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We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who visited, volunteered & contributed to the Go Green Information Centre!
  Maidstone Borough Council’s Climate Change and Biodiversity team took over an empty unit in The Maidstone Mall for a month, providing people with information to help them go green. The fantastic team of volunteers at the centre helped visitors with advice on making sustainable choices and leading a greener lifestyle. There were displays and information covering everything from green energy grants to local community gardening projects. Local sustainable organisations including JPS Energy, Communigrow, and Zero Waste on Wheels demonstrated their goods and services for free with others giving talks or delivering workshops to help give people more confidence in making greener choices. Our most successful week was Great Big Green Week in which we held nine fantastic events!
We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who was involved with the centre and for helping us to make it such a success! We hope to be running similar events to the Go Green Information Centre in the future!
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 Visitor adding their promise to the planet to Maidstone's promise tree.
 Kati from Bare Bazaar presenting on sustainable living.
 Steve, Decarbonisation Advisor from the Kent & Medway Growth Hub presenting at the Go Green Sustainable Business Morning during Great Big Green Week.
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 Climate Change manager, James, showing the Mayor around the centre
 The reduce, reuse & recycle information and activity area.
Wildflower seed bombs made by visitors at the centres family craft mornings.
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Bearsted CAN Great Big Green Week
Bearsted Climate Action Network (CAN) held four fantastic events to celebrate Great Big Green Week. Bearsted CAN is a community group that brings together like-minded people from Bearsted and the surrounding area who want to work together to face the Climate and Ecological Emergency.
The week started with a tour of Bearsted Allotments and was followed by a plant-based bring and share evening hosted by the Yeoman pub. Everyone was inspired by the different plant-based dishes on offer and had a very fun evening! On Friday evening Bearsted CAN held a speaker event, inviting Sushila Pandit from the University of Kent, a young Nepalese academic who has personal experience of the damage caused by the climate emergency in Nepal and her climate change work. The inspiring talk is available to watch here. The week finished off with Bearsted CAN's first Repair Cafe! This well attended event saw volunteers repair items that people might otherwise throw away. Well done Bearsted CAN for a very successful week of events!
If you want to learn more about Bearsted CAN or get involved with their amazing work visit their website here or join them on facebook.
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 Enjoying the plant-based dishes on offer at the bring and share evening
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 Volunteers repairing a bike at Bearsted CAN's first Repair Cafe
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Marden Wildlife win BBC Radio Kent #MakeaDifference Award!
A massive congratulations to Ray Morris and Marden Wildlife, who are winners of the BBC Radio Kent #MakeaDifference Awards in the Environment Category!
A lot of what Marden Wildlife has achieved is down to the inspired and targeted leadership that Ray provides to the group, so it was fantastic to see him receive the recognition he deserves. The Make a Difference Awards recognises those who go above and beyond to make a difference in their local area. One of the qualities singled out by the judge was the inclusivity of Marden Wildlife. Well done Marden Wildlife!
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Marden wildlife supports the Marden Farmer Cluster with citizen science and promoting farming and biodiversity. The group is heavily involved in cluster initiatives, and monitoring wildlife on the cluster members' farms has strengthened bonds between farmers and the wider community.
Marden Wildlife work with the community, encouraging them to engage with local wildlife, either through volunteering in the group or generally through accessing and enjoying the countryside, and communicating the positive way that the farming community is working with volunteers to conserve wildlife, develop habitat and promote connection and sense of place.
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How to have a sustainable Halloween!
Halloween can be a very wasteful time of year; what with new decorations, costumes and lots of pumpkins! Now for some scary stats:
- 22 million pumpkins will go to waste this year! More than half of all pumpkins bought will not be eaten, wasting a massive £32.6 million worth of food!
- Over 80% of readymade Halloween costumes contain plastic and most are only worn once! An estimated 7 million Halloween costumes are thrown away every year, contributing to 2,000 tonnes of plastic waste. That’s the same as 83 million plastic bottles!
- In 2019, research conducted by environmental organisation Hubbub, discovered that more than 39 million families dress up for Halloween in the UK and 90% of families buy new costumes every year.
