Forum News

Aberdeen City Environmental Forum Update

Appointment of Chairperson

At our first meeting of 2008 John MacDonald, a lecturer from the Scottish Agricultural College was appointed as our new chairperson.

John is very excited about taking up this post and is keen to contribute to the Forum during his time as Chair. Please feel free to contact him if you have any queries or ideas for the Forum at John.MacDonald@sac.ac.uk

AGM Meeting - 1st April 2008

Our first meeting of 2008 took place on Tuesday evening in the Council Chambers and was a great success. The evening featured 3 renowned speakers who covered such topics as sustainable building design and mircro-renewables. The evening prompted much exciting debate so much so that we overran by half and hour. Please see below for details:

Gokay Deveci lectures at the RGU and is also a chartered architect. He highlighted the need for an independent Design Review Panel/Design Champion to advise councillors on decision making. Many other Local Authorities already have a design panel however Aberdeen City Council does not. There is also a necessity for Aberdeen City Council to audit and review existing housing stock to enable sustainable refurbishment within the council properties.

To view his presentation from the night click: Gokay Deveci presentation

For further information see: http://www.rgu.ac.uk/sss/staff/page.cfm?pge=10993

Paul Mitchell is the Managing Director for Stewart Milne Timber Systems Scotland. The Stewart Milne Timber Factory in Westhill produces 1 in 5 of all timber frames used in new housing in Scotland. They have recently taken part in the Sigma Project where they built 2 prototype houses to a 5* rating (6* was not thought to be commercially viable). This project was undertaken as a 2-year test bed for building specifications and has allowed them to trial and test emerging technologies. In addition to enabling them to investigate how to make sustainable housing a commercially viable product.

For further information, please visit http://www.bre.co.uk/page.jsp?id=960

Elaine Morrison chairs Solar Cities and currently works for an organisation that helps to lift people out of fuel poverty (SCARF).

To view her presentation from the night click: Elaine Morrison Presentation

For further information, please visit http://www.solarcitiesscotland.org.uk or http://www.scarf.org.uk