Andy Durling, Author at Eastbourne ECO Action Network

Suncoast Solar Farm Planning Application (ref.230800): setting the context

This guest blog is from Miles Berkley, who was one of the co-founders of the Eastbourne ECO Action Network CIC, and is a Director of TechResort CIC which works from its base in Devonshire Ward helping to tackle digital exclusion, here and across East Sussex. He’s also a member of the multi-agency Lewes District Cost of Living Partners Action Group, and is a subscribing member of Friends of the Earth.

Setting The Context:

Friends of the Earth notes the need to increase at a minimum the amount of locally generated renewable energy in Eastbourne from about 4.8 GWh currently to 28GWh i.e. 5.8 times present levels (UK Climate Change Committee). In fact, Friends of the Earth recommends we go further to reach 56.1 GWh. For more details, look here: https://groups.friendsoftheearth.uk/near-you/local-authority/eastbourne#energy

The Eastbourne Borough Council Carbon Neutral Annual Report (Dec 2023) reveals that the town’s emissions in 2021 rose 6% from 2020 levels to 277.4 ktCO2e, the main source of which is domestic buildings, closely followed by transport. Eastbourne Borough Council has pledged to achieve a carbon neutral town by 2030, which the Tyndall Centre at the University of Manchester states that it requires an overall reduction of emissions by 12.3% per year – which is not being achieved.

We are experiencing the destabilising effects of accelerating global warming with more extreme weather events: storms, flooding, heatwaves, wildfires – all devastating the habitats of every species. We need to rapidly scale up action to decarbonise our energy sources, moving away from fossil fuels, as well as improving the UK’s national energy security.

Biodiversity Net Gain – improvements needed.

The present proposal presents a Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) of between 24-29% based on the creation of new habitats and water courses, plus the addition of 11.51 new hedgerow units.

In comparison, another similar sized local development of 17MW (compared to 20MW for Suncoast) achieved a 243% net gain in habitat areas, and 104% in hedgerows. This, the Ouse Valley Solar Farm, is supported by Greenpeace.

The Cleve Hill Solar Farm (373MW) development on the North Kent Coast achieves a 65% BNG and is supported by Swale Friends of the Earth Group. The latter development achieved this by reducing the overall area covered by solar panels to 45.5% of the developable area, leaving the remaining arable land to be managed for biodiversity benefits.

The Berwick Solar Farm in Wealden has, for example, installed a Swift Tower, orchards, and thermosolar beehives.

The developers need engage the professional opinion, and support of, local ecologists to conduct further studies, to obtain detailed expertise regarding the site, and to help oversee the delivery of a far-reaching and rigorous biodiversity net gain management programme. Preferably, they could work with Sussex Wildlife Trust which advised the Berwick Solar Farm, and possibly Buglife, who also provide specialist advice to realising the biodiversity of solar developments.

This proposal should seek to improve the BNG target, either through reducing the density of solar panels on the existing developable area and/or including other areas within the proximity for biodiversity investment, as done at Cleve Hill.

Local Community Benefits – needs a clear, significant, and defined local gain.

The proposal indicates that a Community Benefit Fund may be created but falls short of specifying the financial contribution envisaged, or the process for managing this, and does not set out transparently the financial gains to the developer, or landowner (Chatsworth Estate/Duke of Devonshire).

Suncoast state that the 20MW capacity can supply c6.400 homes. They use a metric of 2,900 kWh per home (slightly higher than the Ofgem average of 2,700 kWh consumption of electricity). The Energy Stats portal, which monitors the wholesale market price of energy, indicates the average price is currently around 10p per kWh – which if achieved would result in a minimum annual income to Suncoast of £1,856,000 annually, though market prices fluctuate e.g. prices have been twice or three times this level during the past 12 months, this could result in a turnover of c£4-6 million per annum.

From this the developer would need to repay the capital costs, say £424,000 per annum (£16 million capital investment at 6% interest depreciated over the 40 years expected lifespan) less other costs such as network connection fees, business rates, maintenance and rent to the landowner. If the development achieved an average net margin of say c20% of turnover, this could result in a net profit somewhere between £360,000 -1,080,000 each year (depending on market prices)

This speculation goes to the heart of the difference of this type of commercial development compared to a community energy scheme where the financial profile is more transparent, and the community benefit better defined. It would be beneficial for Suncoast to share its financial forecasts.

Level Up our deprived parts of town in a targeted and direct way

This proposal needs to recognise the financial wealth historically extracted from Eastbourne by the Chatsworth Estate (valued at some £905 million) together with opportunity to “level up” those parts of the town which are most deprived, from the latest LSOA data i.e. these are Hampden Park, Langney, the northeast of town centre, Roselands, and Devonshire Ward.

Given the historical perspective, and depth of the local need I suggest that a minimum fund of £5,000-10,000 per MW annually is provided by Suncoast i.e. £100,000 -200,000 each year. With the fund to be administered by a board of local constituted third sector grassroots organisations directing the funds to tackle deprivation in all its manifestations (energy and food poverty, homelessness, digital exclusion, and other aspects of deprivation) in these areas. This would augment and better target the now much reduced Eastbourne Borough Council Devolved Ward Budget Scheme.

