So it seems that a government advertising campaign is to target climate change sceptics. Certainly, policymakers appear to be hitting problems in bringing the public along with measures to address this issue, and it’s not very likely that ‘business as usual’ within the democratic process will deliver sustainable development.

So there are great hopes pinned on the English and Welsh Sustainable Communities Act 2007, which entered into force in October 2007.

The Sustainable Communities Act began life as a Private Members Bill which received cross-party support.

The Act is designed to promote the sustainability of local communities. The basic idea is that local authorities who have opted into the Act make proposals which they consider could contribute to promoting the sustainability of local communities.

The radical part is that proposals may include a request for a transfer of existing functions from one person (or entity) to another. In this way, the Act provides a vehicle for community groups, via local authorities, to lobby central government for reallocation of powers.

Before making proposals, local authorities are required to establish or recognise a panel of representatives of local persons and consult and try to reach agreement with panel members about proposals to be selected.

Selected proposals are then put forward to a ‘Selector’, whose job is to decide on which shortlisted proposals from local authorities will make it onto the Secretary of State’s action list. The Secretary of State is the ultimate decision-maker under the Act, but is obliged to try to reach agreement with the Selector on proposals to take forward.

The deadline for a first set of proposals to be submitted to the Selector was 31^st July 2009.

The LGA has been designated as the Selector for purposes of the legislation. It has already indicated where some of its interests lie, publishing “a selection of some of the changes we are currently pressing for and which we believe will benefit local government and sustainability” in advance of the selection process”.

In some respects, the legislation is deeply radical, as well as enormously broad in scope. But the approach that it takes to ‘sustainable development’ is conservative. As the Act explains (in Section 1), “references to promoting the sustainability of local communities, in relation to a local authority, are references to encouraging the improvement of the economic, social or environmental well-being of the authority’s area, or part of its area”.

This is hardly an integrated approach to decision-making across the economic, environmental and social spheres. Hardly sustainable development in fact. And this is skewed vision of sustainability is reflected in some of the proposals that have been put foward to the Selector.

For example, one proposal from Birmingham is to introduce Accelerated Development Zones (ADZs) whereby local authorities borrow money to invest in infrastructure so that the area becomes more attractive to investors and businesses. No doubt perfectly acceptable under the Act. But it is hard to equate this proposal, taken at face value, with anything more than straightforward economic development.

One essential characteristic of sustainable development is its integrated approach to decision-making across environmental, social and economic spheres.

For example, Agenda 21, the blueprint for sustainable development which emerged from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (the UN Conference for Environment and Development) adopts this text  as one of its objectives: “to improve or restructure the decision-making process so that consideration of socio-economic and environmental issues is fully integrated and a broader range of public participation assured”.

In contrast, the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 consummately fails to promote integrated decision-making.

Not every ‘pro sustainable development’ decision needs to address all three ‘bottom lines’ of environment, economy and social justice. But decisions that claim ‘sustainability’ or ‘sustainable development’ as their goal should at least be based on conscious consideration of the three and their relationship.

So the Sustainable Communities Act misappropriates the language of sustainability for actions that may not have much connection to sustainable development.

For the time being, the Act fails to provide room for ‘big ideas’ that come directly from local citizens without the backing of local authorities. This seems surprising given that there is no need for proposals to be inherently linked to a particular geographical area; but perhaps it is as far as was achievable in setting formal structures of ‘direct democracy’ for sustainable development at the time of the Act’s adoption. Still, it is unlikely to be the last word as proposed amendments (highlighted further below) show.

The range of proposals that have been put forward from local authorities or the Selector is extraordinarily broad. And there are certainly some radical proposals on local authorities’ lists – including one from Ryedale, to require all shops and supermarkets to clearly label where food has come from to promote more buying of local produce, or another from York that only air compressed cars should be allowed in the City Centre.

The next real test of the Act lies with the Local Government Association’s selection of shortlisted proposals through its Selector Panel. That is due to take place at Selector Panel meetings in October and November.

The LGA’s choices as Selector, and ultimately those of the Secretary of State, could support or undermine the development of integrated approaches to sustainable development at local level. Their decisions could inspire greater community engagement in the future, or cut off an experiment in progress.

Proposals to have already been tabled in the form of a Sustainable Communities Act Amendment Bill, which is due to receive its second reading on 16th October.

