By: Truro Civic Society

Truro Civic Society — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:30:06 +0000

[…] On one side, Mike Burgess who has called for a bypass round Truro – see here […]

By: Bert Biscoe

Bert Biscoe — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 12:56:55 +0000

Mike’s contribution is challenging and timely – Truro needs a debate about its future infrastructure and commerical future – factors bearing on the town are intensifying almost daily – the web, climate change, localism, resilience, universities down river and so on.

I hope that, in the New Year, the Society can mount a public debate on these issues to try and begin to find solutions to the conundrum which is our future.

Speaking personally, Mike Burgess’s analysis of the developing environmental is well sourced and, allowing for margins of error caused by the interplay of optimism and pessimism interspered with ‘events’ and circumstances probably quite accurate.
However, he assumes that, as climate change consequences amass, society will just soldier on, consuming, travelling, supplied and cared for. We are sophisticated, wealthy and ingenious, but one of the key consequences of climate change will be the impact on society and behaviour.
Already, we see a quickly intensifying focus on self-reliance and self-sufficiency – this is reflected, for instance, in attitudes to gardens attacced to urban housing – post-war we built houses with gardens of some size, in the 60s – 90s we reduced them to postage stamps (token gestures) and turned them into parking spaces. Then, in the 2000s, demand for allotments exploded, and design values have begun to offer gardens which are growing larger in each new plan – allotment space is now a regular actor in s106 Agreements!
This is just one example. Set beside the fact that the whole mobile society/retail supply continuum is based on easily accessible cheap oil, and that oil is set to reduce in both availability and quality in the future, then it is likely that our social needs will noit necessarily run to expanding our highways infrastructure in the way which Mike suggests.
Add to this that it is not only oil which is depleting, but also materials – those things from which we make vehicles, white goods, machinery and consumer goods have been used in such quantities by industrial society that we, as the dominant species on Earth, need to urgently think about setting priorities and using as little as possible in order to sustain resources and to pass on a sustainable set of physical and social circumstances to our successors.
I believe that we will need to move people aorund Cornwall, although, as our useage of the internet evolves, our reasons for moving will probably alter. I think the most obvious and reasonable solution is to re-utilise the already existing rail infrastructure, to re-kindle disused routes (most of which are still, by and large, in place and unimpeded) and to bring private lines (eg Bodmin Wenford, Lostwithiel-Fowey, Imerys) into the public network.
I would therefore counter Mike’s suggestion of a major bypass (a road which would duplicate the purpose and function of Morlaix Avenue/Tregolls Road (the Truro by-pass!) by suggesting that we need to ensure that

a. Truro is resiliently prepared to develop trade that takes advantage of the internet –

b. develop both Hugus and Claremont Terrace rail halts as a matter of urgency – this would greatly enhance connectivity within the ‘conurbation’ and would stimulate singificant energisation of the town centre –

c. remove park and ride to Blackwater and Probus, where each facility can be ‘cut in’ to the rail network, offering commuters a better value interchange in terms of cost, environmental impact and time saving, reducing urbanisation of rural hinterland (as we see at Langarth – 1500 houses, supermarket etc) and, disastrously, at Work House Cross in the open countryside withbthe loss of good quality, productive arable land.

Comments on: “To kill two birds with one stone”

By: Truro Civic Society

By: Bert Biscoe