This blog page is intended to raise the issues around Peak Oil and encourage debate in the Dereham area about these issues, how they will affect our local area, and how we should respond. Please do post any comments you have in reply to any blog entries posted here. Alternatively please e-mail; transitiondereham@googlemail.com

It must be stressed that Dereham is not (yet) a Transition Town. But through this blog it is hoped that a debate will be started that will lead Dereham towards engaging in the Transition process and that this blog will become a record as we engage in that process.

Friday 17 October 2008

Dereham shop sign pictures

I've been out round the town taking lots of little camera-phone photos of shop and business signs and I've begun to collage these together to build up an image of the town. The Transition Handbook talks a lot about "resilience"; being able to meet essential local needs through locally owned shops and businesses suppling local produce and products to local people, thereby being (relatively) unaffected by disruptions to fuel supplies and other large supply chains (as will happen with "Peak Oil"). Its how towns functioned before the age of cheap oil, and we'll have to recapture something of it.

So how much of Dereham is locally owned, independant businesses, or supplies local produce and products to local people, and how much is caught up in the global economic system that seems to be in so much trouble at the moment? Have a look and judge for your self!


Here is my first collage; of shop signs around Dereham Market Place.
Some images of other parts of the town will follow.


In the last week I've created a Google Map of Transition Initiatives and "mullers" (like me here in Dereham) around Eastern England (see link on right of the main page). Following feedback from the Transition groups around the region that I've been able to contact by e-mail about this map, I have now also set up a Google Group to help facilitate Transition networking around the eastern region.

Monday 13 October 2008

Current fuel prices; Record 5

Last Monday (6th October) I again went round Dereham's petrol stations and here's the fuel prices at that point;

Morrisons supermarket, Station Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 108.9p
Diesel; 118.9p

BP station, Lynn Hill roundabout, Dereham
Unleaded; 109.9p
Diesel; 120.9p

Tesco supermarket, off Yaxham Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 109.9p
Diesel; 120.9p

As some BBC News journalists are now repeatedly saying, the now falling fuel prices is the result of reduced demand due to growing recession as a result of the Global financial crisis. It all fits quite well with the predicted impacts of Peak Oil and the effects of the high oil prices that we have seen!

Sunday 5 October 2008

Transition events and fuel prices

I realise that I've been rather quiet on this blog for a couple of months and in particular I've let the 'Fuel Price Records' slip a bit! But in the meantime I've been to a couple of larger of Transition initiative events.

At the end of July I went up to the Transition Scotland network day, tagged onto the start of 'The Big Tent; Festival of Stewardship' www.bigtentfestival.co.uk in Fife. This was at the invite of a relative who (after I had mentioned Transition to him) had connected into the Transition Initiative where he lives in Edinburgh, linking it to his own project; a website to help promote locally owned shops www.nearbuyme.com which he was speaking about at the network day. I had a really good time up there and spent a further week around Edinburgh.

This last Wednesday evening (1st October) I went in to "The Great Unleashing" of Transition Norwich at St Andrew's Hall in the centre of Norwich city, which was filled with "350 people" in what the speaker Ben Brangwyn (from the Transition Network) said was "the first UNLEASHING of a major city". It was a very good evening where after Ben and the local MP for Norwich North; Dr Ian Gibson (Lab.) had spoken, we broke into small discussions around tables of about 10 people, each with different themes.

I came away from the Transition Norwich Great Unleashing with a copy of "The Transition Handbook" by Rob Hopkins; the founder of the Transition movement at a discounted price of £10 (RRP £12.95) see www.transitionculture.org which I'm currently reading. It is already giving me fresh ideas about what could (and needs to) be done to transition Dereham and its surrounding areas. This will likely produce thoughts and musings to fill fresh posts in the coming days and weeks.

I also left a feedback slip at the end of the Transition Norwich Great Unleashing saying that I would like to meet up with anyone else from the Dereham area who may have been there, to develop stuff local to Dereham, and that I would be willing to co-ordinate a meeting of such a group. So if you were there (or not, but your interested in being involved) please do e-mail me a message at transitiondereham@googlemail.com to introduce yourself.

To finish this post I do have some fuel prices recorded from August and September. Since my last Fuel Price Record post in July, the retailers have been battling each other to cut fuel prices. But as a chart presented by Ben Brangwyn at the Transition Norwich Great Unleashing showed, this is due to falls in global oil prices resulting from reduced demand in the wake of recession caused by 'the credit crunch' and current financial turmoil!

On Tuesday 12th August the fuel prices I recorded were;

Morrison's supermarket, Station Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 111.9p (down 8p or 6.67%* & 0p #)
Diesel; 122.9p (down 10p or 7.52%* & 0p #)

BP station, Lynn Hill roundabout, Dereham
Unleaded; 111.9p (down 8p or 6.67%* & 2p or 1.76%#)
Diesel; 133.9p (down 10p or 7.47%* & 1p or 0.8%#)

Tesco supermarket, off Yaxham Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 111.9p (down 8p or 6.67%* & 2p or 1.76%#)
Diesel; 133.9p (down 11p or 8.22%* & 3p or 2.38%#)


* figures since Tues, 15th July (4 weeks/28 days previous)
# figures since Mon, 19th May (12 weeks/85 days previous)

On Thursday 11th September I noted the fuel prices at Morrison's supermarket, Station Road, Dereham, as;
Unleaded; 112.9p
Diesel; 123.9p

Tomorrow; Monday 6th October I'll try to record the next fuel price record.