Review of 2023: a personal perspective from our Executive Director

Another year has gone by, so time for a review of what the Eastbourne Eco Action Network (EEAN) has been up to in 2023, following on from the reviews of our activities in 2021 and 2022.

The highlight of our year was undoubtedly our widely acclaimed Sustainable Transport & Active Travel Summit in November, which opened with a keynote speech from Chris Ralls, a member of the EcoTransport Group. This summit brought together all the main players in the local transport sector to investigate ways of deepening collaboration on plans and actions to tackle Eastbourne’s notoriously chronic traffic congestion and pollution, as well as its over-dependence upon cars for travelling across town. Transport accounts for over 25% of the town’s carbon emissions, a proportion which has so far stubbornly refused to decline. The quality of presentations and workshops was very high, and together with the extensive networking evident during the summit, there is perhaps a good chance that the barriers to progress on local transport will finally be overcome, leading to more, better, safer walking and cycling infrastructure as well as more reliable bus services operating on dedicated bus lanes supported by more bus priority measures. The first opportunity to see such progress will come if the new Local Transport Plan 4 prepared by East Sussex County Council gets final approval and adequate funding for its implementation. You can comment on it now that it is open to public consultation until February 2024.

The One Planet Eastbourne online community ecosystem platform for mapping and tracking progress towards a more sustainable town was developed by the EEAN this year using the innovative OnePlanet app, designed to facilitate deeper collaboration between local organisations on climate actions and environmental initiatives. Extra grant funding has now been secured to significantly extend work on this platform and to help other local local groups to use the OnePlanet app.

The EEAN organised an Eastbourne Carbon Neutral 2030 Gathering at the Town Hall in May, bringing together many of the local groups involved in helping to make the town Carbon Neutral by 2030. It was an excellent opportunity for those groups to give updates on their progress and to network with other local groups. Hopefully another such gathering can be organised in 2024.

The EEAN partnered up with Energise Sussex Coast to train up local volunteers to become Energy Champions, equipping them to run local energy projects such as giving basic energy advice to local residents and supporting local energy efficiency or clean energy initiatives of various kinds. The first event organised by the Eastbourne Energy Champions was a Business Community Energy Day in July at East Sussex College’s Green Training Hub in Hampden Park The first cohort of Energy Champions have now completed their training, and more cohorts will be trained up in 2024.

Eastbourne Borough Council decided this year to fund a scheme for offsetting the carbon emissions of Airbourne 2023, by far the town’s biggest festival of the year. The council approached us for advice on which scheme to fund, and we advised that the best scheme would be one developed locally by the Eastbourne United Nations Association. This scheme, which has been running successfully for many years, channels donations from local organisations into supplying free tree saplings to local communities in Uganda, proving these communities with much needed biodiversity improvements as well as nutritious fruit and natural medicines. The amount of carbon sequestered by the scheme is much greater than any similarly-sized tree planting scheme in the UK because of the special nature of the trees planted and the very favourable climate of that part of equatorial Uganda where the tree are planted.

In October, Eastbourne Borough Council submitted plans to the South Downs National Park Authority for its proposed Black Robin Farm redevelopment, part of its government-funded Levelling Up project. If approved, this would trigger a significant investment in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, the biggest since the downland was saved by popular opposition from being sold off by the council in 2017. Comments on the plan can be made via the SDNPA planning portal. Much rides on how well the plans would protect and enhance the downland biodiversity as well as addressing how transport by visitors to the site by bus, walking and cycling can best be supported and encouraged. I and my fellow directors have submitted comments to the SDNPA about the plans.

In December, plans for a big solar farm in Eastbourne, the first ever, was submitted to Eastbourne Borough Council by a commercial developer. If approved, it will be sited in Eastbourne Park and will supposedly generate 20MW of electricity, equivalent to producing enough clean energy to power 6,400 homes per year. If approved, the solar farm would represent the single biggest increase in solar power within the town, adding to the solar power generated by the solar canopy installed this year by Eastbourne DGH over one of its car parks. Solar power is a key part of the clean energy transition and a key element in the national strategy of weaning the UK off its traditional reliance on fossil fuels for power generation. However, much rides on the quality of the solar farm’s proposals on protecting local biodiversity, and how much the local community would benefit from the project. I and my fellow directors gave advice to the developers on how that might best be achieved.

2023 was the hottest year in human history and 2024 looks set to be even hotter when the current El Nino reaches its climax. No wonder 2023 was full of natural disasters worldwide such as severe floods, droughts and storms. Given that we may be entering the early stages of climate breakdown, there is a need for much more rapid progress not only towards a zero carbon Eastbourne, but also towards building a strong climate adaptation plan to prepare for the inevitable and damaging impacts of climate change upon Eastbourne, a low-lying coastal community that is very much in the front line of climate change, facing the rising seas and stronger storm surges of a rapidly warming world. Indeed, a key part of adapting to climate change is managing and improving our local sea defences. Which is why, in November, the Environment Agency released its list of options for maintaining and improving the local sea defences from 2027 to 2037 and started a public consultation on them. The EEAN is represented on the agency’s Coastal Community Forum for Eastbourne and attended all of its meetings so far, giving feedback about what our network perceives as the key issues that need addressing.

