1. We are more than just consumers.
This Shopping List proposes a development that is an alternative to the car-based 2oth century sterile shopping malls under discussion for the Saxonvale site and includes a Tesco and Frome carbon challenge (!) and investments in Frome’s arts, crafts and small scale manufacturing and it’s retail, office and tourist businesses in tandem with new public transport infrastructure. These proposals also provide job, training and leisure opportunities to replace the jobs lost with the closure of the town’s big factories since the early 1990s recession.
2. With thanks to Peter Ashby,
my father who, as an architect in Keynsham in the 1970s, created a scheme whereby the town benefits from a free swimming pool and entertainment centre that was paid for from the leases of the shops, anchor offices and housing that went with the scheme. Don’t worry about the cost of this Shopping List for Saxonvale as, not only can the money be raised from schemes like my fathers or from responsible government funding, but also because the long term benefits and ‘return on investments’ for the town are of greater value than the initial cost of those investments.
3. Please can we have a New Transport Infrastructure including Three Railway Stations for Frome, a Bus & Coach Station, expanded Bus Services to Saxonvale, a Taxi Rank and Home Deliveries from the shops?
As an alternative to planning (at the end of the age of oil!) for a ‘tunnel of car fumes, noise, congestion and frustration’ that leads vehicles to car parks that gobble up precious town centre real estate and will be obsolete when the price of oil becomes prohibitively expensive (!), we should create a development fit for the 21st century that brings people to the town centre for pleasure and without thousands of daily polluting, noisy and congestive car journeys.
For our transport shopping list we require the following: • ‘Frome Brunel’ - the existing Frome Train Station to be renamed after its designer.
As an alternative to planning (at the end of the age of oil!) for a ‘tunnel of car fumes, noise, congestion and frustration’ that leads vehicles to car parks that gobble up precious town centre real estate and will be obsolete when the price of oil becomes prohibitively expensive (!), we should create a development fit for the 21st century that brings people to the town centre for pleasure and without thousands of daily polluting, noisy and congestive car journeys.
For our transport shopping list we require the following: • ‘Frome Brunel’ - the existing Frome Train Station to be renamed after its designer.
• ‘Frome Central’, a new train station at the north east corner of the Saxonvale Site utilising the existing railway track (with the permission, support and sponsorship of the quarry companies that own the track). We will need to attract Richard Branson or GWR for some new rolling stock for ‘express commuting’ on the Frome-Bath-Bristol and the Frome-Westbury-London lines. This rolling stock could also be profitably used for off peak ‘tourist & leisure commuting’ calling at all the smaller stations on the Frome-Bristol and Frome-London lines and bringing visitors into the centre of our town.
• ‘Frome Bus & Coach Station’ at the north east corner of the Saxonvale Site with a roundabout for turning and with expanded in-town bus services to and from Saxonvale. We could also do with a fleet of fast commuter buses to Radstock, Warminster, Westbury and Bath.
• A Taxi Rank at the north east corner of the Saxonvale Site.
• Supermarket and small shop deliveries from the Saxonvale Site.
• Cycle and pathways to the Saxonvale Site.
• A third train station after ‘Frome Central’ called ‘Frome Cheese & Grain’ that drops visitors into the entertaining Market Yard, complete with its existing and enhanced community & entertainment centre, library (!), museum, crafts shop/gallery/cafe, markets and outdoor activities.
• The Funding. Frome is lucky, we don’t have to build new track, so cross that off the list. The two new train stations and the new bus and coach station can be payed for as part of the Saxonvale development and with the support of sponsoring anchor businesses. The trains and buses can be supplied by the private train and bus/coach operators, hopefully without public subsidies as they should make a profit with Frome’s new transport infrastructure leaning towards their services (though they may appreciate a tax break). Frome’s new Transport Project can be completed in a couple of years without costing the council tax payer or approaching the Treasury or the Department of Transport with our Shopping List >
Well here we go looking at the long term bigger national picture: if we are to re-instate the Somerset Beeching Lines that lead to ‘Frome Central’ to re-vitalise the Mendip towns and ensure that they (and the Glastonbury Festival) have a transport future, and if we are to restore our railway network nationally and power it with sustainable electricity for this century and beyond (!), then we are talking about a worthy 10-20 year engineering, infrastructure and jobs opportunity costing billions that will not happen with private money alone. Yet the public cupboard is bare, what are we to do? I suggest that we will have to ‘save up’ for our 21st century public transport infrastucture with a 2 pence per litre ‘project tax’ on the petrol, with some of the existing road tax, and by targeting the recently introduced air taxes into the railways - this is the polluter pays principle with a return on the investment in the form of better railways. The public will own 51% of these railways as a return for their tax investments and the rail operators can have the remaining 49% shares in this partnership. Political will - over to you.
