TRANSITION Tunbridge Wells is celebrating its first birthday next week - and wants residents to come up with more ideas to help the town more sustainable.

The green group will meet on Wednesday, May 20, from 7.30pm to 9.30pm at the Friends Meeting House, 1a Grosvenor Park, in Tunbridge Wells.

Organisers will be asking the audience for their wish list of sustainable projects for Tunbridge Wells to put forward under the Sustainable Communities Act.

The group was founded in 2008 - with the aim of helping Tunbridge Wells follow in the footsteps of Lewes and become a fully-fledged Transition Town.

But what is a Transition Town and how can Tunbridge Wells become one?

A Transition Town works to turn the area into a self-sustainable community, weaning the residents off expensive and finite fossil fuels and developing the local economy at the same time.

The prediction is peak oil will soon run out, sometime in the next 20 to 30 years, and residents will have to learn to live without all the trappings that black gold brings.

Thousands of towns across the world are looking into the Transition movement - with the effects also being felt in the fictional town of Ambridge in the Radio 4 soap The Archers.

Examples of local initiatives the group will discuss and could take forward include car sharing clubs, encouraging local food growing, and swap shops.

To read more stories about green efforts in the community visit our GreenWatch campaign mini-site www.thisiskent.co.uk/greenwatch or read our blog greenwatch.thisiskent.co.uk.