Sustainability
Sustainability is a confusing concept for ordinary people to grapple with; made even more confusing by the plethora of 'initiatives' (some with strange names) aimed at promoting sustainability: sustainable communities, sustainable development, Taking it on consultation, local:vision, well-being, Neighbourhood Renewal Community Cohesion Pathfinder Programme, Agenda 21, Firm Foundation, Together We Can, Home Zones... to name but a few. Most sustainability initiatives come in the form of a book the size of a short novel. There is not much coherent discussion in national newspapers, and nobody from above parachutes in to the community to give an understandable presentation in the village hall.
But we, the local people, can make the most difference to meeting sustainability objectives, and there is not much point in writing our Parish Plan only to have it rejected higher up as unsustainable.
The concept of sustainability is relatively new. In June 1992 around 150 Heads of State or Governments attended the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development ('the Earth Summit') at Rio de Janeiro. This was the largest ever gathering of world leaders and signalled that environmental concerns had assumed a very high priority on the world's political agenda. One major outcome was the Rio Declaration, a Statement of Principles which addressed the need to balance the protection of the environment with the need for sustainable development.
In January 1994 the UK Government published simultaneously the UK Biodiversity Action Plan, and a national sustainability strategy.
Ten years later there is not a great awareness amongst the general public that there has a been a significant change in the rules by which major development must be judged if it to be given planning permission. Indeed a very recent decision by the European Court of Justice brought by the European Commission against the UK Government demonstrates that even our national government has not been applying these new biodiversity and sustainability criteria correctly - in particular to strategic planning on a regional basis.
In March 2005 the government published its sustainable development strategy Securing the Future, an 186 page booklet costing £26. Fortunately there is an on-line version at www.sustainable-development.gov.uk Chapter 6 deals with creating sustainable communities and a fairer world. Referring to local strategic plans the government states:
Community buy-in is essential in achieving local ownership of and legitimacy for these plans, which will shape the long term vision and the future distribution of land and development in an authority's area. Local action-planning, for example by voluntary groups, in the shape of parish plans, neighbourhood action plans, and other forms of participative involvement, offers an effective way of engaging local citizens and communities in contributing to these processes.
Now you are right up-to-date, and you know why you are doing a parish plan. We try to make sense of this on the next three pages:
Move on to: Sustainable Development
Move on to: Sustainable Communities
Move on to: Environment & Biodiversity
Move on to: Parish Plan Content
Top
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.