Mary Reid

I've just heard about a source of funding - up to £5000 - for small voluntary groups in Kingston. 'Small' is defined as having an annual income of less than £20,000.

It is available to all sorts of local groups, such as residents associations, uniformed groups, sports clubs, arts groups etc

The scheme is called Grassroots Grants and is being run by Thames Community Foundation. 

You can find full details, eligibility and application forms etc on this page. But get a move on as the deadline for the first round of grants is 17th October.

I've had quite a bit to do with TCF because they administer the Young Kingston charitable fund that I set up. They are one of those invaluable behind-the-scenes organisations that support charities and charitable giving in the south west London boroughs.

Back in July I wrote about the campaign to save Bletchley Park, the wartime code-breaking centre where electronic computer technology was born.

Sue Black is now looking for a campaign assistant. Would you be interested?

She writes:

I have recently been involved in raising awareness of the importance of Bletchley Park both from a historical and a computer science point of view.

Some of the buildings at Bletchley Park are in a very poor state of repair, including huts where the codebreakers worked in WWII, and may fall down soon if they do not receive more funding. Currently the site is funded by gate entrance and private donation, it should be funded at least partly by central government as it is an inportant part of our national heritage. The work done there shortened WWII by two years, possibly saving 22 million lives!

I appeared in the media in July 2008 calling for government funding for BP, had an absolutely marvellous response which is continuing. 

I believe that with sustained effort government funding can be secured and will continue with the campaign. To this end I need an assistant. The assistant will preferably have some campaign experience and some experience of dealing with the media, but this is not essential. Much of the work will be in keeping things going: responding to supporters, creating and keeping up to date a database of supporters, liaising with BP, veterans and the media, finding out information, organising events, updating the campaign website etc.

I anticipate that the workload will be approximately one half to one day per week, and will occasionally involve travel to BP and attendance at events with me.

Unfortunately I have no money to pay for this work, I wish I did. But, it should be really good fun, inspiring and worthwhile for the right person. 

I have been completely humbled by meeting and talking to some of the veterans and others involved with Bletchley Park; they are an absolutely fabulous bunch of people who deserve our utmost respect and should now have their contribution to the peace that we enjoy in this country and elsewhere fully recognised. 

Please see www.sueblack.co.uk/press.html for details of the media coverage and get in touch with me: 'sue at sueblack.co.uk' if you can help.

I've written the email address with 'at' replacing @ to reduce spam.

If you go down to Kingston today or tomorrow, you're sure of a big surprise. Except you won't be surprised now, because I've told you what is happening.

From dusk (ie about 7.30pm) to 10pm there will be projections all around the Market Place and Guildhall, with film, images and sound. They will include original photos from the Muybridge collection; Eadweard Muybridge, who came from Kingston, was the pioneer of moving images, and most people recognise his repeated pictures of horses and humans.

I've been told the projection will also have some images of local people too, so see who you recognise. I'll try to get some pictures myself of the event, but it may challenge my photography skills.

Incidently, Muybridge changed the spelling of his frst name from Edward to Eadweard in homage to King Eadweard, who was crowned in Kingston in 899.

Later

Now what's that up in the window of the Guildhall?

It's a giant budgie ... of course

That's the first time you've seen a naked man on my blog - or on the wall of Kingston Police Station, for that matter.

Yesterday afternoon a member of the Council's legal team travelled up to the High Court to issue the challenge to the Planning Inspector's decision on 28-32 Somerset Ave (follow the link in this entry to track back and read the full story)

About 60 people from the Somerset Ave area turned up at Neighbourhood yesterday evening, anxious that this should happen, and they all applauded when we were able to announce that proceeedings had started.

This is a really significant step in the campaign by the local people to stop this development. Colin Sparks has been taking the lead on this, with a small team drawn from his neighbours, and with fantastic support from people living in Somerset Ave, Selwood Road and Vallis Way.

I'm delighted, relieved and excited - this is real local democracy in action.

Interestingly, it is, we think, the first time that the Council has challenged an appeal decision.

The Head of Legal Services, Nick Bishop, had to be convinced that there was a credible case - because, quite rightly, he has to ensure that public money is not being wasted. He asked a barrister for an opinion last week, but that was not very helpful.

