Sustainable Schools

I went along to the Transition Towns meeting in Kilvert's last night (we got chips! Thanks, Eddie). Since the big events they put on, the group have been struggling slightly to articulate just what Transition means to people who don't already know about it - but now there's a cause that they can become part of in a positive way.
They agreed that there was no point in banging on about supermarkets - other people are doing that, and there are no firm plans in place yet anyway. Also, there are all the issues of food miles, for instance, that they are already clearly against. Transition is all about making the best use of local resources for when the oil runs out.
On this theme, they decided to concentrate on the new school that Hay does want.
On of the founding members of the group has a background in architecture - and green architecture, at that. There are several schools which have already been built around the country with local materials, grass roofs, insulation made of sheep's wool, and so on - and building in this way would probably also make it a lot cheaper to provide a new school. And there's the potential for such a school to last longer than a cheap conventional build, such as we are seeing struggling along in Hay at the moment. There are even instances of such building schemes including training for local people in building techniques, which would be good for employment prospects in the future. One lady in the group had visited a school which basically came as a timber flat pack construction from Finland (where they do a lot of that sort of thing) with local sheep's wool insulation.
One member of the group also made the point that the Youth Club should be approached to see what the kids there think. After all, they've all gone to Hay School quite recently, so why shouldn't their opinions be listened to?
It could be interesting to see what develops.