Case Study: Facts from Kilkenny Field Report

Solution to Rural Transport

Social Transport Enterprise

“Ring A Link”  is an example of a social transport enterprise that provides a convenient bus service and a taxi. Passengers get picked up at their homes and are returned home again.

Its Demand Response Transport (DRT) is a very simple idea, based on the concept that instead of running a fixed route system, the transport operator will offer flexible routes and services suitable to the area and prospective customers. A passenger proposing to use the Ring a Link service must first ring the dispatch office, using a low call number, to book a seat. The dispatcher will then give the passenger the pick up times for the outward and return journeys. The information is then sent to the bus driver who is in frequent contact with the dispatch centre. Passengers need to book a minimum of two hours before the proposed journey (preferably the day before), and the earlier one makes the booking the more likely one is to secure a place.
Fares; €5 adult return, €3 adult single,
€3 under 16s return, €2 under 16s single
Under 4s are free and Free Travel passes are accepted on all Ring a Link services.

Sustainable Communities

Camphill Community, Ballytobin

Background

This is a small rural community caring at present for 22 children and 12 adults, all with disabilities. It was established in 1979 as a therapeutic farm, to provide a home and school mainly for children with exceptional needs, some with multiple disabilities and disturbances. People live in a variety of accommodation around the centre and there are several communal buildings, such as a school, offices, catering facilities and a meeting hall. Approximately 90 people work in the centre.

The community places an emphasis on sustainable living in all its activities.

Energy

In September 2002, the community opened their new meeting hall. The circular building is almost totally constructed of timber and its heat needs are supplied from a centralized heating system using cow slurry and other organic waste as fuel.

The process known as anaerobic digestion is a simple natural process where bacteria operating in the absence of oxygen (anaerobic) breakdown the slurry and organic waste into a gas called biogas (mostly methane with some carbon dioxide) leaving a virtually odorless liquid behind which can be used directly as a land fertilizer or processed further to remove the solids for use as a garden soil conditioner - a moss peat substitute. An added advantage of the anaerobic digestion system is that the liquid is much more effective as a fertiliser for the farmers and with little odour, there are less reasons for the general rural community to complain either. In time, Camphill hope to market some of the liquid as a garden fertiliser which will complement their soil conditioner product.

Camphill has an arrangement with three local farmers who supply slurry and with Cadburys and Glanbia who supply organic waste to the biogas centre where it is pumped into sealed vessels which draw the gas off. The gas is then used as fuel to heat the buildings in Ballytobin and there are advanced plans to use the gas to make electricity which will be both used within Ballytobin itself and to sell to the electricity grid.

The site where the biogas plant stands is surrounded by trees so as to be as unobtrusive as possible. However to construct the plant some of the trees had to be felled, some of the bigger trees are now the central supporting pillars of the new hall, proving that this community takes the issue of innovation sustainability seriously.

The Camphill Community Biogas project was part funded through the LEADER II program.