This is the second week running that I have been eating breakfast on Saturday and remembered "Friday was Blog writing day". It is good that my life has changed from talking and writing about tackling climate change, to busy activity delivering a project that will contribute to reducing CO₂ in Birmingham.

I was shocked to discover this week that Council Officers, whose job is to work in accordance with City Council and Government policies, have produced a report that ignores their "Sustainability Strategy and Action Plan" and the Government's Planning Policy Statement 1: Delivering Sustainable Development, despite having both drawn to their attention.

A major part of SusMo's British Gas Green Streets award is to part fund a project of St Mary's Church to install Photo-Voltaic panels on the roof. This would deliver around 8,000 kWh of renewable electricity each year, most of which would be fed back into the grid, generating income. The recommendation, of the Planning Officer to the Planning Committee, is to refuse the planning application.

As well as ignoring key policies in the "Policy Context" area of the report, the report fails to mention a letter from the City Council Head of Climate Change and Sustainability, Sandy Taylor. His support of the application has been withheld from members of the Planning Committee.

Another misleading piece of information in the report is that the "Sustainability" of the application is neutral, omitting to mention the contribution of 8,000 kWh of renewable electricity each year.

The National Trust recognises that there will be no heritage to conserve if climate change is not tackled. The NT first installed solar panels on the roof of one of its Grade I listed buildings in early 2008, and recommended that other owners of Grade 1 listed buildings would follow suit. The installation of solar panels is a simple and easily reversible procedure, causing no "damage" to the roof that they are placed on.

The panels will not be visible from the busy pavements of St Mary's Row, they will be hidden by the parapet - see photo 1. Some panels will be visible from the end of Oxford Road but most will be hidden by trees when they are in full leaf - see photo 2.

The report records that 22 messages of support were received and 2 objections. No objections were received from residents of Oxford Road who are the people who will see the panels most frequently.

If the Planning Committee refuses this application on Thursday, there will be a strong case for a Judicial Review, due to an officer withholding evidence from the elected representatives who serve on the Planning Committee.

The planning application for the installation of Photo-Voltaic panels on the roof of St Mary's Church will be considered on Thursday, 4 February 2010 at 1100 hours in Committee Rooms 3 and 4, Council House, Item 15 on the agenda.

If you wish to observe the elected members acting in the best interests of Birmingham, in accordance with City Council and Government policies, you may wish to attend. If you are unable to attend you may wish to send your comments to the Chair of the Planning Committee - Peter.DouglasOsborn@birmingham.gov.uk - who will forward them to the Planning Officer.

The church has a short entry in Pevsner's "Buildings of England", which describes the oldest part of the church (the tower, early 16th century) and the rebuilding and reconstructions of the rest of the church in the 19th and 20th centuries. He concludes "The result is efficient...". I hope that future descriptions of the church will praise not only its efficiency but also its sustainability, thanks to its Parish Church Council in 2010.

You need to spend quite a bit of money on your house to cut your fuel bills by over 70%, but it can be done: see the Old Home Super Home project. The house on the left on the webpage is in Balsall Heath, a two minute walk from my house, where John has achieved 75% savings to date - and his plans to improve the energy efficiency of his house are not complete.

The first 25% is relatively easy to achieve. Unless you live alone and have already changed your lifestyle to minimise all inessential use of light and heat in your home, you should be able to achieve around 25% savings with minimum costs. My neighbour, Saifer Rehman, achieved 35% savings without great expenditure: see my blog of July 31st last year "Role model for cutting CO₂".

Two weeks before I wrote about Saifer's savings I mentioned, in my blog, plans for a High Street Energy Advice service in Birmingham. The planned start date for this project was April 1st 2009 and last July I hoped that we would hear news of the start date "...before the summer holidays." We heard nothing. More holidays have passed by. Now for the good news: the project has Cabinet approval and the start date will soon be announced.

