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FROM SOOT TO SUSTAINABILITY When their pit closed in 1993 the people of Ollerton determined to put the “muck and the soot” behind them and make a green and clean fresh start. Val Evans catches up with some of the area’s lesser known projects. When their pit closed in 1993 the people of Ollerton determined to put the “muck and the soot” behind them and make a green and clean fresh start. Val Evans catches up with some of the area’s lesser known projects. A one-stop information shop in New Ollerton’s busy high street is helping the area’s former mining community to live more eco-friendly and sustainable lives. The Eco Shop team, part of the Ollerton and District Economic Forum (ODEF), signposts everything from growing vegetables and recycling unwanted goods to local sustainable tourism and the potential health and employment opportunities that Sherwood Forest offers to those living in its midst.
Project consultant Andy Hollis explains: “The shop isn’t just about providing advice and information, although that is paramount to what we do. It’s also about drawing out the health benefits that being out of doors offers, and about creating experience in the environment through volunteering and work experience.” The team is currently compiling a high street database of shops that supply ‘green’ and Fairtrade products. Andy, who brings 25 years’ environmental experience to ODEF as well as to his own visionary company, Eco-logic, says the work they do is “about creating a mosaic of different projects that cater for everybody who wants to improve their own lives and their own environment.”
ODEF, which provides employment, training and volunteering services and adopts eco projects with a view to creating employment opportunities, obtained Future Jobs Funding for Eco Shop workers Laura Hedley and Jenny Wilkinson. Previously unemployed, both are now hooked into advising people who, as Jenny says, are interested in environmental issues but “want to know a little bit more of where to begin.” True to its community ethos, ODEF helps stage green displays for events like Ollerton’s annual St George’s Day Festival and sales of Dukeries Community College students’ home grown plants. Volunteer Gloria Drozdowicz and student Michael Jones also regularly tend the greenhouse at Andy’s Eco-logic horticultural project in the forest near Edwinstowe. This is the first stage of Andy’s vision for an eco therapy centre to introduce small groups of people with mental health issues and disabilities to the healing nature of the forest.
Contact Details The Eco Shop is based at 35 Forest Road, New Ollerton, Newark NG22 9PR. You can find out more about its work – and access its Eco Blog research site – via www.odef.org.uk Tel: 01623 837802
bid, it will bring volunteer work experience and training for unemployed people. “One of the priorities is to improve people’s health as well by getting them outdoors,” David says. Courses on ecology, map reading and conservation will be offered to participants. Since Ollerton’s colliery closed, efforts to create employment and work experience in the areas based on eco-friendly principles have led to schemes like Recycling Ollerton and Boughton (ROB) that provides training and placements for vulnerable people, and The Furniture Project that collects unwanted items and delivers them to needy homes. David comments: “I feel that for a former mining community Ollerton has a good go at promoting the environment and sustainability. It’s not something you would expect to come out of the mining industry’s soot and muck. On the night the colliery was going to shut, there was a public meeting, and what came out of that was that local people wanted to start again, to knock the pit down and replace it with something clean and environmentally friendly.”
Seventeen years on, sustainability in local tourism businesses has mushroomed – as can be seen in ODEF project officer Louise Tarrant’s superb Ollerton and Surrounding Area guide. She reports, for example, that the whole of Edwinstowe Youth Hotel is warmed by the heat from its kitchen extractor fans; that Thoresby Hotel and Spa recycles 85 per cent of its waste materials on site; and that many places to eat source their food from local suppliers. “We could see from our questionnaire what measures local businesses are taking to become more sustainable,” she says. Around 24,000 copies of the guide are being distributed around the county, and Louise would welcome funding for a reprint. The guide promotes the town and villages’ many shops and services, tempts tourists into food outlets and restaurants, and reveals some of the lesser known as well as the more famous attractions and nature reserves.
ODEF is also based at 35 Forest Road, New Ollerton. Its website features the environmental and regeneration projects it continues to support in the area. Tel: 01623 863887 www.odef.org.uk If you’ve missed out on a copy of the Guide to Ollerton and the Surrounding Area, check out its website: www.ollertonandarea.org.uk For more information on Andy Hollis’ Eco-logic projects. Tel: 07708 875094 Email: ecologic@ahollis.co.uk Recycling Ollerton and Boughton (ROB) is a recycling facility providing work based training and placements to adults with learning disabilities and other vulnerabilities. For more information: Tel: 01623 863955 www.recyclingollerton.co.uk The Furniture Project is based at Boughton Industrial Estate North, Boughton, Newark, Notts. NG22 9LD. Tel: 01623 836410.
As David points out: “It presses all the right buttons for us as an economic forum because we obviously support the local businesses including these tourist businesses.”
A qualified tutor, assessor and verifier, Andy also works with ODEF’s action teams and development manager David Heathcote on ventures like Feel Good Foods – a co-operative that encourages people to grow and share organic produce – and the Friends and Users of Boughton Brake who have increased this community woodland’s wildlife.
LIVING FOR TOMORROW • Autumn 2010
Meanwhile, ODEF is planning a new project called Wild Sherwood. Dependent on the success of a funding
LIVING FOR TOMORROW • Autumn 2010