Welcome to the East of England Civic and Amenity Societies

The East of England Civic and Amenity Societies is an informal regional cluster of active civic and amenity groups. Its aim is to exchange experience among its members, and to organise meetings on topics of interest to them.

Click here for November 2011 Newsletter

Message from the Chairman

City growth

According to a report issued on 23 January, Cambridge, Norwich, Peterborough and Ipswich are among the 10 cities in the country with the fastest-growing populations.

National Planning Policy Framework

The government's proposed new National Planning Policy Framework aims to simplify the planning rules but has attracted a lot of opposition because of its stated aim of favouring the needs of business. A couple of months ago I wrote a letter to the region's MPs, along with the regional directors of the CPRE and the National Trust. A dozen or so responded. They included Andrew Lansley, whose reply was maybe not what we would have wanted, but at least indicated that we had given him cause for thought. The CPRE and the National Trust are keeping up the pressure.

Loneliness and old age

From the Campaign to End Loneliness I learn that "about 20 percent of the older population is mildly lonely and another 8 to 10 percent is intensely lonely" and "half of all older people (about 5 million) say the television is their main company". With the number of old people rapidly increasing - a quarter of today's under 16s can expect to live to 100 - this must be cause for serious concern. I draw your attention to Future East, which seeks to to improve the homes, communities, neighbourhoods and lives of the growing number of older people in the east of England.

Local Nature Partnerships

In mid-October I had a visit from a senior staff member from the headquarters of Natural England. We talked about the new Local Nature Partnerships, which DEFRA says are aimed at bringing together local people and organisations to get the most from the natural environment. They should all be in place by next spring. We talked also about the 134 Natural Character Areas with similar landscape character which cover the whole country and for each of which there is and a statement of environmental opportunity. These may perhaps be used to help campaign against inappropriate developments. Volume 6 describes our region.

Smart cities and climate change

On 23 November I was at the QE2 Conference Centre to learn about Smart Cities. We were told that by 2020 there will be 20 trillion devices on the "Internet of Things", for example every traffic light or all our recycling bins. The small Spanish city Rivas is a forerunner example of a digital city, where a single centre controls almost everything in the city and achieves 40% energy savings. Manchester is going down a similar route. 3-dimensional printing will soon be widespread, making objects on demand, varying between clothes and concrete. We were assured that there is money to do these things even when it seems there is not, provided there is confidence in the outcomes from spending it. What is needed is long-term vision.

The CEO of the government's Committee on Climate Change reminded us that the Climate Change Act imposes on us by 2050 an obligation to reduce emissions by 80% compared with 1990. There are significant opportunities to reduce energy consumption in buildings, for example by installing heat pumps and through wall and loft insulation, though lowering thermostat temperatures by 1 degree C has the same effect as improving insulation - when I was a child, before central heating was common, we all wore thick pullover indoors. Better land use and transport planning will be important, as will creating freight consolidation centres, and teaching people to drive economically. The cost of meeting the Climate Change Act target will be no more than 1% of GDP. The load on domestic fuel bills per unit of energy consumed will be perhaps 10%, but this will be more than offset by reduced consumption. The government's new 'Green Deal' will allow energy-saving measures to be paid for by additions to fuel bills but again the bills will be reduced because of the reduced consumption.

Education

On 24 November I heard a talk by Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove, who told us of his measures to improve the quality of schools and the aspirations of the pupils. It was all highly intellectual and I worried that it fails to address the severe shortage experienced by our knowledge-based economy and the associated problem highlighted in the recent Wolf report to the government, that what the schools teach is not what the children need to get jobs. For example, I have been told by a farmer that a new piece of equipment he buys typically costs £100,000 and is very sophisticated, but he cannot get staff capable of operating it.

Transport

On 25 November I attended the annual Transport Forum at Stansted Airport. Stansted is proud of the fact that nearly half its passengers travel to and from the airport by public transport, which is rather more than for any other UK airport. 20% of passengers are "kiss and fly"; while this is much less than Manchester's 60%, such passengers cause twice as much carbon emission as those who simply drive themselves to te airport and park there. We heard how Stansted and other organisations are preparing for the half million overseas visitors expected to come to the Olympics, in addition to 74000 members of the "Olympic Family" and 120 heads of state. They are aiming to handle this as an addition to "business as usual", though 13 August is likely to be a day of mass departure with huge stress on the transport system. We also heard a talk by the Transition Director of Abellio, the subsidiary of Netherlands Railways that is taking over the Greater Anglia rail franchise from National Express on 5 February. Their contract is for 29 months, during which time they aim for many improvements, including reliability, cleaner stations and trains, station and ticketing facilities, passenger information, and car and cycle parking.

Heritage Lottery Fund

Following its recent consultation, the Heritage Lottery Fund is progressively creating a new strategic plan and putting the details on its web page as it does so. The budget for our region will increase by some 25% next year. Details of its various programmes are changing and there is a new fund, Catalyst, a match-funding initiative for the creation of endowments. Looking forward to 2014, the HLF wants to encourage projects with a learning element that will commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of World War 1, such as the restoration of war memorials.

The HLF funds the East Anglia Film Archive, which is owned and operated by the University of East Anglia, Norwich. The Archive has 12,000 hours of film, of which 200 hours can be viewed without charge.

Heritage assets

I was at a meeting in Norwich organised by English Heritage on 17 February to publicise the Heritage Counts website. It contains a lot of useful information, for example a check-list to help organisations that want to increase community involvement in heritage. There is also a link to the web page giving information about heritage assets in our region.

We were told that, although English Heritage has suffered a budget cut of 30%, its grants budget is still there, and it is setting up a Heritage at Risk team for the region.