11th June 2007

John Marjoram gives a different but important economic overview of Stroud in June 2007 for the Citizen's Business Supplement.

Photo: John Marjoram's recent no to plastic bags 

Although having only recently been elected again as Mayor of Stroud, I have been struck, within the last two weeks of occurrences which although diametrically opposed will have both economic and cultural impact for our futures. In one the message was great news for Stroud, the other was that if we don’t start changing our lifestyles fairly quickly then the future looks pretty bleak.

Every year the Town Council gives out awards to people and organisations who have made contributions to the town, these range from “Trader of the Year” to Design Award of the Year”- generally a building award. The Civic award winner was, Jo Leahy and Neil Walker who had, through their joint effort, over 10 years created a fabulous Stroud Art Space. This project of an artist lead studio co-operative, with the financial help from the “Arts Council-South West” together with funding from local authorities and other donations, have brought into life an unknown, unloved and semi-derelict warehouse in central of Stroud. It has created a brilliantly designed space which will be a joy to work in, and will boost the economy in Stroud. Already over the last seven years, the Art Space Open Studios have generated millions to the local economy. For the next two weekends over ninety studio are open to the public. The“site07” programme is backed up by artistic events which major Cities would find difficult to match. This happened through two young people having a vision for Stroud and had the ability to cooperate with others who like themselves had very little money to start with

The other event, which was more instantly dramatic, was a talk in Stroud given by a fairly unassuming Californian, Professor Richard Heinberg, this attracted over four hundred people who were in rapt awe by his expert deliberations on “Peak Oil” It wasn’t a theory that he was pedalling but exposed our collective believe that oil would never run out! Reality however is dawning that our insatiable consumption of oil proves this was wrong and that within the next 20 years “black gold” maybe at a price of real gold. In 1972 the Club of Rome, a group of international scientist and economists, published a report entitled, “Limits to Growth” which clearly spelt out that all raw materials were finite. We ignored that wisdom then, preferring to carry on with our “through- away society.”

Now things are catching up with us fast. If not handled responsibly this will create complete mayhem, leaving only the strongest to survive. Heinberg’s  advice when speaking to the District Council members was, start planning now and this means developing predominately local economies. The combination of climate change and the peak oil factor means that looking seriously at sustainability is our only sane future. The challenge is both a threat and an opportunity.

Finally on a very local level, if I could have a wish for the Town, it would be that  the local community could have some control, as in France, through different levels of Business rates, of what types of shops the Town needed. Does it really make sense that around fifty of our Stroud shops consist of Estate Agents, Hairdressers and Fast Food outlets and not one Hardware Shop!? 

John Marjoram  Stroud Mayor