Keep Showing the Love!

Following the Show the Love campaign for Valentine’s Day 2017, the NFWI campaigns team picked the best of the many photographs submitted by WIs across England and Wales to appear in WI Life. Cornwall was the only Federation to have two photographs picked – check them out on page 31 and 32 of the April issue.

Joy Kell and Julie Harper of Zennor WI decorating green ‘Show the Love’ hearts

One is a stunning cake made by Paula Rosewall for the 69th birthday of her WI, St Just in Roseland. The cake is modelled on the February front cover of WI Life, and is beautifully done. The other photograph is of Zennor WI members Joy Kell and Julie Harper having fun decorating green heart badges on our special craft day – altogether we made nearly 100 badges, and we sent 39 as a present to the Croydon Crocuses, our WI twin.

Paula Rosewall’s spectacular birthday cake for St Just in Roseland WI’s 69th birthday

There are other ways in which we can show the love for our environment. Luci Isaacson from Climate Vision was in touch recently, asking us write to our MPs about protecting new housing developments from flooding.

Just a bit of background:

To tackle the housing crisis, the Government plans to build 1 million homes over the course of this Parliament. However, climate change increases the risk of flooding, and already one in six homes is at risk of flooding and up to £1billion of flood damage is incurred every year. However, despite new planning rules, many new homes are built without sustainable drainage systems (SuDs). The government is currently reviewing the law and policy about SuDs, ie who is responsible for maintaining them, who pays, how new standards can be developed to optimise benefits by improving biodiversity and water quality as well as reducing flood risk.

Luci says it would be a real help if we were to write to our MPs to get Government onside over key points. She suggests we write and say something like:

I’m concerned about development and flooding. I think to make development drainage sustainable is not expensive and will not slow down development.

She asks us to refer our MPs to a new policy report by the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management, and ask them to press the Government to enact the 4 policy proposals on page 32 of the report.

Click here if you want to look at the report.

To find out who your MP is and to to get his or her contact details, click here.

Hope you can help!

-Pippa Stilwell
Climate Ambassador, Cornwall Federation of Women’s Institutes

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