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Polos with the hole in....

 Strange how when you want the media to cover serious issues like signing up to a 25 year contract for an incinerator they are not interested. However a quierky story about Polo mints being flown 7000 miles to sell in a city with a Polo mint factory is national news! Did an interview for local radio and one for national BBC news today and my quotes from the local press appeared in the Telegraph, Mirror and Daily Mail as well as the Yorkshire Post!! This all came about following a two year old story about discount stores in York selling Polo mints from an Indonesian factory when they are still made just down the road at Rowntrees (now Nestle) factory where they were first made in 1948. Through Wikipedia and internet searches Ive learnt today that they were first made under licence as 'Lifesavers' - a yankie idea based around theshape of a lifebelt. After the war ended the licence was lost so the Polo mint was born, a reference to the 'Polar' cool experience and also conveniently allowing the two o shapes to be used to illustrate the product.

During the live interview I did at lunchtime today I mentioned the story of a couple of years back about the Scottish seafood that was flown out to Thailand in order to benefit from cheap labour shelling the animals before being packed and shipped back to Grimsby for the UK market. To my amazement, when I met up with the camera crew from BBC they has a print out of a story about 120 Scottish workers facing redundancy because the company plans to use just such an arrangement for processing their seafood. My 15 second TV soundbite said that we have to tackle this nonsense of a global economy in the light of climate change and peak oil - to become more food secure we have to use more local food and reduce our dependence on food that has been transported half way around the world before we eat it!

 

Burn or recycle? Make your mind up time!

Plans for an incinerator to process the waste from York and N Yorkshire could be in the balance as the government carries out a review of waste strategy, (including whether or not 'Energy from Waste' as the technology is now called should be included in local strategies). You can put your views on the Defra website http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/waste-review/index.htm. Here's what its about: "The Review will look at all aspects of waste policy and delivery in England. Its main aim will be to ensure that we are taking the right steps towards creating a ‘zero waste’ economy, where resources are fully valued, and nothing of value gets thrown away."

Strange how we have been ridiculed for calling for a 'zero waste strategy' yet the new government now seems to be keen on the idea just as we prepare to sign up to a 25 year contract that closes off this option.

All comments and suggestions received in the discussion or to the survey before 9 September 2010 will be considered and fed into the Review.  The Call for Evidence will close on 7 October 2010.  The early results of the Review will be made available in Spring 2011.

I would urge all residents of York and N Yorkshire to also make their views heard on the proposed 'waste solution' for the sub-region. Good features are that anaerobic digestion will be used to take out the methane from the slime, although not so good is that it will be turned into Co2 by burning it to generate power ( would be better still if it could be bottled and used to drive the bin lorries as some councils are considering) Also not good is the fact that the contract assumes 50% recycling is achieved by 2020 (we are nearly there now!) and will financially penalise the councils if the level of waste is too LOW!

The company Amey Cespa proposes to burn the waste left at the end of the process, along with commercial waste if needed to generate more electricity, with the aim that the potentially toxic residue (bottom ash) will be incorporated into building aggregate (not for use under my new drive or house thank you very much!!)

York and N Yorkshire councillors will be asked to vote on signing up to the 25 year contract very shortly - despite repeated lobbying from the Greens, our councils have given councillors a 'Hobsons choice' - there is no 'Plan B' worked up if they dont like the terms that have been negotiated in secret by the Joint Municipal Waste Partnership Board.

 Here are some points from the York Green Party website:

  You might be worried about the release of toxic chemicals, the huge £900 million price tag for the plant (requiring 6.5% of York's council tax income in a year), or the impact on recycling of commitment to provide waste to the plant over the next 25 years. Or you might be angry at the totally inadequate and abortive consultation that was carried out and the way that this costly project will undermine serious attempts to cut waste and boost recycling.