Well here we go looking at the long term bigger national picture: if we are to re-instate the Somerset Beeching Lines that lead to ‘Frome Central’ to re-vitalise the Mendip towns and ensure that they (and the Glastonbury Festival) have a transport future, and if we are to restore our railway network nationally and power it with sustainable electricity for this century and beyond (!), then we are talking about a worthy 10-20 year engineering, infrastructure and jobs opportunity costing billions that will not happen with private money alone. Yet the public cupboard is bare, what are we to do? I suggest that we will have to ‘save up’ for our 21st century public transport infrastucture with a 2 pence per litre ‘project tax’ on the petrol, with some of the existing road tax, and by targeting the recently introduced air taxes into the railways - this is the polluter pays principle with a return on the investment in the form of better railways. The public will own 51% of these railways as a return for their tax investments and the rail operators can have the remaining 49% shares in this partnership. Political will - over to you.
4. Can we have Craft and Light Trade Workshops and Studios, Artist Studios, Music Studios, Print Studios, Writing Rooms for authors who want to get out of the house, and Small I.T. Offices at affordable low rent and business rates please? - small one and two people businesses can’t afford industrial estate fees!
It would be great to keep what is feasible from our industrial architectural heritage by converting the existing Silk Mills to the above uses, which will also provide long term rents to the Saxonvale scheme and, vitally, will ensure the long term success of the small creative industries that have been part of Frome’s Revival since the decline of a number of our large industries. Also, as Frome cannot live on shops and houses alone, it is important for the local economy to develop real jobs in our small creative industries that help bring spending power to any new shops.
It would be great to keep what is feasible from our industrial architectural heritage by converting the existing Silk Mills to the above uses, which will also provide long term rents to the Saxonvale scheme and, vitally, will ensure the long term success of the small creative industries that have been part of Frome’s Revival since the decline of a number of our large industries. Also, as Frome cannot live on shops and houses alone, it is important for the local economy to develop real jobs in our small creative industries that help bring spending power to any new shops.
5. Please may we have a substantial chunk of land for an imaginatively and ecologically designed Creative Industries Apprenticeship College, where the Beswick Factory used to be? Visitors arriving at ‘Frome Central’ will be greeted with a relaxed campus atmosphere and a stunning contemporary building based on the skills & talents of the town.
5.1 This college can fill the skills training vacuum left after the loss of our technical college at the top of Park Road and, further down, the previous YTS workshops that had a real buzz going until it was closed down by faraway administrators. The campus buildings should be built with local materials and labour, linked to local businesses (including those at the Silk Mills) with accredited certification for the trainees, and developed for the long term (not just a three year governement initiative) and for the lifelong skills training of young and not so young alike in the town. Also, by students doing, say, three days a week at college and two days working for a local business, they can earn as they learn and gain confidence without getting into debt.
5.2 The College Curriculum can include the following ‘creative industry‘ subjects, either as two year starter apprenticeships or as evening classes for the wider community:
• Craft & Design will be integral to all the courses
• Woodwork - interior furnishings, building and architectural joinery, green woodworking and woodland crafts, antique restoration, carving, forestry
• Metalwork - welding, fabrication, engineering, jewellery, blacksmithing & foundry work
• Ceramics and glass
• Stone - masonry, brick, plastering and sculpture
• Fabrics, fashion, upholstery & leather
• Interior design
• Landscape design
• Horticulture, agriculture and food (including masterchef kitchens and a canteen)
• Graphic design
• Digital studies - film, photography, music production, web design and I.T.
