2030 The Story of Governance
The melt-down in current economic practices and structures before 2009 were inevitable and capitalism, as we knew it, was obsolete. People’s faith in central government started to wither 20 years ago after all the bank payouts backfired. Instead of acting honourably the bankers still paid themselves huge bonuses, even though they had clearly made a mess of the finances. And the government, instead of taking a strong hand and freezing their assets asked the banks to ‘self-regulate’.
We have witnessed radical changes to the democratic process. Our local government is much more open and participatory these days. The devolution of power from central government has created local control over many aspects of life including the local economy. It timed very well for local people as many of us just closed our accounts with the big banks and started looking for local set-ups to invest our savings in. This led to so much change, as we obviously wanted a lot more say in the projects and how the money would be spent. Once people saw how much influence we could have, there was a lot more interest in getting involved and giving time to all kinds of local activities. The re-opening of the Totnes bank has been well supported and we use Totnes pounds for almost everything these days.
The Town and Parish Council seats are hotly contested these days as we have so many willing candidates. Their monthly meetings are very well attended by the public and we usually stay on afterwards for some refreshments and chat about all the local things we are involved in. It is a much more 2 ways process between the elected officers, the staff and the public.
We all feel much more included in our community life and with that bit more time for each other and a greater sense of belonging, we make sure that all the decisions taken are really inclusive. To make the really big changes we needed to make 2 decades ago, we had to make sure we were making the decisions about our water supplies, our local jobs, our transport systems and our food security. No one was making the right choices as it was all about profit instead of services. Once we set the ball rolling locally we found out just how well we could work together, take many of our essential services into community ownership and make good decisions. The Sustainable communities Act that sparked a lot of this off, but it was the people who made the changes happen.
Fred Harrup, Staverton
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