Young Person’s Competition To Help Shape The Town

Young people are the future and so it is so important to make sure that their views, opinions, and ideas for change are heard and considered. 

Over the past 6 months the Penzance Town Deal Board has been working hard to create and share their vision for a more sustainable future by 2030. Part of this work has been engaging with the community to discuss what they would love to see in Penzance in the years to come. We have been especially interested in ideas that focus on sustainability, clean growth, and that celebrate the beautiful place that Penzance is. 

Back in the summer we held a competition for young people. Our question was “What is your vision for the future of Penzance in 2030?”. We asked people aged 10-19 who live in Penzance for their thoughts and ideas. They could answer in any way they wished.

Now we have our winner!

Dan has won our prize of a GoPro Hero 8 and all of the accessories for his insightful, creative, and inspiring ideas concerning the future of Penzance. 

Something that we loved about Dan’s ideas was that they picked up on some of the ideas that we had, and were also ideas that other people in the community also viewed as important for Penzance.

Something Dan’s ideas were centred around was the sea, and how we can highlight the sea in our vision for the future. The sea is such an important part of life in Penzance and so we enjoyed that his theme for his ideas was reconnecting with the sea. 

One of Dan’s ideas was centred around renewable energy as a way of creating geothermal houses. This idea was influenced by the work that has been done at Jubilee Pool to create a geothermal pool. We loved this idea. Renewable energy will play an important role in the future of Penzance and so making it to homes is important too.

Dan also had an idea about using the sea as a way to create further tourism through a marine discovery boat to explore more of the marine wildlife here in Cornwall.

Dan’s final idea was all about healthy living and making the most of outdoor spaces, and one way of doing this is through an outdoor gym. Only recently the Town Deal Board announced that we will be bringing a free outdoor gym to Newlyn Green for all to use. It is great that already some of Dan’s ideas will be coming to life. We are very excited for this project to be completed soon. 

Celebrating Success

It is great to see young people actively engaging in the future of the town, sharing their thoughts, and inspiring others.

Dan was featured in his school newsletter sharing his ideas on sustainability, and we hope that it has encouraged others to want to voice their opinions and advocate for sustainability.

In the newsletter he states: ‘Healthy living and being eco-friendly is essential for the future of Penzance and I am proud to have been a part of this.’

We love seeing people who will be the future of Penzance become a part of decision making, and believe it should be encouraged as much as possible. But not only this — Dan now has a GoPro which has encouraged him to get out and head to the sea to get some GoPro footage of his water sports adventures. 

The Doughnut offers a vision of what it means for humanity to thrive in the 21st century – and Doughnut Economics explores the mindset and ways of thinking needed to get us there.

There are six core principles to Doughnut Economics:

1 – Change the goal
2 – Tell a new story
3 – Nurture human nature
4 – Get savvy with systems
5 – Design to distribute
6 – Create to regenerate

You can watch a really wonderful overview of all of these principles on the Doughnut Economics YouTube channel, so if you’re more of a visual learner head over then and pop back to see how Penzance is working with the principles. 

Principle 1: Change the goal
At the moment countries are measured by something called GDP, which stands for Gross Domestic Product. Wouldn’t it be better if we changed that goal to how happy a country’s citizens are? 

There is something called the Happy Planet Index and here the UK ranks just 34th. 

Principle 2: Tell a new story
We are slowly starting to see this happen. For decades we’ve believed in trickle down economics, in other words, if we let the rich get richer, then everyone benefits. We’ve seen that this doesn’t work at all so we need a new story about how to create fairness and equality in our economy. 

Principle 3: Nurture human nature
Drop the human intervention and look at nature for solutions to our problems. What can we learn from what already exists?

Principle 4: Get savvy with systems
There is a lot of recent evidence that demonstrates that for all the planning that happens across the world there are many things that are out of our control. Instead of relying on the old truths we need to find a more nuanced approach that encourages our humanity not hides it behind numbers and data. 

Principle 5: Design to distribute
Create systems where the wealth created is distributed and not hoarded. Where everyone can benefit from their input into society. Where no one goes hungry or cold. 

Principle 6: Create to regenerate
We are taking more from our planet than we can put back. This means we will run out of resources. We must look at how we make everything and find smart ways to dispose of our unwanted items so that they can be reborn into something new. 

Much like we’ve mentioned in a previous post on the Global Goals the Penzance Town Deal Board are putting sustainability at the top of the agenda. When it comes to Doughnut Economics, they are picking up on work started by Cornwall Council when they created a Decision Making Wheel to evaluate projects. 

