About the Green Living Plan
What is a Green Living Plan?
It’s a plan to protect and enhance our quality of life locally in the things that really matter – our air, our water, our overall well-being and the natural world that surrounds us.The GLP for Thame is believed to be an original approach which, we hope, will inspire other towns and villages to act similarly. Further, while concentrating on Thame the plan explicitly recognises the vital importance of the town’s links with its surrounding communities and countryside.
Why do we need a Green Living Plan ?
The Green Living Plan (GLP) fills gaps that Neighbourhood Plans can’t fully cover. It does this by concentrating on our broader environment and by making connections. To help focus, the plan has five main areas:
- OPEN SPACE, GREEN ROUTES AND BIODIVERSITY
- WATER AND FLOOD PROTECTION
- CLEAN AIR AND POLLUTION
- ENERGY, ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND ELECTRIC VEHICLES
- WASTE AVOIDANCE, WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RECYCLING
Background
Thame’s Green Living Plan was been created by the RSA Thame Group, a local group of Fellows of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce, who were appointed by Thame Town Council as honorary consultants to assist in the creation of a GLP for Thame. The consultation period ran during August and September 2018. Read full details of plans development here.
At a public meeting on Tuesday 19 June 2018, Thame Town Council Councillors voted for the Green Living Plan (GLP) to go to consultation.
On Tuesday 14 July 2020, Thame Town Council formally adopted the Green Living Plan, via a virtual public full council meeting. The Mayor of Thame Town Council, Cllr Ann Midwinter made the following statement following the adoption of the Green Living Plan:
On behalf of Thame Town Council I would like to thank Mr Charles Boundy and his fellow authors, for all their hard work over the last six years for providing us with this very researched and detailed ‘Green Living Plan’ that we have just adopted that will guide us to help our planet, and in doing so, the health of the people of Thame. Thank you so much.
On 1 October 2020, the final Green Living Plan was published. The adoption of the plan immediately raised awareness of the need for Thame to become more proactive and more coordinated in taking action to mitigate climate change on a local level. Significantly, the plan also provided an incredible overview of the broad and deep community commitment needed to achieve the plan. It was, and remains, clear that it was only with the active support of everyone in the community that the changes needed would be made.
Thankfully, Thame is a town of action, and so there was already lots happening, or planned for, so right from the start it was not just Thame Green Living who was delivering on the Actions in the plan. Within a few years of adoption, the Thame Green Living website started to transition to being the gateway through which you could find out about all the action going on, and most importantly how to get involved.
It is only together that we will achieve what we need to.
We hope this website will allow you to find out everything you need to know – but if not just get in contact and we can help.
Explore the plan in full
This website allows you to explore the plan and its impact
- You can jump straight into our ‘Projects‘ page to explore what is happening today, and how you can get involved;
- You can read the plan in full – looking through the full PDF version of the plan online,
- You can read through the objectives and actions contained within each of the 5 areas of the plan, with links to details of how these are being achieved.
Community Groups and organisations involved
The Thame Green Living Plan could not be achieved without the work of a huge number of other groups. Find out about everyone who is playing a part here.
Sponsors & Funders
Without sponsors and funders supporting project with time and money, the Thame Green Living Plan couldn’t happen. We are very thankful to the sponsors and funding bodies involved for their support . If you are a local company looking to support the Thame Green Living Plan get in contact.
Project Timeline
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2013
Thame Neighbourhood Plan approved by Thame residents. In addition to allocating sites for the housing requirement by government and planning authorities, the Neighbourhood Plan recommended the creation of a Green Living Plan for Thame, to follow up on the issues of quality of life and sustainability raised during its creation.
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June 2018
In June 2018 an initial version of the Green Living Plan was presented to Thame Town Council, and a two month consultation period was approved to canvas the opinions of Thame residents.
Guided by the responses to the consultation, The RSA Thame Group, supported by a number of individuals and local community groups, then set out to create an updated version of the plan with specific recommendations and actions for Thame.
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July 2020
On 14 July 2020 the Thame Green Living Plan was approved unanimously and adopted by Thame Town Council. The plan will be taken forward with the support of a new community organisation, proposed to be called Thame Green Living.
In early days the existence of a plan, where before there was nothing, had significant impacts, including:
- motivating changes within Thame Town Council,
- encouraging other community groups to take new action that would help to achieve actions within the plan,
- engaging local businesses in playing a part,
- raising the profile of the incredible work already happening through other environmental groups that had been operating in the town, some for many years.
In October Thame Green Living launched Thame Solar Streets a project that provides discounted solar photovoltaic panels to Thame homeowners.
The year ended with the launch of Love Thame Hate Waste, a project that aims to help Thame residents and businesses reduce, re-use and recycle their waste.
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February 2021
In February 2021 the first new waymarked Thame Walking Route was published, for the four mile Thame Inner Circuit walk.
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May 2021
The second Thame Solar Streets project began in May, hoping to repeat the success of the original promotion, which has so far saved four tonnes of CO2 production.
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July 2021
Thame Green Living were voted Local Carbon Hub’s Community Group of the Month in July.
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August 2021
The waymarked, 20 mile Thame Outer Circuit walking route was published in August.
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September 2021
In September, hundreds of local people attended the first Thame Drive Electric event to learn more about electric cars from electric car owners.
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November 2021
The regeneration of the Rycote Meadow began in November with volunteers braving the cold to plant 700 trees.
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December 2021
December saw more trees in the ground as the Howland Road verge restoration began, thanks to Thame Green Living, Lucy Electric and Thame Trees.
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2022
In 2022, Thame Town Council approved and recruited a new post in the form of an ‘Environmental Project Officer’ whose primary focus was to support the implementation of the Thame Green Living plan. Included in this work was supporting the administration of this website to showcase achievements against the actions of the plan. Since then all further timeline actions have been reported through the sites posts and pages.