Once recruitment and training of paid staff and volunteers is complete, three centres will provide Energy Advice: Northfield Ecocentre, Saltley & Washwood Heath Practical Care Project (73 Alum Rock Road, B8 1LY; 0121 327 8377) and Moseley Community Development Trust.

SusMo will be encouraging all Moseley residents to make full use of this service, to help them to save energy and record their achievements - this will make a big difference to our chance of winning the next Green Streets prize of £100,000 (see my blogs of November 20th "SusMo wins prize for Moseley" and the 27th "Delivering the Green Streets project and winning the next prize"). At the SusMo meeting this week at the Hamza Mosque, members of the Mosque said that they intend to encourage local residents to do all they can to reduce their fuel consumption, and provide their meter readings to measure their success.

Will Moseley churches and Moseley community organisations follow this example? SusMo looks forward to hearing from them.

Have you been pleased that the energy efficiency measures that you have installed have proved their worth during this cold spell, or is your house draughty and cold?

Are you pleased that the snow remained on your roof for longer than many of your neighbour's, or did your heating bills rise as the warmth escaped to melt the snow?

If you realise that improvements are needed to make your home more energy efficient, the best place to start finding what you need to do, and what grants and offers are available, is the Energy Savings Trust website.

There is information about:

>Grants and offers for home improvements;

>Generating your own energy.

Some grants may have temporarily run out, as it is towards the end of the financial year, but that is no excuse for not finding out the options now, whilst keeping warm is a high priority for you.

The Energy Savings Trust will advise you about joining a waiting list, or waiting for new, better offers.

Enjoy the cheaper warmth of your energy efficient home, or make sure that you will have an energy efficient home at the first opportunity.

Our heating and hot water failed on Friday. It is a gas-fired condensing boiler system which is efficient, simple to use and has reduced our gas bills. It has served us well for over two years.

We read the booklets, phoned the provider, phoned the manufacturer and got nowhere. Thanks to a skilled, helpful friend, we now know what to do about it. In case you have an unsolved problem and are in a cold house, you could check to see if you can solve the problem yourself.

The fault code displayed on the boiler was described in the Instruction Manual as "flame not detected". The suggested remedies were related to gas pressure. These remedies turned out to be irrelevant as the cause was a frozen outlet pipe.

As well as heating radiators and water a condensing boiler creates:

> a plume of water vapour;

> a drip of condensate.

The drip is discharged to the nearest drain, via a pipe. If there is a bend in this pipe, and there will be unless there is a drain directly below the outlet, in freezing weather the pipe may get blocked by ice. If your heating fails, try pouring hot water over the outlet pipe until ice drops out. Our friend did this for us yesterday and we have repeated the procedure this morning.

I would be interested to know how widespread a problem this has been, and if readers have had difficulties and expense in sorting it out. You can use the comments column on this website or send me an email: esther.boyd@moseleyforum.org.uk

The meat and dairy industry produces more climate-changing emissions than every plane, train and car on the planet - 18% of the global total. This doesn't mean that you have to give up eating meat, but that you should consider reducing the amount of meat you eat - see the Birmingham Friends of the Earth website.

We can start by having Meat Free Mondays, or any other day of the week. To make this easier for us, and to tempt us by having an enjoyable Monday evening out, with excellent food, the Warehouse Cafe at 54-57 Allison Street, Digbeth B5 5TH, has a great offer: buy one get one free! Call 0121 633 0261 for details of the Meat Free Mondays offer and reserve up to eight places - four will be free. Mention that you read about it on this blog.

I hope that you will be encouraged to provide vegetarian or vegan meals regularly at home, with pride and with no apologies.

Before Christmas there was a Vegan Fair at Kings Heath, where we shopped and had an excellent lunch. One of my purchases was a cookery book produced by Solihull Animal Aid, with lots of tasty recipes - enough to persuade many meat eaters to choose Meat Free eating on more than one day a week. "A selection of our favourite recipes" - 120 of them - is available by mail order for £3.25.