If you share the Green Party views:

• Sign the online petition at http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/dont-incinerate-north-yorkshire/sign.html
• Put up leaflets and posters whereever you are in the county - these are available from the North Yorkshire Waste Action Group (NYWAG - http://www.nywag.org).
• Write to your local Councillor or MP - find out who they are at www.writetothem.com.
• Write to the Councillors responsible for the Waste Strategy - for North Yorkshire this is: Cllr Clare Wood,
  Waste Disposal Portfolio Holder
  North Yorkshire County Council
  County Hall
  Northallerton
  North Yorkshire
  DL7 8AH
• 
  - and for York :
  Cllr Ann Reid
  City of York Council
  The Guildhall
  York YO1 9QN
Your comments need to be in by September 17th in order to be considered by Councillors at their decision meeting.

The NYWAG website is an excellent resource for information on the project - others include the Tockwith Residents Association, tockwith.net, who fought a long-running campaign against an attempt to build an incinerator near to their village, and the Marton-cum-Grafton village website.

There's more on the fraught, five-year history of the waste strategy on York Green Party website, from February 2007, April 2007, October 2007 and June 2010. You can also read the waste section of our local manifesto (pdf).

 York Green Party believes that we should be moving towards a zero-waste economy. Waste should be dealt with by a concerted and comprehensive system of reduction, reuse, recycling and composting, with a long term goal of zero residual waste always in mind. It isn't an easy option - it requires many changes to be made at all levels of our commnuities - but it is cheaper, does not generate toxic chemicals, and is the only truly sustainable solution

Going solar!

Sun getting warm already!

Fresh back from holidays, our house now sports an array of 10 solar PV panels on our south facing roof (1.89kWp), as we join the growing number of York residents taking advantage of the new 'Feed in tariff' that gives a better return than keeping the money they cost (a lot!!) in the bank. Once we are connected up we will be getting free daytime electricity for at least some of the time and 41.3p per kWh for ALL the electricity generated by the panels over the next 25 years. If you have some money to invest and a south facing roof that is not shaded or in a conservation area then it is definitely worth investing in the future - even if you dont have the ready cash there are options such as extending the mortgage or there are companies that will install for free (but they take the feed in tariff, leaving you with just the cheaper leckie bills) More on this in due course!

System went live just before midday on Sat Aug 21st 2010... Generated 4.3kWh in first day, even though it was cloudy most of the afternoon. Full sun at 1pm gave about 1.6kW generation, overcast afternoon 350W. Sunday really was Sun-day... 8kWh generated by the evening after a mostly sunny day and the really exciting news is that, being out for a lot of the day, the mains reading was lower than when we started! Now starting to think about a smart meter to learn more about the power consumption of different appliances.

ONE WEEK ON... 

In spite of it being cloudy and showery on several days, the system has produced 42kWh over the past 7 days which equates to about £16 earned from the feed-in tariff. We have also been overall self sufficient in electricity, with the sun having powered 3 people's use of  washing machine, electic kettle, radios, TV, shower, computers and lights for the week. Obviously the sun will get lower in the sky and the nights longer, but if last week could be taken as typical of the period between May- August we should see quite a good return on the investment.    

 

 

Trees on New Walk

 

Extract from the Friends of New Walk newsletter:

" The children of St George’s Primary, Fishergate Primary and York Steiner schools adopted three of the trees on The Walk by Hospital Fields. They recited a poem and took a certificate of adoption back to their schools. 

We have asked the children of St Lawrence’s school to adopt the fourth tree. The children of the schools in Fishergate Ward will then have adopted all four trees and have a specific interest in The Walk.

 

Some of you will have seen that one of our mature chestnut trees has been severely pruned. It had shed a major limb and was deemed to be a hazard. It’s hard to ignore the irony that the pruning was taking place at the same time as the children were adopting the newly planted trees.

‘What about a strategy to protect our prize heritage trees?’ asks Andy D’Agorne. Friends will work on this and will be happy to work with the Councillors, Council Officers and others in trying to identify a ‘tree policy’ to ensure that our 100+ year old specimens are protected and that trees are felled only as a last resort."

