Paul Crossley

Over the last week I have had a variety of interesting meetings. On Monday Councillor Colin Darracott and myself did a presentation to the University of Bath Students (mainly architecture, engineering and Lib Dems) on the Vision for Bath. Our 20 year startegy that will enable us to successfully redevlope the many opportunity sites that lie awaiting in central Bath. There is the Bath Western Riverside - 70 acres for housing, employment and public use; Southgate - about to start after several years of getting the finances right; Bath Quays and many others including potentially Saw Close, Post Office/police station, Hilton/Cattle Market, Gainsborough building. These are all at various stages of design and content. They all come with widespread public comment and engagement as is the way in Bath. And above all they have to be developed in the context of maintaining our world heritage status and preserving the old and historic where appropriate. Not easy - Liverpool is currently being investigated by the World Heritage movement for its dock side redevelpment. We had an audience of 60 and a lively Q&A session to end with.

Somer housing AGM had a great guest speaker who challenged the concept of modern urban regeneration and challenged the industry to put people first in any designs they were developing. Wayne Hemmingway built up the fashion label 'Red or Dead' and then moved across from fashion to housing. It was a great speach and he was really enjoying the topic and went way over time. But we did not care. Wayne engages with the audience and the Somer audience gave very different answers to the questions he posed from his usual audiences. Wayne is well worth listening to if you get the chance. Unfortuneately I could not stay for the social afterwards as I had to rush off to the second part of the evening which was to catch the last part of the Bath Fringe AGM. Somer are the main registered social landlord for socially rented housing in Bath and NE Somerset.  

The Bath Fringe held a meeting to try and engage with more sponsors and to ensure its future vitality and viability. This year the Fringe was excellant and the street theatre was great. However as a lot of the shows are free a lot of work has to be put into sponsorship and fundraising.

Friday 20th saw the Ring of Fire spectacular to celebrate the Visions for Bath, Keynsham and Norton Radstock and its launch from the start of that Vision - the Bath Spa. Standard fireworks gave the fireworks and sponsors paid for the launch, cleanup and use of the Spa. A great show with people enjoying it at vantage points all around Bath. It was the first time in the UK to have a simultaneous 6 site launch ringing a town. It was GREAT.

In my BLOG I have stayed clear of national issues and concentrated on my role as a Councillor. The news from Iraq and Afghanistan over the last few days gets worse and worse. I wrote many letters to our local paper in the 9 months before the illegal invasion of Iraq cautioning against invasion on the basis of wrong information. We have in Bath an Iraq businessman who also put the truth into the news and public domain. The Conservatives and Labour did not hear because they wanted to invade. By the way I supported the intervention into Afghanistan - but we should then have concentrated as a world community on helping them rebuild. So I have decided to now put some thoughts down on Iraq.

The situation in Iraq just goes from bad to disastrous. This illegal and immoral war was always unjustifiable. For months before the invasion we were telling the Government that their information was wrong. In fact many thought it to be downright fabrication and lies. Hundreds of thousands went to London to protest. But the Labour and Conservatives would not listen. They wanted regime change and the fig leaf of 45 minute threat was always just that.

To go to war was bad enough, but to then dismantle everything, segment the country, have no post-war strategy and then be surprised at the outcome beggars belief. Yes Saddam was not nice - but now because of the Labour and Conservative MPs our nation is complicit in creating a civil war and the deaths of  upto 600,000 and rising in Iraq. The Body Count Web site has a lower figure. How does that help anyone or anything? Worse still we took our eyes of Afghanistan and instead of helping them rebuild their country allowed the Taliban back in. Where is the sense in that?

The Observer today is attacking the PM but really it should have in its sights every MP that voted to go to war. If we the people knew the truth before that fateful vote then the MPs cannot claim ignorance. At the last election the Iraq war was a factor but not a deciding factor. At the next election it will still be a factor as this bloody mess gets more dire by the day. And everyday it is the people of Iraq who suffer. On radio 4 this morning was an interview with a doctor in Baghdad. Now he is a hero that we should listen to.

Come on Ming SHOUT IT LOUD SHOUT IT PROUD - The Liberal Democrats were THE party opposing this illegal invasion.

The neighbouring states must somehow be engaged in solving this mess. That means the USA and the UK have to stop demonising selected states and work with all of them to solve the crises. After all it is a Bush-n-Blair lead problem. 

And if that is not bad enough we now have the unedifying spectacle of senior Labour and Tory MPs complaining about the dress style of a few women. A move that will increase tension and insecurity amongst British citizens. If Jack Straw has a problem talking to any of his residents then he should resign as an MP not ask them to change their clothes to visit him.

This week we had the monthly meeting of the Executive and also a Full Council meeting. We had some lively debates covering the Local Plan, Building schools for the Future, Guildhall market, motions on student housing and the local airport expansion, pensions and many other topics.

Our local Plan has been many years in the making and has just been subjected to the Government Inspectors review. She came up with a large number of recomendations - many which we accepted. However there were some controversies introduced by her. New ideas for a playing field, reduction of housing at a regeneration site and removal of some of our policies. The main arguement centred on the Haysfield/St Martin's garden site. We had it as education and open spsce. She recommended allowing retail or mixed use on the site.

Retail become synonymous with a Tesco superstore and a large protest movement sprang up overnight. Haysfield undoubtedly needs a new gym which is what it hoped to use the money for. We have decided to do a thorough review of the site and see what is possible or not possible and talk to the community affected. The reason for their anger was that the Government Inspector (in their view) sprang this idea on them without any consultation.