Bon appétit!

I would be amazed if there is any reader of this blog whose footprint on this planet doesn't need to be made lighter, to help the global community to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial temperatures. If anyone reading this is confident that their current footprint is sustainable, I hope that you will get in touch. I'm sure that all readers would like to learn from you.

I know that I should do more to reduce my greenhouse gas emissions and the following is my plan for 2010.

I will keep things simple, focussing on three words which remind me where I should concentrate my efforts: BALANCE, CLUTTER and WASTE, listed in alphabetical order as I'm unclear, so far, of their priorities; perhaps that will become clear during the year.

WASTE
Taking the last first: the need to reduce waste is obvious, but we may need to spend a bit of time recognising what is waste. It is easy to persuade ourselves that by putting bottles, cans and paper in a recycling bin and sending leftover food to a Biodigester, we are avoiding waste.

Recycling involves considerable greenhouse gas emissions: could any of the items be reused (as containers for something else, as scrap paper, as insulation, as anything else?) or should we have planned ahead to avoid buying them (bottled water, canned drinks, tinned food)?

Planning ahead is also important in avoiding food waste, which is far more significant for both our household budgets and limiting global warming than the benefits of anaerobic digestion over landfill.

Giving cast off clothing and other items to jumble sales and charity shops may not seem like waste, but did we really need new items?

CLUTTER
I don't expect that I am alone in my need to reduce clutter, though I realise that the clutter in our house is a more severe problem than is usual. Living amongst clutter wastes time in so many ways, and also makes my footprint heavier as I sometimes buy new, small items and then find that I had one (or even more) already...

Each day I intend to do ask myself if I have done anything to reduce my clutter and, if not, what I can do tomorrow. This is likely to include visits to charity shops - with a large rucksack or our bicycle trailer.

BALANCE
Balance is necessary for sustainability, not only for the survival of the planet but also for personal survival to avoid becoming a drain on the overstretched NHS and a burden on our friends and relatives.

For the planet I might balance an occasional helping of meat with some vegan meals, or buying new shoes that I didn't really need with teaching people how to crochet decorative patches on moth holes or worn cuffs, to prolong the life of much loved garments.

For my personal survival, a good balance is needed for physical and mental health. I need to balance:
> working for others and doing things for my household, my family and myself;
> activities requiring sitting still, concentrating hard and physical activities;
> strenuous activities, both physical and mental, and relaxing activities.

If my guidelines are not what you were looking for, and you need a useful checklist, try the FoE website.

If you have any suggestions for resolutions for 2010, please add a comment.

The lack of any binding agreement at the Copenhagen Summit is disappointing to all with serious concerns about tackling climate change. We must be wary of allowing this failure to prevent us from continuing to do all we can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Birmingham City Council was represented at the Summit by Sandy Taylor, Head of Climate Change and Sustainability and Councillor Paul Tilsley, Deputy Leader. Only four cities sent people to the summit. Birmingham will be undeterred by the lack of support from the heads of state: read Sandy Taylor's reports.

Birmingham communities also continue to do our bit. SusMo is beginning to plan energy efficiency improvements to four community buildings and twenty homes in Moseley, paid for by British Gas through their Green Streets programme 2010-11, and has joined BHIOP (Balsall Heath is our Planet) in applying for £500,000 from the Department of Communities and Climate Change (DECC) through their Low Carbon Communities Challenge Phase 2 awards, for similar improvements in both Moseley and Balsall Heath.

Improvements to the energy efficiency of buildings is only part of the solution: our behaviour in using buildings, and all non-renewable resources, is what really matters.

Whilst we enjoy our seasonal festivities we might pause occasionally and reflect what gives us real, lasting pleasure and causes least damage to the future lives of our families and to the future of the planet.

Our resolutions for 2010 need to be truly Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timed.

With best wishes and smiles, to you all, for the festive season and for 2010.

