SWAP SHOP!

Hebden Bridge Transition Town
presents
Multi-Coloured SWAP SHOP!

at Holme Street Arts Centre, Hebden Bridge
Saturday 9th Jan 3 til 6 pm

Hosted by Hebden's own answer to Noel Edmonds, Mike Hancock.
With tea and cakes.

Put on your tank top, bring your unwanted christmas presents and swap til you
drop!

Event is free. Come! It'd be lovely to see you there.

TIME FOR A CHANGE: Hebden Bridge as a Transition Town

Imagine Hebden Bridge in 20 years’ time? What will it be like? How do we meet the challenges of accelerating climate change and the dwindling supplies of the oil and gas that fuels our lifestyles?
What can we do between now and then to make this town an even better place to live? And what steps can we take to build a stronger community?

The Transition Town movement is catching on fast around the country and we think it has a lot to offer Hebden Bridge. The term Transition Town basically means a community working together to create local solutions to climate change and peak oil. Transition Towns all over the country are creating energy descent plans for their towns or cities, taking practical steps to becoming less reliant on food, energy, goods and expertise from far away. Gradually, we need to meet many more of our needs much closer to our own streets and doorsteps.

There are already hundreds of villages, towns and cities worldwide who are taking on these basic principles including Keighley, Huddersfield, Ilkley, Marsden and Slaithwaite, Bradford, Leeds and Manchester to name just a few round here. Totnes in Devon is the most advanced example of transition ideas in action.

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COMMUNITY GARDENS OR CAR PARKS?

What do we need most in the centre of our town?
In the light of climate and impending fuel crises, and the famous lack of gardens in Hebden Bridge, it would perhaps make a lot of sense to give more land over to the development of community gardens rather than car parks.
Could the “car parking crisis” be tackled in more imaginative ways?

In May we organised a Secret Garden Party in the disused fire station yard and created a community garden. For 6 or 7 weeks the beds really bloomed; seedlings grew, veg appeared, flowers flowered, bees buzzed and butterflies fluttered.

When the demolition company arrived in July, all the plants were moved, or potted up and put on the wall for others to take away. For a week or so, most days saw a collection of different people potting up plants, harvesting edible produce and bagging up soil.
We let people know that the big planters could be taken and used elsewhere. It would be interesting to see where the planters went to. Send photos if you want and we will put them up.

We would love to hear about any other community gardens, guerrilla gardens, ideas for vacant pieces of land, however large or small, in this area. We hope the secret garden at the old fire station is part of a bigger movement to use more land for food growing and to open up more disused spaces for public access.
e-mail us at info@hebdenbridgetransitiontown.org.uk


click on images to view full size slideshow.

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Secret Garden Party at the Fire Station

On bank holiday Monday 25th May our Secret Garden Party was revealed to be within the walls of the old Fire Station yard on Valley Road. The sun shone as hundreds of people occupied the space, brought plants they had grown and planted up the raised beds with a lovely array of herbs, veg and flowers. People were also able to plant up portable planters that were made from old dustbins into funky designs and take them home. There was lots of fun to be had in the crafty kids area with sunflower planting, pot decorating and the making of bugs on sticks, as well as learning about photosynthesis and the importance of bees.

The yard was adorned with colourful umbrellas, banners and bunting and the hay bales made for a very comfortable space. Inside the marquee there was a lovely cake café and the garden party speciality of tea, cucumber sandwiches and a cream tea being served. A solar powered sound system played an eclectic mix of music throughout the day.

If only every day could be like this! We wanted to show that there are different possibilities in life. This space is earmarked to become a car park, and although car parking is an issue in Hebden Bridge, so is people’s lack of access to land and food growing possibilities. We feel there are enough car parks in the centre of Hebden Bridge. What we would like is a more imaginative use of land such as community gardens where we can grow vegetables and come together socially. And solutions to transport issues should be aimed at reducing the traffic not tarmacing over the land to accommodate it.

There is a now a permanent garden left in the fire station yard. We will be watering it and nurturing it as it develops and invite people to be part of this. We will be organising a watering rota for when it is dry and some work days there and hopefully the garden will grow and grow. Contact info@hebdenbridgetransitiontown.org.uk if you would like to join up with people doing this.

The gates are now unlocked so please feel free to go into the garden and treat it like your own! It’s a good place for a picnic, safe kids cycling, or a moonlit glass of wine…

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SECRET GARDEN PARTY

The Secret Garden Party is in the FIRE STATION yard. Valley Road. Hebden Bridge. It's been empty for 3 years and is destined to become a car park for five years and then luxury housing and retail - but today it is becoming a beautiful community garden! Come down any time from when you read this we are there and it is sunny! x

** Have a look at the garden party gallery here

Monday 25th May
12 noon til 6pm

On Bank Holiday Monday 25th May
Come to the Secret Garden Party!
It’s part of Hebden Bridges Big Green Weekend –
And we will make a garden!
Come for music and cream teas
And some gardening activities
Bring plants and seedlings, paint or a gnome,
And we’ll make planters we can take home

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AGE of Stupid - Coming to Hebden

Hebden Bridge Picture house and the Hebden Bridge Transition group proudly presents the extraordinary docu-drama 'Age of Stupid' as part of the Big Green Weekend 23rd-25th May.

The Age of Stupid is an exciting new climate change film starring Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite (In The Name of the Father) as a man living alone in the devasted world of 2055 as he looks back asks: why didn’t we stop climate change when we could?

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