Opinion - The end of Changing Our City

The following was originally submitted as a letter to the Nottingham Evening Post, and printed in a slightly edited form (e.g. omitting reference to LA21) on 24/2/06.

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So it looks like Changing Our City, Changing Ourselves is finally dead.

At this time of year in 2001 this "Local Agenda 21" plan for the City of Nottingham was adopted by the City Council and Nottingham Green Partnership, to run for five years. It set out a vision of a world better for people and the planet, from health and housing to waste and transport to fair trade and climate change. It was produced through a major consultation exercise that drew out the views of many individuals and organisations.

We were promised annual action plans and reports on progress, but these never materialised. As someone who was actively involved in the early stages of the process, I have always felt a great disappointment about this. Of course lots of good things have happened out there, from changes in the City's transport systems to tree-planting by small community groups. There are still communication channels like Living for Tomorrow magazine and the Wake Up Nottingham website I founded last year. But one wonders what might have been achieved if we had all been working together in a coordinated way for the last five years. The need is no less than then.

Tim Gray Villa Street, Beeston