A WEST Devon community group tackling the issues of climate change and energy use, is inviting Tavistock, its parishes and the Tamar Valley to join forces and form a cooperative for community benefit.

Transition Tavistock is creating an opportunity to work together to reduce the amount of energy used in homes and businesses and looking at ways to create power locally, and will be on hand at Bedford Square during Tavistock's Community Morning on Saturday.

Kate Royston, coordinator for Transition Tavistock, said: 'We are all spending on average, more than £1,000 per household on energy — for every 1,000 households, that's over £1,000,000. Most of this is lost to our economy locally, paid out to one of the big six energy companies. That's about £13-million each year across Tavistock and district.

'We have an opportunity to work together as a community, to reduce the amount we're spending. We can achieve this by reducing the amount we're using in our homes and businesses through energy reduction, and looking at ways we can generate more heat and power locally for community benefit. We can gain even more by using local businesses to provide and install the energy saving and generating measures we need.'

Ms Royston said the first step was to understand how much the community was spending and the best opportunities to reduce and/or localise this. She said they now had a good evidence base for the south west Devon area developed by the SW Devon Community Energy Partnership (http://www.swdcep.org.uk">www.swdcep.org.uk), of which Transition Tavistock is the chair and a founding member.

The community morning on Saturday, from 10am to 1.30pm, will give people the opportunity to find out more about the proposed cooperative.

'We'd like your help in naming this cooperative, we're looking for founder members and anyone locally who would like to help make it a success,' said Ms Royston.

Transition Tavistock has just received a grant of £1,000 from the Energy Savings Trust to run an Open Homes and Energy Fair event in February. The charity is also working with colleagues in Totnes to set up a Transition Streets initiative locally. If they can secure funding, there will be an opportunity for a paid coordinator role. Contact Transition Tavistock if this role would be of interest.