Mary Reid

You've got until the end of September to use up any green plastic bags for garden refuse if you want the Council to collect them. They have been replaced by reusable jute bags which are much more environmentally friendly.

When you buy a jute bag you are really buying the service. It costs £35 per annum or £20 for concessions. You can order one online. The bags can then be put out with your bins every week.

When the jute bags were originally advertised the Council did say that they would need to be renewed (and paid for again) this September. This was very unfair on the early purchasers as they would not have had a full year's service for their money. But we've sorted that out and anybody who has a jute bag can continue to use them until September 2008, regardless of when they bought them. 

I won't be getting a jute bag. Why not? Well, I have a composter in my garden and that eats all my garden waste. If you really want to be green, a composter is a much better solution - no further transport of waste, and you get lovely crumbly compost if you wait patiently. At least, that is what I am promised, but it does take quite a while and my relatively new compost heap hasn't been very productive so far. 

Next year a lot of people are going to be surprised to find that Easter does not fall in the school holidays. How could that happen?

Well, for many years attempts by the Government to rationalise the school holidays have met with failure. So three years ago the London boroughs decided to work together to make it happen. Education was in my portfolio then and I supported the changes on behalf of Kingston. 

The problem has been that Easter can fall on any date between 23rd March and 25th April.  This means that school terms have varied in length, disrupting the rhythm of the academic year. As a teacher I often found this was difficult to manage and was pleased when the idea of equal length terms was floated.

As from 2007, the Spring school holidays in London will always be roughly the first two full weeks in April. Surrey County Council is also adopting the same pattern.

This year Easter conveniently fell within the holiday period so no-one noticed the change. Next year Easter falls on the earliest possible date - March 23rd. Schools will simply take a long weekend at this time, as Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays. The school holidays will run from Mon 7th April to Friday 18th April 2008.

So any parent of a school child planning a family holiday for the week after Easter is going to find they're in trouble!

The question is, have the tour operators woken up to the change yet? Maybe 2008 is the year to take a holiday in April before they notice and put up the prices.

Footnote

Does anyone really understand how the date of Easter is fixed?  Logically it should be related to the date of Passover, which itself depends on the new moon - but the two events rarely coincide. It seems they got out of sync many years ago and the Easter date seems to be based on a virtual moon cycle rather than a real one.  Can anyone explain?  Is there any reason why Easter could not be on a fixed date like Christmas?

Incidently, the churches raised no objections to the change in school holiday dates.

We've just got back from a few days in North Wales.  Enjoy the photos...

I really get cross when I see cars parked in disabled bays with no sign of a blue badge.  My mother has a blue badge and I know just how helpful it is when I take her out anywhere in the car. Anyone who uses up one of these valuable spaces when they are not entitled is acting in a thoroughly anti-social way.

But it seems that the abuse does not end there.  Non-disabled people 'borrow' blue badges from friends, and there is quite a trade in false blue badges. For some the attraction is the parking space near to a venue, for others free parking is the incentive.

So what can be done about it?  If there is a regular pattern to the abuse then we can always ask the parking patrols to come along at the relevant time. But most of the abuse is unpredictable.

The Police and Parking attendants are carrying out sweeps in the town centre during August. If you have a blue badge don't be offended if one of them checks whether you are the person entitled to use it, or looks closely at it to see whether it is genuine. Catching the blue badge abusers will make life just a little more comfortable for those who need them.

All about blue badges, how to apply for one and where to park.

... is illegal, of course. The Trading Standards people and Police at Kingston have for many years worked with a small group of under 18s who make test purchases. The young mystery shoppers try to buy alcohol in off licences and supermarkets and in the past several traders have been prosecuted for underage sales.

But some young people try to get round this by hanging around outside off licences and asking adults to buy drink for them. That, too, is illegal.

Down here in Chessington and Hook the local Safer Neighbourhood Team have tackled this on two fronts. First, they have enlisted the help of all the local licensees, who keep a watch out for this happening, and hand out leaflets explaining that it is illegal to buy alcohol for a person under 18. The licensees keep a logbook of all attempted underage sales, and any suspected adult go-betweens.

Second, the police have posted themselves outside one or two shops for two hours at a time - not surprisingly no-one tried the trick while they were there, but the police did notice one or two youngsters lurking and obviously hoping they would go away.

Do you know an elderly person who uses an electric blanket in the winter?  The Council will be checking blankets for free on Tuesday 4th September.

