The decision to take the Southern over the Northern route for the railway was not based on cost (the Northern being slightly cheaper) or environmental impact (the Northern being slightly less destructive), but on “value”, which Head of Communications Hannah Staunton defined as job opportunities within 15 minutes of Cambridge South Station, or, to quote the 2023 Route Update report, “[the Northern Route] would make it harder for people living in Bedford, the Marston Vale or near St Neots/Tempsford to access the jobs at the Biomedical Campus – and therefore it wouldn’t deliver the economic opportunity that underpins the case for EWR.”

This is hard for the communities affected by the railway to swallow. There is anger and resentment – and this comes from both sides. Those upset about the route are called selfish, privileged, NIMBYs; those supporting it, including EW Rail staff and local politicians and officials, are called greedy and rapacious or cold-hearted and insensitive. None of it is helpful, and all leads to increased difficulty in making progress on any of the many environmental fronts which need to be addressed. A recent blog post from Cambridge Sustainable Travel Alliance really triggered my anger, with a single line: “While it is certainly true that any new infrastructure project will impact its surroundings” to address the major transformation the railway, in its construction and operation, will make to my own and surrounding communities. And that without conferring any direct benefits other than the promised “less traffic”. This is not enough. Local people need acknowledgement that we are being asked to make a very large sacrifice for the good of everyone – and we need reasons to believe that that good is genuine and important. Without a more intelligent and joined up approach to communicating with the public – one that faces facts, no matter how unpalatable, we risk going down the route so many of our international allies are on – to increased divisions, mistrust of democratic processes, and an epidemic of hopelessness and apathy.

Question 5: What is the train good for?

I completely understand that growth, including growth of the biomedical campus, absent the train and/or other infrastructure, spells disaster on all fronts: economic, congestion and emissions. If the growth is inevitable, the train might be as well, even if a rational analysis like the Danish study was carried out and showed the maths didn’t add up to sustainability.

When I interviewed Cllr. Bridget Smith about the OxCam Arc three years ago she argued that growth was the only way to get the funding needed for environmental improvements. At a recent Community Climate Action conference she doubled down on this, saying she was pushing for 20% net gain from the railway – still a tiny amount in our region, as one of the most nature-depleted in the UK. So this is what I hope for from the development:

• Improved connectivity between villages and infrastructure, including schools and surgeries, via cycling and walking tracks beside the railway.

• 20% biodiversity net gain, targeted at local areas. Most of the Cambourne – Cambridge route is rural, so liaison with local farmers, parish councils, landowners and nature groups to identify marginal land which could be improved, to directly benefit communities along the route.

• Educational materials and programmes to help the public understand the need to decarbonise and how the railway is addressing the issues I’ve raised above.

• Investment in local public transport, perhaps a fund supported by biomedical campus companies who stand to benefit the most.

• An ombudsman to ensure that promised improvements are carried out.

• A maintenance plan for any environmental improvements running alongside or adjacent to the railways (i.e. balancing ponds, hedges) to maintain health, aesthetics and quality of habitat.

• An approach to the environment which puts it first. Which, for example, recognises that natural spaces are not of value just when they have been registered and quantified as such, but puts caring feet on the ground to look for special places in the landscape. Haslingfield’s Quarry, or Clunch pit, for example, is a County Wildlife Site, a rare chalk grassland rich in wildflowers, on private land, but not an SSSI, for reasons I don’t understand but may be because the landowner objected or it was feared they would object. One of only two places in the three counties of Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire which is home to rare Man Orchids, the railway will pass within a few hundred metres of the site. From the top of the adjacent ridgeline, visitors can see an exceptional and unique 360 degree panaroma North to the city of Cambridge and South to beyond the A10. It’s a stunning view at all seasons, but it's invisible on maps or satellite views which makes all the land look flat. This (southern) view will be bisected by the railway. A place where many villagers walk every day will be disfigured and noisy, and I can’t see any way of screening that, unless the tunnel will be completely invisible.

• An approach to communication which recognises the importance of place to people’s mental health and to the cohesiveness of our society. Which takes people’s concerns seriously and gives honest answers. For example, recognition that South Cambs villages are being asked to make an enormous sacrifice of their place, and their peace of mind, for a greater good, and clear explanation of what exactly that greater good is, rather than attempts to convince people of local benefits that are wishful thinking at best.

