With climate change affecting our weather patterns and peak oil limiting our capacity for economic growth, combined with the credit crunch, it is surely time to look at the resilience of our towns.
It is all very well having new supermarkets being built, but they do not add to the food and energy security for a community that resilience implies.
As long as the big store lorries keep coming into town, then there is plenty of food on the shelv
es and a lot of variety to chose from. But should the trucks stop arriving, for whatever reason, what then? In 2000 the petrol protests did stop the food deliveries and the only reason the government gave in to the protesters was because the supermarket shelves were within a day of being bare.
That tells us one resilience message; you need supplies to come from lots of different sources. Loose one and you are still okay, but we have made our infrastructure very fragile. We depend on surprisingly few trucks delivering all the food and the National Grid to deliver all our electricity and gas.
The more towns have become dependent on outside big firms the more they have lost touch with their own hinterland. Traditionally, towns like Hawick had their own market for livestock, their own abattoir and, of course, their own butchers. There was a deep link between the farms scattered around the town and the town as the hub. Today that link is barely there. True, Hawick has much of its milk from Orchard Farm and the High Street butchers will tell you which local farm their meat comes from, but farmers take their livestock to Longtown, slaughter happens at Galashiels, and the Saturday market, welcome as it is, has very few local suppliers.
The term "local economy" is used a lot, but the local economy needs to be resilient, connected to its hinterland and built from within. Every national chain takes its profits out of the town, too often we have seen a firm encouraged to set up, employ the local labour force and then pull out when the profits will be higher elsewhere. The real local economy is when local people grow and make local food, goods and services and the money stays in the town.
So the second conclusion about resilience is reconnect our towns with their hinterlands.
The last of our seminars takes place on Wednesday in the Tower Mill at 7.30pm, when you can discuss this matter more fully. Everyone is welcome (£2).
