Phase 1 (completed)

We launched the Phase 1 campaign on 23rd January 2010. The campaign primarily consisted of distributing 'Challenge Cards' to each of the approximately 1300 households in the Parish. These cards listed 8 simple energy saving challenges.We used every communication method open to us to publicise the launch, including running a very successful Scarecrow Competition

and held a major event in our local hall (The Acland Hall, Cold Ash). After this we actually distributed the cards.


These challenges involved little or no expense, but stimulated people to think about their actions and make minor changes to their lifestyles. We emphasised that, not only will meeting each challenge reduce their use of energy, and consequent CO2 emission, but also you will save them money!

We asked that each household meet at least 5 of the challenges, and then display the Challenge Card in a window or on a gatepost by a given date so that we could count them.

At our well attended public meeting on Saturday 13th March 2010 we were delighted to announce the results of this campaign. Earlier that week we had counted the number of Challenge Cards displayed.

For the central part of the Parish - Cold Ash and Ashmore Green (including Southend, Long Lane, Henwick Close and all of Stoney Lane) - the response rate was a fantastic 22.8% from the 878 houses. This is a great result – very close to the highest result ever measured in one of these campaigns (23.7% in Wallingford). We also measured cards in the other 400+ houses in the Parish which are contiguous to parts of Thatcham and Newbury and, as expected, this gave a somewhat lower rate.

In total 211 cards were displayed. Thus the total savings (per annum) are

  • 1,182,000 litres of water (1182 tonnes)

  • 80,826 kg (80.8 tonnes) of CO2 - it would take the planting of 8083 trees to absorb that amount of CO2!

So, thanks to everybody who took part. It really shows that taking small actions to minimise your energy usage can make a BIG difference!