The park, which cost £50 million, has been awarded the new BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) “Outstanding” rating (design stage). This is the highest achievable award available in property development.

This is no mean feat, as the criteria to achieve this award became even stricter in 2008 and the park received an 85.49% rating. It excelled particularly in in the management, health & wellbeing and water (all 100%); energy (87.5%); and waste (85.71%).

Not only is the park extremely advanced in green technologies, but the low cost of running it will allow a hitherto unrivalled return of investment. This is due to a number of environmental measures, which allow 100% of the energy and heat to be supplied by renewable sources. These measures include:

• 15% Roof lights with ETFE and implanted photovoltaics
• Solar wall
• Solar thermal hot water system
• Bio-fuel plant
• Under floor heating in warehouse
• Energy efficient T5 lighting in offices
• Super air tightness and thermal efficiency
• Natural Ventilation in the offices
• Day light and motion detectors

Mick Laverty, Chief Executive at Advantage West Midlands, said, “G. Park Blue Planet is a truly remarkable example of how the West Midlands is raising the bar for world wide eco-standards and embracing the opportunities of the new low carbon era.

“This scheme is undoubtedly one of the most exciting developments we have in the region and is also an excellent example of how Advantage West Midlands is driving the West Midlands’ economic development by investing in projects where the greatest impact can be made.”

Paul Gibbon, Director of Sustainability at BRE Global, the developers of BREEAM, said, “This development scored very highly in all sections of BREEAM and achieved exemplary credits on the key areas of daylighting, reduced CO2 emissions, construction waste management and use of low carbon technologies. What is more the development shows that achieving a high BREEAM standard can also mean lower running costs.”

The park totals 70 hectares of land that will be transformed over the next decade, creating a total of around 4,000 jobs.

20mph limit campaign for residential Birmingham from Joseph Chapman on Vimeo.

The offer, thought to have been signed on Monday night, is set to save hundreds of jobs and allow LDV to restart production this July, after 8 months of closure.

This has also given the company hope in their attempt to become Europe’s primary electric van producer.

Sky News’s Midlands correspondent David Crabtree said: “We could be looking at the Great Escape, it really is a last-minute rescue effort. Only today we were filming here as workers collected what they thought would be their last pay packet.

“LDV has a good product, a brand new all-electric van. It has all the green credentials. Something like £500m was spent developing that. LDV hoped that would make it very much a company of the future and I think Weststar has seen that.”

The outlook has been bleak in recent months with administration plans going to the wire and further governmental backing being rejected. However the company have been praised for their attempt to follow governmental calls to go green in the face of the recession.

Overseas electric van companies have been supported their governments by receiving tax breaks and calls for similar aid for LDV in this country have been re-iterated, now that the buy out is set to stabilise the company.

Despite petrol being dramatically cheaper right now in comparison to last year (108.1p last April), the price has gone from 90.56p to 95.1p in the space of a month.

This rise, compared to a mere 1.3p increase last year, has sparked an irate public reaction in online forums asking why petrol prices are rising despite the price of a barrel of crude oil barely changing. The public have also uttered a worry about the prospected further increase in price when VAT returns to 17.5%.

President of the AA Edmund King said, “For UK drivers, despite being in a recession, rising fuel costs are again making it hard to make ends meet for UK families. This means they will cut back on other spending in leisure and the high street, undermining economic recovery.”

Additionally, in contrast to February’s report, The West Midland’s average cost of petrol is higher than the country average, albeit only by 0.1% for unleaded and 0.4% for super unleaded. Diesel prices in the area have remained 0.1% below national average.

The UK has the eleventh highest unleaded price in Europe and the second highest diesel price.

April’s full AA report can be seen here.

The list is supposed to show that anyone can make a difference at little or no cost initially, and can actually save not only your own money but also the future of the planet.

The Birmingham public’s reaction to this list has been not wholly positive, with a reluctance to follow the tips, stating that they are not as simple as they are made out to be. On being asked, some have said that the “little cost and effort” is not so little.

Here are the top ten tips from the list:

1. Replace a regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (cfl)
   CFLs use 60% less energy than a regular bulb. This simple switch will save about 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.
2. Install a programmable thermostat
   Programmable thermostats will automatically lower the heat or air conditioning at night and raise them again in the morning. They can save £55 a year on your energy bill.
3. Move your thermostat down 2° in winter and up 2° in summer
   Almost half of the energy we use in our homes goes to heating and cooling. You could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment.
4. Clean or replace filters on your furnace and air conditioner
   Cleaning a dirty air filter can save 350 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.
5. Choose energy efficient appliances when making new purchases
   Look for the Energy Star label on new appliances to choose the most energy efficient products available.
6. Do not leave appliances on standby
   Use the “on/off” function on the machine itself. A TV set that’s switched on for 3 hours a day (the average time Europeans spend watching TV) and in standby mode during the remaining 21 hours uses about 40% of its energy in standby mode.
7. Wrap your water heater in an insulation blanket
   You’ll save 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple action. You can save another 550 pounds per year by setting the thermostat no higher than 50°C.
8. Move your fridge and freezer
   Placing them next to the cooker or boiler consumes much more energy than if they were standing on their own. For example, if you put them in a hot cellar room where the room temperature is 30-35ºC, energy use is almost double and causes an extra 160kg of CO2 emissions for fridges per year and 320kg for freezers.
9. Defrost old fridges and freezers regularly
   Even better is to replace them with newer models, which all have automatic defrost cycles and are generally up to two times more energy-efficient than their predecessors.
10. Don’t let heat escape from your house over a long period
    When airing your house, open the windows for only a few minutes. If you leave a small opening all day long, the energy needed to keep it warm inside during six cold months (10ºC or less outside temperature) would result in almost 1 ton of CO2 emissions.

