Time For Reflection

Sustain Britain Blog 19th December 2024

Christmas is often a time for quiet reflection; a time to look back on achievements and opportunities.

For us, it has been a momentous year marked by the birth of the Sustain Britain movement, and the launch of our inaugural conference. Attracting delegates from across the country, the conference presented an opportunity to introduce Sustain Britain to a community of like-minded individuals interested in building resilient, self-sufficient local communities across Britain.

Prompting lively discussion and debate, aided by breakout sessions and panel Q&As, the conference has played a key part in shaping the development of our draft manifesto that will be finalised in the new year, ready to be launched.

Thanks to Connect M3, who have produced a Thought Bytes podcast, you can tune into a thought-provoking summary of the conference, outlining the concept of Sustain Circles, and summarising the thoughts of our eminent conference speakers including Sir Jonathan Porritt, Roz Savage MP, Thomas Panton, and Jarvis Smith.

David Charles and the Connect M3 team have done a great job on this. It’s good to see community-based media at work. Listen in here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sObTyuz7JPc

As part of our commitment to building sustainable communities we are supporting the Sustain Wiltshire Community Interest Company in the development of the Sustain Super-Midden, which will help provide affordable food, energy and employment to the local communities of Royal Wootton Basset, Malmesbury, Purton and Brinkworth.

Sadly, due to bureaucratic red tape, it is becoming increasingly clear that to keep this groundbreaking project on track, we will have no choice but to adopt Sustainable Anarchy to shake the authorities into action.

On a more general note, Britain’s attitude to investing in British business leaves a lot to be desired. This has been put into sharp focus by the sale of Harland & Wolff – one of the world’s most iconic shipbuilders – to a Spanish Company owned by the Spanish Government. Next came the sale of Royal Mail to Czech entrepreneur Daniel Křetínský.

Why is it that these individuals and organisations are able to see the value and opportunities that exist in these great British businesses, yet the British investment community cannot? Instead, they would rather invest our savings in property speculation, trading in commodities or currency speculation. This is a broken Britain. This needs to change.

So, to address this, next year we will begin our work to change Britain, transitioning it into a more self-sustaining country, made up of strong, self-reliant communities. We encourage you to join that journey.

For now, we wish you a Happy Christmas and a Sustainable New Year.

Nick Ash