Transition Hertford response to East Herts Local Development Framework consultation

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Comment by Sandra White on December 6, 2010 at 11:19

Hi, Don,

many thanks for responding to this in the way you have.

You raise an extremely important perspective. Our approach , including during the years before we converted ourselves to Transition Hertford, has been to cultivate relationships with the various statutory levels of Hertford and Hertfordshire, and to help them to experience us as 'allies' rather than as a 'pressure group'. Also, we have tried to take full account of the culture of Hertford, which is much more mainstream than, for example, Totnes. So our initiatives have been tailored to try to fit in with the culture of our town, rather than to be very radical.

My own view is that we have been reasonably successful with the Town Council of Hertford and with the Sustainability Officer of East Herts Council - we have not yet made any great effort towards engaging with the County Council. If I focus on East Herts, because the LDF process relates to them, one of the challenges is that, as a Council, they have only one officer responsible for everything 'green' whose workload, therefore, is extraordinarily challenging. It is fair to say that I think it's unlikely that the Planning Department would have thought about involving us, as we don't yet have the high profile with them as we do with the Sustainability Officer. I'm hoping that our submission will begin to change that, and we will follow up with them to see how we can achieve more of an 'ally' relationship with them.

We will at all times need to bear in mind, as a backdrop to all our activities, that the elected representatives at the different statutory levels of Hertfordshire are most concerned to be tuned in to the majority of their electorates, who themselves are not yet convinced of or tuned in to the Transition agenda - indeed, many are extremely wary of it. So the degree to which we will be welcomed at a statutory level remains to be seen and I am prepared for this to a long, slow endeavour!

Thank you, Don, once again, for responding; I greatly welcome your generous participation in Transition Hertford.

Comment by don carlin on December 5, 2010 at 10:13

Hi Sandra – my first observation is that Andrew, Doug and yourself have produced a fantastic team effort in not very much time – and thank goodness we have people who understand the various planning acts etc. applicable to the Development Framework, as proposed by East Herts. and hold them properly to account for the deficiencies in that consultation document. Fused with the various Transition perspectives I think this response will at the very least alert the council that the Transition Initiative is to be taken more seriously than perhaps heretofore.

I've taken time to work through the Issues and Options document and of course the detailed response you've submitted. This is certainly not my own area of expertise so, whilst impressed as above, I can offer no real input to the subject matter.

However there is one particular aspect of this entire exercise that comes to the fore and that should be of concern to us.

First, as I understand it, we were not invited by the council to participate in this process in good time, or indeed at all. As far as I'm aware we were alerted to this consultation by one of our members and by then it was well underway?

Second, that brings into focus our relationship with the East Herts Council.
From what little information is available about our relationship and contacts with the council it would seem we have not yet reached a position where we can be more effective and recognised for the inputs we can make to Frameworks such as this and to the East Herts District as a whole. The council is proceeding in a direction that signals the belief that following the governmental line of 'more of the same,' will solve our problems and is the best way for them to proceed. In this regard, the most important aspect of the response you've submitted is as an opening salvo in a concerted attempt by Transition Hertford to re-educate the council's apparently embedded beliefs. How we proceed with that re-education and how effective it might be as this consultation process develops will determine how we, as an initiative for a more radical change, can and will proceed in the future.

Have we yet, as per the Kinsale experience, reached a point were we can present the East Herts Council with a similar resolution? And do we have any members of the council that are at this point inclined to support us?