Key to developing the effective climate adaptation plan we need is the development of a strong and resilient local food system that supports local food growing initiatives and provides equitable access to healthy, locally grown or locally sourced food. Fortunately, the good folks at the Eastbourne Food Partnership, one of our partners, are doing lots of work on this and have this year won the Bronze Award from Sustainable Food Places for that work. They deserve congratulations on achieving this significant milestone and look forward to deepening our collaboration with them in 2024, especially through working with them on researching ways in which local food growing can adapt to our changing climate.

But there is so much more to do, especially as Eastbourne Borough Council’s latest update to its Climate Emergency Strategy states: “The Tyndall Centre and the University of Manchester have carried out analysis that recommends a minimum of a 12.3% per year reduction to deliver a Paris aligned carbon budget. The borough as a whole is a long way off meeting this year-on-year reduction”. The effectiveness of the council’s climate action plan was comprehensively assessed this year by Climate Emergency UK, which published a detailed scorecard of progress achieved in Eastbourne so far. Yet, as the strategy update also says, “We must not be put off by the challenge but must rally together and work together to improve the environment of our town for our residents, children, businesses and visitors now and in the future in order to mitigate global climate change”.

I wish to thank all the members and supporters of EEAN for all their hard work. The EEAN is entirely run by volunteers on a very small budget but consistently punches way above its weight, making significant contributions towards the ECN2030 campaign. May you all have a very restful and peaceful Christmas holiday period followed by a very Happy New Year.

Andrew Durling, Executive Director, Eastbourne Eco Action Network CIC

What to do about Airbourne 2023 carbon emissions?

Airbourne 2023 is now over. But its carbon emissions remain in the atmosphere, adding to global warming. The emissions from Airbourne 2022 were estimated by Eastbourne Borough Council to be 241.5 tonnes C02e from the airshow event itself, and 6,033 tonnes C02e from the transport impact of event visitors. The council decided to offset those emissions through a carbon capture scheme. Eastbourne already does have carbon capture initiatives, primarily those run by Treebourne, a social enterprise that had its beginnings within the Eastbourne Eco Action Network, and which has already planted many thousands of trees across the borough, primarily on council-owned land.

But the scale of the carbon emissions from a festival as big as Airbourne 2023 – which attracted 750,000 visitors, most of them arriving in Eastbourne by car – was such that they could not be offset within the borough alone. So following conversations between Eastbourne Borough Council, the Eastbourne Eco Action Network CIC, and the United Nations Association Eastbourne, it was agreed that the council would fund the UNA Eastbourne’s carbon offsetting scheme, allocating £7,000 to plant 14,000 tropical hardwood trees in Uganda, capturing 62,240 tonnes of carbon over 10 years. This scheme has been running successfully for many years already, resulting in 175,418 trees planted in Uganda so far.

But the scheme does far more than carbon capture. It was designed in close collaboration with local communities in Uganda to ensure that the scheme has the full consent of those communities and meets their needs. Backed by scientific research and monitored closely by UNA Eastbourne and its Ugandan partners, the trees planted are indigenous to Uganda, grown by Ugandan tree nurseries from seedlings, distributed freely to those communities that want them, and nurtured to full growth by those very same communities who integrate them within their own agroforestry practices on their farms or on land maintained by community institutions such as local schools and churches. The trees not only capture carbon faster and in far greater quantities than trees planted outside of the Equatorial region where Uganda is, but they provide many other benefits, such as enriching the soil and providing a harvest of nutritious fruit and natural medicines for the communities that nurture them.

Importantly, the trees planted under this scheme do not take farmland out of production, nor push out poor farmers onto more marginal land. Local farmers decide if they need the trees, which they value because the types of trees offered under the scheme complement the crops they grow on their farms. The trees protect the crops interplanted between them and enrich the soil, thereby increasing the productivity and income of the farms. Trees and crops work well together within the agroforestry system common on small farms in Uganda, something we should perhaps have a lot more of within the UK.

All of us, whether we live in the UK, Uganda, share the same planetary home, so all of us benefit from carbon capture schemes when they are run well, with careful selection of trees, right location, etc. The scheme that UNA Eastbourne runs in Uganda recognises that reality and also delivers a degree of climate justice too, as Uganda, like most countries in Africa, has contributed far less to global warming than rich countries like the UK have historically done, whilst the carbon footprint of most Ugandans is far less than that of most people in Eastbourne.

We can be proud of the fact that a carbon capture scheme devised in Eastbourne is having a significant effect in drawing down carbon from the atmosphere and setting a good example of an effective, fair, research-backed carbon offsetting scheme. But this does not relieve us of the responsibility to reduce the carbon emissions of Eastbourne, and our own individual carbon footprints, as fast as possible. The emissions of festivals like Airbourne, and indeed of all sectors of the Eastbourne economy, have to be much further reduced year on year until the town becomes genuinely carbon neutral, hopefully by 2030. Will we collectively rise to the challenge?

This blog post written by Andrew Durling, a Board director of the Eastbourne Eco Action Network CIC

Coming soon: a summit for sorting out Eastbourne’s transport issues

Eastbourne ECO Action Network (EEAN) is organising a SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT & ACTIVE TRAVEL SUMMIT at the Welcome Building, Eastbourne on Friday 17th November 2023. It will be a follow-up to the successful Sustainable Business & Solar Summit last year, which brought together solar and renewable energy experts, manufacturers, installers, landlords and financiers to explore ways of expanding solar power in the UK’s sunniest town.

