Church Stretton: How one town could pioneer a green future

Rolling, picturesque Church Stretton is the focus of his attention, but far from the bucolic landscape of today, he is painting pictures of electric cars and buses swishing to and fro, an eco hotel and a pedestrianised town centre.

“About 18 months ago we started to think that we needed to look at the bigger picture,” says David, who is chairman of Stretton Climate Care which has compiled a document called Sustainable Strettons: A Vision For The Future – a vision for the town by 2040.

“It’s not just looking at what we do in Church Stretton but about how it could fit into a whole agenda about sustainable living. We wanted to look at what would help Church Stretton transition to a different sort of environment.”

Stretton Climate Care is a charity which helps people become more energy efficient and reduce their carbon emissions. They estimate they have helped people cut their energy consumption by 14 per cent.

Now the group has developed this blueprint for how to make the whole town an example for environmental living in the 21st century.

The headline grabbing suggestion in the report would be the carbon neutral eco hotel and restaurant.

“In an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty we have to manage the tourism,” says David. “There is one hotel and a few bed and breakfasts. But there is space for another hotel.

“How do we manage tourism without pulling in more and more traffic? Look at Carding Mill Valley on bank holiday weekends and it’s stacked full. But people come in and go away. We thought with the hotel we need to extra capacity, but why not make it into something really attractive to people? That is where the idea for an eco hotel came from.”

Other suggestions include daily markets, a link-up with University Centre Shrewsbury, a big-name restaurant, more cycle tracks and shuttle buses around the town and its neighbouring villages.

“I would like to see an extension of the market,” says David. “At the moment we have one market day a week and the queues for the fruit and veg stores are long. There is scope for a lot more.”

The town currently only has one supermarket, a mid-sized Co-Op.

“There’s an awful lot of people who grow their own food,” says David. “There is a big allotment area and there’s a lot more we could do to promote the idea you don’t have to travel a long way to get local produce.

“We need to think creatively about the space and see if we can use it. Let’s make it possible to clear the cars from the town and have stalls and make it a more vibrant economy.”

Another suggestion is a geology museum and study centre.

“We need to hold on to people a bit more,” he adds. “One of the problems, and it’s not unique to Church Stretton, but young people go through their education and they’re off somewhere else. We don’t keep them and there’s nothing to keep them here.

“We are sitting right in the middle of one of the richest geological areas of the country. You have 10 out of the 12 geological eras represented in the rocks around us. People come to look at it, but do we make any more of it? Why on earth not? We are not making enough of that aspect.

“It’s not about putting a few rock in display cases, it’s about getting young people involved in their own environment and learning about their own environment. There’s huge potential there.”

Youth involvement

The charity has been keen to get young people involved in the decision making process of future plans.

“For the first time the young people have a real say about the future of Church Stretton. When we’re talking about what the future of the town is going to be it’s rather important that we get that generation involved,” said David.

“We started to look at this issues in greater depth and last year we ran a series of discussion forums with a number of different people coming to talk to us about different aspects of what the future of Church Stretton might be and maybe what it needs to be as well.

“It’s what it could look like, and I stress that, if we make certain decisions now. Some people could look at it and say it’s just a wish list, but I say it’s more than that – it’s giving us a direction we would like to head in.

“It’s not just looking at our future in terms of the environment, but also what we need to do to sustain us as a community.

“It’s a vision and I think it has value in starting a conversation about how me might be if put our shoulders to the wheel.

“The one thing a number of us feel strongly about is that if we leave things as they are Church Stretton is just going to sink slowly and becoming just a retirement community.

“Economically that would be unsustainable. There is already an issue about where you find the people to run shops, help in care homes and other services. If we don’t have a proper mix in the community it will not work.”

While some of these suggestions may seem outlandish, David believes that having the discussion may lead to at least some of these changes happening.

“If we don’t put the ideas up then nobody’s going to think about it,” he says. “It’s a worthy ambition to say to the whole community ‘we’ve got something special here’. If we develop it in certain ways we can become a bit of a byword for a good community.

“If you don’t make changes yourself then other people will impose changes on you and it may not be the change you want.”