Sustainable Bristol

It’s the government’s big ‘Ideah’

Posted on 21 March 2011

It’s the government’s big ‘Ideah’, says former environment secretary John Gummer. It’s not the NIMBY’s charter that some fear; oh no, it’s the very beating heart of the Big Society – “I Decide the Environment Around Here”.

Yes, the Localism Bill is on its way through the British Parliament, en route to heralding the biggest change in planning policy since the Second World War. At least with the Bill’s publication in December, some sense of what Localism might really mean in practice has emerged. But will it end up being a force for good in shaping, rather than breaking, sustainable communities? The truth is, right now, nobody really knows.

Certainly the public sector managers I speak to cling, almost limpet-like, to the ‘opportunity’ offered by Localism, amid the otherwise stormy waters of financial cuts. So can we collectively shape this agenda for what we want – a positive force for sustainability?

Here are some quick thoughts to stimulate your thinking:

• ‘Community-led’ neighbourhood developments could be a springboard for eco-builds, likely to be much more attractive to local people than bog-standard housebuilder estates. And if both the councils, who are required to provide technical support as neighbourhoods draw up their plans, and the government, who are promising funded sources of help and advice for communities, include an embedded requirement for sustainable development, so much the better.
   
• The community ‘right to bid’ for and to ‘nominate’ neighbourhood assets/services has so far focused on the obvious things like libraries, shops and pubs. But what about that bit of unused or derelict land asset that would make an ideal community allotment? How about the rural village that replaces its virtually non-existent bus service with its own demand-responsive shared transport? (a sort of community Whipcar) Could the ‘infrastructure levy’ invest in community-owned renewables that provide the community with an income to help maintain these assets over the next 25 years?
   
• If we can’t use the ‘general power of competence’ as a licence to innovate, we may as well give up now! Green bonds anyone? Public services delivered by a low-emission integrated travel network? How about a charter for acceptable DIY traffic-calming in council-designated 20mph zones, as some communities have already tried for themselves in Bristol?

Of course you can probably think of lots of examples that would be really bad for creating sustainable communities too.

So will the bill end up being a force for good or bad? That depends on all of us, and what we do to innovate and to really push the boundaries.

But it could be great fun. Let the battle for localism commence!