 

My concern is that with climate change, the additional stresses of flooding, longer dry spells and stronger summer winds when the trees are in full leaf could leave us with few if any of these magnificent trees within the next ten years.

 

 

 ‘The greatest wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more.’

 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Street choirs

This weekend I combined attending the national Association of Green Councillors conference with the 28th National Street Choirs Festival, both in the vibrant Sheffield city centre. On Friday evening I was helping to steward at the evening concert, featuring a line up called 'The Free Radicals' - a group whose roots go back to the 80's when several of the members were either in the Sheffield Street Band or founder members of the Sheffield Socialist Choir. The recently refurbished City Hall Ballroom was also an appropriate venue for the event - my earliest memory of which was attending a NALGO benefit for the Miners Strike, also about the time of the first 'Street Bands Gathering' as it was called which consisted of 3 bands - Sheffield Street Band, the Fall Out Marching Band (London) and the Dirt Sisters (Nottingham) - I was there, as  a 'groupie' having seen them all playing at protests at the Cruise Missile base being built at Molesworth. Eight years later in 1992 I was on the organising committee for the '10th National Street Music Festival' in Sheffield - by then I had succeeded in getting Sheffield Socialist Choir to participate and changing the name to a more inclusive title. The procession through the streets featured us singing at the front - as I recall a very difficult tune to march to in 7/8 time by John Webber, followed by some 60 of us singing on the City Hall steps in the rain. Fast forward to the 2010 Street Choirs (no longer bands taking part) and Saturday saw bright sunshine beaming down on 800 singers all neatly packed in their parts on the steps to sing protest songs reflecting struggle and protest - from Rosa Parks, to Billy Bragg's updated version of the Internationale (can now find a half decent video of these on You tube, listed alongside some of our cuban performances!). 'Busking' is still a key feature of the event with performances in the many squares and public spaces around the city centre - I was priviledged to sing with the choir that I first joined as a founder member in 1988 in the Winter Gardens - an example of modern sustainable design for a northern public space. The weekend included a walk around a city that I left 10 years ago with local Green Party members to look at some of the follies of the 'rejuvenation' that people who extol the virtues overlook - the half demolished fire station HQ built in the 1980s now being taken down for a massive 'retail quarter' that may never appear because of the recession and rise of internet sales - the St Pauls Tower skyscraper that dominates the previously inspiring open sky above the glass roof of the Winter Gardens - the second makeover of the Crucible Square in 20 years that now channels all the runoff from a large paved area down towards the doors to the Crucible! On our walking round we also so some of the evidence still of the devastating 2007 summer floods - a testiment to the future problems of climate change in a hilly area with lots of hard landscaping and new development.

 The highlight of the weekend was the Saturday evening concert - for once I chose to be in the audience rather than performing, so I was able to listen, not just to tenors but the whole effect as Sheffield Socialist Choir sang a song 'Ire Santiago' we had sung in Cuba and a new powerful song about the 2009 Israeli attack on the people of Gaza - 'A blinding flash of white light lit up the sky over Gaza tonight, people running for cover, not knowing whether they're dead or alive  - we will not go down in the night without a fight, you can burn up our mosques our homes and our schools but our spirit will never die...We will not go down in Gaza tonight' It reminded me why the Sheffield choir has been so important to me - with the mix of political committment to fighting for justice and inspiration for those involved in those struggles to strengthen their resolve to achieve change - In 1990 the choir sang in Sheffield Cathedral at 48 hours notice in celebration of Nelson Mandella's release from prison, in 1989 we learnt the Internationale in Chinese within 3 weeks to sing in solidarity with those murdered in Tiennamen Square.

Cameron and Clegg are now spawning a whole new generation of political song as we struggle to defend public services and what advances have been made since Thatchers era.

 STOP PRESS: 

 

 

Lighter later campaign moves forward

Lighter Later Bill

It's happening.

