'Small Is Beautiful' Meets 'Big and Quango'

bristol | local government | news report Wednesday August 20, 2008 13:35 by SWDRAwatch

SWRDAwatch: Watching SWRDA Spend Our Money...

Bristol is to host the Schumacher Conference 2008. But there is anger that SWRDA is sponsoring the event.

Bristol is to host the Schumacher Conference 2008. If you have not heard of Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher - he was a a statistician and economist who wrote the influential book 'Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered' - an interesting collection of essays worth reading - to give you a sample quote;

"Ever bigger machines, entailing ever bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom. Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful

What is also interesting about this event is that among the very right-on sponsors is the very un-right-on South West Regional Development Agency; what some may say is the very opposite of 'Small is Beautiful'

SWRDA's policies are all big - bigger road networks, bigger airports and bigger housing developments. Are they trying to rub a bit of Greenwash on themselves to avoid the ongoing criticism of their support for large-scale carbon-heavy projects? Some of Bristol's greens are understandably angry as one remarked on an email forum (we hope he won't mind us re-printing the comments here, as they say it all better than we could!);

"I cant help wondering why SWRDA are honoured by being sponsors of the Schumacher celebrations. From my experience as a local campaigner for green and environmental issues I find SWRDA the antithesis of Small is Beautiful. More like Big is Bad. They seem to me to be remote, unaccountable, bureacratic and heavy handed. I see them imposing plans for up to 100,000 new homes in our area, not preceded by appropriate infrastucture, never mentioned in any party's manifesto. I see appalling regional transport systems. Land near Bristol Temple Meads which should be a passenger transport hub being sold to commercial developers despite SWRDA's promises of a Hub in the area. I see them putting the boot in re the Arena. I see Bristol's "Showcase Bus Routes" little more than an expensive excuse not to do anything else about public transport. I see railway lines that could be used by commuters restricted to goods only. I see a nuclear power station being extended (and brutally protected against protesters), in fact I see no environmental good that I can attribute to SWRDA while many regional services, run by Quangos that SWRDA sits upon or could influence, failing miserably - police, ambulances, hospitals (financially and re MRSA)."

Oh dear; looks like with the link up of SWRDA and the Schumacher people it won't be green, but red.

(The site with the info on seemed to be down, but there is a google-cache here;
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:1gUDrW6GoJQJ:www.sch...gl=uk )