It was in circulation from March 2007 to June 2019, when it was discontinued due partly to an increasingly cashless economy.
The group argued that "Economic localisation is considered to be a key aspect of the transition process, and local currency systems provide the opportunity to strengthen the local economy whilst preventing money from leaking out".
[2] Developed by Rob Hopkins and Naresh Giangrande the scheme was partly modelled on BerkShares.
According to the Transition Town Totnes website, this meant that Totnes was "a community in a process of imagining and creating a future that addresses the twin challenges of diminishing oil and gas supplies and climate change, and creates the kind of community that we would all want to be part of".
The final designs featured author Mary Wesley, 'father of the computer' Charles Babbage, musician Ben Howard and social activist and philanthropist Dorothy Elmhirst.