Eco Open Houses

We were delighted to work alongside neighbouring community groups, including Greening Steyning to showcase a range of practical home energy improvements and sustainable living solutions as part of Eco Open Houses, Gardens & More event this year.

If you visited one of the homes in Steyning or Upper Beeding, or were unable to attend but would like to find out more, the team at Greening Steyning has made a wealth of information available online. Each homeowner has compiled a helpful summary of their project, including details of installations, costs, tariffs, suppliers and lessons learned.

You can access these resources here:
www.greeningsteyning.org/eoh

Whether you’re considering solar panels, heat pumps, insulation or other energy-saving measures, these real-life case studies are a great place to start.

Firstly we have to say a massive thank you to everyone who helped make this event such a success: 

• our sponsors – Worthing Community Chest, Worthing Lions, Worthing Homes, Henry House, Adur & Worthing Council, National Lottery Community Fund – and Richard & Merry’s very generous contribution to make up any shortfalls.
• the event organisers and design team, who spent 9 months designing and pulling together the whole event and then helping to deliver it
• our householders – who gave up a lot of time helping to create case studies, coming to meetings, plus preparing and then opening their homes to the public.
• our tour and workshop leaders and presenters – who made the event more diverse and brought a wider scope to it
• our stewards, who supported householders and fringe event leaders, welcoming and directing visitors, recording numbers, assisting where needed
• our incredibly patient printers who often put themselves out to help make things happen
• our advertisers who were so very generous to us, giving us extra space and coverage
• everyone who helped promote the event in countless ways, including those who came up with some creative ideas, especially when we needed to find ways round things. To the shops, libraries, cafes, community hubs, Adur & Worthing Council buildings and Worthing Homes, who said yes to us using them as distribution points for brochures
•  to our local communities for supporting the event in so many ways.

Bless you all for coming together to create such an uplifting and inspiring fortnight – just over 1200 visitors in total, great feedback from all concerned, as well as some lessons to be learnt for the future (as ever). It was an event that brought 3 towns/communities together with one purpose and vision and we are so proud to have been a major part of it.

If you were not able to join us for our ‘Demystifying Heat Pumps’ webinar, presented by Hemiko, Splashpoint, and various householders from our event, you can view the recording here !

After 8 months of spending a huge amount of time co-organising this bumper event with Transition Town Shoreham and Greening Steyning, we are almost there and we hope that you will be able to support the event if you can as it’s likely that there will never be another one like it again – do grab the opportunity while you can! It’s the 6th local event of its kind since 2014, but a much more expanded version than before.

This event lasts for 2 weeks from 7th to 19th April 2026, with 20 properties open to the public on the main weekends (11th, 12, 18th, 19th April) and 20 fringe events wrapped around the weekends. Details can be found here, including an online copy of the brochure, an “At a Glance Programme of Events” and a choice of 20 fringe events.

Case studies for the properties can be found here under Eco Open Houses 2026.

Hard copies of the brochure are available at Worthing Town Hall (in the foyer), any Worthing Library (including Goring and Findon Valley) and you might see some dotted around the town. Posters are up in car parks, along the seafront and in countless other places, banners should be up this week.

Apart from couple of crafting workshops and a wonderful film at Ropetackle about community energy (which are clearly indicated in the brochure and need to be booked direct), the rest of the event is free. There’s something for everyone, including children (especially at Henry House, Apron Community Garden and the Fen Community Farm). Wheelchair users are covered too – look for the disabled symbol in the brochure.

All working towards a common goal of helping to make our community more resilient and to support the environment, the event has brought together homes, businesses, charities, leisure centres, community gardens, a working port, surface water flood prevention and so much more. This is a unique opportunity for people interested in saving money, whilst supporting the environment, to explore a wide range of options that can be quite simple and inexpensive.

Visitors might also like to visit some high-tech or whole house retrofit properties, just to see what’s possible or, at the other end of the spectrum, a houseboat made from scavenged materials! One of the presentations is about how one couple built an off-grid home from waste and repurposed materials, so some very inspiring ways to live and work are covered, as well as an opportunity to ask questions without someone trying to sell you something. Everyone in the event is happy to share experiences, knowledge and their journey, so do have fun finding out what’s going on locally, as well as hopefully going home with some great ideas to play with.

If you are on Facebook, do look out for our posts from the TTW Facebook page (often daily) and share as widely as you can, as well as coming to events yourselves.

The event could not have happened without the hard work of the team of volunteers, homeowners, fringe event leaders and sponsors: The National Lottery Community Fund, Adur & Worthing Council CIL Fund, Worthing Homes, Henry House, Worthing Lions and Worthing Community Chest – and extra help from Richard and Merry.

Thanks also to all the local people who supported us in countless ways by saying “yes” when we asked for help in various ways, some really going the extra mile too, we are so grateful to you.

Transition Town Worthing: https://www.ttworthing.org/events/#eco-open-houses

Transition Town Shoreham: https://www.transitiontownshoreham.org/eco-open-houses-2026

Greening Steyning: https://greeningsteyning.org/eoh/