It is really worth having this done. When they did a similar check last year they found that 26% of the blankets were unsafe. So do encourage someone you know to phone 8547 5518 and ask for an appointment. Appointments will be made on a first come, first served basis.

The initial results on the foot and mouth tests on the sheep at Chessington World of Adventures are negative accordingto the BBC.  Big sigh of relief all round...

It seems that the scare did not stop people from visiting the park today and the car park was full. It may seem odd that I get this very local information from the national news, but most of us try to avoid driving past at arrival or departure times during the summer.

Am I the only person who is annoyed that the BBC keeps in referring to Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey?  The news about the tests for foot and mouth disease appear on the Surrey page but not on the London one.

For readers who don't know the area, Chessington is the most south-westerly portion of Greater London and lies within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames which is a London borough.  Many places around here have Surrey postal addresses (most of Kingston, Richmond, Merton and Croydon), which is where the confusion arises. But London incorporated all these back in the 1960s so journalists have had plenty of time to learn where London ends and Surrey proper begins.

Sadly the error gets repeated elsewhere. Restaurant and tourist guides often place Surbiton, Kingston, Chessington and New Malden in Surrey instead of Greater London. 

Back to foot and mouth, the 3 Km control zone around the World of Adventures does cover some bits of Surrey but most of it is in Kingston, including my home - not that I've seen any evidence of it around here...

Update

Now the BBC can't even get the map right! Look at the one at the bottom of the page showing where Chessington is in relation to Surrey and Kent. Chessington is not near Guildford.  The area marked Surrey on that map is indeed the administrative county of Surrey, so Chessington is OUTSIDE it. In fact, it would be better placed where the letter 't' is in the name Chessington.

Defra have set up a 3Km temporary control zone around the park this afternoon. This means that no livestock can be moved within the area.

A sheep is being tested for foot and mouth but it seems that Defra is being, quite properly, very cautious, and it is unlikely that the result will be positive.  The BBC covered the news a short while ago but did not name the second site.

It is worth remembering that the disease does not usually affect humans, and in the rare cases where people have caught it they have only suffered mild symptoms.

Update

Chessington World of Adventures will be open tomorrow as usual. The animal park will be closed for the time being; in fact, the children's animal enclosure has been closed since the first foot and mouth outbreak near Guildford.

If only I could.

I've never managed to catch sight of the Perseid meteor shower that Earth passes through around 11th/12th August each year. Not that I haven't tried, but the light pollution round here makes it very difficult, and sometimes I am on holiday and just, well, forget.

Tonight is the best night to see them in several years. There is a new moon so the light from that direction is dimmed. But, as luck would have it, the sky is largely covered with cloud. Will keep looking and report any success.

11.10pm

I saw them!  The clouds cleared for a while and I just stared at Cassiopeia, getting quite an ache in the neck (how do real astronomers manage?). A couple streaked past in the corner of my eye, so I wasn't quite sure what I had seen. Then one as bright as a firework flew out, and I just gasped.

I've abandoned my perch up in the loft room because the clouds have reformed, but I can see an open area over to the west so will get back up there in a few minutes.

I can't see any chance of getting any photos of this phenomenon, unlike the eclipse of the moon back in March.

I'm basking in the memory of a luminous Prom last night.

I try to get along to some of them each year, and for several years we have had the added joy of watching our nieces perform. They are both violinists and have each in turn gone through the National Children's Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra. And - even more amazing - thay have each in turn been leader of both orchestras! Those of you at the Mayor's Ball this year will have heard them play.

This year both are at the Royal Academy, so are no longer eligible for the NYO. But Alexandra delighted us all by announcing that she had been offered a place with the European Union Youth Orchestra. This takes her to a different level; it is a professional quality orchestra whose members are all students at the top music academies in Europe. They are performing two different programmes over eight concerts in seven countries, and by all accounts are being well looked after and having a great time.

The first half of the yesterday's concert, which you may have caught on BBC2, consisted of some familiar Brahms - the Tragic Overture, then the 3rd Symphony with its georgeous third movement. After the interval Colin Davies treated us to thrilling performance of Sibelius' 5th Symphony, which I can't remember having heard before. I loved the programme notes which described the end of the first movement at 'the nearest thing in music to a depiction of white water rafting'.

Seen today flying over Bristol ...

And absolutely no use of Photoshop - promise.

This short article by me is up on the ICELE site now.....