• Train travel that is significantly cheaper than driving or flying – or even comparable in price, though this alone will not achieve modal shift in my view.

• A plan for how greater Cambridgeshire will access this train. There’s no parking on the biomedical campus, and I know Cambourne will not want to support massive car parks. Will there be bus services from villages to Cambridge South?

Michelle Golder

Chair, HnH Eco Group

Report for Haslingfield Parish Council - December 2024

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Every month, a member of the Haslingfield and Harlton Eco Group attends the Haslingfield Parish Council meeting. Where we have had activities, or wish to make requests, we submit a report in advance of the meeting and are given the opportunity to speak to our report as an agenda item. Below is the report given for the meeting of 9 December, 2024. Since this report was delivered, Pippa and Michelle met with a representative from SCDC who undertook to contact environmental services about dredging the pond and possibly cutting back the tops of the trees.

I. Biodiversity project updates

Swift Box: We now have two villagers looking at whether they can make the swift box for us using the plans provided by Action for Swifts. Action for Swifts said that as long as the box is in place by May 1st we will be in time for swift migration. If one of the residents agrees to make it, the eco group can cover the materials cost.

Wisbey’s Yard pond waterway: Michelle had a phone conversation with Rob Mungovan, former ecology officer for SCDC. During his tenure he carried out several projects in Haslingfield and knows the area well (he is currently Ecological adviser to the Friends of the Shep group which has successfully restored parts of that chalk stream). He was one of a group of people who planted wildflowers in the part of the meadow the eco group currently looks after, many of which are still surviving. With Mr Rutherford and Martin Heazell, he maintained the Wisbey's Yard pond with twice yearly desilting and cutting back of the surrounding trees.

We discussed our idea about partnering with SCDC to look after the whole watercourse from Wisbey's Yard to the Millenium Pond. The key points:

• He agreed that the Millenium Pond will chronically silt up as it is in the watercourse with restricted outflow. He suggested that the outflow on the other side (currently quite choked by the remains of the fallen poplar) could be lowered to increase flow, but this may be very difficult to achieve. He thought the idea of another pond beside the watercourse but separate from it was an excellent one. His only caveat was that it might be overshaded by the large trees (alder and field maple) surrounding. We have not yet managed to get a quote for this. Once we have, a public consultation, especially if trees need to be cut, might be a next step.

• He confirmed that he had observed great crested newts in a local resident’s pond and thought he had recorded them with CPERC. However, Pippa has confirmed that there are no reports of GCN in the village. It should be a matter of priority to confirm their presence next spring and get them registered. We have been in touch with both of the residents who indicated they had GCN and both agreed to a survey in spring. This would need to be done by a registered ecologist. Pippa is looking into whether her colleague can do this for us.

• He supported strongly the idea of "chasing" SCDC to get them to maintain the Wisbey's Yard pond, including potentially removing or trimming the surrounding trees which are badly shading the pond, and repairing or replacing the wooden viewing platforms (which are unsafe). He did not think we should use our funding or volunteer to look after it as it is their land and they should be doing so. However, Lise has now made the initial contact with the right people at SCDC and they have indicated their willingness to work with the Eco Group, but that their resources are limited in terms of carrying out surveys and funding. We will pursue this contact and keep the PC posted.

• He thought the waterway between the two ponds was definitely worth noting and mapping as an important wildlife corridor.

• He noted that the channel on the other side of Porker's Lane from the Millenium pond, which is in the PC’s care, had been dug too steeply and could benefit from gradation to the sides. However I mentioned that it is regularly polluted with sewage so he said until that was sorted we shouldn't bother trying to improve it.

• He emphasised the importance of doing projects the community can see and benefit from.

• He said he would be happy to answer further questions but could not get involved with site visits or assist with projects for at least some considerable time.

II. Scything

Despite a rainy day, the scything workshop on 1 December was very successful. Over the course of the morning 13 people took part and many more stopped round to watch and learn. Even though most were trying scything for the first time, we managed to scythe and rake half of the area. The next event will take place on March 30th.

