In February, Laurence Llewelyn Bowen visited the Hockerton Housing Project to find out more about Eco homes and sustainable living. This was for a current series called Laurence Llewelyn Bowen’s History of Home , charting the changing relationship and attitudes towards our homes. The 9th out of 10 programmes, The Eco House , uses Hockerton Housing Project (HHP) as a case study. This will be broadcast on Thursday 3 April 2008 15:45-16:00 (Radio 4 FM).
Laurence interviewed both Nick White and Simon Tilley, both residents of HHP, to try and find out more about the emergence of eco housing, discover some of the misconceptions, and try to understand where it maybe leading to, for instance zero carbon homes. In Laurence’s typical flamboyant style, the interviews were very spontaneous, tangential and with distinct velvety undertones!
The Hockerton Housing Project recently collaborated with the BBC Programme Blue Peter, for a special edition, ‘Green Peter’ .
On Tuesday 29th May , Blue Peter became Green Peter to look at the changes that are happening to the planet and the ways the Green Peter audience can help limit the effects of climate change.
“Green Peter won’t be a list of scare stories, the purpose will be to focus on what is being done, what can be done, what needs to be done to protect the world the Blue Peter audience will inherit.” (Richard Mason, Blue Peter Editor).
….This is where the Hockerton Housing Project comes in, as explained by Tim Fransham (Programme Director)….”Hockerton will play a pivotal role in the programme, showing our viewers a different way of living, through younger residents living in a carbon neutral environment. This will involve taking our presenter around their home and the hockerton site, giving us the low down on living in an different kind of home. Our hope is that the programme will inspire our viewers to take action against environmentally damaging activities and become more green”.
Francesca & Naomi (young residents of HHP) act as project guides showing Blue Peter presenter, Gethin Jones, many different aspects of Hockerton Housing Project; how they reduce their environmental impact, as well as how much fun it is to live here.
The programme is part animation, part archive, part child-led films, set in the year 3007 from a space ship overlooking earth.
On 21st March HHP provided the live location for Radio 4 programmes ‘You & Yours’ and ‘World at One’ as part of budget day.
Why? Well due to the expectation that the budget would include a number of ‘green’ measures to combat climate change. HHP were part of a panel of people asked to comment on the budget and in particular on any announcements by the chancellor to promote reduction in carbon use (or indeed what he did not annouce!).
Simon Tilley representing HHP gave a lukewarm response, welcoming insulation grants for pensioners, zero stamp duty for zero carbon homes, and support for renewables – but unhappy that aviation was not adddressed and that gas-guzzlers got away with meagre increases in VED.

Hockerton Housing Project has scooped an award in the National Energy Efficiency Awards run by UK CEED in partnership with EDF Energy . The event was also sponsored by defra and The Independent .
Nick White & Trudi Macagnino on behalf of HHP collected the top prize in the residential construction and renovation category this week (6 December) at the Science Museum in London.
Judges commented: “This is a commendable project that demonstrates how community leadership can achieve inspiring living spaces in absolute harmony with their surroundings”
“Hockerton Housing Project is an eco-community which grows much of its own food, generates its own power and enjoys massive energy savings. Over the past few years, the project has helped to spread the word that sustainable living is within everyone’s reach. To date, more than 10,000 people have visited to see it for themselves. The families have their own water collecting system and environmentally friendly sewage system – and their lifestyle produces other eco-benefits, such as the reduction in waste from food packaging.”
There was a special supplement about the awards & winners in ‘The Independent’ on 11th Dec 2006.
B&Q’s launch of £1500 roof-mounted wind turbines in 107 stores nationwide & online, has really caught the imagination of the media and general public.
Locally, HHP was invited on the 4th October to join Paul Johnson from B&Q in a live discussion on Radio Nottingham about this subject. Although we are concerned about the performance of such wind turbines and the manufacturers’ claims about energy production (click here for further information about HHP views and see an interesting article in the Observer ), we were pleased to hear from Paul that they were taking a very responsible approach. Each customer that applies for an installation will have a structural survey to ensure building integrity and assistance to apply for Government funding of approximately £500 and a condition of the funding is that the household must improve the energy efficiency of their homes. B&Q will also assess the viability of the wind turbines by considering how windy the area is.