Sustainable Communities
New member of staff in CESW: Funda Willetts
Funda Willetts joined our team as Sustainable Communities Manager in October. She is seconded to the role by Bath & North East Somerset Council where she has been a Senior Urban Designer in the Planning Service since 2006. She also teaches undergraduates architecture studio as a Visiting Lecturer at UWE. Funda is an architect who specialises in the sustainable conservation of historic buildings and sites and has worked in practices in both London and Bath. Her research work and roles in both the private and public sectors of the construction industry have greatly informed her views on achieving Sustainable Communities and will serve as a sound foundation on which to develop the sustainable communities agenda within the team.
For example, Funda's personal research centres around community and conservation led regeneration looking at development grounded within the established built fabric of a place, which often already embodies a source of common identity for diverse communities. She writes:
This work looked at places where the industry or enterprise around which communities had grown fell into decline leaving a legacy of derelict old buildings and sites. I travelled to Mexico, the USA, Canada and Germany to observe projects at varying degrees of progress. Poignant reminders of what regeneration should be about were demonstrated by how the level of involvement a community had in initiating and implementing regeneration projects directly influenced the overall success of development proposals. Factors such as strong leadership and prime funding from State bodies were also critical for success giving us cues for how we could improve projects here. A report of the destinations studied and a summary of findings can be found at the following link: www.wcmt.org.uk/reports/127_1.pdf
I find learning from examples abroad a great source of inspiration for projects at home because it helps to analyse the way we do things in the UK in more detail. In October, I returned to Germany on a self-funded trip to Freiburg with a number of Council colleagues to explore the ideas for achieving Sustainable Communities there and speak to those that initiated them. Once again we found that strong leadership by the state was integral to getting projects off the ground where they then built up a momentum for communities to carry on the development and regeneration process themselves. Examples such as community owned wind turbines, self-build volume housing solutions, local wine production and co-ordinated infrastructure projects were just some of the examples we could implement here within our existing policy frameworks to meet our own communities needs.
Sustainable Communities Events
Future Foundations works with regional partners to hold Sustainable Communities focused events around the region. Email info@buildsw.org.uk for more information.
Our Sustainable Communities Project
Future Foundations will over the next two years be seeking to develop the whole life value concept *and promote it within the South West Region.
* ie societal and community value such as health and well-being not just narrow monetary or land value while still taking legal and commercial factors into account.
We want all our developments to reflect these wider values and therefore we will work towards fully defining them and providing information to developers and all involved in the delivery process. Watch this space for further developments. If you have relevant case studies or you would like to be involved in this project by providing some tangible support or contribution then please contact us.
Our Sustainable Communities Programme has started with a series of projects proposed to ensure the concept of sustainable communities is embedded within different facets of the construction industry. Please click here for the presentation draft. This presentation details our proposals and we would welcome your views, support and ideas for collaboration.
The Southwest Sustainability Checklist includes a number of items relevant to sustainable community
The Checklist is an easy-to-use online tool that has been developed by Future Foundations and BRE. Devised specifically to guide the design of new developments by making sense of current policy, the Checklist highlights best practice, complementing Ecohomes and the new Code for Sustainable Homes and includes sections for community, place making and transport.
Sustainable Suburbs Research
