Straw Bale Walkabout

Following the visit of the Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC) on 28 January, our straw bale project is moving full steam ahead! The DAC spent a morning with Richard, Barbara Jones from Straw Works, a representative from English Heritage and members of the project team. After inspecting the site and asking lots of questions, Stephen Craven…

On 14th June at we’ll be making a 2 metre long model of the main part of our Straw Bale annex at Holy Trinity School Fair.  Those helping build the model will be able to see how a straw bale building is constructed and learn something about the advantages. The “bales” will be made from…

When Farah, a member of our church community, knew that we were raising money for such a great project, she spoke to the person in charge of her work’s charitable giving scheme. As a result, she secured £500 from her employer, Land Securities, towards our community hub. Thank you Farah! Many firms have schemes to…

What a process!  Getting planning permission was hard enough, but getting Faculty permission from the Diocese was tortuous!  Nevertheless, we now have both – albeit with a number of conditions to fulfill on Lambeth’s side.  These include providing a very thorough energy and heating strategy before any work is done above ground, and making sure…

An average 85m2 UK home of brick and concrete is said to release 68 tonnes CO2 in construction. For a building like ours of 643m2, we would expect to release something like 450 tonnes with conventional construction. Using Alternative Construction the picture is more like this (from the ground up): Crushed Concrete MOT Type-1:  Waste…