Friends of the Earth Birmingham Action Briefing Oct-Nov 97

Un sustainability ? - No thanks

A cloud the shape of a map of Scotland moved slowly across the sky. A blue sky, a summer evening in Alfreton, Derbyshire. The sky, inspiration for poets, ceiling of our lives, and boundary of the earth's atmosphere. No one can take that from us. If only that were so; sombre scientists talk of Climate Change. Politicians realise in panic that the change is almost upon us. There is to be a change so we may as well embrace it. Some change is thrust upon us.

The change in which we are invited to indulge is 'sustainability'. Sustainability has various definitions but is a simple idea. It occurs as a section or as an aspiration in many reports. The problem arises in reports where development is the goal and sustainability is the desirable bit nailed on. Development can be a positive thing. It can be the process of learning and improving. Currently, sadly, the word 'development' is in harness to the forces of consumerism and materialism. Instead of being about the nobility of humanity, development is about having more and better possessions.

So Sustainability and Development - an unlikely couple ? The jury is out. Alfreton Station is a symbol of development. Planned for 'the way we live today' (only that was yesterday). Now it is an example of an idea that has moved on. It was Alfreton and Mansfield Parkway Station until recently. When built, large areas of car-parking were laid out. In its heyday, buses and taxis stopped outside its modern ticket office, a ticket office which beckoned the traveller onto gleaming Inter City trains to London. This type of station, we were told, and still are by some, was the way to entice the motorist onto the train. Why so quiet now? This passing phase, this skateboard of the Railway Network, passed away as quickly as the Spice Girls arrived. Was it sustainable ? Did its production leave us deprived of some resource ?

A materials list goes as follows : The car park has a base of quarried stone, and its surface is of quarried stone with bitumen binder. Bitumen is a resource as is stone. The kerbs are of precast concrete : quarried stone with cement binder. Cement is processed rock and relies on very high energy input in its production. The station platform is edged in concrete and then has a tarmac surface. The lamp columns are steel, a highly processed material. The lamp covers are in plastic which is produced from oil.

If you have read this far, then you have started to see the considerations of just one aspect of sustainability. You should also be involved in Local Agenda 21, every borough in the West Midlands is formulating ideas. The next question for you to respond to (for inclusion in the next newsletter ? - Ed.) is how you build a railway station using sustainable materials.

Challenge and change - don't you just love them ?

John Davison