FORGET POLITICIANS. BUILD OUR OWN COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS
Edward Hill
FORGET POLITICIANS. CHANGE TO COMMUNITY-LED SOLUTIONS
UK politicians of all parties are unlikely to change their current policies which will soon bring total economic, environmental and social collapse. Multinational corporate interests can demand ever more growth and less regulation, because they totally dominate politics and the media. For instance, it is well documented how politicians of all parties continued to tell the same lies about the privatisation of the NHS over a period of 25 years, despite changes of government.
But each community contains all the talent needed for change, with countless individuals in the corporate and government sectors who are professionally involved in things they are completely against. At the same time there are many voluntary and community groups that need help, including parish and community councils. The 1992 UN Rio Conference recognised that sustainable solutions had to be chosen locally through Local Agenda 21. This is still equally true today if we just exclude the politicians.
Here are some ideas for local change by communities:
1. The Cuts
Problem: We want to stop cuts to essential services.
Possible solution: We set up local community trusts and local time currencies, circulating in the local economy in parallel to existing money. Accredited local groups in the community will be able to pay for work that needs doing, creating liquidity and jobs, like in the 1930s recession. As jobs are cut by the state, they are re-created by community groups, which are accredited by the Trust. Existing community groups can grow to replace state jobs in health, education & training, law, money, food, young people, environment, faith, money, carers, policing, research, public arts etc.
Question: Any comments about this proposed Time Currency of ‘Anchors’:
· Local people can earn one Anchor per hour from any local group that is accredited to spend them into existence
· Anchors can be spent as part payment for goods in shops
· Anchors depreciate over 2 years, so get spent or invested quickly.
2. Price incentives for ethical buying in the shops
Problem: We want products to be sustainable: long-lasting, repairable, sourced as locally as possible, using fair labour, without animal cruelty and without creating toxicity, pollution and waste.
Possible solution: A local Anchors time currency will tend to favour local businesses, with both environmental and social benefits.
Question: Are there best practice examples of small businesses forming successful networks?
3. Stopping unsustainable development
Problem: The planning boards and planning officers of our local councils are going along with the redevelopment of Greenwich Market as a hotel, the building of 30,000 high-rise flats on river wharves, and infill developments on green spaces.
Possible solution: Under the Localism Act community organisations are able to nominate markets and river wharves and green spaces as assets of community value.
Question: Are there good examples of communities put a permanent stop to developers’ unsustainable proposals?
Comments & suggestions welcome.
Very best wishes ….Edward
Pause Forthought
No examples but very interested in the use by NGOs and community
groups of the NPPF presumption in favour of sustainable development.
A purposive view of how this should be applied in planning decisions
is that there must be an equal and opposite presumption against
unsustainable development - the benefits of the former will quickly be
cancelled out by the latter. This is a challenge to objectors to
build a case on good evidence about measures of sustainability (eg the
Climate Change Act referred to in the NPPF and the carbon reduction
targets prepared by the Committee on Climate Change and its subsequent
missive to local government urging a greater effort in that
direction).
Brenda Boardman at the Environmental Change Institute Oxford is
advocating higher standards than zero carbon for all new housing (and
building) as other sectors will find reductions far more difficult.
Dwellings built to a lower standard will add to the liability of
inefficient homes and will require upgrading again before 2050.
The real worry is that permissions are being granted since the NPPF
that do not meet these standards and which can be cited as precedents
representing the position of the DCLG in respect of sustainable
development. There is no time to waste in creating a precedent that
creates a useful and reliable definition.
There are likely to be decisions taken at local level and on appeal
that would be open to challenge in the courts if compelling evidence
on what is and what is not sustainable is not treated properly by the
decision-maker. This would be both expensive and risky (if
unsuccessful).
Regards
DanthePlan
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