Selling a house...

'Chesterfield 1 Chester 1 - another score draw in the local derby' - DES LYNAM

Just read the first couple of chapters of Stuart Maconie's "Pies and Prejudice" and it's off to a good start. It's about impressions that people have of the North (and also the South...) and has some good quotes. I like the one from Doctor Who.

We're going to be trying to give a positive impression of the South today: South Lynn that is, and in particular the new Millennium Community.
Mr. Clarke will be coming in after half term now which gives us a chance to get cracking on the design of our questionnaire for the data collection for our coursework.
Before then, though, we are going to try to sell a house in the South Lynn development. You will be given some estate agents publicity materials (blank) which we got when a local estate agent changed all its publicity materials.
You are going to be playing the role of estate agents, but instead of selling it the usual way, you will only manage to sell the property if you can convince buyers of its ECO FRIENDLY and SUSTAINABLE credentials.

You will need to ensure that you refer to, and define the following terms in your estate agents promotional materials.

Multiple Deprivation	Lacking in many opportunities, which leads to a poor quality of life. This could include lack of employment opportunities.
Millennium Community	What does this mean ?
Urban regeneration	The redevelopment of an area such as an inner city zone. It may include environmental, socio-cultural and economic improvements.
Deindustrialisation	The decline of industry, which may be as a result of globalisation.
Brownfield site	A site which has been previously been built on and which is restored for further use.

Your details need to have:

• a sketch (not an artist's impression) based on a picture of the community - I will put some up on the board
• details on the construction of the building
• details on the energy efficiency
• details on the house within the context of the whole NORA development - put the house in the context of the surroundings, which are also designed to be SUSTAINABLE.

And the good news for Mrs. Clarke, Tony has finally moved on to MY PLACE. You can check out some My Place ideas over on his blog soon.

Yours South Lynn Gallery Part 1

Here are first set of photos I took today. Nice sunny afternoon and took a few images of the construction. Also had a look in the show flat.

Breen and gone...

OK, so this week we've been looking at some past paper questions.
Remember that you will have one exam in June this year. It will last for 1 hour and 30 minutes and carry a total of 100 marks. There will be questions relating to various aspects of the course, with a concentration on one particular theme.
You will have a pre-release booklet which we will go through in advance of the exam.
The questions we had today needed you to remember the following things - if you found this difficult you need to go back to your Cape Farewell packs and do some more research, at sites such as THIS ONE:

1. Which extreme environment have we studied and what makes it 'extreme' ?
2. What landforms are created in this extreme environment ?
3. What processes operate in this extreme environment - make sure that you can remember the processes carried out by glaciers - be specific !?
4. Which resources did we use to explore these environments ?
5. What were the reasons for using the resources that we did ?
6. How does this place compare to MY PLACE
7. How do people make use of this extreme environment ?

(Remember what Brent said about "freeze thaw". This is a PROCESS not a LANDFORM)

So why BREEN in the title ?
Well, glaciers in Svalbard are usually called names ending in BREEN. You should ensure that you can name at least one (and ideally locate it in relation to a town such as Longyearbyen)
Here are some that you could investigate further:

1. Archibald Geikebreen
2. Linnebreen
3. Skobreen
4. Tunabreen
5. Bakaninbreen
6. Larsbreen
7. Longyearbreen
8. Wibebreen
   

You can see these and many others in a wonderful gallery of photos I came across at a site called POLARFOTO. This has a gallery by Hinrich Basemann which has LOADS OF SVALBARD PHOTOS.

Thanks to Pete from Barking in London, who sent me some great My Place resources today which you will probably get to see in a form adapted to King's Lynn some time soon.

Today I went over to the Millennium Village in South Lynn to take some pictures. I will add some of them over the weekend in a gallery. The development is likely to take as long as 10 years to fully complete, and the first few houses are completed and looking good. I also discovered that one of the members of staff at KES has bought one of the flats. I had a look round the show flat, which was very impressive. If I was 10 years younger and had no kids I'd probably be very interested in buying one!

