There are signs that the public are tired of waiting for central and local politics and business to blink first an act on QOL issues. For my money the most lively and exciting thing happening in the greening of Britain shift (apart of course from the QOL process )! is the Transition Towns movement.
The Transition Towns movement is a great example of where ordinary people – butchers, bakers, candlestick-makers, teachers and housewives – are taking control back at a local level. This movement which is active in over 30 UK cities, towns and villages (including Ambridge on Radio 4’s The Archers) is a rebirth of local community taking control of finding solutions to issues like peak oil, climate change and food security. Internationally there are 500 such initiatives. These communities have just given up waiting for local or national government to act. They are putting in place exciting and visionary steps towards a low carbon, local food, local currencies, and sustainable way of life. Totnes TT in Devon even has its own local currency – the Totnes Pound.
Kinsale in Ireland was the first TT. Their groundbreaking Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan has been adopted by the Town Council which now has plans to work towards energy independence. Initiatives include community gardens, a proposal to establish the first Community Composting scheme, energy audits for domestic, business and municipal buildings, pedestriansing part of the town, a prototype anaerobic digester for the Town (commercial food waste) and it’s environ (agricultural waste) and a ‘free cycle system’ in which people pass on unwanted belongings for free to others instead of dumping them.
This sort of local grassroots political engagement and democratic participative movement is surely a refreshing innovation and one which central politicians need to listen to and respond to. Its enacting right now the kinds of things we advocate in the QOL report. This shows there is a vibrant appetite from people for the kinds of things QOL have proposed.
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