Why Transport? Our transportation systems, dependent as they are on vehicles running on imported fossil fuels, are a highly significant component of ongoing damage to the earth’s life-support systems. A wealth of evidence suggests that current levels of road transport also undermine people’s health and well-being through pollution, congestion, collisions and by eroding social connections. UN Secretary General António Guterres summed up the situation in 2021:

“Transport is fundamental to implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement. We are already close to the 1.5°C upper limit agreed in Paris. The door is closing for action on climate, nature and pollution. We must act together, smartly, and quickly, to make the next nine years count. Transport, which accounts for more than one quarter of global greenhouse gases, is key to getting on track. We must decarbonize all means of transport in order to get to net-zero emissions by 2050 globally. We know how to make this happen. First, we must accelerate the decarbonization of the entire transport sector.”

Here in Eastbourne, the largest town in East Sussex, with more than 100,000 residents, the local authorities have made various commitments. Eastbourne Borough Council (EBC) have pledged to achieve a carbon neutral town by 2030 (transport accounts for about a quarter of carbon dioxide emissions). The East Sussex Local Transport Plan runs up to 2026 and seeks to improve sustainable transport, while the Transport Strategy for the South East seeks to refocus its approach from “planning for vehicles” to “planning for people” and “for places”. However, progress has been agonisingly slow. As a report by AECOM put it in 2019 “Eastbourne has experienced a significant increase in highway congestion in recent years. All strategic highway routes to/from Eastbourne are very congested at weekday peak times.” Many recent planning documents talk confidently of a 10% “modal shift” from cars to bus, bicycles and walking. Achieving this would, however, require a massive increase (well over 100%) in cycle and bus use. Last year East Sussex County Council was rated among the poorer performing local transport authorities in England in terms of delivering the government’s objective of ensuring 50% of trips in England’s towns and cities are walked, wheeled or cycled by 2030. The key question is: how can the transport system in and around Eastbourne be made more attractive, efficient and sustainable without undermining the economy and causing undue disruption to locals and visitors? The Sustainable Transport & Active Travel Summit, organised by EEAN, EBC, and Eastbourne Chamber of Commerce, will explore these themes by bringing together a range of expert speakers and exhibitors – from companies running electric buses, to pioneers in cargo-bikes for “last mile” deliveries, designers of cycle infrastructure and leafy public spaces to purveyors of car clubs and solar-powered car-park canopies. There will be panel discussions, video presentations and lots of networking opportunities. The audience will include elected representatives, businesses, community groups, transport planners and local institutions from schools and colleges to the NHS. This blog post was written by Robert McGowan, a director of the Eastbourne Eco Action Network CIC.

The importance of ‘Right Tree, Right Place’

Our guest blogger for this week is Sarah Brotherton from Wild Bourne, the newest working group within the Eastbourne Eco Action Network:

One of the ways in which we can tackle the climate crisis is through tree planting. However, this may not be as simple as it seems, it is certainly not a quick solution, and it is definitely not a substitute for reducing CO² and other greenhouse gas emissions.

Why are trees and woodlands so important in tackling the climate crisis? Because they store carbon within their structures, or biomass as it is technically referred to. However, it is worth pointing out that equal or even greater amounts of carbon are stored in woodland soils, so it is not just the tree it is what is below the tree that is also important. while woodland soils store substantial amounts of carbon, many grassland soils, particularly those of wet grasslands, and other wetland habitats store vastly more carbon than woodland soils¹. Which is good to know, because although Eastbourne does not have a lot of tree cover, especially as woodland, it has large areas of wet grassland in the form of grazing marsh in the Eastbourne Park and Eastbourne levels areas.

East Sussex is one of the most wooded counties in England, with 17% woodland cover compared to the national average of 12.5%. But if you live in Eastbourne, that might seem a stretch to imagine given that Eastbourne and much of the surrounding landscape are not very wooded. That is because the bulk of woodland in the county is within the High Weald, north of Horam, which is in fact the most woodland landscape in the whole of England.

So, does this mean lots of tree planting should be happening in and around Eastbourne? Well, this is actually quite a complex question. Eastbourne has a completely different underlying geology to the High Weald, which has led to a different historical land use, and that in turn has led to the development of very different, but no less important habitats, which is why the landscape around Eastbourne and the Downs at this Eastern end are characteristically different from the low and high Weald of Sussex. Take the chalk grassland on Eastbourne’s doorstep on the Downs. This is an internationally rare habitat, with 80% of the original extent of chalk grassland lost since WWII. Much of the loss in the last 80 years has been to arable conversion on the dip slopes and spreading secondary woodland on the scarp slopes. Secondary woodland is tree and shrub cover that has naturally regenerated because of extensification – the opposite of agricultural intensification – the land is no longer actively managed.

The South Downs National Park Authority in conjunction with Sussex Nature Partnership have produced an ArcGIS map which helps to sense check potential sites across both East and West Sussex, and the full extent of the South Downs National Park for woodland creation. This map draws on national and local data and is the best woodland opportunity mapping tool we have because it has been developed specifically to be used locally. It removes areas not suitable for woodland creation that are often other important habitats, it then weighs both positive and negative factors of the remaining areas across the counties to give one of three scores depending on how sensitive (suitable) the area is for tree planting. The one down side to this excellent tool is that is cannot be used to ascertain suitability for urban tree planting, as urban areas are screened out.

