We work to reduce the carbon footprint of the town in response to climate change and to prepare for the challenge of ‘peak oil’. Initiatives include regular weekly cookery classes in a Family Centre (which closed due to the cuts but recently reopened as a social enterprise, hooray!), and in a primary school, an outdoor learning environment at the same primary school, bee-friendly flower beds and “Edible Abingdon” vegetable beds in the local park and in recycling boxes outside a town-centre care home, and a wildflower maze by the river. We ran a successful “build your own wind turbine” demonstration project a few years ago. Well-advanced plans for a hydro-electric scheme on the River Thames (Abingdon Hydro) had to be abandoned due to spiralling costs.

New initiatives include work on plastic waste, involving a survey of town centre businesses, and lobbying for drinking fountains in our parks.