 BUT we can make a difference this year! Here are our top tips:
1. Get creative and why not eat your left-over pumpkins! There are lots of delicious recipes available online, such as pumpkin soup and coconut pumpkin cake, that help use up all the different parts meaning no waste.
2. If you don't eat your pumpkin, remember, do not throw it in your general waste bin! If you have a compost bin, put it in there, and if you don't add it to your food waste bin.
3. Use the costumes or clothes you already have this Halloween! Wear outfits that you have worn before or get creative and make a costume with items/ clothes found at home.
4. Have a Halloween costume swap with your friends and family and bring last years’ costumes back from the dead! If you don't have anyone to swap with, try visiting your local charity shop and by a secondhand outfit.
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Raising awareness of plastic pollution
through art!
Sue, a retired art teacher from Kent, has been bringing attention to plastic waste through her pieces of art for the last 30 years. Plastic is everywhere. Less than 10% of all plastic produced gets recycled, with 8 million tonnes of plastic waste ending up in our oceans each year (WWF). Sue's artwork is made from plastic items that would otherwise have been thrown away and the aim of these pieces is to raise awareness of plastic pollution, highlighting the detrimental impacts plastic has on our natural environments.
Below are images of four pieces Sue has created using plastic waste. From left to right: 'Address' knitted out of 125 plastic postal bags, 'Convolvulus Bowl' made from disposable wipes, 'Black Coral' made from disused video tape and 'Candy Colours' woven from plastic sherbet straws. 'Candy Colours' was the result of a craze Sue identified in a school where she was Head of Creative Arts. The school was littered with brightly coloured plastic sherbet straws, and eventually the litter got so bad the sweet treats were banned from school. This, however, did not stop the litter so Sue asked the students to give her any empty straws, allowing her to make artwork from them. Weaving and patchwork skills helped Sue produce the beautifully colourful 'Candy Colours'.
Well done Sue for all your work to raise awareness of an important environmental issue!
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Green Schools Project
Green Schools Project are recruiting schools for their 2022/23 Zero Carbon Schools programme!
The programme empowers pupils from Year 4 to 8 and their teachers to deliver school-based climate action. Pupils experience project-based, cross-curricular climate education by following a series of 26 sessions from after October half term until the end of the school year. Also included in the programme are two teacher training sessions to enable teachers to support the pupils' carbon reduction projects and the confidence to include climate and nature in their lessons.
Register an interest and get more information here!
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Boiler Upgrade Scheme
Supports the decarbonisation of heat in buildings. It provides upfront capital grants to support the installation of heat pumps and biomass boilers in homes and non-domestic buildings in England and Wales. Acting on behalf of property owners, installers can apply for:
£5000 off the cost and installation of an air source heat pump, £5000 off the cost and installation of a biomass boiler or £6000 off the cost and installation of a ground source heat pump, including water source heat pumps.
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Design & Sustainability Consultation
Maidstone Borough Council (MBC) is consulting on the development of a Design and Sustainability Development Plan Document and is encouraging residents, businesses and stakeholders to have their say to help embed good design and sustainability within new development. This document will form part of the development plan for the borough and will build on policies in the adopted Local Plan and the forthcoming Local Plan Review. In doing so it will further ingrain good design and sustainability within new development.
To fully embed residents and stakeholder views within the new document, the council are undertaking a Regulation 18 Scoping, Themes and Issues consultation, which will seek views across a series of broad themes and headings which MBC feel are likely to emerge from the work. The consultation opens on 28 October and closes on 12 December 2022.
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Energy Saving Trust's Warm Home Hacks
As we see energy bills rise, people are looking for ways to save money around the house. One of the most effective ways is to reduce your energy use and stop it escaping from your house. The Energy Saving Trust have designed a new interactive house, highlighting their top tips to stay warm and save money this winter. Follow the link to the left to see what changes you can make!
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Save paper and register for council tax e-billing!
