Draft of Sustainability Plan Endorsed by County Council

Sunday, 28 June 2015 11:22

The plan will be sent out to area municipalities for review

OXFORD COUNTY - The group working on the Oxford Community Sustainability Plan have come a long way in one year, but more work needs to be done before completion. County Council endorsed a draft of the sustainability plan that has been diligently gaining residents feedback of services in the county, and area municipalities will receive it for a review. Director of Planning for Oxford County, Gord Hough, breaks down what the sustainability plan is, and how it has been broken into 3 areas. "Sustainability has kind of always talked in general terms of economy, social, and environmental those 3 things are 3 areas that are commonly referred to. It is intended to be a final draft, a lot of work went into this by the community and the steering committee and we hope that what we get is endorsement once the document has been drafted."

County Councillors will have a better idea of what sustainability means to residents in Oxford County as the year progresses. Hough, explains what left to complete before the plan can be finalized. "It is to get council's endorsement of the plan that has been worked on over the last year with the community, and to be able to allow us to take it out to the area municipalities for their endorsement and bring it back. The Sustainability Plan is what it sounds like it is intended to be a very much a community driven idea from the community itself as to what sustainability means in Oxford County." County Councillors carried the plan and will be keeping a close eye on the progress following the County's renewable energy commitment at the latest meeting.

Hough outlines when the plan is set to finalize and how important the implementation process will be. "A big part of this is the implementation, people were really concerned about what is going to happen once we do all this work to establish this plan. The way this plan was developed was with a huge amount of community input, we expect the implementation to be the same way. It will be going out into the fall then we will be looking at ways to start establishing committees, and the groups, associations that we can get this plan put into place." Evaluation criteria will also be implemented to grade the county with points to see how citizens feel about the services offered.