Sustainable Billesdon meeting 04/03/2008
At the invitation of ‘Sustainable Billesdon’ Lydya Tappelby and myself travelled to Billesdon to introduce the Transition process to the group. We arrived just after 7:30 to find the meeting in full flow with items on the agenda such as a car free day and a slow food day involving some local businesses.
Another point on the agenda was allotments; this is an issue that I had just investigated myself and so could answer that it was unlikely that the council would provide any more allotment capacity due to there not being the cash and there being no statutory tool for making them review provision against demand. There is however, a private members bill currently in parliament that aims to re-introduce that test through law.
Private members Bill announcement Write to you MP to support this.
For the first time I had to describe the Transition process to a group of people and I rather hoped that I had done okay, the group I feel was generally interested by the process and did realise that it was a process that was not too dissimilar to the path that they were already treading. I think I must have done reasonably well as at the end Ian, who is a parish councillor, asked how long my appointment was.
After a few blank stares we established that he thought that I was an officer of the transition network on secondment to establish the Harborough initiative. They will consider whether to move under the umbrella of the TT network at their next meeting but irrespective of this I am sure that we will work closely together in the future with some good information sharing having already taken place.
My thanks for the invitation extended and many thanks for the great welcome we received from the group.
Darren