Sustainable Community?

On February the 5th 2003 the deputy prime minister set up the sustainable communities project, this tried to create sustainable communities in rural and urban areas. The programmes action aims to focus the attention and co-ordinate the efforts of all levels of Government and stakeholders in bringing about development that meets the economic, social and environmental needs of future generations as well as succeeding now.



In this blog i am going to look at my area back home and how it resembles a sustainable community. Farnham Common in Buckinghamshire is just north of Slough and south of Beaconsfield, i will look closely at its super output area and see whether it resembles a sustainable community.



My home is in the super output area of South Bucks 004B, this area includes the main high street of the village with several shops on, it next to the national park of Burnham Beeches, and has a wide range of houses, from terraced estates to larger detached houses. Lots of development has taken place in the last 2-3 years, new shops have developed and new housing developments have been put up. There has also been lots of changes in Burnham Beeches.



Farnham Common is a large village, this means it is not the closest social community, many people commute to nearby towns, or London which is only around 30mins drive away. Looking from a personally view a lot of my local friends parents either commute to Slough or London to work. Most of the people living in the super output area are either elderly or families, one observation from living in the area is that families can be more socially active as the children make friends at school and the parents know each other. More residential building are being developed in the heart of the village, this could lead to an increase in the commuter population. Commute villages are not always highly sustainable, although the economy of the place will be high because of more high profile jobs, there is also a poor social aspect with people seeing less of neighbours.

The A355 runs through the village and super output area, this runs between to towns of Slough and Beaconsfield, there can be lots of traffic which is not good for the environment and can also make the high street dangerous for pedestrians. Lots of development has taken place along the main road. Recent projects involved small supermarkets basing shops in Farnham Common. Sainsbury's and Tesco have both based local stores in the area. This has had positive and negative effects on the community. The opening of these news stores did bring money into the area and the local government has also made a new housing development near to the main road, however it has also forced local shops to close or change business. The Stars newsagents closed, taking away some social aspect of local residents life and also meaning some young people lost their job of delivering local papers. A local butchers Andrews was loosing money and found it more profitable to change into a Fish+Chip shop, this could show development of the small village into more of a small town community.

Burnham Beeches is very local to the super area output and has recently been upgraded to a national park status, the woodland gets over 500,000 visitors a year. This many visitors can boost the local economy and raise awareness of the area to people who live slightly further away from the area. Being a national park also shows that the area is preserving the environment and many environmental projects take place in Burnham Beeches which has a huge species variety. Their are also volunteer programmes in Burnham Beeches, this helps to local population to be educated about sustainability and the environment.

Is South Bucks 004B a sustainable community?
Looking overall at all of the different features and changes that have taken place my local super area output we can see whether it could be considered a sustainable community. There has been lots of local development, shops in the village are being updated, this shows that future generations will have a better choice of shops, it has also boosted the economy. However there are also set backs with many traditional stores closing down due to the high profile competition. South Bucks 004B is also next to Burnham Beeches, this enables local people to interact closely with the environment and also be educated well about sustainable development. It also attracts a large number of visitors which helps raise awareness of the area and boost the economy. Socially the area is fairly strong with families knowing each other and talking, however there is a large number of commuters which can have a negative effect on the area.

Overall i think South Bucks 004B is a sustainable community but there are still steps that can be taken to improve it further and enhance the opportunity for future generations in the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainable life.

Sustainable Crunch?

Sustainable thinking means that people will have to provide for their current needs and think about the future. With the credit crunch now right on top of people, everyone needs to start thinking about cutting back on their spending to have money for the future, this can surely only have a positive effect on sustainable issues? In this blog i am going to briefly explore some of the positives and negatives of the credit crunch.

Travel
Cars have always been the enemy of many environmental issues, but for most people they are a helpful and flexible mode of transport in a highly active economic climate. However cars are expensive to run, and with the credit crunch hitting people this is becoming more expensive. People are now ditching the car in an attempt to save more money using different modes of transport. While this is a positive step for the environment with less cars on the road and the pollution rates decreasing there is also a negative side. Other transport methods are less flexible than the car and mean people need to extend their commuting time; this could lead us to an even more socially broken society? With people being caught up in problems and late for work could also lead to people losing their jobs, which in the current financial climate is not something many families can afford to have happen and could have devastating consequences.

Home spending
Electric, gas and waters bills are some of the kind of bills which people pay, and cutting these bills down can be a challenge but also a necessity. One simple way of doing this is switching off the light or using lower energy light bulbs, can not only save people money but also help the environment with less electricity being produced and less environmentally harmful methods being used. Recycling is also an issue in the household, the credit crunch is having a positive and negative effect on this issue. Some councils are giving out fines for not recycling rubbish properly and no matter what the economic climate few people want to pay a fine. There could also be a negative effect however with people not wanting to recycle and not finding the time in their busy and hectic lifestyle driven by earning money and keeping a job.