'Building the Perfect Council website' sounds rather ambitious, but the title drew around 200 Council webmasters and communications officers to the Headstar conference in July. I was given the contentious spot on 'Councillors' Websites - a political hot potato?', clearly designed to wake everyone up mid-afternoon.

Our democratic form of government in the UK is built around challenge and scrutiny. So political activity is not an annoying add-on to the service delivery of local authorities; it is an essential feature in civic life. Local authorities should be proud of the democratic processes which are designed to improve decisions, minimise error, (or highlight errors if made), prevent corruption and expose decision making to public scrutiny.

In general, politicians are not happy about using council-funded resources which limit their capacity to discuss issues from a party perspective. So the trend has been towards using blogging (on independent platforms), and local political websites. Recently many elected representatives have been exploring the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

Council webmasters should not be afraid to provide links to councillors' external political sites (except during elections, of course); a simple disclaimer satisfies the legal requirements.

I've started compiling some links to local information, mainly aimed at South of the Borough Neighbourhood. It's definitely work in progress, and I'd welcome suggestions for things to include.

Please use the comments box at the bottom of the page to suggest additions and amendments.

Here are some hopefully useful links to local organisations and people.

This is still under development so please suggest any additions or amendments by clicking on Comments at the bottom of the page.

Kingston Council

• Kingston Council 
  Try entering your postcode on the home page for information about refuse collections, street cleansing and planning applications in your road.
• South of the Borough Neighbourhood (Kingston Council)
  With links to Neighbourhood meetings which you are welcome to attend
• Online petitions (Kingston Council)
  Start one or sign one
• Report a problem (Kingston Council)
  Report graffiti, abandoned cars, faulty lights, missed refuse collections etc

Local councillors in South of the Borough

Chessington North and Hook Ward

• Cllr Mary Reid (yes, me!)
• Cllr Ian Reid
• Cllr Sue Baker

Chessington South Ward

• Cllr Patricia Bamford
• Cllr Shiraz Mirza (this year's Mayor - read his blog)
• Cllr Kevin O'Connor

Tolworth and Hook Rise Ward

• Cllr Rolson Davies
• Cllr Rob Lee
• Cllr Vicki Harris

Member of Parliament for Kingston and Surbiton

• Edward Davey MP

Leisure and learning in South of the Borough

• Hook Centre
• Adult Education (including courses at the Hook Centre)
• Tolworth Recreation Centre
• Chessington Sports Centre
• The King's Centre
• Sports Club Directory

Churches in South of the Borough

• Hook Evangelical Church
• St Paul's Church of England
• Chessington Methodist Church
• Chessington Evangelical Church (at the King's Centre)
• St Catherine's Roman Catholic Church
• St Mary's Church of England

Wow! I've been ranked as the joint first female in Nich Starling's list of top 100 Lib Dem bloggers, alongside the venerable Lynne Featherstone MP. We're both at number 22, but there are very few other women in the list. Of course it's not Nich's fault - where are the other women?

Something similar happened over at Stephen Tall's list, where Lynne quite properly beats me this time. Again, there are only a handful of women amongst the 100 bloggers.

Both Nich and Stephen were asked to do an analysis of Lib Dem blogs by the Conservative Iain Dale, who is probably the most read political blogger in the UK. Iain wrote a comprehensive Guide to Political Blogging in the UK last year and has recruited others to help him compile the lists this year. It has hardly been a secret process, though I'm not sure that this merits the confidentiality of the Booker prize.

So why are there so few women bloggers, especially in the political realm? I've spent the last couple of years encouraging councillors to use this medium to communicate with their electorate. The National Project for Local eDemocracy set up ReadMyDay precisely for that reason, though I'm not too bothered which blogging platform people use. But even on ReadMyDay the gender balance is not - well - balanced.

A bias towards male bloggers may have been reflected in the early adopters, but we are long past the point when blogging was only taken up by the geeks - if you can write an email then you can blog. 

I had some reservations myself before I began on Jan 1st 2005; for a start it did seem rather self-indulgent. But the truth soon revealed itself - a blog is a means of communication and a form of journalism, not a personal diary. I write almost exclusively for people who live in my ward (Chessington North and Hook), or in my Neighbourhood (South of the Borough) or in the Borough (Kingston upon Thames). In fact, this is a rare entry directed at women anywhere who are interested in politics, whether local or national.

Although not many comments are left on my blog, most days I meet people who tell me they have read it. I get between 6000 and 9000 visits per month, and those figures exclude search engine spiders. Of course, a number of these are repeat visitors, and they include my friends and relations who don't live in Kingston, but it still represents a sizable number of people from around here.

