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PROGRAMME INFO |
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From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
Email: open.country@bbc.co.uk
Postal address: Open Country,
91Èȱ¬ Radio 4, Birmingham, B5 7QQ.
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With at least 20,000 disused mill sites in the UK, there is vast untapped potential to harness river and stream power to help meet Government renewable energy targets. But that is starting to change. A group of pioneering mill owners in South Somerset is working on Britain’s first micro-scale watermill hydro-power project, generating enough electricity to supply 150 homes in the area, with surplus energy sold back to the power companies.Â
Led by the local district council and part-funded by the Energy Saving Trust, the 10 mill owners are installing new turbines, restoring blocked leats and repairing sluice gates. But it has been a struggle with bureaucracy and environmental agencies to change the management of rivers. Each mill also needs a bespoke turbine and individual engineering to reflect the river system feeding it.
Helen Mark’s first stop is to meet engineer Keith Shoemark at Carey’s Mill near Martock who is building his own turbine because a new one would cost £40,000. He has a talent for turning his hand to anything and his mill, which he shares with partner Mandy Lane, is testament to his ingenuity. Together they have dug out the mill race, overhauled sluice gates and bridges. He anticipates generating enough electricity to power 8-10 homes which will go into the national grid and sold at a premium as "green electricity" to power companies.
For centuries watermills and horses were the only form of power. Eighty-seven year old Leonard Jennings has dealt with both in his life. His father, grandfather and great grandfather were millers at Cole Mill near Bruton and as a boy he delivered animal feed to local farms by pony and trap. But he never carried on the family tradition, "too dull", he says, "I loved animals and went into farming." Nevertheless he still rides out regularly on a pony and trap and takes Helen as a passenger for the short ride between his house and the old mill. It’s now been converted into a house but the owners, the Scott family, have installed a new turbine to start generating their own electricity. Leonard is impressed by the new contraption.
There are only two companies in the UK dealing with micro hydropower projects and Phil Davies runs one of them: Hydro Generation Ltd in Devon. He matches the right turbines to each mill and has helped get each mill up and running. However he’s faced many obstacles along the way, not least from the Environment Agency which issues abstraction licences and has scrutinised each project. It’s taken over 18 months in some cases to get permission to divert water through the mill and then return it to the river. Thankfully, Phil says, the Cabinet Office is reviewing the whole process to make it simpler.
Clare and Steven Bartlett live at Hinton Mill on the River Yeo. There’s been a mill at Hinton since Doomsday and the present mill is an 18th century construction, because the local landowners, flush with cash, moved it up to the farm and tunnelled 450m through the bed rock. The engineer was William Smith, later known as the Father of British Geology for giving us the first geological survey of the country. The tunnel is a marvellous feat of engineering and still in good condition. Stephen takes the cap off an airshaft and explains that canal builders built between two air shafts by tapping the walls and working towards each other. However it wasn’t always successful – the tunnel leaving the mill has a dog leg where the tunnellers missed each other! The original 120-year-old turbine in the mill is still working and the Bartletts will soon be able to use it to power their house and mill their own animal feed.
Contacts:
Brian Shingler, from Gants Mill is secretary of the South Somerset Hydropower Group.
South Somerset District Council (SSDC) is the lead organisation in the project. It received funding from the Energy Saving Trust’s .
Email Open Country: open.country@bbc.co.uk
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