Image source: Mapping Woodland Opportunity in Sussex and the South Downs National Park Technical report, 2022

The map can be found by clicking on the link below. There is a storymap element which explains how the maps work, but if you scroll to the bottom there is an interactive map, which is zoomable:

Sussex and South Downs Woodland Opportunity Mapping (arcgis.com)

This mapping work suggests there is not a great deal of opportunity for woodland creation around Eastbourne. But that is OK, because Eastbourne has other naturally occurring habitats that are just as important if not more important in the fight against climate change. And anyway, the rest of Sussex, and in particular the High Weald AONB holds a place for us with its woodland cover, the same way that the Downs holds chalk grassland for the rest of Sussex. It is a reminder that looking after and restoring all habitats for biodiversity and for us is important, including for future generations, regardless of where those habitats are found.

¹ R Gregg, J. L. Elias, I Alonso, I.E. Crosher and P Muto and M.D. Morecroft (2021) Carbon storage and sequestration by habitat: a review of the evidence (second edition) Natural England Research Report NERR094. Natural England, York

Eastbourne Carbon Neutral 2030 Gathering: a short summary

March 15th was a significant day in the Eastbourne Carbon Neutral 2030 (ECN2030) campaign, as it was the first chance for over two years for the many groups and organisations within the campaign to get together again in person to share their progress and their challenges since the campaign was launched back in January 2020. The gathering was co-sponsored by Energise Sussex Coast and the Warm This Winter coalition. The venue, Eastbourne Town Hall, was offered free of charge by Eastbourne Borough Council, together with substantial logistical support from the town hall staff, who did so much to ensure that the event was a success.

The gathering featured updates from many of the campaign’s members, some of them including slideshow presentations. First up was Andrew Durling, Executive Director of the Eastbourne Eco Action Network CIC (EEAN CIC), which organised the gathering. He delivered a welcome speech that set the context for the campaign, explained what its 2030 target meant in terms of actual carbon emissions reduction, and reported on some of the recent activities of the EEAN CIC which have facilitated the campaign. He also briefly introduced the One Planet Eastbourne platform that is being developed to help map the entire ECN2030 campaign in a visual, interactive way that incorporates as much monitoring data as possible to track progress of the campaign.

Many updates were given by most of the key initiatives within the ECN2030 campaign, and some of them included extensive and well-prepared slideshow presentations. These slideshows can be seen by clicking on these links below:

Treebourne

EcoTransport Group

Energy & Housing Group

Eastbourne Borough Council

Energise Sussex Coast

Other groups that gave updates were: EcoEd2030, Plastic Free Eastbourne, Eastbourne Jubilee Green Canopy, and Wild Bourne.

Here is a screenshot from Energise Sussex Coast’s presentation, which featured a briefing about the Energy Champions scheme that will be rolled out across Eastbourne during 2023 with the assistance of the EEAN CIC:

If you wish to train to become an Energy Champion, please contact kate@energisesussexcoast.co.uk or andy@ecoactioneb.co.uk

The updates given clearly illustrated the depth and breadth of the ECN2030 campaign and the large number of local volunteers giving so much of their time and energy to taking real action to ensure that the campaign make real progress whilst simultaneously improving the quality of life, and the health of the local environment, within the town at the same time.

The EEAN CIC intends to organise further ECN2030 Gatherings at regular intervals, hopefully every three months, in order to keep the momentum going for networking within the ECN2030 campaign and to showcase even more of the projects and initiatives within the campaign. Making Eastbourne a town that does its fair share of reducing its carbon emissions as well as learning to live within the ecological boundaries of our one and only livable planet is an ambitious and worthy goal that requires the whole of our community to come together and collaborate to achieve it. The ECN2030 Gathering on March 15th will hopefully be seen as an important step in facilitating that collaboration.

Welcome speech at ECN2030 Gathering

On the evening of Wednesday 15th March 2023, at Eastbourne Town Hall, there was a gathering of many of the organisations involved in the Eastbourne Carbon Neutral 2030 campaign. The event was opened with a welcome speech from Andrew Durling, the Executive Director of the Eastbourne Eco Action Network CIC:

Welcome everybody and thank you so much for coming along this evening. It’s so good to see you all. I do hope you find this evening both productive and enjoyable. My thanks go to Eastbourne Borough Council, and Councillor James Murray in particular, as well as the town hall staff, for helping to set up this evening, and to Energise Sussex Coast for co-hosting and co-sponsoring this gathering. My gratitude also goes to Miles Berkely, my predecessor as Executive Director of the Eastbourne Eco Action Network Community Interest Company (EEAN CIC), who did so much to help lay firm foundations for the CIC and for the development of the Eastbourne Carbon Neutral 2030 Campaign (ECN2030) generally. I also want to thank Pauline von Hellerman and Adam Rose for their great contributions whilst they were fellow directors of the EEAN CIC, during which time we all worked together to help lay the foundations for new, independently constituted groups, such as EcoEd2030 and Treebourne.

