A different vision for the future
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2014-07-09 08:04:52 - Graham EllisI am in complete disagreement with removing all governmental current business support and encouragement and replacing it with grants to social startups such as potters, with building footpaths where two can walkk abreast alongside even the smallest and remotest of country lanes, with running free buses on all routes every five minutes ("or perhaps a 50p fare) and with allowing people to start college course any week of the year not just in September, and then be able to drop out and rejoin whenever they feel like it. That was the vision of the lady that I was paired up with as we walked around Westbury Leigh yesterday evening at the RSAWilts / WfCAP meeting last night.
But it is difficult - very difficult - to get people to think forward to where we want to be in 20 years time, and the meeting was a brave (and successful) attempt to persuade the artistic community to think in that way. I, frankly, wondered when I arrived at the array of cardboard boxes in the converted church labelled "University" and "Altzheimers Hospital", and sheets of cardboard labelled "Car Park". But actually the visual / physical aid, good speakers talking of population growth, a changing age demographic, altering work patterns, and a lack of jobs especially locally for young people, bit set the scene and get people thinking about some of the issues and where they might want to go.
And so to re-plan the town. Move the boxes, re-label some of them. Some interesting ideas; I'll admit to taking a couple of the vast array of car parks and turning them into industry / employment areas, and to adding in some housing which seemed to be in short supply - we started with wonderful communal facilities with no-where to work (except at those facilities) and no-where to live. Others made changes - the special needs school was changed into an all abilities school, the town's electric tramway was routed away from the station and main railway line to avoid it conflicting, and a crematorium appeared near the centre of th etown. Further car parks were torn up for allotments, public toilets added ...
And after the exercise, a review. A big art bias as you would expect from the Royal Society of Arts, and a request / requirement for art in the community. The discussion could have gone far deeper into art affordabiity, maintainabilty, and art pieces v embedded art throughout. But at least a start was made. I'm not sure how it goes further ... except, as observers, I noted at least one Wiltshire Councillor, one planning officer / expert, and this meeting does help inform them as to where thinking may be. And certainly the audience was very happy at being asked / consulted / made to think on these issue.
The venue itself was a beautiful building, yet as a practical venue I'm not so sure. The options to get there and home were drive, drive or drive. For sure, it was near Dilton Marsh station, but that has a "curiously erratic" service which simply wasn't usable. Car parking was inadequate for those who drove (i.e. everyone) and yellow lines all around showed this to be a long-standing problem with the hall. I noted one car parked in front of a garage labelled "24 hour access required" and another double parked and blocking within the churchyard. The bus stop outside said "buses stop both sides of the road" but there were no buses to be seen.
Acoustics were difficult; it was hard to hear much of what was said, although I did hear the blame for that being put on the people talking ("not used to speaking in a building like this") rather than on the building itself. Perhaps a venue to suit the audience should have been selected? I know of one in Westbury! Beautiful building, though ... and (to give you the view of one of the people I spoke with) "we need to keep churches of worship in our communities". Yet I don't think I saw a church or a mosque or synagogue in cardboard. Perhaps the places of worship should become a part of the campus?
There was networking time; to a degree, people stuck in known groups and there wasn't any round robin introduction. Chritian name and "where from" stickly labels were the sum. I was very conscious that the people I spoke to all seemed very much concerned with themselves (rather than the inclusive community) and were looking much more at what the community could offer them, rather than what they could offer the community. But perhaps that's because I already know and wasn't networking with those elements who are already giving so much of their time for the community.
Yet ... out of the blue ... one lady mentioned to me how great it is to see some of the intertown connections improving, and whe was telling me how her partner's been able to take a job in Swindon when they live in Trowbridge. She did go on to say how poor the publicity was for this improvement; I chuckled slightly to myself for clearly she and lots of others HAVE heard of it, and indeed she's provising the publicity for it herself. And what we're trying to achieve is lots of people on trains where it's right for them, and not awards for a marketing campaign.
All in all, an interesting and thought-provoking evening. With 20,000 more people in each of the towns, the road from Melksham to Westbury (queuing much of the way except in the centre of Westbury!) won't cope at peak times unless something changes. Something may change - the 66% of people who do a 9-to-5 an drop to around 40%, spreading out a larger total flow of traffic over more hours ... a further billion rail journeys will be made each year, again allowing longer hour services (Network Rail's 7 day railway), and a relief road from the West Wilts Industial Estate along the railway to Frome Market may relieve the pressure of heavy though traffic making life a misery for residents in Westbury.