Do you wish that your children had the freedom that you enjoyed as a child, to cycle safely in Birmingham, or wherever you lived? Wouldn't it be great for you and your kids to cycle safely together? Well, thanks to a Big Lottery grant, this will soon be possible in Birmingham.

Birmingham has lots of parks, towpaths, traffic free roads that are safe -if only they were joined together. Push Bikes, the Birmingham Cycling Campaign, has won a lottery award to produce 10 short routes for different parts of the city and make them freely available. They should be ready in Spring 2010.

John Bennett, Chairman of Push Bikes explains "Cycling is fun, good for health and the environment. It's a great way for kids to get active and fit. Most people - adults and kids - have bikes but many are not used. We talk to lots of Brummies who tell us that traffic is what stops them cycling. These new routes will be chosen to avoid busy roads, start at car parks or stations and include café or pub stops".

John adds "We want them to be great ways to have fun and enjoy cycling together. Rides will be five to ten miles long. For a young family we think that's worth a rewarding drink or ice cream. If you want a longer ride it is possible to join two together".

Check the Pushbikes website now, and get ready for the first rides on these routes next year. Leaflets will be available in the Spring, on the Pushbikes website and at libraries.

Please consider joining the "20s plenty" campaign referred to on the Pushbikes website, and join the Birmingham campaign, co-ordinated by Birmingham Friends of the Earth, which is working to persuade politicians to save lives in Birmingham by reducing speed limits in residential areas. This would make it safer for your children, and for you, to use your bike instead of your car for short journeys.

Join the campaign to make a real difference to your health, to your budget, to improve life in your neighbourhood and the future of our planet.

I would like to draw your attention to three events taking place in Birmingham in December, where you will be able to spend your cash, in a thoughtful way, for more sustainable seasonal festivities.

Two take place next Saturday, December 12th, in Kings Heath and in Northfield. The third is the following Saturday, December 19th, in Moseley, along with the Moseley Farmers' Market and the Arts Market.

On December 12th Midlands Vegan Campaigns are staging a Christmas Fair in Kings Heath. "There'll be approx 20 stalls, a vegan cafe, cookery demos/talks, free food samples & lots more...! Read further details here."

This will demonstrate how easy it is to provide a delicious feast with a lighter footprint and without any cruelty to animals.

Also on December 12th, from 10:00 - 13:00, perhaps for a younger age group, "...you are invited to Northfield Ecocentre for tips on how to enjoy a sustainable Christmas, costing less for you and our planet, and activities including:

> family recycled craft activities such as make your own Christmas Crackers;

> LOAF (Local, Organic, Animal-friendly, Fairtrade) Christmas recipes;

> quality products for sale from local designers at Northfield Meeting House Christmas Gift Fair;

> meet the Green Father Christmas and

> find out why Green Santa's runways are melting.

Northfield Ecocentre, 53 Church Road, Birmingham, B31 2LB

On Saturday December 19th, from 10:00 - 16:00, Birmingham Friends of the Earth are holding a Green Christmas Fair in Moseley at Moseley Community Development Trust / the Exchange.

The Post Office Building
149-153 Alcester Road,
Moseley
Birmingham
B13 8JP

For details contact roxannehgreen@googlemail.com

SusMo is working hard on our Community Engagement Plan, to gain maximum impact from the British Gas Green Streets investment in Moseley and aiming to win a further £100,000 for our achievement in saving energy, generating renewable energy and helping local people to save money and save the planet.

SusMo will be at the Moseley Farmers' Market tomorrow with a display about Green Streets so, if you read this in time and live nearby, come along to find out more and to learn how you can join in to help yourself, the project, the City Council's Cutting CO₂ targets, and the planet. For more information email susmo@moseleyforum.

At the same time you can stock your larder with local produce and buy seasonal gifts, many of them locally produced, at the "Extended Christmas Special" Moseley Arts Market.

You will get another chance to shop with lighter footprints at the Moseley Markets before the festive season - on December 19th.