Daily Archives: March 9, 2010

Mar 9 2010

They’re off! Cannes here they come…

Jon Collins (leader of Nottingham City Council) and Nigel Turpin (Head of Urban Design) today set off for Cannes – from Nottingham. The sun was shining and a small crowd had gathered. Raleigh were on hand to offer the technical help you need for such a trek.

But this is green travel at its finest – on bikes. I have blogged about this before, but I make no apologies for plugging this again.

Only 1700 km to go then!


Jon and Nigel left the Market Square with a small contingent of helpers to get them to the County boundary – including Mark Hobson from Mabers, John McCay & Helen Andrews from Rizk McCay and a few others!

They were seen off by Team Nottingham – mostly dressed in pink!

Also accompanying them was Nottingham-born Olympic and World Cycling medallist Bryan Steel – a few looked a bit worried at the prospect of Bryan setting the pace!

The main Cycle to Cannes event runs from London and starts on Thursday – but these hardy souls have decided that even the train fare to London is too much! They are cycling today and tomorrow to London. The fun then starts as they tackle the remaining 1500 km ride – hoping to arrive an the Croissette next Tuesday around 2.30pm.

The route is anticipated to be:

Stage 1: London – Folkestone 119km
Stage 2: Calais – Reims 320.9km
Stage 3: Reims – Dijon 316.5km
Stage 4: Dijon – Chanas 275.4km
Stage 5: Chanas – Aix en Provence 301.0km
Stage 6: Aix en Provence – Cannes 176.4km

They are raising money for Charity – and you can donate here. This is for a fantastic cause – Maggies in Nottingham!

I wish them both well (and the other 83 brave (?) riders). This is no mean feat. And when I am on the plane on Sunday heading for the South of France I shall be thinking about them – and not complaining about the lack of legroom…

UPDATE 10.3.10

Jon Collins reaches London


Jon & Nigel’s progress can be found on Nottingham City Councils MIPIM blog – link is on the right of my site!

Mar 9 2010

Teaching Sustainability?

A couple of years ago I gave some advice to Castle College in Nottingham about a potential new teaching Centre.

Smartlife Centre Hamburg

The idea was to add to an existing teaching set of courses. The College had (and still have) popular courses in building – bricklaying, plastering, plumbing etc.

As the College were becoming involved in new builds at Highfields Science Park and the main Centre in Chilwell we started to think about how the College could learn from these real life projects. The College always make sure that any building contracts have an ability for their own students to see progress formally during the build.

We also started to see in increase in the use of new technology for carbon reduction. We were being encouraged to look at Photo-Voltaic cells, Ground Source Heat Pumps, high levels of insulation, double and triple glazing, rainwater harvesting, biomass boilers and the like. But what was evident was that although these new technologies were being specified by Architects, the operatives fitting them were often struggling. Or you had to employ specialist sub-contactors (some of whom travelled miles thus negating some of the green credentials?).

We went to see two Smartlife centres -one in Malmo, the other in Hamburg. These centres were way ahead of the UK – and were brilliant showcases for some of the technology.

I was delighted to see that a Centre in the UK has been opened. It has been built by Wolseley – the worlds largest heating and plumbing supplier. It is known as the Sustainable Building Centre. It is a showcase for around 170 products – with information on a total of 7,000 – all under one roof.

Like the Genesis Project in Taunton, the centre uses the technology in it’s own construction. But there is a subtle difference. I visited Taunton and we saw quite specialised construction – including rammed earth and straw bales. This hasn’t found its way in to the Wolseley centre – it isn’t scalable enough to be distributed.

So, although the centre is pushing new technology – it is with a very close eye on commerciality. And for this reason, I think it an excellent project. Sometimes, I think we fall too easily for the green technology on the basis that it sounds sexy. The reality is that some of it is not really commercially viable – payback times can sometimes go beyond the life of the building!

In a recent report to Government the easiest and cheapest way of achieving a substantial CO2 reduction was highlighted as turning down room thermostats by 1 deg C. This is estimated to reduce, in the UK, emissions by 5.5 million tonnes of CO2 annually!

Sadly, the LSC funding for College schemes like the Sustainable Building Project pretty much dried up before we were able to get a centre built in Nottingham. Maybe one day someone will realise we need this sort of centre – for future builders!