---

Noticeboard

We now have a council provided noticeboard near to Blue Bridge, on which to advertise ward meetings (next one Feb 6th 2007) and other local information, including information about New Walk itself. If you are a tourist, there is nothing by way of explanatory signs to give you a little of the history of New Walk and the various features on the way.

 So I have printed out some of the information from the Friends of New Walk website, laminated it and took it down to attach to the board. One slight problem is that the black wooden board is as tough as old boots - staples just crumple, sellotape wont outlive the next downpour and drawing pins remain steadfastly on the surface or buckle too. So today I had to resort to hammering drawing pins in - Hopefully the people who tore down the last display, just before the floods will leave alone after my efforts. My main concern was to have something on the board again so that it is not used for grafitti work - others who want to advertise local activities or businesses are welcome to post their notices if they can manage to find a way of securing them to the board!

Mudbath Madness by the Ouse

A MUDBATH left behind after the flooding of riverside footpaths in York has been criticised by Green councillor Andy D'Agorne after witnessing the car park being cleaned but footpath being left covered in mud on Tuesday morning. The council workers were using a hired water tanker suggesting that the vehicle is only hired whenever the floods require it, with priority goingto clearing car parks and commercial frontages like Kings Staith. This is a similar situation to the system used to repair high level street lights - a cherry picker is only hired once a month to do all the jobs since it was last needed (!)

Green councillors feel that City of York Council should give greater priority to cleaning up muddy paths near the River Ouse.

Walkers had been left facing the choice of taking a muddy walk to get under Skeldergate Bridge or crossing the busy inner ring road in the fog."The flooding has seen all the riverside paths covered in inches of mud," said Coun D'Agorne. "We want as many people as possible to walk or cycle into the city centre, but the flooding and now the mud is forcing them onto the busy Fulford Road. The council doesn't have sufficient jet spray washers and has to hire them when they need to for this type of work.

"Green councillors want strategic walking and cycling routes into the city centre given higher priority.

"We wouldn't put up with the inner ring road being closed to traffic for days on end, why should the riverside path be any different if we want to promote sustainable travel."

A council spokeswoman said, following high river levels last week, the authority's cleaning crews had been working their way downstream from Ouse Bridge, cleaning mud left on footpaths as quickly as their resources allowed. She said a crew had been working in the vicinity of the path under Skeldergate Bridge on Thursday (meaning it was impassable on foot for a further two days after the car park was cleared!)

Compost your wrapping paper

All that packaging from Christmas going to landfill seems such a waste, so this year I am conducting an experiment to see how long it takes for the compost bin to deal with out discarded wrapping paper. It already takes all but the woody garden waste, the sawdust and newspaper from the rabbit hutch, kitchen peelings and a selection of torn up toilet roll cores, tissues, vaccuum cleaner bag dust etc. Everything goes into the black dialek that you can get from Blackwells at the subsidised price of £6 plus £5 delivery charge.

The other secret of success is supposed to be to turn the contents over every so often to make sure there is plenty of air in it - the main hazard to watch for is that the inside plastic rim is pretty sharp as you lever the fork through the stuff. Those with a bit more space to play with might get two daleks or simply move its location each year. The shape of these means you can just lift the whole thing off and scoop off the half decomposed top layer to stuff into your new heap , leaving the bottom half of nutritious compost for you to use on the garden. If you want to know more about composting follow the link to St Nicks Environment Centre or York Rotters - they are always wanting more people to act as local advisers to help spread the idea of composting. It is even greener than putting stuff in the green bin as it doesnt have to be transported from your garden, and you dont have to drive to the garden centre when you need some compost!

Water water...New walk?? !

We have seen the river flooding again in York this week, covering New Walk (should it be New Swim?), Terry Avenue and parts of Rowntree's Park since Wednesday. The street lights must be well insulated, as they have carried on burning each night with the water some way up the posts! Levels are 13 feet above summer levels (in 2000 it reached nearly 20ft above) about the highest it has been since then. The path through to Hospital Fields Rd has been underwater briefly and the lowest section on the route from the bridge to Butcher Terrace has flooded, causing people to have to detour onto the sodden grass. A shame that a few more pounds were not spent when it was built to cut out this dip below flood level!

What will be interesting to see when the water subsides is how the latest new bench has fared - I was unable to convince the council to site it on the higher ground, so now it is completely underwater! The trees will not take too kindly either, so we will have to hope for a dry spell after to let their roots dry out.

The council now has a tree management plan (available on the Friends of New Walk website http://www.friendsofnewwalk.org.uk/view.php?m=0&s=0 ) but very little money is available to carry out the work, which will be quite expensive if they are to trim back the majestic chestnuts to reduce the risk of them being felled by gales. Since 2003 something like 10 trees have gone from New Walk - blown over, diseased or removed for safety reasons. Many have not taken well to the changes in levels when the cycle route was laid, the more regular flooding and the compression of soil by 'desire line' walkers and bikers.

See later stories about the flooding this winter!

An inconvenient truth - transition towns not Trident

Well this week I got to see the film, at Pocklington Arts Centre, where a local resident had persuaded the manager to put on the Al Gore film for two nights. Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Green Party had stalls and instead of the trailers we each said something about how we feel we need to respond to climate change issues by taking steps to reduce our Carbon Footprint. There were Green Party activists from Hull who had done a similar thing there just before the Climate change march, getting hundreds of people over the 3 nights. It is strange to think, (having just listened to a Radio 4 programme about the history of Newsreel) how things are turning full circle - now that there is so much irrelevance on TV people want to experience collective entertainment and education in their local theatre or cinema again, and people in rural locations are building local community identity that is often lost in our urban society.

I have just looked on the web for information on 'transition towns' the concept developed by Rob Hopkins in Kinsale with his permaculture students (and now started in Totnes ) that in the post Peak Oil world, communities have to start to develop local sustainability and self reliance in order to survive the dramatic changes as well as help to avert the worst impact of climate change. In 1926 it was the Wall Street Crash, in the early 80's we were contemplating the nuclear winter and now we are thinking about rising sea levels more severe storms and major disruption to the world's agriculture and globalised supply chains. Tony Blair still seems to think that security lies in hanging on to Bush's coat-tails, ID cards, replacing Trident, chacingthe global multinationals and fast track planning rules to build nuclear power stations. Yet it is the people of Kinsale and Totnes who have a better idea of how to work for a secure future where they are able to rely on their own resources for a sustainable future.