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.

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!

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.

Current fuel prices; Record 3

Its been another 4 weeks so its time for another record of the fuel prices at the petrol stations in Dereham. I have been round the town again on the afternoon of Tuesday 15th July (29 days after the last time) and here's what I found;

Morrisons supermarket, Station Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 119.9p
(up 2p or 1.7%* & 8p or 7.15%#)
Diesel; 132.9p
(up 2p or 1.53%* & 10p or 8.14%#)

BP station, Lynn Hill roundabout, Dereham
Unleaded; 119.9p
(up 2p or 1.7%* & 6p or 5.27%#)
Diesel; 133.9p
(up 3p or 2.29%* & 9p or 7.21%#)

Tesco supermarket, off Yaxham Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 119.9p
(up 1p or 0.84%* & 6p or 5.27%#)
Diesel; 133.9p
(up 2p or 1.52%* & 8p or 6.35%#)


* increase from Mon, 16th June (4 weeks/29 days ago)
# increase from Mon, 19th May (8 weeks/57 days ago)

Energy debate; letters in the Dereham Times

Today's Dereham Times (10th July) carries 2 letters about energy supplies. Malcolm Heymer (of Wheatcroft Way, Dereham), replying to my letter printed last week, continues his ill-conceived argument that man-made global warming doesn't exist! Well I'm sorry to inform him that the OVERWHELMING weight of evidence and the broad scientific consensus says that IT DOES EXIST! Yes, there is an element of natural variations in temperature that Mr Heymer speaks of, but this is small compared to what we are facing as a consequence of man-made CO2 emissions!

Mr Heymer refers in his letter to a report by a group calling itself the "Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)". This is clearly intended to deceive many people because it could very easily be mistaken for a reference to the much more widely accepted UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or IPCC) report (see http://www.ipcc.ch). Mr Heymer also appears to have been deceived by exaggerated predictions claiming that there are vast undiscovered reserves of finite resources like oil and uranium that will thrust the peak of these resources far off into the future! Maybe those reserves are out there somewhere! But who's to say we'll ever be able to find or extract them!!!

The logical thing is to plan based on the resources that we know (or can reasonably predict) that we've got! Regarding oil, the current evidence is that global production is coming to a peak, beyond which it will go into terminal decline. And this is happening at just the same moment that global demand for oil is sky-rocketing due to the growth of India and China (among others). This IS creating a widening gulf between supply and demand, leading to soaring oil prices which is exacerbating (if it didn't directly cause) the "credit crunch" and other economic instability.

The solution to all this is VERY obvious and relatively simple; we must rapidly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, particularly oil. I believe that through this we can build stronger, more robust local economies, stronger, healthier, friendlier local communities, and a nicer, healthier local environment. But having done a little web search for "Malcolm Heymer, Dereham", I've discovered that Mr Heymer is a very vocal climate change denier and a member of the car lobby, the "Association of British Drivers" (ABD). So I don't expect that he'll be convinced by any of this until long after the facts have been proved.

The other letter is Cllr Rupert Read's response to Malcolm Heymer's previous letter (printed 26th June), answering Mr Heymer's criticisms of Mr Read's previous letter (19th June). Mr Read (quite rightly in my view) dismisses Mr Heymer's argument for building new nuclear power stations to solve our "looming crisis in electricity generation" as economically unviable and physically dangerous (citing Chenobyl, and the modern terrorist threat).

Energy supplies

In last Thursday's Dereham Times (3rd July '08) I had another letter published about energy supplies, which was given the title "We need sustainable energy" by the Dereham Times. It was in response to a letter by Malcolm Heymer (of Wheatcroft Way, Dereham) printed in the Times the previous week (26th June) which appeared to quite misunderstand the comments of Cllr Rupert Read (printed the week before - 19th June) with regard to the decline of oil supplies. Mr Heymer also appeared to foolishly dismiss the facts of global warming!

The main focus of Mr Heymer's letter was "the looming crisis in electricity generation" which I quite agree with him about, although I disagree with his suggested solutions!

Once again with my letter the Dereham Times failed to include the details of this blog when they published it. HOW HOPELESS!!!

Below is my letter in FULL.