He then asked Colin Sparks and his team to provide additional evidence based on their experience of the appeal hearing, and took further advice, based on their material. The outcome was that there are at least two grounds for appeal - one around the traffic and safety issues, the other around the procedures used at the appeal hearing - and there may be others.

Just to explain - this is a challenge to the Planning Inspector, not to the developer. If the Council wins, then there will be another appeal hearing with a different Inspector.

In the meantime, the development is put on hold.

Full Council last night was a sorry affair.

The Conservatives had tabled a motion about policing in Kingston Town Centre. It implied that there was a serious problem with a large number of incidents on licensed premises.

However, when council officers did some background research for the motion they discovered that the figures quoted in the motion were completely wrong. Of course, Kingston is not without incidents, some serious, which are often related to drinking, but the fact is that it is one of the safest Boroughs in London.

Now I know what we would have done if we'd got ourselves into a muddle like that - we would have withdrawn the motion. But the Conservatives carried on regardless, making themselves look very, very foolish.

After the motion we moved to the formal Question Time, where questions are posed to senior councillors from either side. The questions are placed in advance so members can prepare responses.

The Leader of the Council asked the Leader of the Conservative Group a question about a newspaper report, which quoted Cllr Patrick Codd objecting to the new disabled access at the Guildhall. The background is this....

If you've been into Kingston recently you may have noticed that the front entrance to the Guildhall is boarded up.

For years the Council has been trying to sort out disabled access, but has been in prolonged discussions with English Heritage about design because it is a listed building. At last a solution has been found and the work has begun.

In the meantime, for some time there has been a ramp at the side of the building leading down to a basement door in the Magistrates section. Wheelchair users who want to come into the building have to ring a bell and then wait for someone to be freed up from other duties to come and let them in. This is highly unsatisfactory, and does not meet the spirit of the Disability Discrimination Act which expects people with disabilities to be able to use the same entrance as anyone else and with equal dignity.

So you would expect all councillors to welcome the new access at the main front entrance.

But not Cllr Codd, who complained to the press that it was a waste of money.

In answer to the question, the Leader of the Conservatives, Cllr Howard Jones, tried to both support his colleague and oppose him at the same time. Cllr Codd was given an opportunity to reply on his own behalf, and to tell us all that he was misquoted, or to apologise for offence caused, but he did neither.

Tellingly, Cllr Jones then said that the side access was perfectly adequate.

At that point anger erupted from the Lib Dem side. My fellow ward councillor, Sue Baker, has been a tireless campaigner for people with disabilities, and she was incensed. After further quite offensive comments from the Tories, Sue walked out of the Council Chamber to register her disgust at their attitudes. And I don't blame her.

Just back from Chessington Community College for the opening of Phase 1.

It was great to see this stunning new building in use, and the pupils seem to love it.

The ribbon-cutting honours went to....

... Patrick Leeson, Cllr Tricia Bamford, head girl and head boy, Edward Davey MP, David Kemp (Principal)

They have promised a bigger splash next year when the whole building will be finished, but this is a pretty impressive start. 

Patrick Leeson (Director of Learning and Children's Services) remarked that this is probably the best BSF school amongst all the Pathfinder projects in the country.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has suggested that a new London airport could be built on an artificial island in the Thames estuary.

This sounds like a sensible suggestion - but there is a BUT.

On the plus side, it would remove the need for a third runway at Heathrow - a project that just about everyone to the west of London opposes.

Also, presumably planes would take off and approach the runway over water, so this would mean (ideally) that very few people would be subjected to the noise and fumes in their homes.

Both are excellent reasons for supporting the concept.

So here is the BUT.

Island airports are not unknown elsewhere in the world. The one I am familiar with is in the middle of the huge bay at Kingston, Jamaica. Strung across the bay is a series of islets, known as the Palisadoes, joined by a narrow causeway. They form an enormous natural harbour, stretching for about eight miles to the infamous Port Royal, the former capital of Jamaica and a name familiar from many a pirate saga.

The airport is located on one of these islands, about half way along. You can see the runway in this Google photo, jutting out on an artificial extension into the sea. 