The list, supported by renowned environmental journalist  Stephen Leahy, has been released after NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies revealed that Average temperatures have climbed 0.8 degree celsius around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades.

On asking residents of Edgbaston their reactions to these tips, there was mostly confusion over conflicting advice and scepticism over the easiness of the task.

Sophie Bold, 20, said, “I never turn off my television completely, I didn’t realise how much energy it actually uses, when I can just turn it off as I walk past.”

Lisa Meller, 22, said, “I’m always fiddling with the thermostat. Whatever the season, I’ve got it on so that its toasty in my room. I don’t think I would bother turning it down though, to be honest. If I’m paying for my heating, I want to be warm. Plus the inconvenience of defrosting my freezer constantly and upgrading my appliances is really annoying.”

Oliver Baker, 21, said, “I don’t see the point in these lists. Most of us know what we need to do, but the advice just keeps changing. It still seems pretty expensive to me, having to buy a new thermostat and change all the bulbs. I think the transition is going to take a long time. It’s going to be hard to get used to, no matter how easy they make it sound.”

The full list can be found here, with further reactions to the list available here and here.

The challenge lasts a year, and elects roads and streets across the country with the word ‘green’ in them from Leeds, Birmingham, London, Manchester, Southampton, Edinburgh, Plymouth and Cardiff. The winner, this time Green Lane in Leeds, gets £50,000 to go towards improving efficiency in the local area.

Along with Leeds, Cardiff and Plymouth, Birmingham’s Green Lane was the only one to save consistently in both electricity and gas.

£30, 000 worth of technology

It is estimated by The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) that £200 per home was saved across the year. Despite these “savings”, it was reported that £30, 000 worth of energy saving technology had to be bought and installed in the houses in the first place.

The houses from each city were installed with equipment including 41 new boilers, 39 cavity wall installations, 15 new washing machines and nearly £10, 000 worth of solar technology before the challenge began and any savings were recorded.

In addition, arguably the most important city of all to be represented, London, was unable to hold down any savings across the year in both gas and electricity, and Manchester, Southampton and Edinburgh followed the city in only achieving erratic savings.

Appreciate What It Costs

When asked what their motivations were for applying to enter this challenge, a representative of the Great Barr’s Green Lane said,

“We wanted a free boiler, to be honest…. We thought it’d be good for the kids to get involved and, you know, appreciate the fact that what it costs and what can be saved.”

The IPPR added that if this Green Streets idea were to be repeated across all UK households, £6 billion worth of fuel bills would be saved.

However as previously stated, it is not as straight forward as simply claiming that. It was revealed that a large amount of money, as well as industry and governmental policies and aid would need to be implemented before this can be achieved on a larger scale.

If you want to enter your street into next year’s competition, find out how.

You can see the full report for the challenge here.

The album, entitled ‘Fork in the Road’, is Young’s newest way to campaign for the environment, having co-founded in 1985 the benefit concert Farm Aid. The main themes of the album are based on Young’s work with Lincvolt in a joint attempt to find a way to make it easier for automobiles to be commercially fitted with electric power.

One of the names of the songs on the album, called ‘Johnny Magic’, is named after biodiesel pioneer Johnathan Goodwin, who helped Young convert his prototype electric car, a 1959 Lincoln Continental.

‘Perfect storm for innovation’

Lincvolt is an american company who strive to “to build a zero emissions automobile that eliminates roadside re-fueling entirely”. Neil Young has already this year represented the company by slating the car production industry, calling this month a “A perfect storm for innovation”, perhaps giving light to calling his album ‘Fork in the Road’. Young goes on to  demand “the type of cars that will lead the world toward saving the planet for future generations.”

As for his album, it is due for release in early April, and he is currently streaming the video for the title track and first single on his website.

The firm, whose owners have recently announced that it will strive to be the first electric van company in Europe if it can gain funds from the Government to keep it afloat, could close as early as friday.

The group, backed by Unison, arrived in Washwood heath this morning to hand out leaflets and raising banners carrying the slogan “Jobs, Justice, Climate.”

Buyout

Chairman of the company, Erik Eberharson, who is leading the management buyout which requires the Government funds, said, ”We want to explore every avenue possible to save the company and the jobs. We still think that the company has a strong potential future as an electric van manufacturer, and the new ownership team is prepared to invest its resources in that new venture if the government is able to give a short term loan. 

The Government appear reluctant to offer a loan, despite LDV’s green ambitions, due to the company’s failure to pay back the initial £24m loan. If the loan cannot be secured and the firm does shut down, a chain reaction could cause a further estimated 7000 jobs to be lost.

Some internet blogs see the loan as worthwhile, with others seeing it as a waste of taxpayers money. What do you think? Is it worth it to see LDV turn electric? Or is the company’s closure inevitable? Leave your comments below.

Diesel prices are rising more moderately, with the petrol-diesel price difference dropping to 10 pence. This has improved the return for the cost of a litre of diesel in the UK, making it even more fuel efficient.

Unleaded prices have risen by 4.3ppl (pence per litre) from 86.6ppl to 90.9ppl. Diesel prices have risen by 2.1ppl, from 98.7ppl to 100.8ppl. The price difference between unleaded and diesel has fallen from 12.1ppl to 9.9ppl. 

The West Midlands unleaded price records were the exact average for the UK, at 90.9ppl. The county recorded a lower than average price for diesel, at 100.6ppl, with the country wide average being 100.8ppl.

There has also been a rise of prices overseas, with the UK having the tenth highest unleaded price and the second highest diesel price in Europe.

Let us know what you think of petrol prices in your area, leave your comments below.

(fuel price data is supplied by Experian Catalist in cooperation with Arval UK Ltd)

(photo courtesy of  Ruddington Photos)