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Advice and support for local government:
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Here are just a few examples of the many local authorities creating genuinely
sustainable communities: Local Area Agreements (LAA): Oldham Partnership puts sustainability at the forefront of planningOldham Partnership's vision is to make Oldham a place where everyone is proud to belong. In May 2005, the Partnership published its updated sustainable community strategy, which set out the steps that needed to be taken to mould Oldham into a sustainable community. Each step has a lead organisation and work is mapped to social, environmental and economic indicators. This ensures that the community strategy is structured and manageable, that ownership is clear, and that the organisations and agencies in the Partnership understand their role in the development of Oldham as a sustainable community. An integrated appraisal toolkit was used to identify conflicts and areas for joined up working, and a variety of innovative methods were used to engage the borough's residents in the strategy development. The commitment and achievement of the Partnership was recognised when it won the 2006 Local Government Chronicle partnership award for sustainable communities. Oldham's local area agreement will be the delivery mechanism for Oldham's sustainable community strategy. As well as using a balance of social, economic and environmental indicators, the Partnership will also include the 'ecological footprint' of the borough within the LAA as a means of tracking the long-term perspective. Further information can be found on the Oldham Partnership website. Durham's LSP agrees to sustainability appraisalsDurham County Council has been working both corporately and through the LSP to integrate economic, social and environmental issues into decision-making. The Durham County community strategy contains several themes and 12 challenges, and it was originally proposed that the Durham Local Agenda 21 (LA21) partnership should be the lead partnership for the environment theme. However, this was felt to be inappropriate because of the need to treat economic, social and environmental priorities together. As a result, the LSP agreed that the LA21 partnership will undertake sustainability appraisals of all of the LSP's key decisions and initiatives through an innovative appraisal mechanism and employing the expertise of partnership members. Currently, action plans are being prepared for the 12 community strategy challenges, and each of these will be subject to a sustainability appraisal. Any recommendations for improvement arising from the appraisal will be discussed with the challenge leaders and expert advice offered. Under the new programme, established in October 2005, the LA21 partnership will undertake sustainability appraisals of the local development framework documents produced by four district councils as well as the County Council's waste and minerals plans. Further information on sustainable governance at Durham County Council can be found on the Improvement and Development Agency's website. Holistic thinking embeds sustainability into Birmingham's local area agreement'Improving the quality of life for Birmingham's citizens, with a
particular focus on making the fastest improvements for the people and
for the places with the greatest need.' To achieve this vision, Birmingham's partnership put three approaches at the heart of the LAA:
Birmingham's LAA is set out under the four main LAA blocks (Children and young people, healthier communities and older people, enterprise and economic development, and safer and strong communities) but integral to the agreement are also six key cross-cutting themes including environmental sustainability, community engagement, and the voluntary and community sectors. The local strategic partnership recognised the need to join up targets and actions across the blocks and cross-cutting themes and the LAA sets out how each of these themes will be addressed. Some issues are reflected as LAA targets, for example, reduced CO2 emissions, while others will be addressed as part of the delivery process. To make sure these themes were fully integrated across the LAA, each theme has an expert lead officer who worked with each 'block' lead to ensure that outcomes and targets addressed cross-cutting issues and, at the same time, added value. An example of this is in the job creation potential of the expansion of recycling activities. The LAA will help ensure that these new job opportunities will be targeted at the neighbourhoods with the highest unemployment rates. The Birmingham Environment Partnership has also funded and appointed the UK's first dedicated LSP 'sustainability champion' who is leading on both the cross-cutting 'environmental sustainability' theme and the overall sustainable development approach. The Birmingham Strategic Partnership is also developing processes to ensure that sustainable development issues are addressed as part of the commissioning of services. The LAA will seek to use the quality of life indicator set and 'ecological footprints' at a neighbourhood and city-wide level in order to ensure that the gap is narrowed between areas and that it is done so without negatively impacting upon environmental limits. For further information on Birmingham's Local Area Agreement is available on the Birmingham Strategic Partnership website. Kingston's local area agreement builds on sustainability in community plan"The community plan is committed to producing a sustainable Kingston."
Produced by the Kingston local strategic partnership, the plan is structured around six key themes, including environment, community safety and a 'sustainable transport system accessible to all'. This commitment to sustainability informed the overarching themes of Kingston's LAA, the first of which is as follows: "Quality of life: enhancing people's local environment and increasing opportunities for enjoyment and fulfilment (in a way that is sustainable for future generations)." However, thinking had moved on since the development of the community plan, and the partnership wanted to encourage ambition and innovation in terms of the outcomes to be included in the LAA (rather than cutting and pasting from existing strategies). The council's environment and sustainability department, which is well networked with other partners and in an ideal position to have an overview of the issues, provided a nucleus for the work.Outcomes in the Kingston's LAA include:
Shropshire's LAA prioritises 'sustainable communities' in line with strategyShropshire's LAA has the overarching theme of community cohesion. Its vision is 'to improve significantly the quality of life for Shropshire people by working together'. In order to better reflect the four priorities in the county community strategy, the Shropshire LAA replaced the 'economic development and enterprise' block with a 'sustainable communities' block. Outcomes in this block include:
The Shropshire Partnership management group has established four delivery partnerships to manage the delivery of the LAA. This includes a sustainable communities group. Each of the delivery partnerships will monitor and manage progress on their outcomes. Further information is available on Shropshire
Partnership's website. Triple bottom-line built into Cornwall's LAAA stakeholder conference held early in the development of the Cornwall LAA (Sept 2005) identified sustainability as a key focus. Following the conference, an options appraisal matrix was developed to test the robustness of proposals and their capacity to promote social, economic and environmental well-being, known as the triple bottom-line. This matrix was used to shortlist outcomes. The introduction to each LAA block includes a table that summarises important issues for the triple bottom-line. Cornwall expanded its communities block to embrace 'Safer, Stronger and Sustainable Communities'. The outcomes included under the sustainable heading include:
Further information is available on Cornwall Strategic Partnership's website. Kirklees Metropolitan Council - a sustainable agreementOne of the strengths of Kirklees agreement is its attention to sustainable development but with a strong focus on travel, its problems and the need to reduce them. The Economic Development and Enterprise block of the LAA identifies a vision for Kirklees to build "a strong economy supported by an attractive, high quality environment, offering the best of urban and rural living". 'Travel based' targets include ones for:
Other major targets include reductions in greenhouse gases, increases in the production of renewable energy, increases in nature conservation sites and increasing the amount of waste recycling. The full document can be downloaded from the Improvement and Development Agency's website.
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Updated: 29 June 2006 |
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