We've sorted rich flood of ideas and vision elements shared into four broad groups; you can access the other groups – and a catch-all group - below.
The Need for Change, Engagement & Being Heard
• A legacy for nature and close community: a supportive network to enrich people's lives.
• Change takes so long – who can we hold to account? Need to be able to hold people/council/government to account.
• Local elections are short term – how can we get long-term support for action?
• Do we achieve change within existing structures or alternative? When is protest valid to be listened to? How radical do we have to become?
• More interaction between communities and councils. Councils need to ask questions and really listen.
• Have PAs with power to deliver in order to engage and empower communities. This needs collaboration between people and council, we are all involved and must share a wider, more shared responsibility.
• Our voices must be heard by the right people, in the right place – concerning the environment where we live.
• How change can be achieved locally when we need the right policies from national government to support and fund councils and communities.
• Engage young people.
• People being able to articulate the change they want to see happen, the PA gives greater democracy; it is a light bulb moment for ordinary and diverse people who want to change things in their community.
• Change has to happen, we have the ability to unite and form umbrella organisations with a common purpose, like the Cycling forums and Plastic-Free Bookham.
• The May elections are soon and while many councillors have the good of the community at heart, they really don't get it. We need to inform them in a non-political way how to make better decisions, so we can get together to pool energy and enthusiasm.
• What principles on what we want from environment and how to achieve e.g. Dorking council buildings.
• Use education as a good way of solving poverty. The adult education centre in Dorking has been empty since I've lived here - a wasted resource. More learning opportunities = more employment opportunities.
• A structural, general approach.
• Partnership: use the twinning systems to share goals and support them to do what we're doing.
• Concerns around inclusivity and diversity; we shouldn't just be shouting into our echo chamber.
• Small groups can effect change, particularly if they focus on one thing. There is a plan to plant over 1.2 million trees in Surrey and more engagement is needed with the tree wardens to get buy in for the proposed locations.
• Need for a focus on things that are tangible to us.
• Communities being able to come together across political divides to tackle environmental problems together.
• Local councils to be better at engaging in "blue-sky thinking".
• Surrey to have less economic inequality.
• It is "perverse" for an area as rich as Surrey to have such inequality, particularly food inequality. Instead all inhabitants need to be supported to live their best possible lives, and to be able to love where they live.
• Imagined a culture of kindness and community support, with a Scandinavian style of public policy and a more socially conscious population.
• Every inhabitant of East Surrey to have a voice and be listened to by 2030.
• Would like a wider group of people to have agency over how land is managed and developed.
• A universal basic income
• Living in Surrey is too expensive for young people.
• Capitalise on the new connections established because of the pandemic.
• People's Assemblies become a regular and normal way to decide things and spur politicians to listen to the will of the people.
• Build a good community model: Community is a really important component and is not really working properly. The Scottish have a community councils model, where it acts as a voice for their local area. [This may be it: https://www.gov.scot/publications/community-councils-model-scheme-for-establishment/ ]
• Work from within our community groups.
• Help our communities to help ourselves.
• The whole community must work together and be less divided.
• Harness the energy of young people and enable them to feel part of the community.
• Councils must respond to local people and engage with them by asking questions and listening to what people have to say. PAs may be one way of enabling this. Good to give people a voice, but important that that voice is being heard by the right people. There is no longer a town council office in Leatherhead so local engagement reduced.
• Ensure there's a way of monitoring progress on targets in Surrey Climate Change Strategy to make sure things do happen – a way of holding to account.
A shared vision for 'community'?
At the end of the 22 April Assembly each breakout room presented the 3 most common themes from their participants' contributions. Here's a Vision Statement based on those 33 summary elements; that vision can be made much richer by inclusion of the detail from above.When you subscribe to the blog, we will send you an e-mail when there are new updates on the site so you wouldn't miss them.
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