Sustainability &Freshford Somerset

The following article is copied from a Google cache of the Wikipedia article for Freshford. Since the article used to read as below, it has been edited 'dumbed down' one might say (although I don't like the phrase). The alterations although on the whole good, do remove the fact that a lot of residents have spent many hours trying to deter Bath and North East Somerset and councillors from permitting the development. The argument is that what is written below is one sided and does not give the other side of recommending that the application should be permitted. I have not had any comment on why this development should have been permitted from any of those parties involved: B&NES Planning, Government Office of the South West, councillors. Ypres Rose Devlopments have also refrained from putting forth their argument for wanting to build at Freshford Mill. Of course I just may be too close to the issue and maybe many will accept the present article.

If anyone wants to edit the present Wikipedia article they are quite entitled to do so. On an earlier date the complete article section below was just removed in its entirety.

<The most important issue facing Freshford is the current development at Freshford Mill.^{[citation needed]} For the whole of the 21st Century, Freshford and its parish council, have had to spend a great amount of time trying to stop a development at Freshford Mill that would increase the population of the village and put great stress on the local roads^{[citation needed]}. There has been some disagreement as to whether the development now being undertaken by Ypres Rose is unwelcome^{[citation needed]}. The facts are that 80 percent of the village objected to the development that was proposed by Southern and Counties and only 1 person was in favour (provided the transport problems could be overcome). These facts come from the Freshford Parish Council's Extraordinary Meeting of the 22nd July 2002. The document may be found with some difficulty on the BANES Planning website but is more easily found (reproduced under APPENDIX F : DEMOCRATIC CONSULTATION AND PARISH COUNCIL EXTRAORDINARY MEETING) at [1]

The development which is in progress, is to convert a disused industrial site within a Zone 3 flood plain into a residential estate. Flood plain zones as defined by DEFRA state that Zone 3 is one of high probability of annual flooding [2]>

On reflection, the request for 'citation needed' is met by the reference to the 'Appendix F: Democratic . . .' Or is that not enough?

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This is just a note to inform villagers, planners and those who are searching the Internet that a video survey of the visibility of Freshford Memorial Hall and the proposed new village shop has been completed. and can be seen at: Freshford Video Survey

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Living on Staples Hill means that if I want to use gas as a fuel I will have to pay several thousand pounds for its supply. Instead I use electric powered night storage heaters. Only one is switched on at present. In addition, in the evening, I light a wood burning fire, unless I go out, an evening down the pub means that I share heat with others -its part of the price of a pint of beer or glass of wine.

I estimate that I need 40 kgs of wood a day for one third of the year for heating. Thats 122 days x 40 which equals 4880 kgs per year, or approximately 5 tons of wood. Possibly I could also cook but my Jet Master fire is not designed for cooking.

Instead of using my electric cooker I mainly use my electric wok using a little oil and a lid to partly steam my food. I also use a steamer on the electric hob -using hot water from my kettle to save energy. A lot of my food hardly needs cooking but is nicer hot!

Burning wood is carbon neutral but does release toxic fumes. Can our population currently 60 million or about 25 million households use wood from the UK? We need at least 25 million x 5 tons or 125 million tons of wood a year to rely on wood as fuel for heating.

The facts are that roughly we are using less than 11 million tons of wood from our forests and importing timber. We also use thousands of tons of timber for paper and for other purposes -don't ask! Ideally we should be using wood as fuel, not fossil or nuclear fuel. Now what we produce from the forestry commission wood production annual is only part of what we could produce and use, but can we with our present population, grow 125 million tons of wood a year? Because that's what we need (probably more)

At present I love my wood fire and believe that we should be using wood as a fuel, and live in a small space that we can keep warm easily.

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I have published my comments on the planning application below:

Although a Wilsthire resident I live closer to Freshford village centre than to Westwood. To save fuel I would prefer to shop in Freshford as it is only a short walk away. The proposed application does provide parking for those who need to do more shopping and who are dropping off or collecting children from the school. This will reduce the congestion along Freshford Lane.  As the proposed shop is located adjoining the Freshford Memorial Hall and is close to a children's playground the shop will foster community relations and reduce the risk to children from traffic. I don't think that the location  of the shop would detract from the appearance of the neighbourhood.

