community matters


High Bickton 2000 One d O


as “in kind” contributions for local matched funding.


At a recent visit by Alun Michael, Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality, the Project was able to set out its plans for 52 affordable and market sale houses, 750m2


school combined with community facilities such as hall, nursery, café, playing field, and community woodland.


H


igh Bickington Project 2000 is a community-led response to a range of problems faced by a rural community in


North Devon. The problems are all too familiar in rural England – lack of affordable homes, of locally available employment, and poor access to the facilities and services that make life tolerable. The response has been anything but typical. The community itself has surveyed its needs (by means of a parish appraisal), and has come up with an imaginative set of proposals to meet the parish’s needs for the next 20 years including a new primary school.


The catalyst for this chain of events was the willingness of Devon County Council, owners of a redundant smallholding on the edge of the village, to consider any proposals for its reuse that came from the community itself, provided that they were sustainable and achievable, and brought a fair return to the County Council. Throughout the life of Project 2000, the County Council have been active and supportive partners, as have several other agencies, notably the Countryside Agency (Vital Villages funding), the Wessex Reinvestment Trust (financial advice) and Torridge District Council (advice on housing and employment matters).


The role of the Parish Council should not be overlooked. They set up the Project late in 1999 (a fitting celebration of the Millennium, as the name Project 2000 suggests), and have been closely involved in applying for funding, making the planning application and in many other ways. The Project has been able to appoint a full-time Administrator, and project management consultants, by means of funding from LEADER+ (a European fund) and DEFRA. The many hours of voluntary effort put in by committee members count


16 www.arthurrankcentre.org.uk


Once the granting of outline planning permission has been confirmed (some aspects of the development represent a departure from the Structure Plan), Project architects will, with input from local advisory groups, draw up a detailed Master Plan to ensure that the development meets the community’s needs as well as being financially viable and based on sustainability principles.


An innovative solution has been found to the problem of keeping the benefits of all this investment within the community. A Community Property Trust is to be set up – run by local people – to hold the freehold and equity in the land and property in trust, thus ensuring that it continues to meet housing, employment and community needs, on terms the community can afford.


After three years of planning there is still much to do before the construction work begins. Local groups are being formed to get people involved in the fund raising and many other things that will be necessary to turn buildings and open spaces into functioning facilities, maintained and run for the benefit of present and future generations of this small rural community.  David Brown, Chair, High Bickington CPT Ltd. www.highbickington.org


of workspace, a new primary


ur school is one of the ea Victorian schools, establi to provide a Chri education for village children. T this is still deeply embedded in ethos statement:


“The school aims to serv community by providing education of the highest qu within the context of Christian faith.”


As an example of early Vict architecture, our building is beau However, over the years, repairs been neglected and we find ours with a £120,000 repair bill. The v population has grown, but the sc is on a landlocked site and cann extended. The building, in housing 20 or so children, is now the addition of a temporary h school for 72 pupils. It has bec evident that what was originally as Almshouses for elderly folk ca support the demands of the Nat Curriculum.


So sometimes, when I am tryin find a dry space in the Head Teac office/ cum store room/ cum room/ cum medical room/ cum group withdrawal room (which us be the boys’ toilets, and still smell it occasionally); when I have to mould from my papers and mov computer screen onto the f because the water is dripping from


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