TRANSFORMING PURTON PARISH Foresight and Resilience (Threats and Opportunities) Ps and Qs January 2013
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TRANSFORMING PURTON PARISH Foresight and Resilience (Threats and Opportunities) Ps and Qs January 2013 1 | P a g e CONTENTS ABOUT Ps and Qs ............................................................................................................................... 3 FOR CLARIFICATION ......................................................................................................................... 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................... 4 1. Sustainability ................................................................................................................................ 5 2. Key Parish Issues ........................................................................................................................ 9 3. Our Parish .................................................................................................................................. 11 3.1 Our Water ............................................................................................................................. 12 3.2 Our Food ............................................................................................................................... 19 3.3 Our Energy ............................................................................................................................ 26 3.4 Our Waste ............................................................................................................................. 32 3.5 Our Health ............................................................................................................................. 35 3.6 Our Education ....................................................................................................................... 42 3.7 Our Safety ............................................................................................................................. 45 3.8 Our Housing .......................................................................................................................... 52 3.9 Our Transport........................................................................................................................ 66 3.10 Our Economy ........................................................................................................................ 70 3.11 Our Recreation ..................................................................................................................... 74 3.12 Our Connectivity ................................................................................................................... 76 3.13 Our Democracy ..................................................................................................................... 77 4. Our Future.................................................................................................................................. 80 Appendix 1 Resilience ~ Re-thinking Sustainable Development ...................................................... 81 Appendix 2 Ps and Qs Commentary in the Purton Magazine 2003 ................................................. 82 Appendix 3 Ps and Qs Workshop on Sustainable Development in Purton (2004) .......................... 84 Appendix 4 Ps and Qs Vision to 2030 (February, 2010) ................................................................... 97 Appendix 5 Some History ................................................................................................................ 108 Appendix 6 Some Geography.......................................................................................................... 110 Appendix 7 Some Geology .............................................................................................................. 112 Appendix 8 Some Natural History ................................................................................................... 113 Appendix 9 Parish Profile ................................................................................................................ 116 Appendix 10 Our Neighbourhood Planning Process ...................................................................... 117 Appendix 11 Potential Land for Housing Development .................................................................. 120 Appendix 12 Case Study: Resilience or Convenience? .................................................................. 137 Appendix 13 Some useful pointers for the Parish Plan ................................................................... 139 Appendix 14 Some useful pointers for the Neighbourhood Plan .................................................... 141 Appendix 15 A Foresight and Resilience Plan for the Parish ......................................................... 143 Some basic facts and figures about the parish may be obtained from the Ps and Qs web site which has links to other parish organisations with further information www.purtoninfo.org.uk For a list of Useful Contacts .....................................................................The Purton Directory For a list of Places to Recycle (and their facilities)....................................The Recycling Directory 2 | P a g e ABOUT Ps and Qs Ps and Qs was established in 1994 shortly after the first Earth Summit in Rio as a Local Agenda 21 organisation. During the years, Ps and Qs has run major exhibitions on matters such as waste management, planning and climate change. It publishes four series of monthly articles in the village magazine (Green Tips, Going Wild in Purton, Planning Alert! and Cool Communities). Periodically, there is a Good News slot at the end of the articles to highlight good things that are happening. It is important to be able to react quickly these days to get information out and so Ps and Qs operates an electronic network (Village Alert!) that keeps villagers up to date with village and parish matters. It also runs surveys and polls on issues of interest to the parish, to help make informed decisions on critical issues. Occasionally, it sets up on-line petitions on really critical issues that have profound consequences for the parish as a whole e.g. the potential Ridgeway Farm development ~ more than 600 persons voted and left comments which were forwarded to the planning authority, and these were referred to by the Planning Inspector during the recent appeal. Ps and Qs has been at the heart of community planning, for the best part of twenty years and jointly began the Village Design Statement/Parish Plan with the parish council some ten years ago (long before community planning became mainstream). It has a long history of mature and informed reflection of how communities are shaped, what works and what does not. Bringing all of its work together, Ps and Qs has a flagship programme (Transform Purton Parish) which is looking at food, water, waste, work, energy and many other issues across the parish. Because it recognises that the key to future resilience (Appendix 1 for a fuller explanation of resilience) is the parish land space Ps and Qs began a neighbourhood planning dialogue via the Purton Magazine, and also via the Local Day1. Ps and Qs began Transform Purton Parish in 2009 and received the nominal support of the Wiltshire Council and the Purton Parish Council. For three years it has been gathering information on a range of issues and this report is an accumulation, to date, of that effort. Ps and Qs stands for Purton’s Qualities and is about enhancing the resilience of the parish for the longer term. FOR CLARIFICATION This is not the Purton Parish Plan or the Neighbourhood Plan. Although it has elements of similarity (and could inform both) it is more about longer term issues that may not be addressed by either of the other two shorter-term plans. Whilst both the Parish and Neighbourhood plans will likely be occasionally updated, unless there is a bigger vision and a way to progress towards that, the situation as it exists now will continue; a piecemeal approach which never seems to tackle the big (and very difficult) issues. Tinkering at the edges with short-term solutions does not suffice and simply allows the big issues to continue, and to become increasingly insurmountable. The evidence for this is that the key issues that pop up in every survey (see the latest Parish Plan survey results for instance) are precisely the same as those that have plagued the parish for at least twenty years. This report is an attempt to demonstrate how to tackle these issues and not ignore them. Contact: Dr Richard Pagett [email protected] 1 An event funded by Ps and Qs to showcase village businesses and organisations in order to encourage more local use of producers and suppliers. 3 | P a g e EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Parish issues concerning water, food, energy, waste, heath, education, safety, housing transport, economy, recreation, connectivity, and democracy are evaluated and discussed. Pointers are provided for the parish plan and the neighbourhood plan. It is often remarked that there is some resistance to those who are not born in the parish by those who are. It is also said how welcoming the parish is. Some bemoan change and that the place is not like it just to be. With UK population at an all-time high of 60 million and predictions to add a further 10 million during the next 40 years or so, it is inevitable, for good or bad, that the parish will continue to change. The future lies in all our hands; of those who were born here