After months of campaigning and lobbying MPs, I can confirm that there will be a bill in Parliament backing the campaign for lighter evenings.

The bill put forward by Rebecca Harris MP would force the government to implement th e time change if a full review of the evidence confirms the benefits. All being well, MPs will debate the plan in early December. To find out more and 'sign up' support see http://www.lighterlater.org/ 

What are the benefits?

Lighter Later is about shifting Britain’s clocks forward by one hour throughout the year. In other words, instead of setting our clocks to GMT in winter and GMT+1 in summer, we would set them to GMT+1 in winter and GMT+2 in summer. We would still put our clocks forward in spring and back in autumn, but the sun would rise and set one hour later throughout the year, which would mean that more people are up and around when there is daylight.

Moving Britain’s clocks forward in this way has the potential to:

1 Cut at least 447,000 tonnes of CO₂ pollution – equivalent to more than 50,000 cars driving all the way around the world – each year [1]

2 Save 100 lives each year and prevent hundreds of serious injuries by making the roads safer [2]

3 Lower our electricity bills by maximising the available daylight and reducing peak power demand [3]

4 Create 60,000–80,000 new jobs in leisure and tourism, bringing an extra £2.5–3.5 billion into the economy each year [4]

5 Reduce crime and the fear of crime [5]

6 Help make people healthier and tackle obesity by giving people more time to exercise and play sport outside in the evening [6]

7 Save the NHS around £138 million a year through reducing road casualties [7]

8 Improve quality of life for older people [8]

9 Make the nation happier – including reducing the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder [9]

10 Demonstrate that dealing with climate change can be good for the economy, good for people and good for society as a whole

 

Bishy Road Street Party success

 

This evening residents enjoyed a fantastic experience of a short section of Bishopthorpe Road being closed to traffic from 6.30pm-10pm As the culmination of The international 'Car Free Cities' conference taking place for the first time in the UK, this street party had everything - music, food bike try out area, most of the shops and cafes open late, half of the road taken over with stalls, tables and chairs. Small children were chalking flowers on the road or dancing to the music. A short shower mercifully lasted only a couple of minutes and the brass band played on. Within an hour the nearby pub was overflowing with groups sitting out on the grass chatting in the midst of the busy gyratory. The time passed so quickly for me - stewards briefing at 6pm, warm up for the choir at 7.15pm followed by Chechelele's rousing performance at 7.45pm with a healthy crowd watching.

 

 No sooner had we finished than I was issued with stewards tabard and walkie talkie and allocated to barrier duty  - not really a lot to do there other than give out supplies of chalk and talk to people ('networking') Comments included the experience of the interantional conference delegates who had been taken on a bike ride to experience the best and worst of York cycle provision. There was shock at the 'aggressive driving' in congested locations such as the station and Fishergate gyratory. One delegate said it was a big surprise to see so many people packing the street for this event and the eagerness of people to reclaim the space as the last cars cleared the area. As we cleared away and the first cars ventured into the street again people were asking when the next one would be - 'we must do this more often than once a year' some were even saying heretical things like 'Cant the council just close it off permanently? For details of the local shops in this wonderful parade of local traders see www.bishyroad.net

 

 

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Keep Posties Cycling

Not content with scrapping mail trains for juggernauts on the motorways, the Royal Mail boss recently announced the demise of the post bike - dozens of them are used to greenly efficiently distribute post in York, keeping a fair number of vehicles off our crowded roads. The Cycle Touring Club has now intensified its campaigning to save postal workers' bikes following last week's announcement that the new chief executive of Royal Mail will be former Canada Post head Moya Greene. Please take five minutes to write to Ms Greene, asking her to reverse her predecessor's decision to scrap cycle delivery. CTC will deliver all of your letters to Ms Greene after she starts work in July. We already have several hundred of them. Let's make it several thousand so that we can demonstrate why Royal Mail needs to invest in cargo bikes and trikes rather than stopping cycling altogether and just using vans.
If you're a cycling postal worker and you want to help, please email campaigns@ctc.org.uk to find out more.