Mr Heymer (June 26) miss-understands the science if he believes that slightly cooler temperatures "since 2002" mean global warming had ceased! Temperatures fluctuate from year to year. But the longer-term trend clearly shows a rapid warming of our climate due to humans burning fossil fuels, releasing large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. It IS rapid relative to what we know of from the geological past.

Mr Heymer is right to say that there is a "looming crisis in electricity generation". But the solution is NOT to build new coal or nuclear power stations. Instead we need to significantly reduce our energy use, and to develop genuinely sustainable energy sources like wind (both off-shore and on-shore), micro-hydro, and wave/tidal power.

I think Mr Heymer misunderstands what Mr Read (letters, June 19) meant about oil supplies (a mistake repeatedly perpetuated by the media's representation of concerns about available oil supplies). Oil will certainly not just "run out". But the point comes, when about half the available oil has been extracted, that the rate of production reaches an all-time peak and then goes into terminal decline. This happens in every oil producing country or region. In the USA (lower 48 states) the peak happened in 1970 and even significant advances in extraction technologies did little to halt the subsequent decline!

The same thing will happen to oil supplies globally. The question is when! No one can say for sure until sometime after the event! Oil companies say it won't be until 2030. But many independent experts believe it will be before 2012! It may already have happened! And with ever growing global demand for oil, the growing gap between supply and demand will create a perception of shortages, and ever-rising prices.

It should also be said that the same process of peak and decline will apply at some time to all finite resources including coal, and uranium ore for nuclear power. So these cannot be sustainable energy solutions!

We must reduce our unsustainable use of energy. We have to rapidly engineer an end to our dependence on cheap oil for transport and agricultural production. And we have to reduce our electricity use to levels that can be provided by sustainable sources like wind and hydro. We must make a Transition in Dereham and surrounding areas towards a sustainable, low-carbon economy. Please come to discuss these issues further and help to develop solutions at the Transition Dereham blog; http://transitiondereham.blogspot.com.

Matt Walker

Cycle town! Its time to get on our bikes

On Thursday (19th June) the government announced a scheme investing £100m into 12 chosen "Cycling Towns/Cities" to improve cycling infrastructure and facilities in those urban areas. But it appears that the money is going to places that already have good cycling infrastructure (like Cambridge)! Friday's EDP newspaper was very critical of Norfolk County Council for failing to even bid for a share of this funding, despite both Norwich and Yarmouth being qualified and Kings Lynn expressing an intrest, because "funds would have to be taken from other transport budgets to match any funding award made" (quoting EDP article).
Rupert Read (Green Party Transport spokesman) says in the EDP that "its about time we took the initiative on getting the key improvements made to road junctions. The more people we can encourage on to their bikes, the less congested the road network will be - and the more people will be saving money, by travelling in a way that is immune to fuel price increases."

SO WHAT IS Norfolk County Council playing at??? We need serious investment into forms of transport (like cycling) that do not depend on damaging and dwindling fossil fuels like oil. Dereham is wofully lacking in cycling infrastructure like cycle lanes/paths, cyclist priority at junctions, and good sheltered cycle racks around the town.

I regularly cycle to the City College learning Station at Trafalgar Business Park, Rashes Green. But there are no proper bike racks there at all! So I have to lock my bike to some rather exposed railings. Service providers (like the Learning Station), employers, and particularly planners at Breckland must do far more to ensure that the infrastructure is there to facilitate cycling. And if there is money out there that the County Council can go for to help fund this then they really MUST GO FOR IT!

The County Council (and others) must get their act together and start investing into our carbon-free transport future, rather than linguring in our dying, oil-adicted transport past! Lets see safe dedicated cycle routes being developed to link Dereham town centre to all the surounding housing areas and on out to all the surounding villages.


Meanwhile, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been swanning around in Jeddah over the weekend trying to talk Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich countries into giving us back some of the trillions of dollars that we're spending, buying their oil. But Gordon wants them to invest all that money that they're making out of us due to soaring oil prices, back into the UK by financing new nuclear power stations! IDIOT! Nuclear is clearly NOT the solution!

Frankly we would much sooner solve these problems if we were to stop pouring our money away to Saudi's in the first place by not buying their oil! Then we would instead have that money ourselves, to invest into finding zero-carbon solutions, reducing our energy use and rebuilding more resillent and re-localised economies.