Press Coverage
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Date: 04 March 2011
Type: Newspaper Publication / Broadcaster: The Cumberland News PENRITH MP DEFENDS GOVERNMENT'S BIG SOCIETY PROJECT
PENRITH MP DEFENDS GOVERNMENT'S BIG SOCIETY PROJECT Penrith MP Rory Stewart defended the Big Society as a “wonderful thing” and expressed an invitation to Cumbria to see the excellent work communities are doing. Rory Stewart Mr Stewart dismissed critics who have said no one knows what the Big Society was and told the Commons it was about communities and community action. In July it was announced that Eden Valley in Cumbria was one of four areas where communities will be handed more power as part of the drive to take control away from the state and push it down to a local level. Last month the Prime Minister said the Big Society was his “mission” and central to the social recovery of Britain. But critics argue it is a cover for the billions of pounds of Coalition cuts. Speaking in a debate on the Big Society, Mr Stewart said some things had to be done by the state but communities had a role to play. Talking of why the Big Society works he said: “Why, if someone comes to Cumbria, can they see in Crosby Ravensworth a better affordable housing project built by a community than would have been built by the county council on its own? “Why, if someone comes to Kirkby Stephen, can they see a really smart neighbourhood plan – not one pushing for a concrete jungle or a nimby objection to any development, but one sensitive to the vulnerable and imaginative in how it does its development? And why, if someone comes to Appleby, can they see wonderful renewable energy projects? It is because those projects are different from those done by the state. “These are projects in which communities have a competitive advantage over the state because local knowledge matters in those projects. It is very important to live in a place in order to produce a really good plan for that place. The people who live there know about the place and care about it.” |
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