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21st October 2020
What seems like a lifetime ago, I went on a cycling trip to the Pyrenees. Apart from the endless climbs, two things struck me most about that trip. One was the smooth road surfaces – the French (and Spanish) revere cyclists in ways that the spiritual home of tarmacadam never has. The other was the total absence of roadside litter. Litter has long been something of a minor obsession with me. Not just because the estimated 250 million ‘easily visible items’ of litter that Scots drop annually are so unsightly, but because it speaks to the deeply problematic relationship that large swathes of the population seem to have with our much vaunted natural environment. The trail of discarded camping equipment and human detritus that have blighted Scotland’s beauty spots this summer speaks for itself. How have we reached this point? Lesley Riddoch’s new book – Huts. A place beyond – explores how and why Norwegians have evolved a profoundly different relationship with nature. This isn’t so much a book about huts – more a manifesto for how to resolve Scotland’s dysfunctional relationship with land in terms of how it is owned, managed and used by its people. It’s time to stop tinkering at the edges.
In the most recent briefing…
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On the ground
Read moreThe 56,000 acre Galson Estate on Lewis is community owned. When Covid hit, one of the first actions of the Trust was to maintain the community newspaper – a lifeline for many of its residents – when all the paper’s staff were furloughed. Volunteers kept it going for months. Local press is clearly valued in that community but it’s difficult to get a wider sense of how vibrant Scotland’s community media is. The Independent Community News Network, based in Cardiff University, has only nine Scottish members. There must be countless more. Sounds like we need our own network.
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On the ground
Read moreThere is a theory that change and crisis go hand in glove. And at times of great crisis, the systems at the heart of that crisis become even more receptive to proposals for reform and change. If there is any truth in that, then most of the core systems that shape our lives must currently be in a pretty malleable state. Scottish Government appears to think so and is calling for any ideas, based on your covid experiences, that would make Scotland a fairer country. Ideas have to be in by this Friday.
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On the ground
Read moreMost charities start out as a small bunch of volunteers sitting in someone’s front room working out how to right whatever wrongs concern them. Oxfam began this way in 1942 as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. It took years before they employed their first member of staff. Oxfam’s subsequent growth into the multinational behemoth that it has become is now an issue of some concern for its GB Chief Officer, Danny Sriskandarajah. He worries that the big charities have become too obsessed with their own growth and are mimicking the behaviours of the corporates. One follows the other.
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On the ground
Read moreScottish Government is committed to planting 36 million trees per year by 2030 as part of its climate action plan. Hopefully this doesn’t mean more of the dreary monoculture that covers so much of Scotland’s forest estate. Apart from the deadening impact on the landscape, the science suggests that mature native woodlands are much more efficient at soaking up carbon. While this massive planting programme is destined for our rural hinterland, an interesting and potentially complementary initiative which may interest urban communities is one which has its origins in Japan – miniature forests, the Miyawaki way.
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Policy talk
Read moreBy speaking out as he has and implicitly threatening to declare some sort of Covid-inspired UDI, Andy Burnham, in his relatively new role as Mayor of Greater Manchester, has shone a light on the power struggles that run through the English system of local government. Even CIPFA, the trade body for public finance professionals, and not usually given to making wild pronouncements on the state of local democracy, have come out with a pretty scathing assessment of Westminster’s proposed ‘reorganisation’. Seems that the gravitational pull toward the centre is not just a Scottish problem.
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Policy talk
Read moreEver since the Christie Commission published its recommendations in 2011 heralding the future shape of public services, screeds have been written, countless conferences speeches given and far too many false dawns foretold – all of which have amounted to virtually no progress whatsoever. Occasionally, that rare alchemy of political leadership and vision, a willing workforce and financial expediency combine to produce something akin to what Christie was alluding to. In Wigan, partly forced by circumstances, the leadership contrived to launch the Wigan Deal.
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Policy talk
Read moreA worrying trend that seems to accompany what, on the face of it, are well intended government initiatives is the speed with which these schemes are exploited. The vast ‘profits’ earned by house builder Persimmon as a result of the ‘help to buy’ scheme, and the evidence that Government backed Covid bounce-back loans worth several millions have disappeared through fake companies are examples of this exploitation – both legal and otherwise. Housing seems an area which is particularly prone to this. Scottish Government’s Building Scotland Fund which has paid millions to private developers with highly questionable results is coming under fire.
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Policy talk
Read moreAn idea gaining traction in northern european countries and nordic ones in particular, is that of the ‘bioregion’. The bioregion model aims to assist in the transition of the local economy into the post-carbon era by focusing on a region’s natural resources and boosting the region’s productivity and product development within its local industries such as agriculture, fisheries and forestry. The model is being hailed by Nordic countries as a ‘silver bullet’ to resolve the immediate challenges of remote rural living. MEP Alyn Smith commissioned work to consider the potential of Argyll and Bute through the lens of the bioregion.
Featured anchor organisation:
Cassiltoun Housing Association
Cassiltoun Housing Association started life as the Castlemilk East Housing Co-operative in 1984, when nine tenants in the Ballantay area decided to do something about the appalling conditions they were living in. With the support of Glasgow City Council, 90 of the Council’s houses were eventually transferred to ‘the co-op’, the first such housing stock transfer in Glasgow. Today Cassiltoun Housing Association is a community owned housing association managing its own stock of 1,000 houses. Its work is concerned with physical, social, environmental and economic matters, such as healthcare, crime prevention and lifelong learning initiatives and the development of skills,…
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