Local councillors on Merton's overview and scrutiny panels regularly carry out reviews of issues and services that affect people living in the borough. These
reviews involve finding out about local people's experiences and looking at how other towns and cities deal with the same problems. Councillors then suggest ways of making things better in Merton.

Past reviews have covered issues ranging from the council�fs library service to preventing ill health to services for young people. They are currently asking people what theythink they should look at next.

I think overview and scrutiny should carry out a review of Merton's oil vulnerability, including:

1) The energy use of all council activities and buildings.
2) What emergency planning is in place to respond to sudden interruptions in oil supplies and/or sharply rising oil prices, with a particular emphasis on at risk communities.
3) Options for energy efficiency and energy conservation programmes that help businesses and individuals to reduce their oil and gas consumption in the borough, including specific and timetabled targets.
4) The borough's public transport system and measure to what extent it is energy-efficient and renewable.
5) Options for cycle lanes and road pricing.
6) Options for major public-awareness campaigns informing the public of peak oil.
7) Options to encourage local food production and processing.
8) Potential for a joint peak oil task force with other councils and existing community-led initiatives such as Sustainable Merton.
9) Policy on peak oil and climate change.

Overview and scrutiny should carry out this review because an increasing number of energy analysts are convinced that global oil production is 'peaking' and going into sustained decline. So in addition to the challenge of climate change, we will very soon have to contend with a rapidly growing deficit in transport fuels. This is likely to cause big spikes in the oil price and potentially devastating economic and social impacts, with huge implications for the provision of services by local government. This problem will be exacerbated by a severe shortage of oil and gas workers for at least the next ten years. It will radically change the way our societies are run - our transport systems, how we produce food, where we live, how we shop, our social and educational lives. There are a great many things that councils must do, and policies that need to be changed, if we are to have any chance of mitigating peak oil. Many of the conclusions of such a review by the scrutiny panel would, if implemented, reduce expenditure almost immediately simply by saving energy.

The most advanced US city in terms of preparation for peak oil is Portland, Oregon. The Portland Peak Oil Task Force has recently published an 86-page report, 'Descending the Oil Peak: Navigating the Transition from Oil and Natural Gas'. The report was produced over the course of six months and 40 meetings involving dozens of policymakers, experts, stakeholders and interested citizens who prepareda draft document for public comment. The final version of the report was approved by the City Council in March 2007.

The final report includes recommendations to reduce oil use and strengthen the communitys ability to respond to social and economic stress. The report which can be viewed online is packed with detailed plans to reduce Portlands exposure to peak oil in the areas of transport, infrastructure, town planning, food production and distribution and social cohesion.

The key priorities identified by Portland are:

� Reduce total oil and natural gas consumption by 50 percent over the next 25 years.

� Inform citizens about peak oil and foster community and community-based solutions.

� Engage business, government and community leaders to initiate planning and policy change.

� Support land use patterns that reduce transportation needs, promote walkability and provide easy access to services and transportation options.

� Design infrastructure to promote transportation options and facilitate efficient movement of freight, and prevent infrastructure investments that would not be prudent given fuel shortages and higher prices.

� Encourage energy-efficient and renewable transportation choices.

� Expand building energy-efficiency programs and incentives for all new and existing structures.

� Preserve farmland and expand local food production and processing.

� Identify and promote sustainable business opportunities.

� Redesign the safety net and protect vulnerable and marginalized populations.

� Prepare emergency plans for sudden and severe shortages.

Each of these 11 major recommendations is accompanied by a series of action items detailing how it can be implemented.

About a dozen other US cities have passed a peak oil resolution, or are in the process of doing so. In general their approaches have the following points in common:

� Grassroots advocacy began the process. A partnership of government and citizens was used to assess the issue and work on legislation

� A champion in city government or a related agency helped the citizens�f groups

� Action oriented programs are developed through task force study

� Comprehensive issues are being studied in all cases - not just focused on transportation

In Merton, such a review could acheive an overall policy framework leading to subsequent steps such as:

� Designing an energy-efficient and renewable public transport system that will reduce energy demand, and expand existing programmes such as road pricing and cycle lanes.

� Preventing infrastructure investments that are not viable in a low energy society.

� Developing rigorous energy efficiency and energy conservation programmes that help businesses and individuals to reduce their oil dependency, with an awards scheme to generate enthusiasm.