The amendments would, if adopted, expand the ‘direct democracy’ potential of the Act, since they incorporate a clause prompting a referendum if the local authority does not want to participate in the act and 5% of electors sign a petition to use the Act. The proposed amendments also envisage a rolling programme of proposals from the Selector to the Secretary of State and provide for Parish Councils to be included within the scope of the Act.

Sadly, the problematic approach to ‘sustainability’ is not addressed.

[NB: this post also appears on http://www.fdsd.org/category/blog/]

The concept of ‘local’ is pretty hot right now. There is the upcoming launch of Talk about Local, for example, which ‘intends to train thousands of people who don’t have a voice to find a powerful online expression for their neighbourhoods’.

Then there are the various events that are springing up, with localism their focus, such as the recent ‘Belocal’, as written up by Carl Haggerty.

On top of that, there’s money too, with the Department for Communities and Local Government keen to pump money into projects that help local government provide ‘timely information to citizens‘.

I’ll profess to having a real interest in locality based projects, and a little while ago wrote about how location can be the foundation of building new communities. I’ve since moved geographically since writing that, and thinking about how this stuff can be applied to where I’m based now seems to turn up more questions than answers.

One of the problems is one of definition: just what does ‘local’ mean – and if it turns out that its meaning is different to different people, does that matter?

I live in a house on a street, in a village, within a parish, that is in a district, a parliamentary constituency and a county too. I’m also close to a city which I visit, sometimes attend meetings but am not officially connected with in any way. I work on a regular basis in London, too.

All of these areas could legitimately be described as local – yet if I were to create project based on locality I would probably have to pick at most two or three of these to focus on. Would this still be legitimate though, and would it mean alienating people for whom local means something different?

To try and refine my thinking on this, I did the only thing a sane person could do in this situation: I asked Twitter.

The responses I received were predictably diverse: based on local transport, nearby streets and local town, enough people to fill a village spread over an unspecified area, walkability, region, county, it moves with you, village, an area of less than 10,000 people, something very personal.

The answer, then, to the question of what local is must be, disappointingly, ‘it depends’. Context, as always, is king. This makes planning local based projects difficult, but it also raises questions about how local democracy functions. How much should people’s feelings about what is local to them be funnelled through structures decided by other people?

This isn’t as much of a hypothetical issue as it may at first seem – for example, the proposals to intorduce unitary authorities to areas such as Shropshire provoked howls of protest from those who felt their local politicians were being made more remote. People’s view on what is local seems to matter to them – and when you break that it pisses them off.

Councillors could help, of course. One positive outcome of the lack of people willing to put themselves forward to be local elected representatives is that we have a number of politicians who are present on two or more of the tiers of local government and can therefore provide continuity and linkage where required.

As more money and energy is spent on creating projects to enhance a sense of community based on locality, it will be increasingly important to research how people’s notions of their own ‘local’ will determine levels of interest. Getting it wrong risks alienating the very people you might want to be engaging with.

I’m never sure whether think-pieces work when the audience is on holiday. Personally, the old adage about getting a busy person to help when you need something doing can be adapted here: If you want to get people’s attention with a new idea, don’t pick a time when they are relaxing to pitch it. If it’s a good-un, it will cut through the clutter of a busy week-day.

Others don’t share my view though, and a few bloggers have clearly chosen the Christmas period to hit ‘publish’ on a few things that have been in their drafts folder for a while.

Here’s Podnosh asking why government doesn’t have reservists?

Here’s Read-Write-Web with what is (for me, anyway) a very optimistic post about re-localisation.

“In Web 1.0, these local businesses were viewed as roadkill. Everything would be ordered online and delivered by air and trucks from giant automated warehouses. Oops, lousy economics; plus increasing consumer push-back. So now Web 2.0 start-ups want to “partner” with these local businesses.”

And finally, RSA chief and former Downing St insider Matthew Taylor here outlines what he believes to be an opportunity for a new progressivism.

“This period was superseded by the long era of dominant individualism which may finally have come to an end with the credit crunch and subsequent downturn. Individualism fostered a remarkable era of innovation and freedom but was already subject to powerful critiques, especially from egalitarians emphasising growing inequality, high levels of social and individual pathology and, most of all, the dangers of climate change.”

He promises to flesh it out a good deal in 2009.