RORY Stewart, MP for Penrith and the Border, visited Bolton village hall where he met and chatted with committee members and saw the newly-installed photovoltaic cells.

The move to renewable energy by fitting solar panels, from Appleby firm Love Solar, was made possible by the village’s inclusion in the government’s Big Society vanguard project, which Mr. Stewart has been championing since last July.

The local MP helped to secure funding for the project, which is designed to show other villages within the Heart of Eden community plan boundaries, and further afield, the potential for generating income through feed-in-tariffs an initiative that has already been successfully pioneered at Bampton village hall, among others.

Mr. Stewart said: “Renewable energy is of course the future. With rising energy costs, increasing fuel poverty, and worrying predictions about our environment, we need to be looking at these alternative sources of energy very seriously.

“PV cells really do work. By having them on the village roof, residents can see how unobtrusive, yet effective, they are. The Heart of Eden group and Bolton’s village hall committee have worked closely together to create this exemplar, which will serve as a great model for other village hall committees to follow.”

Peter Smith, chairman of the Heart of Eden community group said: “Without Rory this would not have been possible.

“He has supported our initiative and has encouraged us all along to ensure that other villages can learn from this project.

“We hope that all village halls in Eden will eventually take on this model, and we’ll be investing our own resources of time, energy and knowledge into ensuring we can share the learning more widely.”

LEFT: Peter Smith (left) and Rory Stewart (right) with members of Bolton’s village hall committee.