� Providing incentives for energy-efficient buildings, both new and existing.

� Making Energy Impact Assessments along the lines of existing Environmental Impact Assessments - compulsory for all new projects and buildings. EIAs would be used to optimise energy efficiency or indeed cancel projects/buildings that will be inappropriate in an energy-constrained world.

� Supporting the growth of businesses that supply renewable and energy-efficient solutions.

� Finding ways to encourage local food production and processing.

� Developing sustainable, low energy waste and water management and recycling systems.

In my view the scrutiny panel should be speaking to Merton's Energy Officer to find out what resources he would require to carry out a full oil vulnerability survey of the borough; of course Sustainable Merton to find out how to engage the community on such a review; Merton's emergency planning officer; Merton's Sustsinability Officer; Transport for London and the existing public transport franchises; Merton Cycling Campaign and Pollards Hill Cyclists;
Sutton, Kingston, Wandsworth, Lambeth and Croydon Councils and community groups therin such as Transition Town Brixton, EcoLocal, Kingston Environment Network, Hyde Farm group and Spa Hill Allotment Society; and The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, an educational charity dedicated to raising awareness about the issue of oil and gas depletion. http://www.odac-info.org/

If you want to let the scrutiny panel know what you would like them to review then you can fill out the online suggestion form at www.merton.gov.uk/scrutiny To find out more about how you can get involved in overview and scrutiny work, telephone the council on
020 8545 3390, email scrutiny@merton.gov.uk or visit www.merton.gov.uk/scrutiny.

Suggestions should be received by the Scrutiny Team by Tuesday 20 May 2008.

Recently, I've been out on the streets of Wimbledon Park with some other volunteers trying to make the area the first in London to go plastic bag free.

The project has been led by Mariana Cervantes-Burchell, Gillian Leigh and Ruth Baber who have approached and worked with local traders to make it a reality.

As part of the project, volunteers have been knocking on every door and handing a fairly traded cotton shopping bag designed by the Bags for Better Lives team, and a second fairly traded cotton bag from The Co-operative�s Wimbledon Park food store, to every one of approximately 3,000 households in the ward. The volunteers are asking residents to use their new bags every time they go shopping and to support a ban on throw-away plastic bags. The reception from local residents has been very warm.

The bags have been sponsored by eight local businesses and by the London Borough of Merton.

Around 9,000 plastic bags are handed out by traders in Wimbledon Park each week. If the initiative achieves a 50% reduction in bags issued, about 234,000 fewer plastic bags will be used each year. If the reduction is 75% bag consumption will fall by 351,000. Traders� annual spending on throw-away bags could be cut by �8,000-�12,000. Even if not every retailer abandons plastic bags immediately the environmental impact will still be significant.

We think that helping residents to adjust to a life without plastic bags could encourage them to consider other ways of living more sustainably.

Hopefully, the success of this initiative will lead to an expansion of the project to cover the whole of the London Borough of Merton.

Sorry for disappearing for a while. The reason arrived on January 19th, my baby daughter - an even bigger incentive to try and find a way for the borough to become sustainable.

The council has just consulted on its draft climate change strategy and one startling omission I noticed was that it didn't mention Food.

Our consumption of food contributes more to our greenhouse gas emissions than any other human related activity. From the manufacture of fertilisers and pesticides through the mechanisation of agriculture, the greenhouse gas emissions of the animals we eat, distribution, packaging, supermarkets and other shops, car journeys to and from shops and the waste resulting from the food we throw away. Helping local residents and organisations source locally produced organic food will contribute significantly to reducing the borough's carbon emissions.

Merton has 18 allotment sites which provide a unique outdoor leisure activity for residents living in the urban environment. A farmers market has been running in Wimbledon Park since May 2000. Located in a school playground, this market is very popular with the local community and is centrally situated in Wimbledon, serving people who live in both Wimbledon village and Wimbledon town (An additional market in Raynes Park has been planned for some time), and residents are able to access commercial organic box schemes run by national companies who supply organic vegetables from UK farmers directly to the consumers' doors.

The Western Road Allotment Site is a good example where local residents are working in partnership with the council to make unused allotment sites available to individuals, schools and community groups. Community food growing initiatives introduce residents of all ages to food growing as a fun and healthy pastime which has many positive benefits including reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with food.

