The Sustainable City

We all make decisions about our future every day of our lives: whether to try for a new job, planning a treat day out for the children, choosing a present for a friend, buying a new outfit, or a weekend trip to the cinema.

It's a quality that marks us as adult, responsible, and, to some degree, able to shape our destiny. What The Vision for York is about is making some shared decisions about the future of our city, about how we choose to live, and how to ensure we make the best possible decisions for future generations.

That's going to be tough, because how we are living now just isn't sustainable. No one likes having decisions made for them that will affect their lives, so The Vision is also about us all, as a community, getting involved in making those choices.

All our decisions have an impact, and like throwing a stone in the river, the ripples can spread further than we might imagine. And we need to have an eye not just to the immediate ripples those decisions cause - so that taking the car for a trip to the seaside with the kids means being part of the problem of summer weekend traffic on the A64 - but the longer term and further away effects too. We need to face up to those effects, acknowledge our responsibilities to each other, to our city, and to the planet. We all know traffic congestion is a bad thing: it causes pollution that is linked to respiratory diseases, it means pressure for road building grows, which threatens our green spaces on the outskirts of the city - and it makes us angry with other drivers! But there are wider ripples too: burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change, which has its greatest impact on poor people living in areas that are flooded, such as Bangladesh. Can we really say that doesn't matter as much as the right to drive the kids half a mile to school, or park for free anywhere we fancy?

Our lifestyles are using more than our fair share of the earth's resources. One way of measuring the impact of all our activities is the ecological footprint we cause. That's the amount of land that's needed to provide all the food, energy, water, material goods and services that we consume, and absorb all the waste that we create. Each York resident currently uses 6.91 hectares to support their lifestyle; that's more than the UK average of 6.3 hectares, and three times as much as what's estimated to be a global fair share - just 2 hectares. So in The Vision for York, we are looking for a progressive reduction in York's Eco Footprint by 70% over the next 50 years, and to 3.5 hectares by 2033.

There's no getting away from it: making that happen means we're all going to have to make some tough decisions about how we live. So while it may be the council's responsibility to ensure there are decent bus services, it's every citizen's responsibility to cut down their car use. We can choose whether to buy strawberries flown in from North Africa, or wait another few weeks for the ones from Acaster Malbis. Why is your wheelie bin overflowing every week? Time to demand the supermarkets cut down on packaging, and take up that offer of a cheap compost bin. Fed up with plastic bags blowing down your street in the wind? Better remember to take your own bags with you when you next go shopping. Thinking of buying something new? Have a look in the second hand shops first. Businesses can reduce and recycle their waste, buy from local suppliers and fair trade producers, encourage car sharing schemes, make sure they use energy efficient appliances. We're all going to have to do our bit to make York sustainable for the future.

What's the aim?

To make York a model sustainable city with a quality built and natural environment and modern, integrated transport network

What issues do we face?

The threat of climate change and the increased risk of flooding

Patterns of consumption within York are not sustainable at current levels

The volume of traffic means parts of the city suffer from air pollution

Waste production is high and is increasing

Population is increasing, leading to greater demands for housing

What can we do?

Ensure that new developments are well designed, sustainable and meet the needs of local people

Change our lifestyles to reduce the adverse impact on the environment

Become a city with low levels of pollution and waste production but high levels of recycling

Increase the amount and diversity of publicly accessible green open spaces - including woodland

Conserve and enhance the special character and the existing historic environment of York

Promote a feeling of pride in the environment in local people

What will we do?

The vision will encourage local businesses and organisations to reduce their impact on the local and global environment and to assess their environmental performance.

We will enhance the physical appearance and condition of the city's streets, housing estates and publicly accessible spaces through the York Business Pride and York Community Pride initiatives.

We will encourage politicians, businesses and organisations in York to support new legislation on corporate responsibility.

Promoting York as a fair trade city will encourage local businesses to stock and promote fair trade products.

We will continue to support and promote local food, products and services through the Food Festivals and Farmers Markets.

Producing a second Local Transport Plan in 2005 for the period 2006-2011 will offer viable alternatives to private car travel and give people real choice.

The plan will deliver healthy and sustainable school travel plans for all schools by 2010 and a "safer routes to school infrastructure".

We will work with local communities, voluntary groups and service providers to think of new plans to improve the environment through York Pride.

Success would be a rise in the number of people satisfied with their local and city environment as well as a reduction in York's Ecological Footprint.

Updated: 12:21 Thursday, July 22, 2004