Co-operatives fortnight

Torrs Hydro New Mills is a member of Co-operatives UK.

Co-operatives Fortnight is the annual campaign from the UK co-operative sector. It aims to raise awareness of how co-operatives offer a way of doing business in which everyday employees, customers and residents have an equal say in decisions and share the profits. This year, the theme ‘Yours To Share’ represents the shared ownership and the share in profits that makes co-operatives different.

Sponsored by key businesses in the co-operative sector and co-ordinated by Co-operatives UK, the national trade association for co-operatives, Co-operatives Fortnight ran for the first time in 2010. In its first year, over 160 events were held, 70,000 people got involved online, 2.3 million people were engaged overall and 43 million people heard about it from the media.

Co-operatives across the UK are gearing up for the second Co-operatives Fortnight, from June 25 to 9 July 2011, which aims to show how co-operative help to build a better world by giving everyone a share of the profits and an equal say.

At the centre of this is a petition calling for government action to narrow the gap between rich and poor in the UK.

New Mills One World Festiival - Saturday 2 July

Building Bridges...

...Making Waves

Come and have a fantastic day out at the One World Festival in High Lea Park with some great music and an amazing variety of things to see, do, eat drink and listen to.

Torrs Hydro will be there to tell you the latest about the Hydro and for those that fancy a trip down to see 'Archie' we will be having an open day and tours of the Hydro site as well

Archie - update

Work started last week to remove the debris that has been sat in front of the Hydro intake for the past few weeks as well as remove debris from below the weir - this has been deposited further down the river and the work has been undertaken by the Environment Agency to ensure it was completed correctly.

Next steps are to get a clean bill of health for the weir and to start recommissioning Archie.

Watch this space for further updates.

Weir inspection

Following the storm in February there has been lots of activity in and around Archie - the latest being a weir inspection - next week sees the start of the 'shoal' removal from the intake so lots of diggers and engineers in the river

Archie soon to be spinning again...

As many of you have notices (and commented) Archie has been idle for the past few weeks because of the damage caused by the winter storm in February.

To bring you up to date – much work has been happening in the background :

·         Insurance claim to cover the cost of repairs and lost revenue

·         Working closely with the Environment Agency to determine how best to move the river debris

·         Repairs to the sluice gate that controls the water flow through Archie

·         Installation of a fish counter to show how successful the fish pass has been

·         A spring clean of the Engine House ready for our open days

As you can see from the pictures below the sluice gate has now been repaired by LSP of New Mills – a difficult job under difficult conditions so big thanks to Paul and LSP !

Over the next few of weeks the ‘shoal’ of river debris that was dumped at Archie’s intake will be removed and Archie will be up and running again – further info on exact dates will be posted on here - I want to see the diggers in the river as well !

United Utilities - report

A short summary from the United Itilities drought report for 2010

Last year the North-West experienced the driest start to the year on record. As a consequence reservoir levels in the North West declined rapidly between April and June leading to UU to implement a hosepipe ban on 9 July 2010 and to apply for drought permits at four sites (Ennerdale, Windermere, Rivington and Longdendale) to prevent stocks depleting further.  Following this in July the North West received 190% of the long term average rainfall (1961-90) and in August we also received 89% of the long term average rainfall.  This heavy rainfall led to the recovery of the Cumbrian reservoirs. 

The hosepipe ban was therefore removed on 19 August and the drought permit applications for Ennerdale Water, Lake Windermere and Rivington were also withdrawn.  Reservoir volumes in the South of the region remained below average and the drought permit for Longdendale was granted by the EA.  This however was not used due to further recovery in reservoir volumes.  

Overall 2010 was the 3^rd driest year in our records.

AGM - 3

Fortunately for our shareholders the weather was so much better than 7 days previous when Torrs Hydro was all but washed away in the horrendous storms that have left the Hydro and site looking decidedly worse for wear.

As well as the formalities expected in any AGM - finances, operational reports, voting etc - there was some lively debate prompted by our shareholders and also an excellent talk from Matthew Rhodes of Encraft

The AGM was followed by tours of the site given by the Directors..

Photographs by Steve Essex