A meeting to combine various efforts to rid Mole Valley of plastic bags took place today.

Present were Zen George: Director of the Leatherhead Chamber of Commerce, Lucy Hanson: Leatherhead Town Manager, Sandra Grant: Dorking Town Manager, Clare Curran: Councillor for Bookham North, Graeme Kane: Sustainable Development Officer MVDC, Emma Wheeler: Communications/Research Officer MVDC, Margaret Hibbert: Eco-Cordinator St Nicolas Church Bookham, Jane Gavey & Esther Phillips-Constans: Green Mole Forum.

The aim of the meeting was to get to know and to coordinate the different campaigns that are taking place in Mole Valley and to find out how the Council can help publicise and support the various initiatives: Zen George’s efforts in Ashtead/Leatherhead, Sandra Grant’s efforts in Dorking.

The next step will be to write up a questionnaire that will be put to the shop holders by people helping with the campaign.  Zen George is looking at sourcing various types of bags and the Leatherhead Chamber of Commerce are considering selling jute/cotton bags on a stall in Leatherhead.

Clare Curran mentioned it is important for shop holders and people at the tills to systematically ask their customers if they need a bag.  The shopper then has to make a choice and hopefully will be discretely reminded that he/she could do without a bag with only a small effort on their part. Shoppers will hopefully then get into the habit of bringing their own bags which obviously is the most important thing, as we want to produce as few additional bags as possible.

Emma Wheeler will do a write up in the November edition of MVDC’s Newsletter as it is too late for the next edition but will try and get a brief mention into the coming edition.