Paul Crossley

So Gordon has finally got there. Congratulations to him. However he has been so close to Blair these last ten years he cannot escape a legacy of Iraq, Health Service in crises, increasing divide between the poor and the rich, a failure on Europe and worst of all a complete inability to address the challenge of Climate Change which has been real and present for well over a decade now. A society were young men are using knives on each other so frequently is not a society at ease with itself. The Liberal Democrats launched their health campaign this week. The Labour party has lost the trust of the nation on health with the way it has simply wasted billions with a non-stop merrygoround of needless change.

Our knew Conservative Cabinet had its first public meeting. Yet again a further retreat into the Guildhall and away from the prying eyes of residents and opposition councillors. Their answers to many questions were spiteful and the letters they are generating in our local paper show a complete detachment from reality. Nothing new there then!!! When they stopped all participation we simply left the chamber. They turned this into a fairy story of Lib Dems Storm Out !!! The Tories around the Country are simply a means to control power for power's sake. Mr Davies spelled it out clearly when leaving Cameron's bunch this week. The longer they are out of power the better. Who remembers interest rates of 17% crippling hard working families and a policy that resulted in inflated land and house values leading to the unaffordable prices of today.

first_cabinet_pr.doc

Our group had one of its regular discussion evenings last week and we covered many subjects including care, recreation ground and rugby. My views on Bath Rugby club playing at the the Rec are well known. The club, the charity commission and the Council must somehow arrive at a situation that enables Bath Rugby to remain as a premiership force playing in the heart of Bath. That means new facilities. This year though in Europe we have two French teams and one Italian - so a really hard call as to which long weekend destination I choose.

Friday the Leadership Centre put on a training day for Liberal Democrat leaders from around the country. The good thing about this organisation is that it doesn't shy away from the fact that Councillors in local Government largely organise around political parties and that this is a good thing for local democracy. The next day saw our own ALDC local Gov conference. Lots of training, networking and listening to speaches from local governement leaders and some of our MPs. I caught those from Chris Huhne and Andrew Stunell.   

I haven't said anything about trains for a long time in this blog. I haven't stopped using them at all and again over the last few weeks I have used the train in preference to the car for many journeys to many destinations. All on time except one the other day from Bristol to Exter. The announcement was about flooding north of Birmingham. You could hear the cynical smirks until we got home and saw the news with half the country under water.  And still on Question Time they had someone doubting the validity of climate change. King Canute and osteriches spring to mind.

Riding for the Disabled has been running for many years now. My mother-in-law, Mollie McGivern, was an active member from its earliest days. At Lackham College today they unveiled a plaque in her memory on the mounting block she donated for disabled riders. As part of the ceremony the 'James Bond' team from Chippenham performed for us their ride which has just won the 2007 National Musical Ride Award for a disabled team. It was an excellant ride. What was really special was the fact that Robin and Owen (the two front riders in picture) started their riding under Mollie's guidance many years ago as teenagers. The picture below is the line up to start the performance.

At our last planning meeting we had two applications for housing on gardens. Under the modern planning framework these were almost unresistable. Both applications were on the second attempt and had been refused first time due to overdevelopment of the site. The new smaller applications were both approved. I think that in the long term Prescott's effective designation of gardens as brownfield is storing up a lot of problems. Communities need space to breathe and gardens even if private provided this. We are just loosing all the access to the earth. Couple this with the loss of front gardens to tarmac carparking places and the problem grows. Water will have no space to absorb into the ground and will increasingly runoff and increase flood damage somewhere down the line.

I think planning law needs revision to take much more account of its environmental impact. It also needs to be changed to give more weight to social cohesion. People on low incomes need decent housing for social rent as well as always building more and more for the propertied classes.

At the South West Local Government Association meeting in Exeter I was elected to lead our group at these meetings. Our SWLGA meetings have too many presentations and not enough debate and democracy. We were making an appointment to the 2012 SW olympic committee. The Conservatives and Labour groups wanted it agreed by group leaders in private. We wanted it decided in the open at the meeting. The 22 Cons + 8 Lab + 1 Ind voted on block to outvote us 17 LDs and not appoint our candidate. The Conservatives could easily have put forward a name but chose not to. So another appointment will be made by agreement of the few in private.

The old Bath and NE Somerset Council had three planning committees - one for NE Somerset, one for Bath and one for major projects. Before the elections we had decided this was going to be changed to just one committee to deal with all planning and policy development and improve consistancy and quality of decision making.

On Monday we had our first set of site visits and today we had the first of what will be a new continuous training and improvement approach for the new committee. There will be several new members on the new 12 Councillor committee and what with a two month backlog the first meeting next Wednesday is going to be a long one. The training also highlighted the new framework we are all working in with RSS and LDF etc etc. More frightening is the arrival of two major government papers recently - the energy paper and the new planning process for major applications. There is a clear message that a nuclear power station or storeage facility could be coming to you soon!! Nuclear is simply NOT the answer. Locally we have current sites in Somerset and Gloucestershire. I for one certainly do not want new facilities built there.  Click on the LibDem campaign button on my BLOG or check out for yourself what the government is planning at Meeting the Energy Challenge  and have your say.