• Fine art & print
• Energy, material and environmental studies
• Business and Marketing Studies for the craft or design based entrepeneur wishing to set up his or her own business
5.3. The College Campus can include separate workshop-classrooms (you won’t want to mix the metalworkers with the music production!), and integrated outdoor space with facilities for the following:
• a real working mini coppice, complete with bird life.
• woodland crafts training
• raku ceramic kilns
• building, masonry and brickwork training
• sculpture gardens and landscape gardening experiments.
• college allotments, orchards and barbecue facilities that can help feed the college at lunchtime.
• scrapyard challenge facilities where metalwork and engineering inventions can be tested.
5.4. Frome’s Creative Industries Apprenticeship College can also have links to and share facilities and teachers/trainers with:
• the local schools, Frome College and specialist universities/polytechnics
• in town or out of town businesses or master craftsmen with their craft, design and business knowledge and work opportunities
• local and regional restaurants with their food knowledge and work opportunities
• local and regional farms with their agricultural knowlege and work opportunities
• the woodland school on the Ammerdown Estate (Lord Hilton willing)
• the Longleat estate’s forestry industry (Lord Bath willing)
• the Glastonbury Festival of Music and Contemporary Arts (Michael & Emily willing)
• the Frome Festival
• the Merlin Theatre, Cheese & Grain and Memorial Hall for occasional fashion shows by the fabric and fashion students
• the Black Swan, Enigma and Rook Lane Art & Craft Galleries, the Catherine Hill crafts scene and any new ‘Made in Frome’ shops appearing in the new retail outlets in Saxonvale
• national and international galleries
• Frome Library’s expanded Craft & Design section (cheaper than funding a new college library)
• Frome FM and other local radio stations and printed
• the local printed media for Apprenticeship College Stories
• the world wide web
5.5. The economic and cultural benefits for the town in having a Creative Industries Apprenticeship College should, by now, be obvious, though also consider the buzz of having a creative ‘skills university’ in our town.
5.1 This college can fill the skills training vacuum left after the loss of our technical college at the top of Park Road and, further down, the previous YTS workshops that had a real buzz going until it was closed down by faraway administrators. The campus buildings should be built with local materials and labour, linked to local businesses (including those at the Silk Mills) with accredited certification for the trainees, and developed for the long term (not just a three year governement initiative) and for the lifelong skills training of young and not so young alike in the town. Also, by students doing, say, three days a week at college and two days working for a local business, they can earn as they learn and gain confidence without getting into debt.
5.2 The College Curriculum can include the following ‘creative industry‘ subjects, either as two year starter apprenticeships or as evening classes for the wider community:
• Craft & Design will be integral to all the courses
• Woodwork - interior furnishings, building and architectural joinery, green woodworking and woodland crafts, antique restoration, carving, forestry
• Metalwork - welding, fabrication, engineering, jewellery, blacksmithing & foundry work
• Ceramics and glass
• Stone - masonry, brick, plastering and sculpture
• Fabrics, fashion, upholstery & leather
• Interior design
• Landscape design
• Horticulture, agriculture and food (including masterchef kitchens and a canteen)
• Graphic design
• Digital studies - film, photography, music production, web design and I.T.
• Fine art & print
• Energy, material and environmental studies
• Business and Marketing Studies for the craft or design based entrepeneur wishing to set up his or her own business
5.3. The College Campus can include separate workshop-classrooms (you won’t want to mix the metalworkers with the music production!), and integrated outdoor space with facilities for the following:
• a real working mini coppice, complete with bird life.
• woodland crafts training
• raku ceramic kilns
• building, masonry and brickwork training
• sculpture gardens and landscape gardening experiments.
• college allotments, orchards and barbecue facilities that can help feed the college at lunchtime.
• scrapyard challenge facilities where metalwork and engineering inventions can be tested.
