As an essential part of evidence gathering for this REconomy work, we have been working for some time on the Local Economic Blueprint project for Totnes and District.

Based on public data, we have estimated the potential value of four key sectors of our localised economy, and built a coalition of partners to turn these opportunities into reality. Together we agreed a vision for what our local economy should be and have identified some activities and projects that will take this work forward.

Here are a few findings, profiling the potential of the four key sectors we have worked on so far – food, retrofit, renewable energy and care and health.

 

 

 

 

To find out more please see the following:

Summary report: Totnes and District Local Economic Blueprint

• Download – T&D Local Economic Blueprint Summary Report
  PDF – 1MB – Lower resolution – best for on screen reading
• Download – T&D Local Economic Blueprint Summary Report
  PDF – 17MB – High resolution – best for printing
• REconomy strategy three year plan
  

Detailed reports

If you are interested in the data sources we used and the assumptions we made, take a look at the detailed report for each sector. There is no detailed report for Care and Health due to resource constraints – see the summary report for the info on this sector.

• T&D Economic Blueprint – Renewable Energy – detail section, final version
• T&D Economic Blueprint – Food – detail section, final version
• T&D Economic Blueprint – Retrofit – detail section, final version

The wider Economic Evaluation project

This work was part of a national pilot run by the Transition Network’s REconomy Project

TTT was one of three places exploring how best to do this kind of community economic development, based on this “local economic evaluation” process; the other places are the county of Herefordshire and Brixton, Lambeth. Together these three pilots provided the widest possible learnings given they represent a market town, a rural county and an inner-city area. Since then, a self-directed course and handbook have been developed supporting three more communities undertaking the process – Tavistock, Buxton, and Bridport.

We also created a guide to help local groups facilitate the Local Economic Blueprint process in their own town, city or region. Available for download, from here: http://reconomy.org/resources-2/writing-a-local-economic-blueprint/

Find out more about the national Economic Evaluation work here, including outputs from other places and information to help you run a similar process in your own area.

The Totnes work has been kindly supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.