Also, on behalf of the EEAN CIC, I want to thank you all for the hard work and dedication you have shown in the ECN2030 campaign so far. You have all done amazing things and I know that you will do even more amazing things over the coming years. I look forward to hearing tonight about some of the inspiring projects and the achievements of the various groups and partners within the ECN2030 campaign. However, not every single group and partner in the ECN2030 campaign is represented tonight. To have updates from them all would take too long. But I do hope that this gathering tonight is just the first of regular such gatherings from now on, and that each time we can highlight different aspects of the strategy and the work of any groups and partners not able to be here tonight.

To put the ECN2030 strategy into context, it aims to reduce the carbon emissions of the borough as much as possible by 2030, with whatever emissions still occurring in 2030 offset by carbon capture of those emissions (such as by planting trees), ideally all within the borough itself, creating a Net Zero result. It is a highly ambitious target, but it reflects the fierce urgency of the Climate Emergency we are now well into. The 2030 target was unanimously agreed by all borough councillors in 2019, so there is a settled political consensus around it, backed up by the enthusiastic participation of many volunteers from across the local community in the campaign to try and reach the target. The EEAN CIC was established in September 2019 as a social enterprise dedicated to facilitating the ECN2030 campaign in any way possible and has developed strong working relationships with Eastbourne Borough Council, local community groups, and local businesses to support cross-community collaboration within the campaign.

But what is the scale of the challenge? The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Manchester says that, in order for Eastbourne to do its fair share under the UN Paris Agreement, then it should achieve an 82% reduction of emissions relative to the 2015 baseline for the borough. By my calculation that equates to a total of emissions in 2030 of just 64 ktCo2. To put that in perspective, the borough’s emissions in 2020 were 276 ktCO2.

But reducing the borough’s emissions has to be done sustainably, as part of an overall strategy to create a truly sustainable town that lives within the ecological boundaries of our one planet. UK emissions fell significantly in 2020, but primarily because of the pandemic lockdown. But that fall could not be sustained because lockdown had to end at some point in order to get the economy going again. A truly sustainable reduction requires systemic, enduring change across all sectors of the local economy, and in all aspects of our own lifestyles, so that we end up with a town in 2030 where the quality of life is such that it is an even better place to live and work in than in 2020. We can call that a One Planet Eastbourne.

An interactive mindmap of One Planet Eastbourne can be found on a new Community Ecosystem platform on OnePlanet.com that the EEAN CIC has created, and I invite everybody to have a look at it and see what they think. I hope some of you tonight may be interested in becoming part of the team that develops this platform and also provides support for any community group or business that wishes to create its own sustainability plan and connect it to this new platform. In that way we can create a visually engaging, interactive map of all the actions being undertaken within the ECN2030 campaign, joining up all the dots to see where the challenges and opportunities are for scaling up collaboration across the campaign, as well as monitoring the progress made.

The EEAN CIC collaborated intensively with Eastbourne Borough Council and the Eastbourne Chamber of Commerce to mount a Sustainable Business & Solar Summit at the Welcome Building last November, which was adjudged a great success by most who attended, forging much closer links between local businesses, councillors, and community energy cooperatives, as well as creating a much greater awareness of the huge potential for renewable energy installations and energy efficiency retrofits throughout Eastbourne, which would result in significant savings on energy bills, make warmer homes, and create more green jobs. Similar summits are now planned for each year of the ECN2030 campaign. I would like to thank my fellow directors, Jill Shacklock and Rob McGowan, in particular for the huge amount of work they put into organising the summit.

Finally, the EEAN CIC has entered into a long-term partnership with the Eastbourne Climate Coalition to develop a Climate Hub for Eastbourne, which will facilitate positive engagement with the local community about how they can become involved in creating a more sustainable and resilient zero carbon town and how they can make changes in their own lives that fit in with One Planet Living as well as increasing their quality of life at the same time. Two pop-up hubs last year – at the E-Festival and in the Beacon shopping centre – have already taken place, their success proving that the Climate Hub concept can work, thanks to the commitment and creativity of so many local volunteers and community groups.

The following groups made slideshow presentations during the gathering, which can be accessed in the links below:

Treebourne

EcoTransport Group

Energy & Housing Group

Eastbourne Borough Council

Energise Sussex Coast

Mapping wildlife habitats in and around Eastbourne

This blog post is by Sarah Brotherton, a member of Wild Bourne, a new nature conservation group within the Eastbourne Eco Action Network:

Eastbourne is known as seaside town, and the eastern entry point to the South Downs National Park. On one side Eastbourne has the chalk grasslands of the Downs, one of the most species diverse habitats in England. And, on the other side, the wetlands of the Eastbourne and Pevensey levels. Wetlands being globally the most valuable habitats for the services they provide to us – known as ecosystem services.

There is probably far more variety of wildlife habitats than you realised in and around Eastbourne, including: good quality semi-improved grassland, chalk grassland, lowland meadows, lowland heathland, coastal and floodplain grassland, traditional orchards, ancient semi-natural woodland, lowland fens, reedbeds, deciduous woodland, and marine cliffs and slopes. Many important habitats are already mapped, especially those referred to as ‘priority’ habitats. These are considered to be the most threatened habitats, and often requiring appropriate management to restore and enhance them. An easy way to get to grips with the types of habitats in and surrounding Eastbourne, is to look on at the publicly available habitat mapping data provided by Defra (department for environment, food and rural affairs) MAGIC (defra.gov.uk) As an ecologist, the first thing I always do when asked about a particular site is to check these maps and find out, which if any priority habitats are at a particular site.

