My brand new, ten year old, bicycle

— 9 Jul 2020, 14:52 by Hugh Dennis

I’ve been using it hard for over a decade now and all sorts needed replacing around the new year. I got halfway through doing a proper job when lockdown kicked off and I made do with running instead.
Finally got it finished a few weeks ago and it’s brilliant. Familiar but working perfectly now. Cost a lot less than buying a new bike.
It also gave work to a local guy and reduced the amount of new stuff.
OK, one bloke, one bike isn’t going to save the planet, but if we all started re-using our things rather than chucking them away and buying new, we’ll be using a lot less of the planets resources.
We need to change how we think about all our stuff. All of it has a carbon footprint. We should respect that and use it to the fullest.
The same applies to our buildings. We need to re-use and make better use of them.
This is why the King Alfred should be refurbished. The original swimming pools which are mothballed, hidden away underneath the badminton courts, should be brought back into use.
With flumes, quiet pool, teaching area, diving pool and a 50m training pool, this would make the swimming centre one of the biggest and best in the UK.
It would also mean that all the embedded carbon created from the four existing pools are not wasted by building again from scratch.
It’s also a lot cheaper, requiring more generalised skills that can be sourced locally.

Reduce, reuse and do cycle.