Economic Development
Timebanking has gained traction and won many plaudits in the last decade. But can it move into the mainstream? Clare Goff reports
Timebanking has been taken to new levels in Wales where Creation Development Trust has established it as common currency in Blaengarw, a village in the South Wales Valleys.‘This is what localism looks like,’ says Sam Hopley, chief executive of Timebanking UK mid-way through the organisation’s bi-annual conference in Nottingham.
The publication of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has attracted a lot of attention, even among the non-planning world and a number of civil society organisations have been highly critical of it. The National Trust has been most prominent in this debate (using their large membership and high profile to good effect – managing to capture the attention of even the Prime Minister). So I was interested to be invited to dinner with their Director-General, Dame Fiona Reynolds, along with a small number of partners who support community participation and have an interest in planning, to discuss their concerns about the NPPF.
