In March of this year, Sproughton parish council organised a workshop on climate change. This event generated sufficient interest for a ‘green Sproughton’ follow-up group to be formed, under the leadership of Peter Lee. The group has adopted the mission (or ‘e-mission’) statement ‘cutting our carbon footprint’.
At its meeting on 8th May, Sproughton parish council agreed to a request that ‘green Sproughton’ should be formally incorporated as a panel of Sproughton parish council. Furthermore, the council agreed to sign up to the Nottingham declaration on climate change, and the Suffolk strategic partnership’s statement of intent ‘Suffolk - creating the greenest county’, thereby becoming the first parish council in Suffolk so to do. Council chairman Simon Curl said: “The parish council should take the lead in raising community awareness of this issue. Now is crunch-time: either we care for our planet and our children or we turn our backs on climate change and continue consuming resources in an unthinking way”.
www.greensproughton.org.uk at a flower festival held over the bank holiday weekend at the end of May. Since then the 'green Sproughton' panel has swelled to 15 members, who are keen to encourage community action. The panel meet once a month to review progress and agree next steps. They have pledged to record their experience as a web log or 'Blog' and encourage other parishes to visit and share their ideas and experiences with them.