The Board has advanced that wheel a little bit further and soon we will be sharing with you the role of the Doughnut Decision Making Wheel when the Board were choosing the projects for the Accelerator Fund. 

Different from the Global Goals the Doughnut helps the Board to get practical with sustainability. It offers questions and considerations. The hope is that the Decision Making Wheel can be used by any organisation and everyone can benefit from a standard set of questions. Making sustainability easy and accessible.

The Penzance Town Deal Board is pleased to announce that we have received £500,000 from the government as part of an accelerator fund. We will be spending this investment on five main projects, all of which will be completed by March 2021. Our mission is to make Penzance a greener, more sustainable, and thriving space for all. The projects that we will be investing in to achieve this are: introducing bike sheds to encourage sustainable transport, an outdoor gym, increased shop mobility, maintenance of the acorn theatre and the promenade.

Our vision is that by 2030 Penzance will be a thriving and resilient town that connects both locals and visitors to its inspiring coastline and culture. One of the ways in which we will do this is through creating bike shelters and secure parking. This will encourage bike riding in Penzance and help to make travel more accessible. The shop mobility investment will also increase access into the town centre for the less mobile, helping to make travel more accessible and more green.

The prom is at the heart of Penzance, it is an open space where people can improve their sense of wellbeing by being beside the sea. To improve the open space and increase the amount of people visiting, we are enhancing the current works on the Penzance Prom to include more seating, flag-poles, and benches.

Investing in theatre and the arts is not just about helping the night-time economy, but it is also about investing in culture, creativity, and good mental-health. By putting £45,00 into the Acorn we can help fund their essential maintenance work.

Finally a free outdoor gym will improve outdoor spaces as it will make health facilities more accessible to people in Penzance. Based near Newlyn Green, it will be a place where people can exercise while also benefiting from being outdoors.

As further development on each project continues we will release more details here so please be sure to visit the LovePenzance Town Deal pages regularly to see all the latest.

Cornwall is going to have a huge boost through a multinational scheme to deliver sustainable development to Penzance and Marazion.

The Town Deal Board are really excited about this project and how it links to projects that we are currently evaluating in our own process. It’s bringing together funds like ours and that of Experience in order to support all of the people that live and work in Penzance that we are very excited about.

The Mount’s Bay (Penzance and Marazion) area is set to benefit from a €2.8m investment to improve the coast path, support local businesses and encourage a sustainable year-round visitor economy.

It is part of EXPERIENCE – a €23.3m project involving six areas of the Channel region (Cornwall, Brittany, Pas-de-Calais, Compiègne, Norfolk and Kent). Cornwall’s funding will support activities which focus on out-of-season visitor experiences (October to March) and sustainable cultural tourism, connecting visitors with the distinct historical, geographical and cultural assets of the local Penzance area.

EXPERIENCE will bring the cultural and tourism sectors together to encourage a sustainable year-round visitor economy. Due to run until June 2023, the project is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Interreg France (Channel) England Programme. Of the €16.1m ERDF committed to the total project, €1.9m is allocated to Cornwall Council, which is investing a further €0.9m.

With sustainability at its heart, the project will look to improve connectivity and encourage more sustainable modes of transport. The coastal path between Marazion and Penzance will be upgraded to improve the resilience of the popular multi-use trail and work is set to begin in the autumn to resurface the path, improve accessibility and provide safer routes through the car parks on the route. There are also plans to develop an art and cultural experience along the path which embraces the unique assets of the area.

The project will offer training and support to businesses in the Penzance pilot area looking to create cycling and cultural experiences for visitors which link to the local area, its history and culture. Any local business interested in finding out more can keep up to date with the project by signing up for the EXPERIENCE newsletter.

And as Penzance gears up to take centre stage for the first leg of the Tour of Britain in September 2021, EXPERIENCE aims to help local businesses adapt and respond to the increased popularity of cycle tourism.

Councillor Tim Dwelly, Cornwall Council Portfolio Holder for Culture, Economy and Planning, said: “This is another significant step in the realisation of the Bay-to-Bay multi-use trail proposal, the regeneration of the Marazion and Penzance area, and our commitment to promoting new types of tourism. It will help to get people walking and cycling more, and support our ambitions to cut Cornwall’s carbon emissions as part of our climate change action plan.”

“The project will help fund improvements to the route, making it more accessible to tourists and residents alike. Now is such an important time to support the visitor economy. We want people to see Cornwall as an ideal destination all year round.”