Trouble in Totnes

[Karen Studders]

Hi Folks!

Greetings from Greater Seattle!  Hope all is as well as it can be with you and your families and friends during this time of escalating transition.

Thought of the wonderful Transition Towns movement in Totnes, our friend Rob Hopkins, and the several Twin City teams and those of you on this listserve (which I remain on and enjoy reading to stay in touch), when I read this article in the Guardian yesterday.

It seems there are problems in the UK with their big land project in Totnes that they have worked on for 13+ years. Here is the link and a few quotes. Certainly there are some lessons for us to learn and apply in the US:

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England's right-to-build laws are tokenistic and feeble - just ask the people of Totnes. A Devon project to provide housing and community facilities has had the ground sold out from under it.

In a lively democracy, we would be allowed to design our own communities to meet our own needs. But while we are invited to participate in the planning system, this often means little more than approving or objecting to plans put forward by property developers, whose interests seldom align with ours. Instead of democracy, there’s a veneer of public consent.

David Cameron’s government promised to put this right. The 2011 Localism Act would allow communities to take back control. It included a Community Right to Build Order, through which local people would automatically obtain planning permission for a project if they won a referendum.

People in the town of Totnes in Devon took him at his word. Since 2007, they had been working to transform a big derelict site, previously a milk-processing factory run by Dairy Crest, into a community project called Atmos. They turned their plans into England’s most advanced and ambitious use of a right to build order. They sought to build 62 genuinely affordable homes, 37 retirement homes, workspaces providing employment for at least 160 people, a hotel, community and youth facilities, and an arts centre.

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IF any of you know any further details please do share them!

Take care,

Karen

Thanks for being patient with my response during COVID-19 and working remotely. Sign up for Seattle-King County Public Health updates here.

“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America.” ~ The Honorable John R. Lewis - March 1, 2020