A LARGE crowd gathered in Bratton Clovelly Parish Hall on Saturday to see the hall's new state of the art, carbon neutral heating system and solar panels providing electricity to the facility and exporting to the national grid.

Cllr Christine Marsh, chairman of Devon County Council, congratulated the small, rural parish on its enterprise in taking a lead in the generation of renewable energy.

Graham England, chairman of the hall's management committee, thanked all those who provided support and assistance in getting the project off the ground and described the many pitfalls that had been experienced, but also the substantial benefits which were now accruing.

Managing director of Plug into the Sun Andy Tanner, who installed the photo-voltaic (solar) panels that form a central part of the new system, outlined how communities and individual householders can now benefit from installing green energy systems of varying kinds, suited to their own individual needs.

His message was supported by Gordon Trail from TRECO Renewables from Tiverton, whose company installed the fully automatic wood pellet boiler in the hall.

Andy Metcalfe from New Generation Energy at Tavistock and Herbert Hooper from Devon Biofuels at Spreyton provided relevant technical information and advice, and David Kinross from the Community Council of Devon was on hand to offer advice on community issues

Proceedings were drawn to a close by Cllr John Hockridge, mayor of West Devon, who again congratulated the parish for pulling together to take a lead, which he was confident would be followed by many other communities throughout both Devon and Cornwall.

The strength of interest in the project was clearly demonstrated by the great number of questions from the audience and from the interest shown in the services being offered by a number of green energy companies who had trade stands in the hall.

Local residents provided refreshments.

Anyone who would like further information about what has been achieved in Bratton Clovelly can contact Graham England on 01837 871310.