Today I also said goodbye to our Chinese visitors. They were very impressed with the Google Earth and Interactive Whiteboard which I showed them, and I hope to see them again in China some time. I'll send you a postcard...

Sustainable Housing

Do you recognise this place ?
(Image copyright Morston Assets)

On the way into work today, I was queueing as usual by the White Horse in Gaywood waiting for the lights and the poster board by the River Lane Fish Bar contained a large advert for YOURS SOUTH LYNN, offering the chance to "Move in for just £99" and houses from £99,950. It refers to a new community I mentioned in my previous post (scroll down to read it)
Click the image below to be taken to the website shown...
Website images copyright Yours South Lynn
The night before I'd attended a public meeting at Hunstanton Town Hall, where I was one of just 3 people to turn up on a blustery night to hear about the new Millennium Community which I posted about a few days ago.
I chatted to Tom Harrison, Chief Executive of Morston Assets: one of the companies involved in the new development, and heard about the development of the new community, and its goals and ambitions for the future. We discussed the possibility of involving KES pupils (particularly Pilot pupils) in trialling some educational and publicity materials which they have in preparation, and continuing to follow the development.
There are some interesting issues for FUTURES and SUSTAINABILITY.

One aspect is the development of HOME ZONES. These are streets where people and traffic have equal priority, and where 'quality of life takes precedent over ease of traffic movement'.
More to come on this in the future...

Also today we saw another PHOTO JAM to get us thinking using some nice images of the town from FLICKR User "Crouchy Crouch" (thanks!) - remember that IMAGES are key in Geography.

King's Lynn also in the news last week thanks to the showing of Gordon Ramsay's 'Kitchen Nightmares' at Rococo (now Maggie's)

We used a diagram of 3 concentric circles in the lesson today, following on from Goodey's Model last week.
This had the words:
ME in the centre
LOCAL in the first circle (also the name of a Pat Metheny album)
NATIONAL in the second circle
GLOBAL in the third circle

We were looking at links with other places.
Needed to mention something about the immigration into Brazil, particularly from Eastern Europe, China and Portugal/Brazil.
More on this to come, plus the answer to the Google Earth puzzle below...

South Lynn: Yours for Good...

That's the title of a public presentation I'm going to be attending at the Town Hall in Hunstanton later this week. The developers: Morston Assets will be explaining their role in the new development in South Lynn: apparently the 4th of the Government's 7 millennium communities.
It's a study in Sustainable Low Carbon living, and the session aims to tell people:

• What are sustainable communities ?
• How can we reduce carbon emissions by lifestyle changes ?
• Using alternative energy sources and lowering running costs
• Managing environments to the benefit of the environment
• Alternatives to travelling by car
• What's a home zone ?
• Do new homes stimulate the local economy
• Find out about SEXYBIZ (‘Sexybiz’ (Space Exclusively for Young Business) facility, developed by the Norfolk Charitable Trust, will offer FREE office space for residents, with overheads covered for the first 12 months to help you get your start-up business initiative up and running.)

I investigated more and came across the ENGLISH PARTNERSHIPS website.

The seven communities which are being developed as examples of best practice are:

• Greenwich Millennium Village, London
• Allerton Bywater Millennium Community, near Leeds
• New Islington Millennium Community, Manchester
• South Lynn Millennium Community, King’s Lynn
• Telford Millennium Community
• Oakgrove Millennium Community, Milton Keynes
• Hastings Millennium Community

The locations span a variety of environments – including a market town (South Lynn), a seaside town (Hastings), a city estate (New Islington), a new town (Oakgrove), and a larger urban village (Telford). They all offer housebuyers a real opportunity to buy into a more sustainable lifestyle, as well as a new home.

Map of the Community Plan is from the YOURS SOUTH LYNN site.

More on the SOUTH LYNN plan here.
Why not browse through the YOURS SOUTH LYNN site. Each house will come with 2 free bikes and be built with high standards of insulation... It will be interesting to see how the community develops. I'll try and see if we can get a visit to the site and the show home, and try to make contacts with the people there. Could make a good GCSE coursework study as well for the FULL course people.
All part of the larger NORA development scheme.
One to watch...