Currently we are not meeting Government targets on planning application turnaround. Hopefully this new approach will address that. It does however require more delegation and less applications considered in public. Its just one more thread cut in democratic accountability as the Government tries ever harder to turn democracy into quangocracy.

In the Bath Half Marathon this year I was running for the Research Institute for the Care of the Elderly (RICE). This is an excellent Bath based charity doing good work on medical issues such as Alzheimer's disease and others. A team of 12 runners raised over £3,500 for the Charity. Today as most of the money has been collected and handed over we did a press release and photo op with four of us to keep the story and awareness in the local press. Please check out the RICE website if you want to know more about the work and research they are doing.

It was the Bedlam Fayre at the Fringe yesterday. Lots of free street entertainment in several locations around the city. The best though again was the SpiegelTent located for the fourth year on the Recreation Ground. These are wonderful 1930s creations from Belgium and provide a great temporary venue. Ours has been put on each year by Edinburgh Labour Councillor Ian Murray (voted 37th most eligible Scot in 2006 by the Scotsman!!). This year haven't been to much but on Saturday was a great African double bill of Etran Finatawa and Nuru Kane. Both Radio 3 World Music nominees this year. Nuru Kane and his band were excellent. Very sadly after the show someone stole his musical instrument, a guimbra, a three string bass. Lets hope it is recovered swiftly. Apologies from Bath to you Nuru.

Sunday afternoon went back to listen to a local rising star Katey Brooks from Bristol. She had opened the International Festival at the Abbey - but they had not provided her with a microphone. So her voice was lost in the Abbey. After two numbers I went up and asked if she would like me to hold a loose microphone up for her. Suddenly the Abbey was filled with her voice. Great. See Katey's Blog for her version. The organiser was clearly embarrassed and got a stand for the rest of the gig.

Bath has many festivals and they are an important economic factor for the city. The Fringe is my favourite though because it is just so much looser and so many of the events are free and thus much more accessible. The Spiegel also has a childrens free festival with it on the lunchtimes and afternoons. To put them on requires a lot of work - so well done Wendy and the team at the Fringe.

Global warming continues to rise up the political agenda. Recently there has been some negative publicity about carbon offsetting based on the assumption that people are merely paying their way out of trouble. My view is that if people are not modifying their life style and simply taxing themselves they are at least thinking about the issue and admitting to the problems they cause each time they payup. However really carbon offsetting should be matched by lifestyle changes and reducing the carbon footprint.

So how are we doing in our household.

Cars - mine current mileage 43925 Jan 1 mileage 42261 - distance travelled = 1664 (up from previous 6 months - 1579 - due to elections)

- my wife's car - curent 38349 previous 33472 - distance travelled = 4877 ( down from previous 6 months - 5133)

car travel = 6541 miles = emissions from this at an assumed 32mpg are: 2.15 Tonnes of CO₂
The cost to offset this CO₂ will be £ 16.10

Flights = 1 - we both flew from Bristol to Dublin for the Bath Connaucht rugby match - emissions from this flight are: 0.21 Tonnes of CO₂
The cost to offset this CO₂ will be £ 1.55

Therefore my carbon offset cost of travel for me and my wife for the first 6 months of 2007 are £17.65. Payment made to Climatecare.

In the household - we are now doing the washing at 30deg rather than 40 deg. we are using the tumbledrier far less. we are not leaving the mobile phone charger plugged in. we are not leaving any appliances on standby.

In the area of waste - we have bought a food digester called greencone into which we put all our cooked food waste. We have been putting all compostable kitchen waste into our compost bin for some time now. The greencone is sunk into the ground and is rat proof. It is a closed system and digests all the cooked waste and turns it into water and nutrients. We have had no problem with smell or flies. The little kitchen caddy that comes with it works well and also has no smell problem. In fact the only problem we had in the early days was that the badgers tried to knock it over every night. In the end I put some heavy duty patio slabs around the base. As a family we generate very little cooked food waste because we only cook what we need to eat. However there are still bones and other things that go in and the greencone works well. I recommend it to you if you have space in the garden.

So what about my new years resolutions:

1. Get rid of second car after elections - I have put this on hold till after the summer break as my youngest son wants to learn to drive over the summer vacation.

2. Get household waste down - success = we are generating less than 3lb per adult per week and on our way to meeting our target of 2lb per adult per week

3. Improve energy efficiency of house - doing well. Next step is to put our water on a meter so that we reduce water consumption. Got an extra slimline water tub for the patio to harvest rainwater for the patio plants.

My Climate Care certificate:

Climate_Care_certificate20070701.pdf