In October 2025, residents of Hambledon Parish took part in a Future Energy Landscapes workshop to explore a key question:
How might Hambledon power its community using locally generated renewable energy?
The workshop format was designed by The Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) to support informed discussion amongst residents, using local data to help people understand how different energy technologies work, how much energy they produce, and what impact they might have on the parish’s landscape, energy use and carbon emissions.
This blog summarises the main themes from that conversation.
About Hambledon
Hambledon is a small rural parish in the South Downs National Park, with around 1,030 residents and 450 homes. Each year, the parish uses roughly 2,300 MWh of electricity and produces around 1,850 tonnes of CO₂.
The workshop looked at both electricity and heat, recognising that cutting emissions from homes is as important as how power is generated.
Solar power
Solar energy was broadly supported, particularly where it could be fitted sensitively into the existing landscape.
Participants favoured:
- Rooftop solar on industrial, agricultural and community buildings
- Solar on new housing, rather than older, character properties
Ground-mounted solar farms raised more mixed views. While some people were open to the idea in principle, concerns included visual impact, land use and planning constraints within the National Park. Two hypothetical 12-acre solar farms were discussed to understand scale. Modelling showed this could generate more than enough electricity to meet local demand, but finding suitable locations was seen as a major barrier.
A strong theme throughout was the importance of local benefit, through community ownership or other mechanisms, even where electricity must be exported to the grid.
Wind power
Wind power prompted varied reactions. Participants recognised that wind turbines generate large amounts of electricity, but visual impact was the overriding concern.
Large turbines were generally seen as unsuitable for Hambledon’s landscape, and no preferred locations or numbers were identified. The discussion did, however, help place wind in context by showing how much energy a single turbine can generate compared with solar.
Anaerobic digestion
Anaerobic digestion received limited backing. While its compact footprint and potential income for farmers were acknowledged, concerns focused on:
- Loss of agricultural land
- Reliance on energy crops
- Increased traffic
- Cost and disruption of installing heat networks
There was more agreement that this technology may be better suited to urban areas using food waste rather than rural parishes like Hambledon.
Gradual changes
Domestic technologies were seen as important but constrained.
For domestic solar, shading, roof orientation and appearance were key challenges. Participants felt that around 20–25% of homes might realistically adopt solar over time, especially as designs improve.
For heat pumps, opinions were mixed. Visual impact was low, but cost, noise and installation complexity were concerns. Modelling suggested that if 30% of homes installed heat pumps, they could meet around a quarter of local heat demand while significantly cutting carbon emissions.
Combining approaches
A clear conclusion was that no single technology provides the answer.
When solar, heat pumps and limited domestic generation were combined, modelling showed that Hambledon could produce more electricity than it needs and reduce carbon emissions by nearly half, but only part of the heat demand would be met.
This led to strong support for retrofitting homes. Improving insulation and reducing heat loss, particularly in older properties, was seen as one of the most effective and least visible ways to cut emissions.
Moving forward
The workshop was not about making decisions or proposing developments. It was about building shared understanding.
Suggested next steps included sharing the findings more widely, exploring small-scale community-owned solar, supporting solar on schools and farm buildings, keeping residents informed about grants, and pushing for national policy changes that make local energy use easier.
The overall message was that progress will come through a mix of household action, community-led projects and supportive national policy, shaped by local people.
Read the full report here: https://esd.energy/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Hambledon-FEL-report-FINAL.pdf
