Latest News
CAR CLUB New Pricing Structure
from June 1st you will be able to join the Hooky Car Club for just £60 a year, or £5 a month, and when you use a car club car, you will pay only a 45p mileage charge, no hourly charge. You can book your journeys up to three months in advance. Now you have no excuse to own a rarely used second car.
8th May 2012 -
Hook Norton Low Carbon public meeting – 7.30pm, Brewery Visitor Centre:
We’ve got a different feel to the Tuesdays LCHN meeting with a chance for an interactive session with Electric Cars – a Mitsubishi from the Firs and a SMART EV. Guest speaker is David Best from Mitsubishi UK.
16th April 2012, Biodiesel price rises to £1.43 a litre, so don’t waste it by spilling it on the ground!
The good news was that we managed to get a delivery of 4,000 litres of waste oil biodiesel before the end of March so that we were ahead of the tax changes that reduce the fuel duty differential on waste oil biodiesel. If you really want to know what this is all about, or suffer from acuite insomnia, please click here.
25th March 2012: Old Homes Super Homes in Hook Norton, click the image below for full details
April 2012 – latest biodiesel price £1.34 per litre.
Cherwell District Council PR 1473 30/01/2012 [For Immediate Release]
Use it before you lose it
Time is running out for Cherwell residents to take advantage of massive subsidies for insulation.
Householders can access cavity wall or loft insulation for £99 each against a combined cost of around £700 without the subsidy from Cherwell District Council.
And for those living in Bicester the price is even lower at £49 each thanks to extra grants available from Eco Bicester.
At some point this year the Government is expected to withdraw Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) funding which pays for this deal.
In its place, there are plans to introduce a new scheme called the Green Deal – effectively a loan which will need to be paid back plus interest.
Councillor Michael Gibbard, Cherwell’s lead member for planning, said: “As fuel bills continue to rise, more and more people will insulate their homes in a bid to cut costs.
“Those who wait too long might well find themselves paying the price so I’d urge everyone who has not yet done so to book a free survey.”
Installing double glazing can cut heat loss by around a tenth but having cavity wall and loft insulation installed can almost halve it.
By installing the two types of insulation the average household could, at current prices, save in excess of £300 per year on their fuel bills.
Anyone planning to take up the offer will be able to choose between a selection of approved local installers to carry out their no-obligation survey.
For more details visit www.cocoonyourhome.co.uk/
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Despite the wintry weather, there was a large turnout for the Low Carbon Hook Norton Group meeting at the brewery visitor centre. Once again, many thanks to James Clarke and Hook Norton brewery for their hospitality, and Howard Hicks for acting as barman for the evening.
The meeting was very much a catch up on the various projects that Hook Norton Low Carbon Limited are involved in at present.
Smart Hooky: Delphine Wolfe brought us up to date with this project and she will be contacting people in our 4 sub-station target areas chosen for the project and is hoping to push up the number of participating households from the current 44 to around 150. If you are interested in participation (there are incentives!) you can contact Delphine via the HNLC website. See http://www.hn-lc.org.uk/what-were-doing/smart-hookyfor more information.
Affordable Housing: Large scale housing development is proving controversial, both locally and nationally but the need for genuinely affordable housing is recognised as being an urgent priority. Although the building of large housing estates around the village could make HNLCs plans non viable, there was unanimous support for us to continue to explore small-scale low carbon affordable housing to be developed through a community land trust.
The Hooky Car Club: The car club continues to grow, but slowly. The new monthly subscription makes getting into the club easier, and HNLC are considering the possibility of different tariffs for different usage patterns.
Heat Loss: There was interest in possible use of thermal imaging equipment in the village as CDC have the equipment, but there is a certain amount of training and expertise required to take the pictures and interpret the results. The HNLC team will be looking into this.
Householder Loans: The core of HNLCs business remains the provision of loans at low interest rates for local householders who want to reduce their carbon emissions. Various projects both large and small have been funded and the loans pot is still healthy so new applications are welcome. See www.hn-lc.org.uk/loan-scheme for more information.