5.4. Frome’s Creative Industries Apprenticeship College can also have links to and share facilities and teachers/trainers with:
• the local schools, Frome College and specialist universities/polytechnics
• in town or out of town businesses or master craftsmen with their craft, design and business knowledge and work opportunities
• local and regional restaurants with their food knowledge and work opportunities
• local and regional farms with their agricultural knowlege and work opportunities
• the woodland school on the Ammerdown Estate (Lord Hilton willing)
• the Longleat estate’s forestry industry (Lord Bath willing)
• the Glastonbury Festival of Music and Contemporary Arts (Michael & Emily willing)
• the Frome Festival
• the Merlin Theatre, Cheese & Grain and Memorial Hall for occasional fashion shows by the fabric and fashion students
• the Black Swan, Enigma and Rook Lane Art & Craft Galleries, the Catherine Hill crafts scene and any new ‘Made in Frome’ shops appearing in the new retail outlets in Saxonvale
• national and international galleries
• Frome Library’s expanded Craft & Design section (cheaper than funding a new college library)
• Frome FM and other local radio stations and printed
• the local printed media for Apprenticeship College Stories
• the world wide web
5.5. The economic and cultural benefits for the town in having a Creative Industries Apprenticeship College should, by now, be obvious, though also consider the buzz of having a creative ‘skills university’ in our town.
6. The controversial bit - political will and funding of the Creative Industries Apprenticeship College - ok, here we go:
6.1. Business says it wants a skilled workforce that can perform in the workplace yet wishes to get its graduates or apprentices for free, and then complains that it needs to re-train graduates with up to date business knowledge rather than college knowledge. By re-embarking on sandwhich course type structures as outlined above you can, for a mere 1% ‘skills investment tax’ from your annual profits plus a couple of cheap labour days a week for the students (better than getting in debt), wind up having the skilled workforce that you need whilst giving hope and deliverance to the next generation and improving your long term profits.
The 1% investment will, initially, be used towards designing and making the college buildings and infrastructure and then towards ongoing teaching and running costs. The scheme could be run locally if the government is not interested in having a national 1% ‘Skills Investment Tax’.
6.2. University Funding and the unfair dumping of education costs on the individual has been highly controversial recently. My back of a fag packet reforms for education and skills funding would include the following:
• free small scale nurseries and a culture of early playful reading (once you can read you can learn anything)
• every local school to be a good one, enabling local travel and reducing school run car congestion.
• following school, having the opportunities for life long learning through apprenticeship colleges, businesses and universities. Personally, I think we have got the skills balance wrong and would go for the following:
~ 25 % of our skills training in science, research and academic freedom universties - the best funded in the world
~ The expansion of the Open University for students wishing to pursue the “ologies” that won’t necessarily give them a livelihood afterwards.
~ 60-75% of our skills training to be business-linked through sandwich courses at apprenticeship colleges and revitalised polytechnics.
~ We, our children and our society benefit from a skills and education system, though we have to be realistic as quality education costs time, energy and ongoing cash. In recent General Elections (excluding the last one), the most popular policy was the Liberal Democrat idea of using 1% of income tax dedicated towards the education system. I would propose a fairer version of this education (and skills) levy as follows, so “the dustman isn’t paying for the lawyer” and the individual student isn’t being burdened with a debilitating debt:
Earnings £0-10,000 ~ Income Tax Education Levy - 0%
Earnings £10-30,000 ~ Income Tax Education Levy - 0.5%
Earnings £30-50,000 ~ Income Tax Education Levy - 1%
Earnings £50-100,000 ~ Income Tax Education Levy - 1.5%
Earnings £100-200,000 ~ Income Tax Education Levy - 2%
Earnings £200,000 + ~ Income Tax Education Levy - 2.5%
Business ‘Skills Investment Tax’ - 1% towards the apprenticehip colleges
Customised funding from industry for science based university research
Students get free tuition, though contribute by working in business during their course, by doing paid summer holiday work (e.g. helping to re-instate the Beeching railway lines and the canals, fruit picking or tourist bar work) and by paying their 0.5% - 2.5% Income Tax Education Levy in the future.
Simple and fair really, with much less bureacracy and individual anxiety and hardship and with fantastic rewards, benefits and ‘returns on our investments’.
