Many ideas for actions came out of the post screening discussion. All aimed at addressing the nature and climate emergency that we face. Below is a summary of progress so far:

Community farm

• The most popular was a community farm and a small team has emerged to take this further. We have already looked at a possible plot here in Alton, which has failed to tick all the boxes in our criteria list, and we visited Farnham Community Farm in Runfold, to see what they are doing and hear about their history. That was very inspiring and made it clear that there are many factors that help to make a project like that a success but by far the most important is the people. We have also been looking at the business plan drawn up by a group in Wiltshire for their community farm which has helped us to organise our thoughts and expectations and, of course, the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) team have offered their help too.

• On Thursday 30th July we started the important step of deciding on our “Vision” of what we want to achieve and what is outside the scope of our Community Farm. The outcome of this will dictate our next steps.

Greening car parks

EHDC Councillor Emily Young is helping to progress the 2 ideas so far proposed:
• Extending the green area in the Bank Car Park – an idea originally proposed some years ago by John Isham of the Alton Society is now being redrawn by Tony Cohen, also of the Alton Society, to be resubmitted to the council.
• Plans to replace the covered walkway in the car park at the back of Iceland are also being considered.

Carbon literacy training

• A small group is at the early stages of exploring what is available and what might be suitable for rolling out here in Alton.

Transport

• Sarah Gulliford, ACAN’s Chair of Trustees, is interested in car sharing, carpooling, car clubs. This was an idea from the transport group at the PEB.

Regular film screenings and talks

• The ACAN committee is considering future events and hope to be able to screen “How to live on Earth” in the new year. They will make decisions about the type and frequency of future events based on the popularity of this film screening. The film “Wilding” about the Knepp Estate in Sussex was shown recently to a large audience and followed by a discussion. This suggests there is an appetite for this sort of awareness raising.

There is plenty here to get our teeth into and make a real difference to this town and local area. Do email altonclimatenetwork@gmail.com or use the Join in page on this website if you would like to get involved.