The map below shows many, but not all, of the priority habitats in and around Eastbourne. Each colour is a different habitat type. For example, the blue is grazing marsh – and that is why it is found around the wetlands of Eastbourne levels and Cuckmere Haven area. The Khaki colour is chalk (calcareous) grassland, naturally this is found on the chalk downland to the west of Eastbourne.

It is worth noting that, there are many important sites that are not on ‘priority’ habitat maps, therefore it is best to treat this data as indicative only, but it certainly gives a good overview. The map also does not indicate the condition of the habitat. Some sites may be thriving habitats, whilst other sites may be in desperate need of appropriate management to restore them back to a good condition.

Priority habitats are different however from statutory protection. There can often be some overlap, but many many priority habitat sites have no legal protection. In and around Eastbourne, there are a couple of national nature reserves – Lullington heath, and the Pevensey levels, and a number of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) surrounding Eastbourne. SSSI sites have the highest level of national protection, and generally best represent our national heritage either in flora and fauna or geology. This includes the chalk grassland at Willingdon Down found on the Downs behind Willingdon village, and the chalk cliffs which start at the Meads end of the town. Some of the SSSIs are in good condition, whilst others are sadly in a declining in condition, and need urgent appropriate management to help restore them back to the highly valuable habitat they are. This unfortunately includes much of the chalk grassland on the Downs directly above Meads. Whilst the Pevensey levels are generally regarded to be recovering back to good condition.

Statutory sites are also mapped and publicly available from Defra Magic Map Application (defra.gov.uk), and the maps can be used very quickly to assess whether a site has any protection and often what condition the site it is in. The map below shows a variety of conservation designations, from the turquoise stripes of SSSI sites, to the lime green national nature reserves. Of course, every site that should be protected isn’t, and if you compare this map to the one above, you will immediately see quite the discrepancy in priority habitat sites and actual protected sites. But this does not mean these sites are any less valuable for the wildlife that lives there.

If you have the time, I encourage anyone interested to take a look at these maps if not already familiar with them. They are a great resource that are used by professional ecologists and conservationists all the time, and luckily happen to be available to all.

Is One Planet Living possible in Eastbourne?

This blog post is by Andrew Durling, Executive Director of the Eastbourne Eco Action Network CIC. The views he expresses here are his alone and not the official view of the Eastbourne Eco Action Network as a whole:

Eastbourne is striving to become a Carbon Neutral town by 2030 so it can do its fair share of dealing with the Climate Emergency. This does, of course, involve reducing the town’s carbon emissions significantly and quickly, but in a sustainable way that doesn’t damage the town’s economy. The town’s carbon emissions fell dramatically in 2020 due to economic activity dramatically falling during the lockdown restrictions. That kind of unplanned carbon reduction was not sustainable and the lockdown caused much economic hardship despite saving many lives and preventing the NHS from collapsing. As soon as lockdown restrictions were removed, economic activity bounced back and carbon emissions rose again sharply.

But what does it mean to have a ‘sustainable’ town anyway? And what do we end up with if Eastbourne does become Carbon Neutral in a sustainable way? In short, what is the big picture, and how do we communicate that in a way which engages all parts of our local community and ensures a truly communal response to the ultimate communal challenge of climate change? These are the sorts of questions that I have been grappling with since a Climate Emergency was declared by Eastbourne Borough Council in July 2019.

I think part of the answer lies in creating a story about what ‘sustainability’ really means and telling that story in a way that is simple, clear, and easy to understand. Now I’m not clever enough to create such a story, but I know some people who are. They created the One Planet Living framework to explain what sustainability really means and how it can be achieved.

Furthermore that framework can be visually explored through an interactive mindmap – created on the oneplanet.com platform – that shows all the interconnections and interdependencies between the different kinds of actions that together lead to a town that sustainably lives within the ecological boundaries of this planetary home of ours.

I have started to create such a mindmap for the Eastbourne Carbon Neutral 2030 campaign, which can be interacted with online, but a screengrab of the current state of the mindmap is here:

The mindmap is composed of nodes representing outcomes, actions, and indicators for monitoring progress. The lines between various nodes represent the ways in which the nodes are related to each other in a web of complementary and mutually reinforcing interactions. Clicking on any one of the nodes opens up access to information and data about that node. I have created this mindmap using a free account on oneplanet.com, but my plan is to scale up the mindmap with a subscription to a much better featured account so I can put a lot more detail on the mindmap and transform it into a powerful way of monitoring progress towards the 2030 target. I also hope that other individuals or groups in Eastbourne will be interested in creating their own mindmaps and linking them up with each other so that we can all see what is being done in Eastbourne and how they contribute towards the ultimate goal of a town that lives within the limits of this one planet

I did this to demonstrate how the campaign could be presented in a clear, engaging way that shows how the 10 principles of One Planet Living need to be combined and applied in a joined-up way to effectively deliver a town that is not only Carbon Neutral in the narrow sense of the word (ie. emitting no more carbon that it can offset within its own boundaries) but also truly sustainable as an economy and society that can live within planetary boundaries (which is the only way to ensure that the town can stay carbon neutral over the long-term anyway).

