zerochampion

Lessons from Southwold for Gordon

This blog has now moved. Please visit Zerochampion.com and update your bookmarks

I write with some authority on Gordon Brown's Suffolk holiday retreat, Southwold. My parents part owned a house there during the 80s and 90s and its coastal charms inspire some wistful memories. The current Prime Minister received a heap of flak for such a choice of resort, which is indicative of just how big a hole he is in at present, politically speaking. Presumably prior to when everything went completely pear-shaped for his administration Brown's decision to rest and recuperate in East Anglia would have been seen as the sustainable and prudent choice of a leader fully supportive of homegrown tourism. But while he's there I wonder whether Gordon will ponder a few lessons that Southwold has to offer while he pops in for a pint in the Lord Nelson or during a brisk walk to neighbouring to Walberswick. Here's a few tips for his trip:

Rail needs

This blog has now moved. Please visit Zerochampion.com and update your bookmarks

Returned from an excellent weekend to Glasgow last night, which included plenty of cultural pursuits. Travelled there by train, trying not to feel too smug about it - on the way up we took a sleeper and the return was during the day. There are the usual comparisons you would make between rail and air - cost, comfort, time etc.

Olympic Fright

This blog has now moved. Please visit Zerochampion.com and update your bookmarks

There's a gargantuan (8,000) word dissertation on the Olympics by Iain Sinclair in this week's London Review of Books. It's a typically hazy and impressionistic offering by the author of London Orbital, entitled 'The Razing of East London, the Olympics Scam.' It's too big and hard to follow and tiring to read.

East London - refurbish and recycle

This blog has now moved. Please visit Zerochampion.com and update your bookmarks

Two strong pieces of content in this week's Building Design, both focused on east London. The first concerns the paper's fantastically well supported campaign to save the Robin Hood Garden - editor Amanda Baillieu widens the argument from the architectural to the sustainable, vigorously claiming that the east London block of flats "is a sustainable community". Surely there must be red faces all round at quango English Partnerships, who is proposing the demolition of the estate.

Weekend Review 23 - 24 February

This blog has now moved. Please visit Zerochampion.com and update your bookmarks

The Independent bagged the scoop that all buildings will have to be zero carbon by 2020. Caroline Flint will apparently announce that the country will join France and the US to make plans for zero-carbon commercial buildings in just over a decade. Paul King of the UKGBC says the industry is ready to go and that several developers can go zero carbon pretty pronto. Dan Labad of Lend Lease said that waiting for the Government was a mistake.

Boris Johnson - green warrior?

This blog has now moved. Please visit Zerochampion.com and update your bookmarks

Not sure what to make of the current race to become London mayor. Ken is being portrayed as rather less than scrupulous, whilst Boris is a buffoon. The latter is interviewed in this month's Regenerate magazine, which is dubbed the sustainability issue. He comes out green, although it doesn't quite feel like it's from the heart.

Zac Goldsmith on nuclear

This blog has now moved. Please visit Zerochampion.com and update your bookmarks

Powerfully argued article in today's Evening Standard (which very annoyingly I'm unable to find on their site) by Zac Goldsmith on the upcoming decision to go-ahead with a new generation of nuclear power station. The campaigner-cum Tory party candidate for Richmond Park picks apart the argument for pressing ahead with nuclear. "If nuclear power genuinely offered a solution, we would have to embrace it. But it doesn't, and nor does it address the looming energy crisis we face in this country," he writes.

Wicks and "momentum"

This blog has now moved. Please visit Zerochampion.com and update your bookmarks

Plenty of coverage over the weekend on energy, from the upcoming government announcement on nuclear expansion this week to soaring gas/fuel/electricity prices. The Westminster Hour on Radio Four ran a report on the struggles facing the renewables sector currently last night, from getting planning permission for large scale wind farms in the first place to connecting such facilities into the grid.

And the next Code is

This blog has now moved. Please visit Zerochampion.com and update your bookmarks

So we end 2007 with yet another report and yet another major piece of future legislation for the industry to grapple with. This one's for non-domestic buildings and the report has been worked on for government by the UK Green Building Council. Although the code is some way off the UKGBC is talking 2020 as the date when zero carbon buildings can be achieved. It would be easy to dismiss as another document with heady ambitions leading to botched delivery but I see the report somewhat differently.

Flooding plan for Thames Gateway

This blog has now moved. Please visit Zerochampion.com and update your bookmarks

I had a brief but very interesting chat with a technical manager from the Environment Agency last week. The body is working on a major piece of work mapping out potential flooding scenarios for the Thames Gateway so as to plan out what should be done in the near future. The irony of the EA having a stand bang in the middle of the Thames Gateway Forum appeared to be lost to most of the delegates.