Thanks to everyone who came to the Future-Proof Wexford launch at Wexford Library. Full house. Guest speaker Davie Philip delivered a stimulating and inspiring presentation at the heart of which was the need to change how we do things, to change how we interact with our environment, and to understand better the benefits of working together. Only by taking this route can we hope to build resilience (a very important concept to Davie!). Without in-built resilience he believes that any systems, plans, policies we put in place will not stand the test of time, especially given the challenges that lie ahead.
Davie invited us to say what exactly it is that makes living in County Wexford so special, or otherwise. Not surprisingly SUN, SEA and SAND placed top of the list with culture, arts, people, nice place to live following. There were negatives too such as lack of job opportunities, loss of young people as a result, insufficient green spaces in urban areas, lack of community spirit. Davie followed up by asking us to think about how we, as individuals and organisations, might change the way we organise, how we do things so as to achieve long-term efficiencies and benefits.
He then spoke about the ground-breaking and innovative project that is the Cloughjordan Eco-Village. I think it is fair to say that we were all captivated by his story. A bunch of people come together and decide they want to develop an eco-village. From scratch. At the height of the Celtic Tiger property boom! They identify a site near a village in Co Tipperary, pay a ridiculous amount of money for it, start developing it, lose a load of their site purchasers when the market crashes. Yet they persevere. They manage to raise / borrow enough to put in place the necessary infrastructure (remember this is an eco-village so we are talking serious infrastructure). Houses are built and completed, families move in. Local schools are delighted because the influx of children to their sparsely attended classrooms means they will not lose teachers. They build an enterprise centre for the eco-entrepreneur, a place where ideas-people can share resources and associate with like-minded go-getters. They put in place one of the first digital fabrication labs in the country – hardware hacking comes to Cloughjordan! The vast solar panels banks don’t work yet because the company that installed them went belly up. While they are working on getting these connected they are using wood pellets in communal burners that heat all the houses. Even without the functioning solar panels the ecological footprint of the houses in this development is a 1/3 of the national average. They grow loads of fruit and veg on site; they bake bread on site. The cooperative spirit is strong. This is a good place in which to grow up, a place in which you would be happy to grow old.
How the hell is Wexford going to follow that! Davie points out to us that this is a story from which we can take inspiration, one which can jolt us into re-thinking how we go about things here in Wexford. We can use it to kick-start our future-proofing initiative. The challenge is now for individuals, business and other organisations to look at where we are now, where we want to be in the future, and what we need to do to get us there.
Future-Proof Wexford 