The concept of resilience is central to this plan. One of the best ways to explain what this means is by looking back to the year 2000 and the truck drivers’ dispute of that year. Angered by the proposed rise in fuel tax, lorry drivers across the UK picketed fuel depots, and within a short period of time, the nation’s fleet of delivery lorries and its entire just-in-time distribution system began to grind to a halt. Supermarket shelves started to empty and within days, the UK had gone from a nation with abundant food supplies and an illusion of plenty, to one that was 2 days from a major food crisis and which, just for that short window of insight, could see that the local food system that had supported it historically had largely been unravelled.

In 2008, staff at the Grangemouth oil refinery came close to going on strike, which would have led to a situation similar to that of 2000. The media was filled with editorials along the lines of “how dare these people hold the country to ransom with their demands?” The question that no-one asked was how we had so spectacularly failed to learn the lessons of 8 years previously, and why it was that we were still in the position where an interruption to our liquid fuels supply could still bring our economy to its knees.

Central to this is resilience. Resilience is, in a nutshell, the ability of a system, whether an individual, an economy, a town or a city, to withstand shock from the outside. As the credit crunch has highlighted, the global economy is now so highly networked, that a shock or crisis in one part can pulse very fast through the rest of the system. Resilience is about building the ability to adapt to shock, to flex and modify, rather than crumble. You can think of it as being like building surge protectors into an electrical system.

A resilient Totnes would have an economy that cycles more money locally, creates more local jobs, is less at the mercy of major employers deciding to relocate elsewhere (e.g. Dairy Crest, Dartington College of Arts). It would be more diverse, in terms of skills, livelihoods, land use, businesses, housing provision and so on. It would also bring the impacts of its consumption closer to home, and take more responsibility for its impacts. It would be a Totnes that learned to live more in place, and to appreciate the vulnerability that current approaches bring. While it is wonderful, and historically unprecedented, to be able to eat strawberries in March, the system that makes that possible has at the same time unravelled our local systems, deskilled our farmers and growers and left us more vulnerable. Resilience thinking offers a key insight for those planning for our future. The starting place for this plan is not a judgemental list of the things that are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in the world. Rather it is an acknowledgement that change is inevitable, and that we need to pull together in order to make Totnes and District as resilient as possible, in such a way as to inspire the rest of the country to do the same.

Leave a comment

If you wish to comment on a particular paragraph

and quote the relevant number in your comment.