Exmoor Trust to Organise Energy Meetings

The Exmoor Trust announced today that it is organising an E4Exmoor ('Energy for Exmoor') event on Friday 2nd May to enable the people and businesses of Exmoor to examine opportunities for producing local energy.  

This is not only in order to save on escalating fuel bills, but also to contribute to the environmental aim of reducing carbon emissions. The symposium will have two identical programmes for morning and afternoon at the Ralegh Cross Hotel in order to provide for the large numbers anticipated. The event is planned to bring together independent experts on micro energy systems as well as the producers of the systems. There will be also panel sessions to cover the issues of planning, cost benefits, affected utility providers as well as the opportunity to learn about opportunities for grant aid support.

Edwin Beckett, Chairman of the Exmoor Trust, said: "E4Exmoor follows our highly successful Broadband for Exmoor event which provided the impetus to getting most of Great Exmoor onto Broadband. We need to capitalise on the ready availability of land, light, water and wind in order provide a better economic base for an area that is experiencing rocketing cost rises in all forms of energy. The fact that this could be achieved in a sensitive rural environment means that we are hoping to draw upon external funds in order to pilot some schemes."

The event is being managed by business trustee Archie McIntyre. Mr McIntyre said: "The Trust has acted in order to raise this challenge to the forefront of Rural Action Plans now being considered by the Rural Development Agency. We especially want businesses, communities as well as individuals to recognise opportunities for shared energy production. Our focus is on micro energy production but we recognise that this is only one aspect of reducing energy dependence which has been well led by Forum 21 and other groups."

The Exmoor Trust anticipates considerable interest in this unique opportunity to learn more about locally produced energy and hopes that such enthusiasm will reinforce the case for pilot and demonstrator schemes to be supported by external grants.