III. First meeting of the River Rhee Monitoring Project

Our insurers have confirmed that our public liability and volunteers insurance will cover the volunteers for this project. The first meeting for potential volunteers took place online on Dec 3rd. A keen and well informed group talked about the reasons to monitor water quality in our local river, the local support offered by the network of organisations involved in river protection, and how the project intends to prepare for and then carry out monitoring for e.coli over the next 3 - 9 months. View all the slides from the event HERE.

IV. Great Collaboration: Toolkit uptake + Session on Carbon Literacy Project

Following the article in the November PC newsletter, the number of parish residents who have responded to the Great Collaboration Toolkit increased from two to six. This is a start, but not a great start. Further encouragement using social media or reminders in future newsletters would be useful!

The latest Great Collaboration session, on December 4th, was on the Carbon Literacy Project. This project provides training on up to date climate change causes, impacts and actions to organisations including Parish Councils. To date they have trained more than 100 PC’s. This was a very inspiring talk, with examples given of Parish and Town Councils who had emphasised collective solutions, such as embedding Repair Cafes into their yearly plans and using government funding to improve numeracy skills to provide training in transition-oriented employment. It will be good to take this inspiration into drafting the new action plan for 2025.

V. Video recommendation

Streamed live on 28 Nov 2024, this 1 hour talk by the distinguished British Academy Global Professor Paul Behrens succinctly and clearly sets out where we are now in the existential battle to control climate change, busts some myths about public attitudes, mining and batteries, and gives some concrete goals that we can work toward as a community, especially, “electrify everything”.

'Towards a liveable planet: land, energy and food system transitions' with Prof Paul Behrens - YouTube

Anthony Browne’s Climate Change Optimism: Is it Justified? (May 2023)

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My MP, Anthony Browne, recently posted a blog on Conservative Home with the title “Climate change. The more involved I have got, the more optimistic I have become...”

I’m very glad he decided to write directly about the crisis, and I agree with many of his points. For example, I agree that there are many reasons for optimism. Of course, how you feel about the climate and ecological crisis very much depends on the lens through which you are viewing it. If you are a mother in rural Somalia, where the worst drought in 40 years is leaving millions without food, you might well be feeling less than optimistic. Similarly, if you are a scientist studying the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is losing ice at a rate of 270 billion tons per year, or a native of Kiribati, a Pacific Island nation destined to be the first in the modern world to be swallowed by increasing storm surges, you could be excused for being a tiny bit un-cheery.

On the other hand, if you are an entrepreneur working on a transformative and potentially lucrative new technology, like the world’s most powerful wind turbine, which Mr Browne mentions in his post, you will be much more aware of the possibilities. As Mr Browne says, we do have the solutions to hand. Organisations like the Drawdown project have identified more than one hundred of the most effective strategies and technologies – including many which are nature based - which will, if implemented rapidly, lead to “Drawdown” of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere - and it is working globally to encourage their rollout. And though global emissions have continued to rise year on year despite the promises of the Paris Agreement, the progress made by large emitters like the UK and the EU is making a difference - there is reason to believe we are approaching the inflection point where emissions will begin to fall.

I also agree with Mr Browne that “pessimistic fatalism” and “counsel[s] of despair” are harmful to our children, and where they go mainstream they are terrorising many people into apathy. It’s also true that if you go on to any environmental forum online you will find those who prefer scaremongering to positive action and push conspiracies about how all the possible solutions will only be worse than the problem, because humans are basically sh**te.

However, I hope Mr Browne is also aware that once you get out of the toxic online environment, and engage with actual climate activists, you will find some of the most dynamic, solutions oriented, reasonable and well-informed people on the planet. The radicals, zealots and keyboard warriors do not, in my experience of ten years as an independent activist, represent the movement as a whole, which encompasses local eco groups, churches, professional societies and people from every age and social demographic. So it was very disappointing to read Mr Browne’s dismissal of Extinction Rebellion’s recent peaceful and joyful multi-organisation demonstration in London (see photos below) as the self-righteous posturing of a Doomsday cult. It is so misinformed that it leaves me unable to take Mr Browne’s views seriously. And that is a sad state of affairs.

So let’s put a few things into perspective.

Mr Browne’s cheery optimism comes despite the fact that he has consistently voted against new legislation aimed at tackling the UK’s emissions.