The plan is now out for six weeks of debate. We also put back in three policies on hillsides, open  space and village buffers as well as reaffirming our support for the Norton Radstock Regeneration scheme. This scheme is opposed by the Cam Valley Wildlife group who are not satisfied with the 50% of land being reserved for green space in an area that was in the late 1940's the biggest railhead in England (now sadly without any rail connection at all).

The plan has taken a long time and is still not finished. However I am sceptical about the new fast track planning ideas coming through the system. Once land is devloped it is changed for many years to come. It is right and proper that change should be consulted on and not rushed. If that is inconvenient for the Government and developers then that is just too bad.

Our airport motion was accepted - though the Tories, Independents and Labour got together to take out our GreenTax Switch words that would put the responsibility on the environmental damage caused by flying onto the polluters. When the Tories and Labour actually have to vote on the Environment you see plainly that it is bottom of their agenda. Perhaps someone should tell David Cameron his troops are walking on a different route march!

SWLGA met in Taunton this Friday 6th Oct and had a varied an interesting meeting covering the Environment Agency flood defence proposals, sustainable building and other issues connected to the environment.

Global Warming is the central challenge facing us. If the ice melts - Somerset goes under water - its as stark as that. Yet the Government isn't really addressing the issue. A simple first step would be to immediately change the law to insist that all new build met the highest standards in terms of energy use and that all repairs and refurbs had to meet the standard as well. We should be investing in renewables. And that does mean awkward planning issues. Yes I would rather have windmill farms than loose Somerset to the sea.

Renewable does not mean NUCLEAR. This insanity should be rejected now and for all time. The thought of new stations being built that bypass the planning process because people would object just shows how the Labour government is loosing touch with people. The thought that we can bury a legacy of poison for those who follow us for 100,000 years is arrogance beyond comprehension. Big Greenpeace demo in London - Saturday Nov 4th. Sadly I cannot join the throng on that day.

If you support nuclear then by definition you support the movement of nuclear waste and its storage. You cannot support the first and ignore the reality of the other two. Just near Bath the following are potential storage sites - Colerne, Hullavington, Lyneham, Monkton Farleigh. Check out the Greenpeace web and look at this link to see what is possible near you! Its frightening! 

The latest adaptation of Pursuasion was being filmed in Bath this week. We have put a lot of effort into building Bath as a film friendly city and our Council as a film friendly Council. The director was fulsome in his praise for all the help he had got from all sections of the Council. Filming is good for business, good for the City and people enjoy watching the stars and crews at work.

We have been offered a special cinema version of the film which we can use for a gala evening once it has gone out on TV in the spring. 

Had a lunchtime meeting with the University of Bath Vice Chancellor Glynnis Breakwell. Over two hours we discussed Youth Olympics 2008, the UK Olympics 2012, student accomodation, the Swindon connection and the Festivals Trust.

Glynnis as well as being Vice Chancellor has taken on the challenge of chairing our new Festivals Trust - a big job - with lots to sort out and resolve to ensure its continued success and growth.

I meet fairly regularly with both our universities and The University of Bath is one of the top 2 sport universities in the UK. We discussed bidding for the 2008 Youth Games in the UK. Part of the plan to get young people from around the country engaging in sports. As for the main event in 2012 - we are hopeful that we can get at least one competitor country based in Bath. We will also be the university were the UK stars of the future take their degrees and develop their sporting skills. The University is also expanding into a new campus at Swindon and so I got an update on progress in Swindon.

As a Council we haven't yet spoken much to Swindon but I can see that with a large campus at each town as well as improving our Town and Gown relations we will need to build a partnership with Swindon.

Students bring a big economic dividend to the city but with the takeover of family houses in several wards they also bring issues and problems. Housing is in short supply in Bath - especially reasonably priced family housing. I would like to see more students housed on campus. The University is preparing plans for student housing on site. However planning in Bath is never a simple matter and as the university is at the top of the hill and borders onto an area of outstanding natural beauty a lot of other people take an interest in all applications as well. 

The Bath Race Equality AGM was held in Snowhill tonight. Unfortuneately the guest speaker had to pull out at 3pm this afternoon. They asked me to stand in at short notice which I did. However I was also looking forward to listening to the guest speaker and was planning to be there anyway. My talk was on the importance of people from all communities developing civic leadership.

Today a delegation from the West of England (Bath & NE Somerset, Bristol, N Somerset and S Gloucester) went up to London to put our business case for our developement aims for the next 20 years to Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for local government, and a number of her senior civil servants. We had an hour to put our presentation and answer questions. Our region has 4 universities, a booming airport and port and a thriving economy. However we have problems with transport, some of our skill levels and affordable housing. The Government is looking to growth in housing and jobs. These can be delivered but we have a serious infrastructure deficit already before we look at how new communities are created. As a region we have agreed that our priorities are completing the Bristol ring road and regenerating the communities of South Bristol and Weston Super Mare. Ruth Kelly was particularly interested in our Governance arrangements for the sub region. All 4 authorities plus our partners from Business, public sector and voluntary sector are agreed that we need partnership working to solve the issues and that we do not want a single elected mayour or even an elected cabinet for a sub-region. She challenged us that for Government money and responsibility to be devolved down we needed to convince Government that our partnership model was robust and could deliver.

We felt we had been given a fair hearing and the Government had listened to our case.

In the evening went up the hill for Universty of Bath fresher fair. A good fun light hearted end to a serious day. They have so many societies that they have two separate days for students to wander round and express interst in whatever.