The project is moving forward - we have met our proposed partners and everything is looking good. We've had a stack of emails of support for our plans, but we also recognise that there are many stakeholders involved, including residents, river users, anglers and other potentially affected parties. Recently I gave a presentation to the local Friends of the Earth group about the project and was confronted with a few awkward questions. I confess I didn't know the answers to some of them and felt a bit stupid. I had to remember that the Ham Hydro team has come so far and we have created the opportunity for our local community to own this hydro power project, which will generate clean energy and reduce CO2 emissions. We put together a proposal in 6 short weeks which was successful in a competitive tender process. Previosuly there was little time to involve some local stakeholders, so we will be holding public meetings soon on both sides of the river to gauge local reactions to the project.  

Feed-in tariffs: as fas a I know the tariffs are unchanged following the government spending review. One issue which was raised at the aforementioned meeting was that the cost of subsidising the feed-in tariffs will be passed on to consumers. This is true, but one estimate I read recently states that the cost to the average household would be £0.01 per annum. Sounds bearable to me.