South Somerset Climate Action

The need for vision

The Town Council are creating ‘A Strategic Vision for Ilminster’– a vision that will influence almost every aspect of the town’s development for many years.
The council presented its proposals to several meetings and took representations from a variety of groups including South Somerset Climate Action (SSCA) which has prompted the proposals outlined here. These proposals are the result of two well attended SSCA public meetings where the council’s vision was discussed at great length and environmental and sustainability issues were raised.
In preparing this submission we have combined some of the Town Council’s sections – and crucially we have added one on Energy. We think this addition and the combined sections makes it easier to focus on the essential issues of creating a more sustainable community.

Read the full document (1.4 Mb pdf)

A VISION FOR ILMINSTER AS A SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY

Sustainable development is now part of the purpose of the planning system.

Planning Policy Statement 1: Delivering Sustainable Development (PPS1), published by Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in 2006, sets out the overarching planning policies on delivering sustainable development through the planning system. It states (section entitled “Protection and enhancement of the environment”):

“Development plan policies should take account of environmental issues such as mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change through reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the use of renewable energy . .”

So that is existing policy and already quite a strong requirement to afford weight to climate change. But then in December of last year DCLG issued a consultation document on a proposed supplement to PPS1 on Planning and Climate Change the eventual effect of which is likely to make climate change an even stronger consideration in planning.

While the document is only emerging policy, unusually it does set out transitional arrangements that presumably apply right away. It states (paragraph 1.16):

(more…)

South Somerset District Council has started thinking about plans for - Yeovil, Crewkerne and Chard - but not the other towns for a while yet. Ilminster was caught on the hop with the recent supermarket application and the subsequent one-way street fiasco.

Ilminster Town Council is thinking ahead and developing its own plan. A draft has been presented a public meetings and published in the Chard & Ilminster News.

South Somerset Climate Action was surprised that no mention was made of either climate change or predicted shortages (or much higher costs) of fuel, food, timber and other materials. (more…)