We are encouraging everyone to sign up to receive their council tax bill via email, instead of receiving paper bills. By registering for e-billing you get a faster, more efficient, and more eco-friendly way to receive and check your bill. This will help save the council postage and paper, which will help to minimise future collection costs and is more environmentally friendly!
You will need an email address to register as well as your Council tax account number and you need to be the person named on the bill.
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Allington Millenium Green
Allington Millenium Green, managed by Allington Millenium Green Trust, is a semi-wild area of tranquility, adjacent to London Road in Allington. The green is home to a wide range of native plant species, animals and birds forming a small oasis of natural beauty in a busy suburban area.
The Green was created at the time of the Millennium by local volunteers, with professional designers and engineers. A major function of the Green is to provide a space for wildlife, and it has significant semi-natural areas where people can enjoy wildlife at first hand by simply walking or sitting.
There are varied habitats, with woodland shrubs and trees, laid and maintained hedgerows (one of which qualifies as an S41 Habitat of Principal Importance in England), coppiced cobnut plats, an apple and cherry orchard, wildflower meadows and a cut grass area. The trust has also been awarded a ‘Wilder Kent Award Commendation’ by Kent Wildlife Trust.
More volunteers are needed at Allington Millenium Green!
Maintaining the Millenium Green requires a lot of work by volunteers and the trust needs more people to help! Volunteers come from the local community and from further afield, and they carry out simple and enjoyable maintenance tasks. Current volunteers have been trained both formally (e.g. on Kent Wildlife Trust courses) and informally in many skills related to conservation tasks, and they have the opportunity to gain considerable knowledge in aspects of natural history.
If you are interested at volunteering with Allington Millenium Green Trust then please contact them by following the link below.
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Volunteers Needed!
The Friends of Cobtree Manor Park Group are looking for volunteers to come forward and assist the Medway Valley Countryside Partnership and Maidstone Borough Council with maintaining this beautiful park.
Cobtree Manor Park is popular with visitors and families, especially over the last couple of years, standing within the site of the old Maidstone Zoo. Cobtree is steeped in history with over 50 hectares of open space and woodland, a beautiful arboretum and wildlife pond.
Tasks as a Friend of Cobtree Manor Park include:
- Quarterly Practical Task Days (Pond Management/Tree/Hedge Planting/ Litter Picking)
- All equipment and tools provided
- Fully supervised with training and support offered by Medway Valley Countryside Partnership
- Opportunities to assist with ecological surveying, education and events
- Make new friends and connect with this beautiful park
Interested? Get in contact with MVCP by calling 03000 414795 or email medwayvalley@kent.gov.uk
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We want to hear from you!
Are you an individual, business, community group, charity or other organisation that has been taking action to respond to climate change? Have you got climate change or biodiversity events that you want to spread the word about? We want to hear from you!
Email us at climateandbiodiversity@maidstone.gov.uk and tell us what you have been up to, and if you are comfortable, we will share your events, successes and lessons learnt to help others take action too.
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COP 27: 6th-18th November
Heads of State, ministers and negotiators, along with climate activists, mayors, civil society representatives and CEOs will meet in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh for the largest annual gathering on climate action.
The 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – COP27 – will build on the outcomes of COP26 to deliver action on an array of issues critical to tackling the climate emergency. Faced with a growing energy crisis, record greenhouse gas concentrations, and increasing extreme weather events, COP27 seeks renewed solidarity between countries, to deliver on the landmark Paris Agreement, for people and the planet.
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Carbon Literacy Action Day- 7th November
Carbon Literacy provides the knowledge, skills and motivation required to create a positive shift in how we live, work and act in response to the climate crisis.
As a council, we will begin to train our own staff using the carbon literacy training scheme this year! Just like Carbon Literacy itself, the Carbon Literacy Action Day is for anyone and everyone.
To find out more information about how you can get involved follow the link.
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We want to improve our communication and engagement with you around climate change & biodiversity in Maidstone. If you want to contact us please email climateandbiodiversity@maidstone.gov.uk
If you have enjoyed reading our Climate Change & Biodiversity update, why not forward this email onto your friends and family so they can 'Stay Connected' to news from Maidstone Borough Council.
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