Unemployment
This may not seem as though it has much to do with sustainability but it does, earning money provides families with money and is part of helping develop for people in the future. Lots of people are becoming unemployed as a result of the credit crunch; some companies cannot afford to employ as many people as they are and have to cut back. Jobs are being lost everywhere around the country and it’s not just have effect directly on these people but also the country as a whole is suffering.

So is this credit crunch good?
While the credit crunch is here sustainable development is being brought to everyone’s minds, people are learning more about how to develop and save for the future but without lowering their own standard of living. However is it too little too late? Should we have already been doing this before the credit crunch, should sustainable development not be a new barely explored area but one with a vast knowledge base already?
While the credit crunch is here the UK’s economy was already suffering a decrease in industry, could this mean there is even less. During this period there are positives for our already fragile and broken environment but sustainable development isn’t just about saving the environment, it’s about still being able to develop and preserving the good for the future. The world shouldn’t need a recession to push this into people’s minds and to save the environment, ultimately we probably should have already been doing it.



With thanks
- http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/#
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/business/2007/creditcrunch/default.stm
- The brain of Freddy Try.

Traffic Survey

On the 22nd January we conducted a traffic survey of the number of people entering the University Park Campus Car Park, between 11:00 - 12:00. Before, on the 15th, we discussed, as a class group, the methods we would be using. The method we chose to use was to count both the number of cars and the number of passengers in each. To make sure the survey could last most of the day, data was recorded between 8:00am until 4:30pm. Each group's session lasted one hour, with half an hour break inbetween each group. The group also carried out a questionaire to collect students thoughts about sustainable methods of transport

We found that more people came into the car park closer to 12:00, this could have been because they had lectures which started at 12:00. Before we carried out the survey we thought that it would be busier closer to midday.

If we did the data collection again, we would have made each group record data for an hour and a half. This would mean there would not be half an hour gaps in the overall data collection. Also, we would have allocated better groups so that there were fair numbers as we only had two group members, so we were limited as to how many questionnaires we could ask.

By Josh and Freddy.

A United Nations Debate – A Lithuanian’s View

Looking at the board I saw the country I had to tackle. Not only was I not sure who my partner was, I also knew very little about Lithuania. In fact I knew two things, it was in Western Europe and my dad went there and said, it was pretty boring wasn’t much there.

Considering the worries at the start of my presentation, I was pretty pleased with our performance at the United Nations (UN) debate. Lithuania although in the European Union was not the easiest of countries to find information on. I have certainly learned a lot about Lithuania from this UN debate.

Lithuania’s sustainable development is certainly more advanced than I thought it would be at the start. The country only officially declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, this halted much of the countries development and has left the country slightly unbalanced in the regions development. Lithuania certainly has bright ideas of how to tackle the countries problem, tackling unemployment instead of just poverty for me was a step forward, because this will help people to individually start building their own income and tackling poverty problems for themselves. Lithuania has also put together a good programme at tackling the sustainability of the countries forests.

The challenge was finding all of this from the research. We found that the problem for our country was firstly finding where to get the information from. Following this once the right sources were found there was extracting what we needed, most of the sources found were mainly full of text and went into every detail. This was good because it gave us a deep insight into the countries problems; however it also meant that extracting information was difficult. There were lots of different properties and although some of them were put into proprieties some of them clashed.

Lithuania did in fact surprise me, being from the former Soviet Union I didn’t expect the government to be organised and certainly didn’t think sustainability would have been on their agenda. However I was wrong, sustainable development was high up in a list of priorities and going into the debate I didn’t think we would get the money because I simply didn’t believe our country needed it, which was a huge surprise for me.

All of the countries had different approaches to sustainable development. Some that surprised me was the United States of America (USA). They said that they would give a proportion of their money to other African countries and help them develop. One of the most common approaches was to helping the poorest people in the country develop; this was shown better in some countries than others.

I felt that our presentation went well but it could have been improved a little. There was a lot of information on the handout but there was even more information which we could have given out, I think we tried to give out to much information when presenting our speech. The hand out could have been improved and more detail about the project put on it but overall I was pleased with our presentation.

If I could do the exercise I would have worked better in a group to organise our speech better. There was a problem with free time for both me and my partner; this meant most of our work had to be done communicating through e-mail. I would like to have had more time to produce a speech and organise the points it priorities. This also links in with something I learnt. I feel I have now improved in communicating skills through e-mails.

