On Friday 26th April, Greg Barker MP, Minister of State at the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) and the Conservative MP for Bexhill and Battle, visited Totnes.  He was on a tour of Devon and Cornwall, visiting interesting low carbon projects in the area, and came to Totnes at the invitation of Dr. Sarah Wollaston, MP for Totnes.  

[Left to right] Dr Sarah Wollaston MP, Greg Barker MP, Rob Hopkins (Transition Network), Frances Northrop (Transition Town Totnes).

[Left to right] Dr Sarah Wollaston MP, Greg Barker MP, Rob Hopkins (Transition Network), Frances Northrop (Transition Town Totnes).

He met with members of the Transition Town Totnes team, heard about the group’s work and its recently published Local Economic Blueprint, and visited a Transition Streets group to hear more about that Ashden Award winning project in which almost 700 households in and around the town have now taken part.

The final stop on his tour was to visit the former Dairy Crest site in Totnes, which it is hoped, if current negotiations with Dairy Crest conclude as positively as they are currently looking to, will be home to the Atmos project, which he described as “extraordinary”.  Atmos Totnes has been working for six years to bring the site into community ownership to develop it as “the heart of a new economy”. Here is what the Minister had to say about the project:

Developments in the ongoing negotiations with Dairy Crest will be reported here.  Many thanks to Dr Wollaston and Mr Barker’s team for organising the visit.