6.3. Inventive and Creative Britain can compete in the world, not by being the cheapest but by being the best, though we - through current and future governments and businesses - must be prepared to invest in our world class education, research and skills training without imposing huge debts on newcomers to the workplace. This requires political and business will, wisdom and action - this is no u-turn, this is facing up to the responsibilities and opportunities for investing in the best possible skills base for the future with a huge return on those investments. Invest, revive and reward please, not savage cuts, decline and depression - we have heard all the political parties championing apprenticeships for years, and the time has come to make the commitment to fund apprenticeship colleges, please, Westminster, Whitehall, business and peeps, we’ve talked the talk, let’s walk the walk (cliche - sorry).
6.1. Business says it wants a skilled workforce that can perform in the workplace yet wishes to get its graduates or apprentices for free, and then complains that it needs to re-train graduates with up to date business knowledge rather than college knowledge. By re-embarking on sandwhich course type structures as outlined above you can, for a mere 1% ‘skills investment tax’ from your annual profits plus a couple of cheap labour days a week for the students (better than getting in debt), wind up having the skilled workforce that you need whilst giving hope and deliverance to the next generation and improving your long term profits.
The 1% investment will, initially, be used towards designing and making the college buildings and infrastructure and then towards ongoing teaching and running costs. The scheme could be run locally if the government is not interested in having a national 1% ‘Skills Investment Tax’.
6.2. University Funding and the unfair dumping of education costs on the individual has been highly controversial recently. My back of a fag packet reforms for education and skills funding would include the following:
• free small scale nurseries and a culture of early playful reading (once you can read you can learn anything)
• every local school to be a good one, enabling local travel and reducing school run car congestion.
• following school, having the opportunities for life long learning through apprenticeship colleges, businesses and universities. Personally, I think we have got the skills balance wrong and would go for the following:
~ 25 % of our skills training in science, research and academic freedom universties - the best funded in the world
~ The expansion of the Open University for students wishing to pursue the “ologies” that won’t necessarily give them a livelihood afterwards.
~ 60-75% of our skills training to be business-linked through sandwich courses at apprenticeship colleges and revitalised polytechnics.
~ We, our children and our society benefit from a skills and education system, though we have to be realistic as quality education costs time, energy and ongoing cash. In recent General Elections (excluding the last one), the most popular policy was the Liberal Democrat idea of using 1% of income tax dedicated towards the education system. I would propose a fairer version of this education (and skills) levy as follows, so “the dustman isn’t paying for the lawyer” and the individual student isn’t being burdened with a debilitating debt:
Earnings £0-10,000 ~ Income Tax Education Levy - 0%
Earnings £10-30,000 ~ Income Tax Education Levy - 0.5%
Earnings £30-50,000 ~ Income Tax Education Levy - 1%
Earnings £50-100,000 ~ Income Tax Education Levy - 1.5%
Earnings £100-200,000 ~ Income Tax Education Levy - 2%
Earnings £200,000 + ~ Income Tax Education Levy - 2.5%
Business ‘Skills Investment Tax’ - 1% towards the apprenticehip colleges
Customised funding from industry for science based university research
Students get free tuition, though contribute by working in business during their course, by doing paid summer holiday work (e.g. helping to re-instate the Beeching railway lines and the canals, fruit picking or tourist bar work) and by paying their 0.5% - 2.5% Income Tax Education Levy in the future.
Simple and fair really, with much less bureacracy and individual anxiety and hardship and with fantastic rewards, benefits and ‘returns on our investments’.
6.3. Inventive and Creative Britain can compete in the world, not by being the cheapest but by being the best, though we - through current and future governments and businesses - must be prepared to invest in our world class education, research and skills training without imposing huge debts on newcomers to the workplace. This requires political and business will, wisdom and action - this is no u-turn, this is facing up to the responsibilities and opportunities for investing in the best possible skills base for the future with a huge return on those investments. Invest, revive and reward please, not savage cuts, decline and depression - we have heard all the political parties championing apprenticeships for years, and the time has come to make the commitment to fund apprenticeship colleges, please, Westminster, Whitehall, business and peeps, we’ve talked the talk, let’s walk the walk (cliche - sorry).