The problem is that whenever there is a hurricane, or even a severe storm, the roadway becomes flooded. Sometimes the runway itself becomes unusable. So we have the bizarre situation that emergency supplies cannot be flown into Kingston after a hurricane because the airport is inaccessible from the city.

Now the Thames estuary has, as we all know, a problem with surge tides. Indeed the Thames Barrier was built to protect London from flooding. The worrying thing is that the barrier is being raised with increasing frequency. Before 1990 it was only used once or twice a year. In 2003 it was raised 14 times.

As I understand it, there are two main flood threats to London. The first is caused by the way the country is slowly tilting, with the south east of England slipping downwards. The second threat comes from melting Arctic ice. 

Sea levels are rising, and at a fairly unpredictable rate. I would love to believe that engineers could find a solution and build an island that would be above any flood levels, with access routes that would still function in severe weather.

Am I right to be sceptical?

If you've ever considered joining a choral society, then there's an opportunity to sample a rehearsal on Friday. Kingston Choral Society is holding an Open Rehearsal on Friday 26th September at 8pm at Kingston Grammar School.

Just turn up if interested - no commitment to return!

We are working on Elgar's 'Dream of Gerontius', so bring the score along if you have it. Scores will also be available to hire on the night.

You do need to be able to read music a bit, but otherwise a love of choral music is the only requirement.

It would help if you could let the choir know if you are planning to attend, especially if you will need a score.

On Tuesday evening I went to a fringe meeting on creating and using videos. I was inspired to create my own the very next day during Nick Clegg's closing speech to Conference.

So here it is, my very first video.

All Liberal Democrat policy is decided by its members; that, indeed, is the main purpose of conference. In the Main Auditorium most of the programme consists of debates on policy motions, and some of these can get pretty intense (although managed in a civil way).

Every local party sends delegates to conference, and the number they can send is determined by the size of the local membership. I'm a delegate for the Kingston party so I to try to attend and vote in a number of these sessions.

The media don't really understand this, having been used to the other main parties, where policy is decided by senior MPs only, and members have no say. 

For example, Chris Huhne, our Shadow Home Secretary, is giving a speech between two debates this morning. The BBC covers this under a heading "Lib Dems to outline crime plans" implying that he decides the policy. In fact, the policies he will be 'outlining' will be those that were agreed by conference on Sunday in a motion headed simply (and sensibly) 'Cutting crime by catching criminals'.

Now senior MPs do put forward policy motions to conference, but so can ordinary members. In fact, the policy debate on 'Giving Citizens a Voice in Parliament', which I spoke on, was proposed by 12 conference delegates, which included me.

However, when portfolio holders, like Chris Huhne, propose policy to conference they can put themselves at considerable risk, knowing that conference can reject their proposals. That is exactly why the Tories and Labour don't do it - they dare not expose their key people to the possibility of rejection. For Liberal Democrats, the democratic imperative overcomes any squeamishness about possible damage to egos.

In fact, in Chris Huhne's case all his proposals were agreed by conference, although there was quite a debate over some amendments concerning the governance of police forces.

All this is a bit of a preamble to the centrepiece debate yesterday on Nick Clegg's vision and values paper entitled 'Make it Happen' (which you can download here). 

This was his first real trial by conference, and the motion had some pretty controversial elements. In the past we have always been the party that wanted to raise taxes (admittedly from the wealthy, not the poor as in Gordon Brown's 10p tax). We wanted to raise taxes to pay for better public services.

Nick Clegg has proposed a change to this, with the future emphasis on tax cuts. Labour has considerably increased public expenditure, although we believe this could be spent much more efficiently than it is. However, it does mean that the best way to help many of the least advantaged in society is by substantially reducing the amount of tax they pay. This has to be coupled with a reform of Council Tax, which hits hardest at those who do not pay any income tax at all.

The tax cuts will be paid for in a number of ways. Tax avoidance loopholes, such as overseas investments, will be stopped; expenditure on Government departments will be subjected to the same scrutiny and efficiency savings as that endured by local government. Most importantly, our GreenSwitch policy would impose taxes on activities that harm the environment.

Nick did not get a simple nod-through to his proposals; conference debated them with some passion. A sizable group of MPs and members did not like this shift to cutting taxes, but the majority view was to support it.