Furthermore, these 10 principles also demonstrate how achieving genuine sustainability results in a much better quality of life for all, with very welcome outcomes such as cleaner air, adequate supplies of clean water, flourishing local wildlife, growing numbers of green jobs and businesses, etc. These outcomes are the practical results of actions that increase sustainability and are desirable outcomes regardless of where people stand with regards to the Climate Emergency in particular. In other words, the One Planet Living framework provides a story within which the mechanics of meeting the 2030 carbon neutral target can be embedded within a much wider, more inspirational vision of creating the kind of sustainable yet prosperous society we’d all like to live in.

Review of 2022: a personal perspective from our Executive Director

The Eastbourne Eco Action Network CIC that I’m proud to be part of is a tiny social enterprise entirely run by volunteers and receiving very little funding, yet it continued to punch way above its weight throughout 2022 by continuing its mission to facilitate cross-community efforts to deliver a carbon neutral Eastbourne by 2030. How did it do this? Let’s see…

We participated actively in the development of the Eastbourne Climate Coalition, a new grouping of over 40 local organisations formed in the wake of the COP26 climate talks. The coalition agreed to pursue the goal of creating a Climate Emergency Centre in central Eastbourne in order to maximise engagement with local people about the key environmental issues of our time and showcase the opportunities to become involved in positive ways with those issues. We organised and managed, on behalf of the Eastbourne Climate Coalition, a crowdfunding campaign for the Eastbourne Climate Hub project that successfully raised over £5,000 to help fund it.

We provided crucial back-office support for two pop-up Climate Emergency Centres this year, in collaboration with our partners in the Eastbourne Climate Coalition. The first was an E-Hive marquee at the inaugural E-Festival in Princes Park in July, which provided a rich and varied programme of community-run events that engaged festival-goers with a wide range of issues concerning the climate and nature emergencies.

The second was an E-Hive hub in The Beacon shopping centre that was open 7 days a week for 6 weeks, from November 1st to December 13th.

Both E-Hives were a great success, buzzing with activities about all things eco, and all entirely run by local volunteers on a skeleton budget. The learnings gained from these two pop-ups will help planning for whatever permanent premises are eventually acquired, hopefully in 2023.

Our team put in hundreds of hours of work organising the Sustainable Business & Solar Summit at the Welcome Building in November, bringing together probably the largest gathering of local experts, installers, and funders in renewable energy and sustainability ever seen in Eastbourne. We worked in partnership with Eastbourne Borough Council and the Eastbourne Chamber of Commerce, plus some key local sponsors, to ensure that the summit was indeed a great success, opening up opportunities for a scaling up of the green tech sector in Eastbourne, crucial to reducing carbon emissions within Eastbourne as well as creating new green, well-paid jobs in the local economy and saving local businesses a lot of money on their energy bills. The collection of videos and slideshows of the great presentations made at this event are well worth watching.

We formed a partnership with Energise Sussex Coast, a local community energy enterprise, to facilitate the scaling up of energy advice to Eastbourne residents in 2023. Now more than ever people need help to find out how to reduce the size of their energy bills and how to keep their homes warm enough in winter. But every household’s circumstances are unique and there’s no better way to deliver energy advice than through in-person conversations in local settings with local energy advisors who have been trained up by fully qualified energy experts. We will be working with local organisations to help recruit volunteers willing to be trained up as energy advisors, and the training will begin next February.

We also provided assistance to the Eastbourne Food Partnership (which to a large extent grew out of our original Food Working Group) to help secure significant grant funding to employ a paid coordinator to scale up the work of the food partnership, now a fully independent social enterprise in its own right. This partnership is, amongst its other aims, about creating a coherent local food system that is climate-resilient and ensures a sustainable and accessible supply of fresh, healthy food to all local residents, food moreover that is grown locally as much as possible and grown in ways that promote soil health & local biodiversity rather than damage it, thereby reducing carbon emissions from inappropriate land use.

Our two working groups, the Housing & Energy, and the EcoTransport Group, have continued to be very active with their own initiatives, feeding informed comments into various council consultations and liaising with local councillors about how to reduce local carbon emissions in a variety of local sectors and projects. In a time when all local councils have such financial constraints that keeping up with all the many eco issues is now difficult for them, the input of well-informed and dedicated local volunteers into council initiatives on carbon neutrality is crucial and much appreciated by most councillors.

The good news is that, overall, carbon emissions are falling in Eastbourne year by year, but the bad news is that the fall is not yet fast enough to meet the 2030 target of meaningful carbon neutrality. We will be working hard in 2030 to help speed up that fall, especially as we have no time to lose now that the impacts of climate change are becoming ever more apparent even in the UK, which experienced its hottest ever summer in 2022. I would like to thank all those who volunteered their time and energy in all the projects we have been part of, and all those groups who have partnered with us. There has been nothing more rewarding for me than working with so many people dedicated to making Eastbourne a cleaner, healthier, greener place that contributes its fair share towards ensuring a safe enough climate future for our families and for all future generations.

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Andrew Durling, Executive Director, Eastbourne Eco Action Network CIC