7. Yes please developers, can we have a low carbon anchor supermarket in Saxonvale?
This ‘Supermarket Challenge’ is up for grabs and it could be Tescos or any of the other supermarkets, though they will have to fulfil the following green credentials if they wish to be the prestige anchor store in the the low carbon Saxonvale development:
• a supermarket that does not clog up our town centre with cars
• a supermarket that helps to fund the train station, bus station (and services) and taxi rank that are situated conveniently next to the store’s entrance
• a supermarket with a home delivery service - orders can be placed instore or online
• a farmer’s-market-supermarket that sells local produce and complements the monthly Farmers’ Market in the Cheese and Grain where the producers meet the customers
• a sustainable packaging supermarket
• a fairtrade supermarket (we can’t get bananas and coffee from Buckland Dinham!)
• a low food waste supermarket (do you have to stack the shelves with three different sell-by dates?)
• a low energy well-insulated supermarket, with solar panels and with enclosed chill counters that reduce refridgeration costs
• a supermarket that does not bully the local community with its expensive solicitors with costs to the local council tax payers (as reported in the local press). Please work with the town’s vision and save yourselves and us uneccessory legal costs.
• a supermarket that does not deliberately undercut every other small business in the town.
• a supermarket that gives-back 1% of its profits to the local community (with approval from your shareholders and p.r. departments please) and a 1% ‘skills investment tax’ for the local apprenticeship college (with approval from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, other political parties and business please). The out of town supermarkets are also included in this 2% give-back scheme as it will be less awkward and easier to administer than supermarket car park charges; they will also have the opportunity to sponsor new buses in the New Transport Infrastructure.
• a supermarket that takes advantage of the extra space created with the removal of the car parks by adding to the ambience of the Saxonvale development with its own alfresco cafe, linked to a children’s playground and creche. Marvellous. You will be very welcome.
This ‘Supermarket Challenge’ is up for grabs and it could be Tescos or any of the other supermarkets, though they will have to fulfil the following green credentials if they wish to be the prestige anchor store in the the low carbon Saxonvale development:
• a supermarket that does not clog up our town centre with cars
• a supermarket that helps to fund the train station, bus station (and services) and taxi rank that are situated conveniently next to the store’s entrance
• a supermarket with a home delivery service - orders can be placed instore or online
• a farmer’s-market-supermarket that sells local produce and complements the monthly Farmers’ Market in the Cheese and Grain where the producers meet the customers
• a sustainable packaging supermarket
• a fairtrade supermarket (we can’t get bananas and coffee from Buckland Dinham!)
• a low food waste supermarket (do you have to stack the shelves with three different sell-by dates?)
• a low energy well-insulated supermarket, with solar panels and with enclosed chill counters that reduce refridgeration costs
• a supermarket that does not bully the local community with its expensive solicitors with costs to the local council tax payers (as reported in the local press). Please work with the town’s vision and save yourselves and us uneccessory legal costs.
• a supermarket that does not deliberately undercut every other small business in the town.
• a supermarket that gives-back 1% of its profits to the local community (with approval from your shareholders and p.r. departments please) and a 1% ‘skills investment tax’ for the local apprenticeship college (with approval from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, other political parties and business please). The out of town supermarkets are also included in this 2% give-back scheme as it will be less awkward and easier to administer than supermarket car park charges; they will also have the opportunity to sponsor new buses in the New Transport Infrastructure.
• a supermarket that takes advantage of the extra space created with the removal of the car parks by adding to the ambience of the Saxonvale development with its own alfresco cafe, linked to a children’s playground and creche. Marvellous. You will be very welcome.
8. Yes please, can we have mixed retail units, cafes and restaurants with some flats and houses in the mix to avoid the feeling of a closed-down shopping mall in the evenings?
~ We would like some of the National Stores such as the Body Shop and Next (where to get men’s clothing in this town?), though also do please make available affordable rent ‘Made in Frome’ shops and permanent craft stalls that can include working craft displays. Cafes and the smell of bread and coffee as well please.
