Is where I live a sustainable community?

Definition of a sustainable community

Sustainable communities are places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, are sensitive to their environment, and contribute to a high quality of life. They are safe and inclusive, well planned, built and run, and offer equality of opportunity and good services for all.

For communities to be sustainable, they must offer:

· decent homes at prices people can afford

· good public transport

· schools

· hospitals

· shops

· A clean, safe environment.

People also need open public space where they can relax and interact and the ability to have a say on the way their neighbourhood is run.

Maulden

I live in a relatively large village in the located in the Centre of Bedfordshire it is an equal distance between Bedford and Luton. With a population of 3,500 residents and 1,100 homes it holds the title of Bedfordshire’s longest village (2 ½ miles long). Recently there has been a development of a new estate built by Croudace Homes (46 new houses) and it is continuing to grow. Recently, there has been an initiative by the government to look at the communities we live in and try and make them sustainable. They do this by looking at the area in which this wishes to change.

Maulden has one small shop the Co-operative on the western half of the village, a Village Hall also on the western half of the village, a post office in the centre as well as a school and a number of pub/restaurants.

From the 2001 census it shows that the majority of people living in Maulden own two cars per household but in comparison to the total number of cars per household it is less then a quarter.

Of those 1,300 people living within the village 1,017 are living healthy lives.

From the following Maulden is;

· decent homes at prices people can afford

· good public transport

· schools

· hospitals

· shops

· A clean, safe environment.

Using the checklist above the green words are the characteristics Maulden has, the orange text are the characteristic that are satisfactory such as the prices of homes which are not cheap but not too expensive either. Also Maulden does not have a great public transport system as buses do not often come frequently although there is a rail link to London 2 miles away. The red text shows the characteristics that Maulden does not posses It does not have a hospital as Maulden is too small to accommodate it. As you can see the majority of the text from the checklist is green indicating that Maulden is a fairly sustainable community and a clean and safe environment without any street crime, graffiti or vandalism, etc.

http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadTableView.do?a=7&b=301787&c=MK45+2HL&d=141&e=16&g=422998&i=1001x1003x1004&m=0&r=0&s=1248520062929&enc=1&dsFamilyId=91

From the link above I have chosen the age statistic. It shows that the age group between 0-30 (only 372 of 1345) is relatively small in comparison to the total. These people are the ones who are most likely to commit crimes. The rest are over 31 who are economically active and have families of their own or who are too old and are less likely to attempt things like vandalism. They also are more likely to have better things to with their time or more important things to think about rather then running around the village causing havoc. From my experience having lived in Maulden all of my life for nearly 20 years, I have never been witness or heard of any serious crime.

http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadDatasetList.do?a=7&b=301787&c=MK45+2HL&d=141&g=422998&i=1001x1003&m=0&r=0&s=1248389578125&enc=1&domainId=16