Zero Carbon Luton - Issue 3, 2024
Green doors, buses and long distance bike rides
Welcome to the May edition of the Zero Carbon Luton newsletter, all about climate action in and around the town. Here’s what’s coming up, and get in touch if you’ve got a story for me for next time.
The Luton company reducing construction waste
New Park & Ride to reduce traffic
Luton Town’s greenest fan?
Reducing waste with Green Doors
Green Doors is a Luton based company reducing waste from the construction industry. It was started ten years ago when plumber Joseph Holman (pictured above) found a set of french doors in a skip. Recognising the resale value of the doors, he went on to create a dedicated company that refurbishes and sells on second-life windows and doors.
Often builders throw out old windows and doors when doing an extension or renovation, but with a little work those could be renovated and sold on as new.
“There’s money to be made from reselling," says Holman. "Many builders and other trades people are missing a trick by throwing all waste into skips while there’s a growing upcycling market. If they take more care when removing old doors and windows they could end up making hundreds of pounds on top of their work at the site."
Based on the Britannia Estate on Leagrave Road, Green Doors have so far kept over 3,000 items from going to landfill. Visit their showroom to see their items for sale, from lovely vintage doors with stained glass features, to modern composites, patio doors and bi-folds. You can buy online for delivery anywhere in the country, saving money on your own building project.
If you're a business in Luton that's working on the circular economy or on climate solutions, let us know and we'll feature your work here too.
Park & Ride scheme to reduce traffic
Plans for a Park & Ride scheme on the east side of Luton have been on the drawing board for several years, and were granted planning permission at the end of March. It will be located at Butterfield Business Park on the edge of Stopsley, and aims to intercept traffic coming in from the three towns of Hitchin, Stevenage and Letchworth.
The car park will have spaces for 338 cars, with the plans also detailing bus shelters, bike parking and a small site office. We were pleased to see a raft of electric car spaces – 30 in all – down one side of the car park.
Like any Park & Ride, the scheme will allow people to drive into the edge of town and then catch the bus for the final part of the journey into the centre. This keeps cars out of the busiest part of the town, reducing traffic, carbon emissions and air pollution.
One full double decker bus can take 75 cars off the road, taking up less space and speeding up journeys for everyone. And if/when those are electric buses, even better.
Luton Town’s greenest fan?
Mark Crowther has become well known among Luton Town fans for his endurance cycling challenges. He has successfully cycled to every football stadium in the English league, and raised thousands of pounds for charity along the way. Is he also Luton Town’s greenest fan?
This year’s challenge was to cycle to every away game in the Premier League. We put those journeys into a carbon calculator to see what the emissions would have been if he had travelled by car. Emissions vary from a modest 14kg of CO2 to travel to Arsenal, to 110kg for a return drive to Newcastle (a ride that took Mark three days).
When he completes his challenge with Luton’s final away game at West Ham next week, Mark will have saved a grand total of 877kg of CO2. That’s around a fifth of the UK average carbon footprint. This too is an achievement worth celebrating, and we encourage you to do so with a donation on the JustGiving page - you’ll be supporting the work of Prostate Cancer UK, Mind BLMK, Keech Hospice and Noah Enterprise.
In other news…
We love to see Luton projects getting national attention, so congratulations to the council and Luton Rising team behind the Retrofit Open Home, recently shortlisted for Green Homes Upgrade of the year at the Unlock Net Zero Awards.
The DART has exceeded its targets and carried 2.7 million people in its first year of operations.
The Ad-Free Cities campaign has called for mass complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority about Luton Rising adverts, which have featured on the London Underground and elsewhere. The campaign describes them as greenwash for touting environmental targets that do not include emissions from planes.
Teachers, check out the Climate Action Countdown for a month’s worth of green activities to run in schools, organised by Let’s Go Zero and partners.
The next Luton Green Hub meeting will take place on May 7th at St Margaret’s Social Club, Farley Hill, at 7pm. All are welcome to discuss environmental action across the town.
Got a story for me for next time? Get in touch: jeremy@earthboundventures.org