I believe that the council needs to work with community groups and residents to achieve 100% use of all of the borough's allotment sites. It should encourage residents to grow organic food in gardens, roofs and balconies and permit residents to grow food in unused green areas (such as verges). It should assist residents and community groups to set up and run community supported agriculture projects. The council should be planting fruit trees in all green spaces in the borough and develop a system of harvesting by and for the local community.

There should be much more promotion of the health benefits of a low meat/dairy diet as part of a healthy diet to reduce obesity, diet related illnesses and greenhouse gas emissions (a vegan who drives an average sized car emits a tonne less carbon each year than a meat eater who doesn't drive).

Residents should be composting at home and the council should collect biodegradable waste from those unable to compost for use in community composting schemes.

But while you're waiting for the council why not eat less meat/dairy as part of a healthy balanced organic diet, grow your own fruit and vegetables or buy organic vegetables from a local farmers market or box delivery scheme and start composting at home - you'll be surprised how much fun it is.

Work is well underway in Wimbledon Park, as Sustainable Merton�s �Bags for Better Lives� team is striving for this mostly quiet neighbourhood to make the news as the first to go plastic bag-free across the capital.


News of this exciting project has been for most part well received by local businesses, the Wimbledon Park Residents� Association, Wimbledon Park Primary School, Bishop Gilpin Primary School and the local Farmers� Market. It also enjoys the support of Merton Council, Merton�s Chamber of Commerce and the local Guardian newspaper. There is, indeed, increasing public support for cutting down on the use of plastic bags and plastic packaging in our society, thanks to greater awareness about the devastating impact that these products � which are for most part unnecessary - have on our Planet.


The Bags for Better Lives team have been dedicating a great deal of time and energy to engaging closely with local businesses, in order to encourage them to stop providing plastic carrier bags to their customers. Instead, cotton and jute bags would be made available to local residents via the Bags for Better Lives team and by local shops (some bags will be free, others will be sold). Also, carrier bags made of cornstarch, which do not contain any plastic and are 100% biodegradable, would replace plastic bags at shops where wet or greasy foods require the use of greaseproof or waterproof bags.


Mariana Cervantes-Burchell, the project�s Co-ordinator, is certain that the best way forward is by working closely with local residents and business, so that everyone realises that they have a stake in ditching the throw-away mentality and creating �the type of environment that we all deserve�, in her own words. She understands that although it is never possible to please all the people all the time, it certainly is possible to provide a positive model that will overall be viewed positively by the local community and that, above all, will play a role in creating a cleaner, healthier environment.


Why stop using plastic bags?

� Plastic bags are made from oil-based products,
wasting a non-renewable and declining resource.


� Londoners use at least 1.6 billion plastic bags
each year. For every billion plastic bags produced 18,000 tonnes of CO2 is
released, equivalent to the emissions from over 6,000 cars in a year.


� Plastic bags are a major source of unsightly
litter, blowing down the street, catching in trees, clogging up streams, making
the shore of the Thames dangerous to birds, and killing turtles, seals, whales
and seabirds in the oceans.


� Plastic eaten by animals enters the food chain,
affecting humans. Plastic in dead animals� bodies is released back into the
environment posing a threat to other wildlife.


� Most plastic bags eventually degrade if they are
left in the light, but they just break down into smaller and smaller toxic
bits, contaminating soil, rivers and oceans.


� Plastic bags which end up with the rubbish in
landfill will still be around in hundreds of years. They don�t rot away.


� On the financial side, with
the cost of these plastic bags at about 1p each, nearly two hundred million
pounds (�200,000,000,) are, quite literally, being thrown away. This is more
than enough money to build one hospital every year.


These are the shocking facts about plastic and the harm that we as plastic users are making to our beautiful world. This project is part of the �Think globally, act locally� mentality � in other words, if we don�t take responsibility for our own neighbourhoods, we can�t expect anyone else to do it, either for us or for themselves. And we all deserve a healthier, cleaner environment!

A few weeks ago supporters of Sustainable Merton packed into the Guardian Centre in Colliers Wood to review the progress made over the last seven months and to make plans for the future.

Sustainable Merton Co-ordinator Tom Walsh highlighted the exciting developments which have taken place this year including projects to develop a plastic bag free zone and a community-owned wind turbine.

Volunteers have been busy on the streets of Wimbledon Park talking to retailers, residents end community organisations as part of a campaign to make Wimbledon Park London's first plastic bag free zone, following in the footsteps of Modbury in Devon and Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire. (To find out more about the campaign and how you can get involved email Mariana at kingstonmertonrnn@yahoo.co.uk).

