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Published: 26 August 2025

As expected, our fifth HuG festival was a tremendous success, helped along of course by glorious weather and the fabulous contributions of all our wonderful stallholders, entertainers, volunteers and of course the brilliant Foxlowe Café and staff. Many thanks to Derek Hillyer, our Leek Mayor, and Bill Lomas, Town Crier, who set it off on a flying start. For more details and pictures, see our handy Illustrated Report.

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Published: 25 August 2025

We’re delighted to report that Foxlowe Films will be screening David Attenborough’s acclaimed new film Ocean on Tuesday, 30 September. Released on the date of his 99th birthday, it takes viewers on a breathtaking journey showing there is nowhere more vital for our survival, more full of life, wonder, or surprise, than the ocean. Through spectacular sequences featuring coral reefs, kelp forests and the open ocean, Attenborough shares why a healthy ocean keeps the entire planet stable and flourishing.

Stunning, immersive cinematography showcases the wonder of life under the seas and exposes the realities and challenges facing our ocean as never-before-seen, from destructive fishing techniques to mass coral reef bleaching. Yet the story is one of optimism, with Attenborough pointing to inspirational stories from around the world to deliver his greatest message: the ocean can recover to a glory beyond anything anyone alive has ever seen. “If we save the sea, we save our world” Attenborough.

Online tickets are now available and they can also be bought in the Foxlowe café.  We recommend booking early, as this wonderful film is bound to sell out quickly. For details and how to book, go to the Foxlowe website.

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Published: 28 May 2025

It is a time of change with many different messages coming from politicians, scientists, social media pundits and industry. Who can you trust when there seem to be so many conflicting views on the impact of our changing climate, biodiversity, health implications and how to balance this with the increasing cost of living / job insecurity?

The rise of populist leaders in USA and here in the UK seem to suggest people believe their mantra of ‘drill, baby, drill’ and ‘net-zero hoax’. We know these leaders are funded by the fossil fuel industry – remember the gift of a $400m luxury jet from Qatar and Reform’s £2.3 m from lobby groups, climate deniers and other fossil fuel businesses.

We have looked at these changes from afar until now, but now it is real, here in Staffordshire. Reform have taken control of our County Council and have already implemented changes including the scrapping of the Cabinet role for Environment and Climate Change. Across the border in Derbyshire, the entire Climate Change, Biodiversity and Carbon Reduction committee has been scrapped, with the new leader of the County council telling the BBC that ‘net zero is not a priority.. the net zero agenda is costing every single person in this country a lot of money. Why do we need to burden the people?"

Over recent years, we have developed a closer relationship with our County Council at both councillor and officer level. We are currently working with officers on schemes that include bringing back unwanted bikes into use for vulnerable members of our community via our Repair Café volunteers, joint working on projects for the Climate Commission and on water quality.

We and many other groups in Staffordshire and the wider community are concerned that our County Council may stall in their essential work to protect our environment, or worse still, abandon the essential work across so many areas including flood prevention, reducing emissions, education, food security, renewable energy and active travel.

Read more: Changing Times – a personal note from our Co-ordinator

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Published: 28 May 2025

The Reform Party’s overwhelming victory in the recent Staffordshire County Council elections has cast a deep shadow over efforts to act on Climate, Nature and the Environment. Reform’s national stance on Climate Action is well known – their manifesto explicitly calls for Net Zero to be ditched as an ‘expensive waste of time’. According to DeSmog, 92% of the party’s donations since 2019 has come from  sources associated with the fossil fuel industry or climate deniers. 

As has already been well-publicised, Nigel Farage has already said that anyone with climate (or diversity) in their job title should be ‘looking for another role’. With Reform likely to use Staffordshire as a laboratory for their ideas on local government, first signs aren’t good; there is no Cabinet member to replace Simon Tagg, who previously had responsibility for Climate Change and the Environment.

Early signs from other Reform-controlled counties indicate a similar abandonment of climate priorities. Staffordshire has so far worked through a number of broad channels: through policies including its own Climate Plan, through supporting community groups, and in co-operation with the county’s districts and boroughs.

The latter work includes sectors such as EV charging points – while SMDC has installed some of its own at key locations such as Moorlands House, the County is responsible for a wider roll out though the centrally-funded LEVI (Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure) scheme.

Community-oriented programmes such as Waste Savvy Staffs (with whom MCA works closely) and the Staffordshire Green Network may also come under scrutiny. The future of the Staffordshire Sustainability Board may also be in doubt as may the Community Climate Fund which has historically provided the core funding for the HuG festival as well as supported the Repair Café (via Charlotte Atkins, no longer at Stafford, of course).

Read more: Spotlight Spring 2025 - Stemming the Tide?

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Published: 27 May 2025

HuG, our free entry Moorlands Green Arts Festival, celebrates its fifth anniversary when it returns to the Foxlowe on Saturday 28 June from 10.00am to 4.00pm.

This year we are celebrating all things hedgerows and verges. MCA is a partner in the Nature in Your Neighbourhood project, along with Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, Keele University, OUTSIDE Arts and SMDC, which supports communities in the Staffordshire Moorlands improve green spaces where they live and monitor habitat health.

As ever there will be a wide range of stalls showcasing a variety of arts and crafts using different materials, all produced with an environmental ethos. 

Read more: Fifth HuG Festival Bigger Than Ever

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Published: 05 February 2025

Faced with the poor and sometimes worsening state of their rivers, ordinary citizens can feel powerless. Who to call, how to get remedial action? Is it the water company’s fault, shouldn’t the Environment Agency be on the case? And it can be difficult – there are so many potential causes of problems, ranging from farming run-off, failing sewage infrastructure through to species invasion. The list flows on...  But there is a way that ordinary residents can act – through the fast developing and exciting world of citizen science.

Across the country, concerned residents have turned to monitoring the state of the watercourses they hold dear, presenting the information in a compelling way and, in some cases, forcing officialdom to act. The best-known instances are those in the Wye Valley, where intensive poultry farming is the chief culprit, or the Windrush in the Cotswolds, where sewage spills have literally turned stretches of a once-beautiful river into a brown soup.

The problems in the Moorlands are not yet quite as dramatic, but they are real. As is the case across the country, all rivers fail the overall test of good health because of the presence of forever chemicals. But beneath that catch-all chemical failure, the picture in the Moorlands is more mixed, as the map in the Rivers Trust’s State of Our Rivers Report 2024 shows.

Of the rivers in the district, only the Manifold largely classes as ‘good’. The Dove, the Dane, the Churnet, the Tean and the Blithe typically come in as a blend of ‘moderate’ to ‘poor’.  But there is a lag in these data: while some figures have been updated in the interim, the last full review by the Environment Agency was in 2022. The next is expected this year.

Read more: Spotlight Winter 2025 – What can WE do about river...