solar power at bolton village hall

Rory enjoyed a visit to Bolton Village Hall on Thursday, where he met and chatted with the village hall committee and saw the hall’s newly-installed photovoltaic cells. The hall’s move to renewable energy by fitting solar panels – from local Appleby firm Love Solar – was made possible by the village’s inclusion in the government’s Big Society vanguard project, which Rory Stewart has been championing since last July. The local MP helped secure funding for the village hall project, which is designed to show other villages within the Heart of Eden community plan boundaries, and further afield, the potential for generating income through Feed-in-Tariffs, an initiative that has already been successfully pioneered at Bampton village hall, amongst others.

Rory commented: “Renewable energy is of course the future. With rising energy costs, increasing fuel poverty, and worrying predictions about our environment, we need to be looking at these alternative sources of energy very seriously. PV cells really do work: by having them on the village roof, residents can see how unobtrusive yet effective they are. The Heart of Eden group and Bolton’s village hall committee have worked closely together to create this exemplar, which will serve as a great model for other village hall committees to follow.”

Peter Smith, Chairman of the Heart of Eden community group said: “Without Rory this would not have been possible. He has supported our initiative and has encouraged us all along to ensure that other villages can learn from this project. We hope that all village halls in Eden will eventually take on this model, and we’ll be investing our own resources of time, energy and knowledge into ensuring that we can share the learning more widely.”

Picture below: Peter Smith (left) and Rory Stewart MP with members of Bolton’s village hall committee