Fulford Rd. changes

Sorry for the long gap in postings - election activity took priority Im afraid! So now we have coalition government and we call all blame Tories and Lib Dems instead of Gordon Brown and Labour!

Back on the local front, the new road layout on Fulford Rd is finally taking shape - cycle lanes, bus lanes grass verges crossings. The work seems to have been going on for ever, and some parts have been abandoned (eg near entrance to Fulford Cross) because a gas main has been uncovered and is not where it should have been - ie it is not deep enough to carry the weight of traffic and needs to be buried deeper. Perhaps this might explain a similar problem with a gas leak somewhere between Broadway junction and Fulford Cross that has led to inspection covers being lifted and surrounded with temporary barriers on the footpath.

I got some press coverage for complaining about the poor workmanship that left trip hazards all over the place when the workers knocked off for the weekend. There was also a nasty metal block on the end of a wooden pole that could have been used to do some serious damage had I not removed it to a safer place behind the works barriers.

Another gripe is the fact that the new shared use cycle track alongside the Barracks is still being finished off yet the new road layout is already in place. Any cyclist staying on the road now creates an obstacle to traffic, which has to go into the oncoming lane to overtake because of the introduction of the new bus lane narrowing everything else down. It will take a bit of time for everyone to get used to the new layout, but it should help to encourage more people to cycle or use the bus rather than their cars.

Meanwhile proposals for the next section (Cemetery Rd- Fishergate) are due to be discussed on June 1st - As local councillor, I am keen to encourage safe travel to school on foot
and by bike, and improve road safety. It will soon be possible to cycle
from Fulford to Cemetery Rd on Fulford Rd on cycle lanes, but space is
limited for improvements in front of the school. I am therefore collecting
support for a petition to designate the road in front of St George's and
Fishergate Schools as 20mph - please sign the petition (outside school this coming
week), or email me cllr.adagorne [at] york.gov.uk if you would like to
support this idea.

Park and Ride plan approved

Tonight's planning committee approved the design and location for the A59 Park and Ride site close to Northminster Business Park. Help to cut the traffic congestion and cut car travel you might think. Well as with many 'sustainable' policies the devil is in the detail. The site finally selected after years of prevarication is outside the ring road and on the south (right hand) side of the A59 as you approach York. When asked about the traffic modelling that has been used to justify this (although evidence in the committee report was a few sweeping generalisations and not much else) we were told that flows at Askham Bar had been used. I pointed out that in this country we drive on the left and most of the park and ride sites (including Askham Bar) involve a left turn off the approach road to access them. This one will require a right turn at a signal controlled junction, with the bus having to turn right across the A59 and then cross the outer ring road (at a 'new improved' roundabout) I also pointed out that bus priority measures would be needed along Boroughbridge Rd /Holgate Rd if the service was to be sufficiently attractive in terms of time saving compared with driving into the city. Without this the more 'free flowing' conditions achieved from removing the inbound cars from Harrogate would be short lived as other local traffic filled up the 'space' created. The new roundabout, promised for the same timescale assuming DfT funding is secured will 'double' its capacity, with more lanes entering and leaving and an underpass for cycles and pedestrians (they will need it!)

There was also the issue of 'special reasons' for building this in the Green Belt - Cllr Pierce (seconded by me) unsuccessfully called for the application to be deferred because the officers had not provided evidence of the sequencial examination of other possible sites as required by PPG2. I also questioned the fact that as a council application it should be going beyond the minimum required 10% of energy needs being generated on site and should be identifying parts of the site for additional generating capacity to be added in the future. The energy needs with LED lights and a turf roofed reception centre should be minimal, making 10% a paltry amount, to come from the Tesco style noddy wind turbines that probably produce just about enough juice to power the tills.

 

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