Sustaining & enriching Swynnerton - draft strategy
Broad aim
The over-riding concept is to encourage and assist the
residents and businesses within Swynnerton Parish to make adjustments to their
lifestyle to accommodate the effects of climate change and resource depletion
locally (and, by extension, globally) so that future development can lead to
sustainable prosperity and well-being for the present and succeeding
generations. This strategy is intended to produce and can be measured by the
economic, environmental and social outcomes listed below:
Economic Outcomes
- Increased use of local business and services
- Increased availability and use of recycled products and raw materials
- Reduced potential for landfill penalties imposed on Stafford Borough as a result of waste for landfill emanating from Swynnerton Parish
- Increased local demand for renewable energy and local small-scale production
Environmental Outcomes
- Increased use of locally produced compost
- Increased practice of organic and other sustainable horticultural & agricultural techniques
- Reduced local use of horticultural & agricultural chemicals and pesticides (and thus consequent effects of leeching into local water courses)
- Reduced nuisance caused by local fly-tipping
- Reduced volume of locally produced waste going to landfill
- Reduced locally generated traffic
- Increased range of habitats for local wild-life
Social Outcomes
- Increased awareness of local services
- Increase local communication
- Increased local social events
Methods of delivery
Research
The first stage towards achieving these outcomes will be to gather some basic data to:
1. Identify individuals, groups and services already in the parish, which will be achieved by:
a) tapping into the local knowledge of members of the Parish Council
b) using direct mail or the proposed Parish news media (combined web and print system to supplement existing notice boards)
2. Establish the extent of current local knowledge of environmental problems and interest in taking up potential solutions, which will be achieved by:
a) analysing information gained from the 2003 Parish Survey
b) using direct mail or the proposed Parish news media
Community involvement
The main way in which this concept will be put into practice will be by involving as much of the community within the Parish as possible and helping them to take action towards one or as many of the outcomes listed above as is appropriate to them. The information obtained from the research outlined above will be used to help identify volunteers from the various communities and localities within the Parish. The areas of activity that volunteers will be asked to take on will include:
a) action in their own home
b) action on behalf of groups, organisations and businesses
c) local community environmental projects (such as waste monitoring or habitat maintenance)
d) acting as a local point of communication at a neighbourhood level
e) providing expert knowledge
It is hoped that the results achieved by the initial volunteers will encourage their neighbours to get involved. This follows the model already established by and is part of the process of development of Stafford Borough's Action at Home campaign. To multiply the impact of individual efforts, participants will be encouraged to work with others tackling similar tasks so that they can share ideas, best practice and provide mutual support (e.g. by offering the skills and manpower to achieve specific projects).
Management
The process will be led by a body representing key interests within the parish, including Parish Councillors, which will report on progress to the Parish Council on a regular basis. This body will be assisted by selected outside agencies with appropriate specialist knowledge and the ability to lever-in resources to help deliver the outcomes.
This body will probably require some volunteer or paid executive support to collect data on its behalf, disseminate proposals, good practice and progress towards the achievement of outcomes. However, the day-today management of projects and activities will be the responsibility of the individuals, families and organisations who will benefit from them.
Publicity
It is essential to the strategy that all participants, especially those taking voluntary action, are kept informed about progress generally and supplied with the encouragement and resources to make involvement worth-while. As a result, systems for both general and specific communication need to be established. This could be achieved by:
a) developing the proposed web and newsletter based system for parish-wide communication and
b) having volunteer local contacts at a street or sub-community level, encouraged to communicate regularly with the executive and members of the management body and pass on both good news and concerns
c) the management body (via its executive) sending data on progress to the agencies giving external support and local and, where appropriate, national media
Resources & finance
Because the aim is to create the framework for local sustainable development, delivery of this strategy requires minimal outside support and will rely mainly on encouraging voluntary changes in lifestyle. These changes should not require additional time or financial investment but a redirection of the resources already being deployed by residents within Swynnerton Parish so that more time and money is spent within the local community, which will have a multiplier effect on prosperity that should be experienced by at least many, if not all concerned.
Some of the potential costs are likely to be met from already identified sources, such as the project to establish an improved Parish-wide communication system. The foreseeable costs in time and money to initiate the plan will come from:
1. Gathering the research data, which can be accomplished using Parish Councillor and volunteer time
2. Establishing the management body and its executive support, which could be assisted by the availability of finance to pay for the time and expenses of those involved perhaps via the second phase of the Rural Sustainability Project run by the Community Council of Staffordshire
3. Recruiting the initial corps of volunteers prepared to try out the changes in lifestyle, which will require publicity that could be included in the overall costs of the project currently being considered by the Parish Council which may be supported by assistance from the Community Services Scheme sponsored by the Countryside Agency
4. Providing
information to enable volunteers to be able to choose the actions most likely
to get results, a significant proportion of which is already available from
existing outside agencies, such as Stafford Borough and Staffordshire County
LA21 teams, Sustainable Staffordshire, the Community Council of Staffordshire
Rural Sustainability Project and Staffordshire Business and Environment Network
and the Government Office for the
5. Facilities for recycling a greater range of items, which are primarily but not exclusively the responsibility of Stafford Borough Council and could prove to be ultimately self-financing
6. On-going internal and external communications, which should be satisfied by a combination of volunteer time and the improvements to the local communications system outlined above.
Measuring progress
A key component of this strategy is having a system to measure progress towards the outcomes listed above. This will be the responsibility of the management body and its executive but will require the co-operation all those taking action, which will be the prime source of information.
Other information important to the continuous assessment of this strategy and essential to inform any changes of plan include:
a) The number and type of volunteer support
b) Financial
accounts of any money specifically spent on implementing this plan
September 2003
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