Building a lifeboat in Shepparton to survive the 'perfect storm'

To the Mayor and Councillors,
Economic difficulties have ricocheted around the world and although Australia, and by implication Shepparton, has avoided a direct hit, the collateral damage is growing as are the conditions for a perfect storm.
The City ofGreater Shepparton Council is one of many, but the most important of bulwarks to protect our community from the rigours of a failing and flailing economy.

The seven-strong City of
 Greater Shepparton Council, led
by its mayor, Cr  Geoff
 Dobson (right),
 who can build Shepparton into
 a "lifeboat city".

That “perfect storm” has arisen from a collision of circumstances that some skeptics still doubt – humans, that is you and me, have irreparably damaged our atmosphere causing huge shifts in weather patterns; our growth mandated economy is breaking down; the fossil fuels that underpin the energy on which the world as we know it depends are severely depleted, or becoming uneconomic or impossible to recover; and the technology that many pay homage to and declare our saviour, is bankrupt.
Bankruptcy is something that has crossed the minds of many recently and it is something that will devour entire communities in decades to come and so rather than scurry of to a secluded hut in the bush armed with a loaded gun and rations, people need to bond with their community and work with council to build hope and resilience.
Difficult times can best be surmounted if courageous and decisive leaders step forward and who better to do that than those already elected to such a role, our councillors.
Our unfolding future will be decidedly different from the immediate centuries past, which were awash with easily accessible and effectively free fossil energies.
Starting from today, council needs to build a community that will answer human needs and happiness without the fossil fuels that have lifted it to its present stature.
Food will be a priority and council needs to create several significant community gardens throughout the city; fuel being rare and expensive means significant effort should be applied to the creation of frequent, fast and reliable public transport and both cycling and walking should be made easier and encouraged; planning and zoning should encourage increased residential density in the heart of the city; and as the modern world edges towards collapse, council needs to instigate throughout the community, ways and means for people to learn about and understand the skills of yesteryear.
Applying the adage that it is never too late, council needs to engage with the community and so exploit our richest resource – people and their innovation and resilience – to build on the rich wisdom, and hard work, that fortified the Greater Goulburn Valley.
Difficulties beyond what is understood and expected will emerge with alarming rapidity and Shepparton, guided and cared for by the council can become what is known in post-fossil fuels era nomenclature as a “life-boat city”.

Long-lived passion for better urban design takes flight

Bill Chandler’s long-lived passion to improve urban design in Australia was publicly endorsed in Melbourne on Thursday, April 22.

Nearly 50 people meet in the “Melbourne Room” at the city town hall in Swanston St to enthusiastically to support an idea that would see Australia have its own version of Britain’s Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE).

For about a decade Bill has felt Australia should have its version of CABE and in the March edition of the Urban Design Forum, the quarterly magazine of the Victorian based UDF, Bill discussed the value of CABE and how Australia would benefit from something similar.

Bill, a co-founder and honorary editor of Urban Design Forum, was convinced that Australia had both the appropriately skilled and qualified people for a “CABE down-under”, as it has been colloquially described, and an evident need for such a body.

It was only at the March lunch meeting of the UDF that Bill first formally proposed the idea to others involved with the group and in discussions it was agreed a small group should meet to further discuss the idea.

Among those at the lunch and who is a former employee of CABE in Great Britain, Leon Yates, who presently works with the Victoria’s Department of Planning and Community Development, and he was confident other former CABE employees would support Bill’s idea.

Arrangements were made for a meeting on April 22 of just several people at the Urban Initiatives office of UDF co-founder Bruce Echberg, but interest spread and so with the support of Melbourne City Council, the meeting was moved to a town hall.

Bill’s idea was enthusiastically taken up and so what had been little more than just an idea simmering in Bill’s mind had boiled over to become a movement that has spread interstate, attracting interest from all parts of the country.

A 90-minute discussion resulted in the formation of ten-strong initial working group, as it was called, to further consider the idea and determine a clear direction of how to progress “CABEDU”.

That initial working group is: David Rayson, Geoffrey London (State Architect- top right), Laura-Jo Mellan, Emma Appleton, Justin Kelly, Gerry McLoughlin, Bruce Echberg, Leon Yates, Rod Duncan and Bill Chandler.

Also among those at the April 22 meeting was Melbourne City Council’s Director of City Design, Rob Adams (above right).

In an email circulated the day after the event, Bill Chandler said: “Thanks for your contributions yesterday. The feedback is very positive, and already the interest is spreading to those who were not able to be there, including interstaters”.