Lynmouth Road, Walthamstow is about to become its own power station, with solar energy for 30 homes. Now the artists responsible want us all to change how we heat our homes. By Anna Fielding
. The sector was hit when the government’s community energy strategy was scrapped, with at least 66 projects folding in 2017 and more becoming precarious. The initial grand design for Lynmouth Road was for an entire street interlinked, powered for free and managed by a cooperative. But the mixture of rented and private, leasehold and freehold, and various mortgages with various banks meant dropping uniform infrastructure across the rooftops would be almost impossible.
As we sit on the bed on the roof, the surveyor from the solar company is finishing his assessments. He climbs the scaffolding at the back of the house to come and chat, although he doesn’t make it all the way up. “It’s a bit ironic, in my line of work, but I’m not great with heights,” he says. “It used to be full of very long-term residents,” says Hilary. “One family staying in a house for decades. We moved in around 14 years ago and found a newspaper from 1945.” Dan also mentions a former resident, Dorothy Burroughs, who spent her 100 years living on the street, only leaving to briefly enter a care home before her death last year. Dorothy remembered when electricity first came to the houses in the 1930s. “She said that people needed to be shown what to do and how to use appliances.
“I want to be part of the solution, even if it’s just a small part,” says Dee Tweedie, 48, who has been involved with the project from the beginning and went door-to-door with Dan and Hilary to explain the idea. “We all want to save the planet and the prices of everything are rising in tandem… energy, food, mortgage. But you don’t always know what you can do when it’s just you and your family. It’s been lovely to meet so many of our neighbours. There’s camaraderie.
The Power Station may not be actively producing energy just yet, but it has generated an idea that is already flowing to the rest of the area. Dan and Hilary are working with five local primary schools, including the one their son attends, to arrange funding and installation via theproject. People in neighbouring streets have started asking how they could join in.
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