The UN debate went well for me, I felt I performed well and I was able to look into the different countries approaches to sustainable development. I felt that at the end the right decisions were made about who the money went to. I was surprised to see Australia getting a large sum of the money, following their past projects. I felt that it was important that the U.S.A got some of the money, being such a powerful world country if they can help turn themselves into a more sustainable nation it can act as a bench mark for other countries and also pass skills down to other nations like Africa.

Lithuania has proved to me and i hope many others, that it is a country that is developing well and has set good and ambitious targets for the future. Although some of it projects have not been totally successful and it still has problems in some areas, it conservation and its aims at tackling the poorer nations are proving successful. Lithuania now has a literacy rate of 99.6%. Lithuania is a country moving forward I just hope that it does not get lost in the endless problems with other nations and the world can keep this area developing well.

Conflict and the issues on sustainablity?

Checking through my e-mails I came across a letter from the WWF, telling me about the current situation in the Congo and how it could have an effect on the fragile Gorilla population in the Virunga National Park.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo and estimated 250,000 people have fled their homes following the latest outbreak of violence in the east of the country. Conflict has been taking part for years in the country and is mainly due to the vast mineral wealth in the country. In 2003 the war, which invovled other countries such as Angola, Uganda, Nambia and Rwanda ended, however unrest has continued throughout the country. Conflict has now broken out in the east again and many people are now being displaced from their homes by the violence.

Virunga National Park is in the east of the Congo, and covers an area of 790,000 ha. The national park is a vital and rare refuge for the endangered mountain Gorilla. The park consists of vast mountain ranges with snow covered peaks, and also has severn volcanoes to the south. As well as Gorilla the national park has a number of other animals including hippos, elephants, buffalo, and uganda kob.

Recently fighting broke out in the south of the park between the Congo government and rebels. Previous conflict has already reduce the Gorilla numbers to just 700. The conflict took place in the heart of the mountain Gorilla population. This could have a devisating effect on the Gorilla, many will be shot for 'protection' by the rebels and possibly the government army.

This is not the only problem for the national park and the Gorilla population. Many people have been forced to flee their villages and move to makeshift camps in areas around the national park. The people need to gathered wood and food and have no choice but to take it from the forests of the national park, which the Gorillas rely on.

The UN and the WWF are now trying to give the people feul to make fires and cook their food which will help to reduce the effect on the vunerable Gorilla population as well as helping the vunerable local people who have been displaced.

Sustainable development for the Congo and its surrounding nations would help not only the people to solve their conflicts but it would also help the vunerable Gorilla populations. Sustainable development would work with the local people and help them to use other ways to cook and gather other than using the valuable forests.



If you would like to find out more or help the people and gorillas in Congo then go to http://www.wwf.org.uk/

Newpapers!! Can we trust?

Newspapers are basically the news printed onto paper so that people can read them and find out what is happening. They are there to inform people of the news and what is happening throughout the world or the country. Stories or articles are written into the paper by journalists who write the articles from sources or the seen. However sometimes the articles written can appear to be exaggerated or even completely false. Often the false stories are about what celebrities have been doing or what has happened to them but there is one other topic which also leads to a large number of flase stories. Climate change and its effects on the world and the people is this topic.


Climate change is very misunderstood and disputed all over the world. Some people belive that climate change or global warming is just a natural occurance just like the ice age millions of years ago, however others belive it is down to human actions such as burning fossil feuls. Due to these conflicts climate change has become a highly talked about thing by the british public. This triggers the journalists to write articles about it and make people by their paper. But how true are these articles?

Newspapers need to sell to make money and if people are talking about climate change then they are going to want to read a newspaper article on it, so the newspapers write about them. Front line stories about different changes in the world such as 'Climate change is human say experts' or stories about animal changes ' Bird migration change show warming of planet'. Stories like these make people want to read that paper because it has a new dramatic story on climate change. These stories arent always true, some stories can be exaggerated to make it more readable, for example sometimes results from a test in temperature are increased to make it seem more dramatic. Sometime stories are also made to make the governments targets on climate change look bad, people often want to read about a failing government and often targeting climate change is the best way to do this because it is a difficult subject to handle.

Journalists have to make money for their newspaper and they will relie on sources of information to write the articles for the newspaper. Sources can sometimes be unreliable and sometimes inaccurate. This leads to a false article which people will read.

Tabloid newpapers seem to target more the 'working class' population. These newspapers such as The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Mirror, will often write more elaborated articles for their readers. Readers like to take out the information which they want to read so are often bombared with different figures allowing them to take out of the artcile what they want to read, other times figures are hardly seen at all this can often be the signs of an either more elaborated or a made up article.

