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Two trips in the last week that crystallised a newly determined optimism on my part. I've had enough of whingeing at Government incompetence and inaction and want to concentrate on what can and is working.
This cheeriness may be a little at odds with the prevalent national mood, which if you judge by the recent reports on economic woe is on a par with a Bergmann film. Perhaps we should be taking more inspiration from Sally Hawkins, the relentlessly cheery leading protagonist in Mike Leigh's newly released effort Happy Go-Lucky.
I digress. First destination was Leamington Spa for the almost open new Wolseley Sustainable Building Centre.
It had achieved practical completion that very day and Tim Pollard, the firm's head of sustainability, appeared like a new father when we met him on a stunning Spring morning on Tuesday - proud, if a little weary.
That didn't stop Pollard enthusiastically talking myself and my colleagues through the conception and the delivery of the centre, whose appearance is a rather surreal one when you first arrive at the Wolseley site. Leamington is effectively the UK HQ for the giant merchanting outfit and is dominated by giant traditional crinkly industrial sheds. Peaking around the corner of such premises sits the considerably smaller, sleeker-designed offspring. A tokenistic gesture or a sign of the future?
Well if Pollard's zeal for the scheme is anything to go by - he after all dreamt it all up five years ago and has clearly toiled considerably to get the project off the ground - then perhaps the latter may be the case. The centre is as much showcase and showbiz as hard-nosed business - it is built to display and prove that renewable technologies can and are working - but as Pollard points out the success comes down to one word - sales.
Early signs are that the building is already proving a draw. A group from housebuilder Barratt were there on Tuesday and Pollard claims it is booked up for visits until June. If the centre can do what it claims, in making sustainability work in practise we may all see the shifts needed in the industry come all the faster.
I then shifted my attentions to a different, but equally enthusiastic figure, on Wednesday. Headmaster Richard Dunne has caught the sustainability bug in a big way. Chatting in his office at the Ashley Church of England primary school in Walton-on-Thames Dunne offered plenty to inspire. He's led a shift at the school, both in vastly improving the way the school is operated and in embedding sustainable thinking in the children's curriculum. So there's a big screen in the entrance of the school displaying the latest data from the Eco-driver system that Dunne uses to monitor energy use. And then this helps to open pupils' minds to the concept of energy use and environmental impact. Dunne then walked myself and my colleague around the school, pointing out impacts already made and where more action is required such as replacement windows. Outside he point to a coal store that is now used to store woodchips for a biomass boiler.
Dunne believes that the holistic education that is offered in primary schools, where subjects are tackled in the round and not constrained by strict disciplines or barriers, can really communicate strong messages to children. I left in complete agreement and pumped up to see how we could bring together the professional audience that Building, Building Design and Property Week magazine with the educational community to promote how crucial the development industry is to achieving change.
We need more Pollards and Dunnes.
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