I've developed some simple rules about blogging for politicians:

1. Always express your own voice, not some corporate view.

2. Never write anything that you would not be happy saying in a public meeting.

3. Always moderate comments.

4. Don't be afraid of humour and personal stories.

My RSS feed has beeen playing up so you may have missed these posts...

Senedd

Peter's plight

Minneapolis / St Paul

Holiday Inn Chessington

Civic disengagement?

Big Wild Read

Hope you like the new page design too.

Yesterday I looked around the Senedd, the home of the National Assembly for Wales, for the first time.

I've known Cardiff since childhood, though I haven't lived there since I was 14. My parents retired to Penarth, which stands on the western headland of Cardiff Bay, so I've been down there many times in the last 25 years. I've watched the gradual transformation of the Bay from a run down post-industrial docks landscape to the lively waterfront that it is today.

The barrage across the bay caused much controversy when it was first mooted, mainly because of the loss of mudland habitats (although these are common right along the Severn estuary). When built, it triggered the development of smart housing around the new marinas, which in turn sparked off leisure facilities and hotels. Then businesses started moving their main offices to the Bay and a whole new economy emerged.

The jewel on the Bay should have been the Millennium Centre - but sadly the truly imaginative design of an opera house by Zaha Hadid was rejected in favour of a brown lump. Admittedly inside it provides a perfectly good auditorium and meeting spaces, but its external appearance has been compared to a large beetle or even a turd.

Instead, the Senedd building now stands as the architectural gem on the waterfront. Its astonishing wooden roof floats on glass above Welsh slate floors and steps.

The underground Assembly Chamber is shielded from the public gallery by glass partitioning, so we are no nearer proper public access to this assembly than to most Council chambers. I've written before about the woeful designs of Council chambers which put the citizens behind a barrier up on a gallery.

I did manage to set off the alarm in the lift - the emergency button is at handbag height - and we were greeted by anxious security guards as we emerged.  There ought to be a second "Sorry, my mistake" button alongside the red one. It reminded me of the time I pulled one of those emergency cords in a disabled loo thinking it was a light ...

I've been down in Wales for a couple of days visiting relatives, so am commenting rather late on the story about Princess Anne's son Peter Phillips. Of course, his position in the succession to the throne is purely academic; but the revelation that he would have to give up his entitlement because his future wife is Catholic is outrageous. Even more contemptible is the thought that pressure could be put on Autumn Kelly to renounce her faith.

I'd fondly imagined that the Act of Settlement barred all non-Anglicans - itself something that would be totally inappropriate these days. But it seems that a future Monarch can marry a Baptist or Methodist without any problems, or indeed a Jew, a Muslim or a Hindu. In fact, the prohibition applies ONLY to Catholics.

What I can't understand is why on earth Parliament has not changed the law before, or indeed what stands in the way of doing so now. Agreed, it has little impact on the lives of most of us, but the very existence of discriminatory legislation like this is offensive. For once in my life, I find myself agreeing with The Telegraph: Peter's plight must act as a trigger for reform.

I have a number of friends in and around Minneapolis and St Paul. The twin cities are connected by the 35W bridge over the Mississippi which collapsed so catastrophically yesterday. Fortunately none of the people I know was directly involved in the disaster.

One of these friends is Steven Clift, who is one of the leading commentators on e-democracy in the world. He has set up a 35W wiki which is already populated with lots of news stories, pictures and survivors' tales.

The Minnesota State Capitol in St Paul

I wrote about my trip there two years ago here, and here, and here.

Back in February I looked around the new Holiday Inn Chessington wearing a hard hat.  This is what the restaurant looked like then...

... and this is the same spot now ...

It is wonderful having a good hotel in the area. Its core business is, of course, family packages with Chessington World of Adventures. But Jo White, the hotel manager, told me that a lot of couples are booking and using it as a base for exploring local attractions, such as shopping in Kingston and sightseeing in Hampton Court. And the train ride to central London is only 30 minutes.

The rooms all have an elegant safari feel to them with heavy use of dark wood finishes and natural fabrics.

For me, the chief benefits are the resources that the hotel offers to the local community, such as the restaurant and bar, and the spa (which opens next Spring). The suite of function rooms is already booked for weddings, conferences and meetings, and is a huge asset to the area.

I haven't eaten there yet - must do so soon.