Interview with Rushmoor Borough Councillor.

Rushmoor Borough Council takes energy conservation seriously and has increased public awareness considerably over the past 2-3 years.

As an example, we hold a Green Family Funday – an annual event with a number of exhibitors with displays about energy conservation, sustainability and green issues of that sort.

We are a member of SOLEAC which is the solar energy advisory council and we promote the solar panel concept - we do actually have a sample of a working solar panel installation at a local community hall which, because it has two meters, is able to record the energy it achieves and the level of energy which can go back into the grid.

Over the last 2 to 3 years we have created three ECO houses which are houses we can borrow for a few months and install systems and demonstrate low and high cost energy conservation systems.

We have advice on grants that are available and we have encouraged installation of gas convection boilers and in fact as a council we pay the difference between the cost of installing one of those as compared with a non convection boiler.

We support the Healthy Rushmoor Living Alliance and also we do recycling where each household is now able to have two wheelie bins – one for rubbish collected weekly and one for recyclables collected every 2^nd week and we are undergoing a glass recycling trial in parts of the borough.

In terms of, for instance, street and car park lighting, we are slowly introducing low energy systems. As an example, our car park ticket machines are now activated by the first user in the morning, so they are not on all night.