Person renovating a village road sign in Dorset county, England, UK
Recently I went along to a meeting on Transition Towns This philosophy encourages people to think about what happens when the oil runs out. In the future it is likely that we are unable to rely on (or afford) the big transport and food distribution systems that we have at the moment and communities will need to be increasingly self sufficient – relying more on our individual communities, neighbours and friends and less on the big brothers such as Tesco’s. OK, so what does this have to do with anything? Well, the idea is that we individually and collectively begin being more self-reliant now – so we are ready for the inevitable food price hikes, fuel shortages and carbon squeeze. Our street sign has been flaking for several months, looking increasingly decrepit and unloved. The county council is responsible for highways maintenance including inspections, repairs and replacement of signs. The inspectors would travel out from their base in to view the damage, taking a few hours of time, some transport costs and the associated carbon might send another person out to take it back to the County’s sign shop for an overhaul. More likely, they would replace the sign with a modern one, losing the traditional signs and our heritage for more of the transfers-on-plastic kind. As well as additional staff and fuel needed to collect and re-position the sign, there would be the energy used to manufacture a new sign and deal with the waste of the old one. The council website says An average warning sign costs about £70, but it could cost up to £300 to replace a village nameplate. Adding staff, fitting and transport it would cost £500 to £1000 to replace the sign plus a HUGE carbon footprint – OUCH! All for such a small sign! See; It may not be a perfect job, but in all, it took about 2 hours, cost nothing to any of us as tax payers and saved a load of carbon-based energy. This is transition in action. Hope you like it.
Size: 5678px × 3786px
Location: Dorset, England, UK
Photo credit: © Steve Atkins Photography / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: Yes
Keywords: action, britain, british, brush, care, caring, chipped, clean, cleaning, community, damage, damaged, dorset, england, eu, great, highway, isles, kingdom, la21, life, maintain, maintaining, maintenance, metal, neighbor, neighborhood, paint, person, preparation, pride, refurbish, refurbishing, renovate, renovating, repair, repairing, road, rubbing, rural, sign, towns, traditional, transition, uk, united, village, weathered, wire, woman, working
