Stroud is an exemplar sustainable community located in rural Gloucestershire some 30 miles North-East of Bristol, UK. A former textile town, it suffered severe industrial restructuring in the second half of the 20^th century. Low property prices attracted a range of cultural alternatives, including artists and environmentalists, who have pioneered green lifestyles and socially innovative projects (Large, 2010). Stroud was also the site of one of the UK’s most successful LETS schemes (North, 2008). Stroud was one of the first communities to become a Transition Town, in 2007, and the Lifestyles and Livelihoods Group made the development of a local currency its first project.

The Stroud Pound follows the essential design features of the Chiemgauer (Gelleri, 2009): one-for-one exchange with the national currency (in this case sterling); a charge for businesses to redeem money; and a system of demurrage. It can thus be considered an experiment with the Regiogeld model in the UK context, and an opportunity to assess the importance of the cultural setting in determining the success or otherwise of this currency design. The Stroud Pound was launched in September 2009, and an assessment of its first year of operation will be undertaken in this paper (see also North, 2010).

The paper falls into three parts. First an account of the literature will be given, focusing especially on the work of Silvio Gesell (1929) and his focus on the relationship between monetary circulation and economic regeneration, including his concept of demurrage. This discussion will be linked to the role local currencies can play in both effecting community regeneration and strengthening and reducing the ecological impact of local economies.

The second part will provide a brief account of the local economy of Stroud, before moving on to discuss in detail the design of the Stroud Pound and a history of its first year of life. This will include the quantity of money exchanged and redeemed; the nature of the organisation of the Stroud Pound Co-operative; and some local reactions to the new currency.

The third part of the paper will consider how a local currency enables environmentally focused community activists to learn more about how their local economy works. A priority for Transition Stroud is to use the local currency to encourage more local production by means of import substitution, displacing production as well as consumption from the global to the local economy, rather than just switching numeraire. The Stroud Pound has also provided a tool to measure the extent of local economic activity, a function which has been enhanced by the undertaking of a detailed local survey. Finally, the role of the new currency in strengthening the local economy of Stroud and the surrounding region will be undertaken. Here, the iconic nature of a currency, as opposed to, for example, a Buy Local campaign, will be explored, with particular emphasis on the physical design of the notes and local people’s responses to images representative of Stroud as a local economy of the past, and the future.

References

Gelleri, C. (2009), ‘Chiemgauer Regiomoney: Theory and Practice of a Local Currency’, International Journal of Community Currency Research, 13: 61-75.

Gesell, S. (1929), The Natural Order: http://wikilivres.info/wiki/The_Natural_Economic_Order.

Large, M. (2010), Common Wealth: For a Free, Equal, Mutual and Sustainable Society (Stroud: Hawthorn Press).