There’s evidence that taking steps to reduce emissions makes people happier, not more depressed. A low-carbon lifestyle, for example, is “more likely to involve routines—like balanced eating or hybrid working—that are known to maximize our individual happiness levels”. Research is also supporting the idea that “taking steps to protect the environment makes us feel good by fulfilling basic psychological needs, such as the sense that we are making a useful contribution to the world or acting on our own values and concerns.”

There’s a fine line between “pessimistic fatalism” and optimistic fatalism, which is a weakness Mr Browne may be prone to. In a letter to me about the EU Retained Laws Bill, Mr Browne made the odd assertion that leaving the EU would “enable us to legislate to discriminate in favour of bird and plant species that would otherwise be vulnerable to non-native species better suited to the changing climate.” In other words, our native birds are going to be out-competed by non-native species more suited to our altered climate, and his jolly solution is to legislate for…what exactly? Fighting natural adaptation to protect our native species? Instead of fighting climate change?

While there is every reason to be hopeful that we will eventually solve the problem of climate change, and do so while restoring our planet’s natural systems, we are a very long way from being out of the woods. In order to get out, we need everyone to play their part, and most importantly, we need the system change that will allow us to pivot from an extractive, linear (take stuff out of the ground, transport it across the globe, use it for a short time, dump it in landfill), inequitable (those who do the least actual work get the most benefit) and rapaciously destructive system, to a circular, restorative, distributive one. And this is not just an activist’s opinions. The Government commissioned Dasgupta Review on The Economics of Biodiversity and former Bank of England chief Mark Carney both came to similar conclusions last year, conclusions which were, sadly, pretty much ignored.

Our current trajectory, if not deflected, is, sorry Mr Browne, genuinely disastrous. We are currently on track to reach in the neighbourhood of 2.7 degrees of global warming. We’re now at just under 1.5. Every tenth of a degree has an effect, so, if you can face it, let your imagination go to what an additional 1.2 degrees is going to mean for extreme weather events, crop failures, mass migration, killer heat waves and sea level rise. Not to mention our native birds, bees and trees.

So, yes, we absolutely can still change our trajectory with immediate, strong action. But if Mr Browne and his party colleagues continue to reject the need for system change, which has to come from the top, while ignoring or ridiculing those who care the most, no amount of techno-boosterism will get the job done. We will not solve the global environmental problem. And the children he is so worried about traumatizing will be truly stuffed.

The Big One - And We Were There ( April 2023)

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Tens of thousands of people from all around the UK came together in London over four days from April 21st to take part in "The Big One" and make our voices heard about the future we want - and at least ten of our members were there! With marches, workshops, public assemblies, music and dance and activities for children, the vibe was friendly and positive - but also determined. The demands of the demonstration include ending the huge fossil fuel subsidies our taxes are still paying for - £20bn more than renewables received since 2015 - (see this article for information), and instituting citizens' assemblies whose decisions will be binding on the government to decide the way forward for the climate transition.

Initiated and hosted by Extinction Rebellion, which has embraced a new strategy of non-disruptive action, the event involved over 200 co-operating organisations, including trade unions, community groups, businesses, NGO's, conservation organisations and more (see the full list here: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one/).

The event received overwhelmingly positive press, with the Metropolitan Police issuing the following statement in praise of Extinction Rebellion's foresight in helping the London Marathon avoid conflict.

Earlier in the year, our group had held a general meeting in which a member of Extinction Rebellion told us about the event and XR's new policy. As a result of this, at least ten of our members attended the event over the four days, with some members attending several days. Below is a short blog of her experiences there by Haslingfield resident Katharine Woodall, and some of the photos taken by our members.

"I attended on Friday, the first day of the 4 day XR protest. I didn’t know quite what to expect but began the day in a rainy Parliament Square listening to XR co-founder Clare Farrell talk about the need for citizens assemblies on climate.

Friday was a day of protest at government departments, so we joined members of the Cambridge XR group and some of our eco group outside the Home Office.

Everywhere we went in Westminster during the day there was a very positive energy and sense of community with people coming together from across the country. There were so many colourful flags and beautiful homemade banners.

The highlights for me were hearing Caroline Lucas talk about this government’s depressing lack of urgency and ambition on climate issues. She was followed by Mike Berners-Lee, author of There is no Planet B, talking about the newly established MP Watch, which monitors and supports MPs’ understanding of climate science.

We headed home with the sounds of the samba bands still ringing and the hope that some people in government were listening".