CLA’s 2021 National Conference ‘Towards Net Zero’ (QEII Conference Centre on Thursday 2^nd December at Westminster) provided an intense 6.5hrs, over 5 sessions, delivered by 14 speakers with 550 delegates in attendance listening to “a font of pragmatism”.

Delivered in the fifth session, was Dr Chris Parsons ‘Howgate Close’, proselytising a template to create woodland/pasture/meadow for every village in England, funded, by local homes for local people.

Dr Chris Parsons, his family farm and some local residents have started the process of transitioning to a post-hydrocarbon era, they’re on a journey of decarbonisation. Perhaps this Nottinghamshire village is unique. Within its environs still stand the apparatus of Britain’s once oil exploration epicentre, equipment once used for the winning of fossil fuels sitting alongside the necessary apparatus for decarbonisation transitioning towards a post hydrocarbon era.

No better depiction of this journey of decarbonisation is Eakring’s own epitaph to its oil legacy, a six-foot bronze statue, ‘Oil Patch Warrior’ sitting in a former oil field, ‘Dukes Wood’, now a ‘Site of Special Scientific Interest’

70 years after the last drop of oil was extracted from Britain’s former largest inland oilfield, this small village is now expanding with nine fossil-fuel-free homes, a development designed to be ready for a post-hydrocarbon era a development known as ‘Howgate Close’.

The planning approval at Eakring sets a legal precedent for residential development outside identified settlement boundaries and as Case Law, is capable of being cited as a material consideration in determining other planning applications.

Dr Chris Parsons ‘Howgate Close’ offers a pragmatic solution to creating large scale permanent carbon sequestration projects by introducing woodland/pasture/meadow in every village in England, funded, by local homes for local people.