DRAFT Proposals from West Berkshire environment groups for measures under the Sustainable Communities Act

Submitted to the Chief Executive, West Berkshire Council on 26^th July 2009.

The Sustainable Communities Act aims to promote the sustainability of local communities. It begins from the principle that local people know best what needs to be done to promote the sustainability of their area, but that sometimes they need central government to act to enable them to do so. It provides a channel for local people to ask central government to take such action. It is also a new way for local communities, via local authorities, to ask central government to take action which they believe would better enable them to improve the economic, social or environmental well-being of their area.

It is for local people to decide what they think needs to be done to promote the sustainability of their area. The Act is designed to strengthen the role of communities and provides a simple process by which the ideas generated by local communities are fed through their local authority to central government to make the case for which activities they think will contribute to the economic, social and environment well-being of their area when making proposals under the Act.

The Act requires local authorities to consult and try to reach agreement with local people via a panel of representatives before they make a proposal. We are not aware of any communication by West Berkshire Council to the public about the opportunity the Act provides for local people to come forward with proposals, despite the fact that the Council were invited to do so in autumn 2008. Therefore, we would like to submit the following proposals, for forwarding to the ‘selector’, which we have compiled after consultation with representatives of the following environmental groups in West Berkshire:

• Hungerford Environmental Action Team

• Lambourn Valley Sustainability Forum

• Sustainable Newbury

• Thatcham Good Life

• Transition West Berkshire.

We hope that West Berkshire Council will look favourably on the proposals we suggest, and ensure they are submitted to the ‘selector’ body (the Local Government Assocation) by the due date of 31 July 2009. We are unaware of any other proposals that the Council may have made with reference to the Act.

The suggestions we make are of course in outline only and, to implement, will require careful consideration of the appropriate mechanisms, institutional arrangements and funding required. We consider that all the measures we suggest will require central government regulation.

Paul Bullock, Christine Essex, Sue Everett, Barry Flisher, Richard Foster, Andy Hockedy, Tom Moffatt, Ken Neal, Chris Watts,

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