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Where ever the proposed village shop needs to be, it does need to be large enough to provide the range of goods that we need and at reasonable prices. The combined shop and post office at Winsley is a good example.

I am concerned that there should always be a range of fresh vegetables available. There is a danger that because there is not much profit on fresh produce this part of the produce for sale will be neglected and disappointed shoppers will just go to Bradford On Avon. 

One of the great things about supermarkets are that it is unusual to not to be able to buy what you need, whatever the time of day. And often, whatever the time of day there are usually bargains.

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Whilst I felt that the Eden Project would, no doubt have been able to make use of the funds to further the development of the most  important centre in the World for the preservation of the environment (my opinion!) I also liked the  Sustrans Connect 2 project. Why not money for both folks, £50 million is only 83 pence each!

Tim Smits' Eden website has sent an email message to its supporters: Eden Message from Director Yes, we really do need a means to get from A to B without risking being mown down by traffic. Money well spent, provided Sustrans can manage it. Tim Smit is a financial genius and the money would not have been wasted. I hope that Sustrans will be able make efficient use of the money.

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Quite remarkable news Ypres Rose has put the development up for sale at:  Land4Developers Strange but this link no longer works -one has to subscribe to view the details of the sale.

 

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Anyone interested in the village of Freshford who lives in England and also in Ireland who is concerned with our ability to sustain our present ability to live, and our children to thrive, into the future should be interested in this document. The conclusions are reprinted below.

I believe that Freshford Parish Council England has statistics that can be compared to those collected in Freshford Co. Kilkenny. I have mislaid my document with the summaries of the UK Freshford survey, but, I believe that there is a remarkable similarity.

The researchers from the University of Limerick chose Freshford Co. Kilkenny a small village typical of many in Ireland as such villages had been left out of national sustainable development research to date (in Ireland, and probably here). I suspect that the situdation in Ireland is similar to that in England.  And likewise the probable effects on sustainability not only in Ireland but also in England are to be noted.

The question is what can we do?

The research document can be accessed here:

http://esaiweb.org/documents/proceedings/ENVIRON2005_Ryan_Pauline.pdf

CONCLUSIONS (from that research)
The current trends of personal transport in the small settlement of
Freshford indicate unsustainable patterns of resource use are facilitating the residents’ requirements. Contributing factors include the
location of services such as employment, shopping and recreational
services and the transport modes with which these services are accessed. The implications of these findings, especially if mirrored in
other small settlements nationwide, represent a challenge for policymakers to combat the unsustainable patterns of personal transport emerging from small settlements like Freshford.

The title of the research:

EXAMINING MATERIAL FLOWS IN FRESHFORD, CO. KILKENNY: AN ANALYSIS OF HOUSEHOLD TRANSPORT CONSUMPTION
Pauline Ryan, Bernadette O’Regan and Richard Moles

ABSTRACT
This research proposes to advance the pursuit of sustainable development in small Irish settlements by means of exploring the link between materials consumption and sustainability in a small settlement setting. This initiative will facilitate a pattern of development and  esource use promoting positive effects on our current supply of natural capital. Natural capital, defined as stocks of natural assets, facilitates our materials consumption, and a criterion for sustainability is now deemed to be non-declining natural capital, thus enabling material flows to be maintained indefinitely (Hinterberger et al. 1997, p2;
Bartelmus 1999, p159). The consumption component of personal transport has been accounted for in Freshford, Co. Kilkenny. Ecological footprint (EF) analysis was applied as a tool to indicate the sustainability of current transport patterns within the settlement. The results have indicated that reliance on the private car to facilitate the majority of journeys is the primary contributing factor to unsustainable transport patterns in the settlement.

When I have more time I will provide my views on this research and its relationship to Freshford in the UK. In the mean time apart from reviewing Irish research one might care to enjoy Irish music at a neighbouring village pub the Farleigh Arms in Farleigh Hungerford.

Music is on every Sunday night, and the food is very good and reasonably priced.

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