Ideas for future projects included an Eco Pals mentoring scheme, door to door education, letter writing campaigns, a Merton 'Food up Front' project, working with faith groups, recycling at Merton events, and an anti-bottled water campaign. If you are interested in getting involved in these or any other projects you might like to see happen then please email info@sustainablemerton.org.uk

At our Energy meeting we had a lot of lively and interesting participation.

Our speakers Adrian Hewitt and David Bell of Merton Council, Malcolm Evans of Sutton Solar Club and Russell Smith of Parity Projects all stimulated interesting discussions in the workshops afterward.

The workshop groups in the second half of the meeting broadly followed the subject areas of the four speakers.

THe first groups discussed Combined Heat and Power (CHP), District Heat and Power (DHP) and Energy from Waste (EfW). The responsibility for these areas was seen as The Council, The Government and the Greater London Authority (GLA). What is required is for the community to ask the council why these kind of projects aren't progressing in the borough. Merton residents can write to their local councillors asking them to push forward these kind of projects and make climate change a key priority of the council, making a cabinet position for Climate Change. One of the participants suggested the following as suggested content for a letter to the council:



The Council should be urged to consider


� Trailblazing in issues relating to energy efficiency and local, renewable energy generation. If Merton gets ahead of the game now it could generate business locally later when others realise they need to follow this borough's lead, as well as bringing immediate advantages for businesses and residents.


� Constructing only mixed developments, not just single function housing or business alone, to spread the energy requirements of all new developments and enable local, sustainable energy generation schemes to be installed.


� Collaborating with other local authorities to enable economies of scale to be achieved in installing sustainable energy generation schemes and starting up other sustainable initiatives in the spheres of waste disposal, pollution control, water supplies, flood control, transport and biodiversity.


� Aiming to achieve the government's target of 60% of energy supplies being from renewables by 2050 far sooner than this date, and then going on to exceed the proportion of our energy which comes from renewable
sources.


� Taking measures to increase Merton's ability to generate its own power from renewable sources, with aim of becoming entirely self-sufficient in 10 years. Energy
costs could rise astronomically, quite possibly doubling within the space of a couple of years, rising 10 times over 5 or 10 years, should the UK's gas supplies from Russia dry up, if, or more likely when, Russia decides it needs the gas for its own use or China is able to pay a higher price than the UK.


� Offering some sort of incentives to increase energy efficiency in existing housing, local authority and business premises. At the moment energy efficiency is just as important as switching to renewables, since the vast stock of existing premises is so poorly insulated, uses relatively few energy efficient appliances and residents/users have not yet adopted sufficent energy efficient behaviours. Energy efficiency is an easy way for everyone to realise financial benefits.


� Offering free/low cost individual energy audits to enable businesses and householders to see how easily they could improve their energy efficiency.


� Aiming for a Merton target that in 10 years time everyone should be able to see the source of the power generated to keep their home/business/facilities running - ie establish local renewable power generation.


� Offering funding to one or two permanent staff for Sustainable Merton to build on the goodwill and enthusiasm which has so far been shown by a big cross-section of the Borough's residents and to help make all the businesses and residents of Merton experts in sustainable living.


The second group looked at community wind projects which might involve local schools who can get grants and finance up to �30k to set up a turbine which would pay for itself within 5 to 7 years. Support would be required from the local community to avoid planning hitches so it was suggested that trips to successful renewable energy projects mights be arranged.

The third group focussed on setting up workshops to teach people how to build their own solar water heaters. One of the participants volunteered to contact Sutton Solar Club and organise a workshop. The project will need space and equipments such as old copper cylinders.

The final group suggested a range of projects including a Merton Environment Centre similar to the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales, a house conversion scheme linking residents with finance and accredited suppliers perhaps in partnership with a local Energy Supply COmpany (ESCO) - a survey of householders intentions was suggested, turning the lights off in the civic offices and a community trip to the Centre for Alternative Technology.

The consensus of this groups was also that the council should be made to feel guilty that these kind of projects were not already happening in the borough.


You can write to your local councillors at http://www.writetothem.com/ . Pressure can also be levied by writing to the local press.

You might have lots of other ideas to bring to the table so join the debate online at http://sustainablemerton.wordp/issues/energy/