~ Remember, this is a development without cars (apart from access and some resident parking) so this mix of cafes, shops and living can be based around courtyards, open seating areas and pleasure gardens with lots of planting and room for the odd juggler, rather than around roads and car parks. ~ As our town centre is competing against out of town supermarkets and online internet stores, it is really important to base the design of the mixed shop units around pleasure and leisure - after all, you cannot order a cup of coffee and a Frome Bobbin whilst listening to a talented local busker through an internet store! Furthermore, if more people are working from home through the internet, it will be important to provide them with somewhere to go locally when they need a break from their home work. We should also consider providing a wi-fi network in the car-free Saxonvale site for homeworkers wishing to work alfresco, maybe in the area where there are outside picnic tables and chess boards.
~ We would like some of the National Stores such as the Body Shop and Next (where to get men’s clothing in this town?), though also do please make available affordable rent ‘Made in Frome’ shops and permanent craft stalls that can include working craft displays. Cafes and the smell of bread and coffee as well please.
~ Remember, this is a development without cars (apart from access and some resident parking) so this mix of cafes, shops and living can be based around courtyards, open seating areas and pleasure gardens with lots of planting and room for the odd juggler, rather than around roads and car parks. ~ As our town centre is competing against out of town supermarkets and online internet stores, it is really important to base the design of the mixed shop units around pleasure and leisure - after all, you cannot order a cup of coffee and a Frome Bobbin whilst listening to a talented local busker through an internet store! Furthermore, if more people are working from home through the internet, it will be important to provide them with somewhere to go locally when they need a break from their home work. We should also consider providing a wi-fi network in the car-free Saxonvale site for homeworkers wishing to work alfresco, maybe in the area where there are outside picnic tables and chess boards.
9. In addition to the small offices, workshops and studios in the Silk Mill, we could attract an anchor office development for a company wishing to relocate from the city to a better quality of life in Frome without suits (British Gas offices were included in the aforementioned Keynsham scheme, bringing in rents and helping to pay for the leisure centre). Frome Town Council - as the main planners of the project (sorry Mendip, this one is not for you as we would just wind up with a squashed up housing development after bogus consultation - reference the Singers and Matbro sites) - can choose to have their new offices in this anchor office development or in the Silk Mills, though please not in our Community & Entertainment Centre at the Cheese & Grain.
10. We might also need a low carbon anchor hotel (called The Anchor!) that caters for the increased amount of visitors to Frome with the arrival of the railways, and to make up for the loss of the Mendip Lodge Hotel. Other bed & breakfast establishments will also benefit from the investment in the new railway, the Cheese & Grain and Market Yard and in the low carbon Saxonvale development.
11. Three final controversial energy questions.
• The Saxonvale Site could, along with the three towns of Frome, Warminster and Westbury, be powered by a colourful wind farm from Westbury White Horse and including Cley Hill (both hills already have the mark of man). If the three towns clubbed together, we could have free electicity for decades into the future! Discuss.
• Would solar panels be appropriate for our terracotta roofscapes?
• Does Frome have any plans to ensure that all its housing stock is highly insulated? Maybe the government could remove the VAT from double glazing and insulation products as well as energy efficient boilers (don’t hold your breath) to help boost work for local builders and plumbers in such a worthy energy-efficiency project.
• The Saxonvale Site could, along with the three towns of Frome, Warminster and Westbury, be powered by a colourful wind farm from Westbury White Horse and including Cley Hill (both hills already have the mark of man). If the three towns clubbed together, we could have free electicity for decades into the future! Discuss.
• Would solar panels be appropriate for our terracotta roofscapes?
• Does Frome have any plans to ensure that all its housing stock is highly insulated? Maybe the government could remove the VAT from double glazing and insulation products as well as energy efficient boilers (don’t hold your breath) to help boost work for local builders and plumbers in such a worthy energy-efficiency project.
I trust that the developers, architects and the planners for the Saxonvale site can, with businesses, the town council, the government and the People of Frome, deliver a low carbon yet productive and leisurable sustainable development that we can be proud of. I hope that this Shopping List (or client’s brief) can help in setting the parameters for the new Saxonvale development.
Tim Ashby
19 November 2010
This website has been set up temporarily by Tim Ashby as a means for displaying articles, letters and press releases for sustainability issues regarding the development of the Saxonvale site and the Cheese & Grain Community Centre in Frome, Somerset. The restoration of British railways for the 21st century and the revival of craft & design skills also form part of the subject matter.