Overall we can see that climate change is a very money spinning topic for newspapers and many other types of media. People want to know and hear about climate change so if there are little interesting stories newspapers will come up with ones about climate change to make people read there paper. The government is an easy target for this topic and are commonly used in stories. Newspapers are their to give people news and facts about things. In the case of climate change it is up to the people to decide who and what they want to belive.

Could you ever stop the cars?

Cars cars and more cars.

Cars are the most common means of transport in the United Kingdom. Between 1998 and 2000 18million men and 14 million women had driving licenses and at the end of 2000 there were 24million registered cars in the UK. This lead to over 70% of Britains households having regular use of a car as a means of transport, weather it was driving to work, school, or for leisure. Household spending on transport has also increased since 1998. This data shows us that no matter what different measures are in place people still want to or need to own a car.

At 17 the life of driving begins, and for some 17 year olds they want to learn to drive right away. At this age driving can be seen as independance no more having to get up for the school bus and a freedom to go where you like without having to ask parents to drive you or get public transport, for some it even saves walking to the corner shop. Driving does have its problems, for a start they need to buy a car, then insurance which for new and young drivers is expensive, petrol money needs to be forked out, as well as numberous other costs to running a car, but some people may see this all as part of growing up and becoming an adult. This also brings on many "young adults" starting to find jobs and earn their own money to help upkeep their car. Could this been seen as part of becoming an adult, and helping young people to learn the world of work?

Agenda 21 - Tackling climate change.

Agenda 21 was a meeting of 150 world leaders in the city of Rio De Janerio in Brazil. During this summit the millenium goals were produced, in this the world leaders looked at ensuring enviornmental sustainablity, this led the British government to look at tackling sustainable development on a national scale. In 2005 the prime minster set up the sustainable development strategy which looked at enabling people all around the country to satisfy their basic needs and enjoy a better quality of life but without compromising the quality of life for the future generations. One of these aims was to try and reduce the amount of carbon emmissions produced from cars. The government has looked at its progress over the years and in cutting cars emmissions its fair to say that is has not been sucessful. Emissions from cars have risen by 4% and road traffic volume has increased by 20%. So what have the government done to try and reduce the number of car emmissions.

London tackling car emissions - The Congestion Charge.

The congestion charge was introduced to London in February 2003 by the mayor of london to try and lower the amount of traffic in the city, which had the worst congestion in the UK and one of the worst in europe. The congestion charge works by people having to pay a charge (£8 a day) to enter the center of London, people who dont pay the charge are hit with heavy penalties. The congestion charge started five years ago and since then traffic levels have decreased but the amount of congestion is still high. This shows that the congestion charge is having some effect on reducing the amount of traffic, but large numbers of cars sitting in jams is not good for the environment as they give off lots of emissions. The congestion charge is not the only step London has taken, a series of adverts and other campaigns have been lauched to get people cycling into there workplace which can have to benefits to the nation by keeping the people healthy as well as the environment healthy. They have also introduced the oyster card which encourages people to have cheaper journeys around London on the public transport, such as a fairly good underground network and growing numbers of regular bus routes. However no matter how much the city throws at people they still want to bring their cars to the city.

Will people ever step out of there cars?

Cars open up oppertunities for people and offer freedom to the person driving the vechile, the United Kingdom has a complex road network and almost all areas are accessible if you have a car. Public transport does dont have this feature people have to be there at certain times and sometimes public transport needs to be intergrated in order for people to reach their destination. Public transport is also very expensive trains cost alot of money to travel on, although this is mainly due to the high maintenance bills.
The economy has also had an influence on the use of cars in many urban areas and developed countries, a country where people cycled everywhere would not be practical. London looses £2-4 billion a year from its economy from people being stuck in traffic, but would this change if people were on there bikes? Surely the journey would be longer and people would have to get up earlier. Public transport does not offer the benefit of being able to choose your own route to work, decide when to leave, or when to go home.
Safety is also a big issue many parents with children at school feel safer taking them in their own car, they have control over where the child goes and no strangers can pick them up when they get off the bus. Car sharing is one way to help cut down on the number of cars on the road in a day but this will not stop people from owning cars, but it could lower emissions although there could be arguements against this.
There are still ways we can cut car emissions in the air by encouraging people to use the train or to walk to the shops in the village or to car share on the way to work or to school. Private car ownership will still stay high and could also increase with a growing number of people able to afford to run a car. This does not have to mean that the emissions increase, if more projects like the congestion charge or park and ride schemes to keep car numbers lower in the city centre then the emissions should decrease. However people will always love the freedom and practicality of a car and until something very simular arrives, there will always be lots of car owners.