So now we are the only main political party that has a central policy to cut taxes.

There were moments of sunshine yesterday and today in Bournemouth. People were out on the beach....

... and Lembit was out on his Segway.

There will be a presidential election in a couple of months.  But unlike the epic battle over the pond, this one will have a strong female candidate.

Baroness Ros Scott has launched her campaign to be elected as the President of the Liberal Democrats. The current President is the popular MP, Simon Hughes, but his term of office comes to an end this year. All party members will have a vote in the election.

Now Ros has carried out an energetic campaign that has charmed a large number of delegates at conference into wearing bright I'm4Ros badges. She has also been visiting local parties around the country, including Kingston where she launched her formal campaign.

I'm certainly supporting her and have a few spare badges in my bag for anyone who wants one. She has been a councillor, so understands local government well, and she's a down-to-earth unpretentious person, so will connect well with the wider membership.

Ros Scott's website is the best candidate website I've seen in this country.

Ros Scott, third from left, with some of her key supporters

I was pleased that Peter Black won the award for the Best Blog by a Lib Dem elected to public office - I've enjoyed his punchy reports from Senedd and Cardiff Bay.

But Alix Mortimer was the star of the evening, going home with three awards, including Blogger of the Year. I was one of many people who nominated her - her writing is always entertaining, surprising and very perceptive. Well done, Alix!

Another new blogger who deservedly won an award, was Ros Scott on Because Baronesses are people too, although her award was for her online campaign to be elected as President of the party.

It was only a year ago that I was asking where all the female Lib Dem bloggers were - and here we are, with four of the five awards to Lib Dems given this year to women.

Millennium Elephant has some good photos, even though he sadly didn't win anything again. Maybe he should change sex - can't be that difficult for a cuddly toy.

Full results here.

Lembit Öpik was 20 minutes late for our interview, delayed by the public interest in the Segway that he was riding and promoting.

So we tried not to make him look too ridiculous by posing him with two blogging cuddly toys, Millennium Elephant and Pink Dog. And in more pensive mode....

I asked him whether the media coverage of his more wacky exploits might be overshadowing the perceptions of him as a serious politician. He looked rather askance at this cheeky question and wondered what I meant. So I mentioned his appearances in Hello magazine, and his latest espousal of the vertical scooter with big wheels.

He thought his populist antics play well with the general public. He stuck to this view even when challenged by the result of a LibDem Voice poll which placed him at the bottom of a list of Lib Dem Shadow Cabinet members, based on their perceived effectiveness.

Which brings me to the remaining questions I posed to him relating to his Housing portfolio. After all, in Kingston we suffer under two specific policies of this Labour Government and I wanted to know what he would recommend in their place.

First up was the pressure by the Government on Councils to transfer their housing stock to a housing association. Housing associations are able to raise capital for improvements; Councils can't. That means there is a strong practical incentive for stock transfer, even though most Councils and tenants would much prefer social housing to remain with them, open to democratic accountability.

Lembit said that a level playing field was needed, with Councils and housing associations offered identical opportunities for capital funding. He was not at all clear why the Government persisted in privatising social housing, and he had not been able to get an answer from the Minister, Caroline Flint, on this.

Perhaps, he remarked, they just didn't want the funding to show up in the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement. Our financial hero, Vince Cable, has suggested that this should be seen as a long term investment by Councils, and could be categorised separately from the PSBR.

My second issue was around the negative housing subsidy that takes a serious chunk out of the rents paid by Council house tenants in Kingston. In fact 31% of all the rent paid in Kingston is creamed off by central Government. At one time all this was redistributed to other Councils; now it seems some £190million each year is simply retained by the Treasury. Normally rent is supposed to be used to cover the costs of keeping housing in good repair and to modern standards. Kingston tenants pay out £6million each year to other boroughs and into the general taxation pot.

Lembit described this as a tax on the poor.

In summing up his vision for housing he outlined the three fundamental principles that should underpin housing policy - economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, and social sustainability. Amen to that.

I'm at the Liberal Democrat Conference in Bournemouth. It started earlier this year, and it was a bit of a challenge to return from Canada, repack and get down here within 24 hours, whilst my head wasn't quite sure which time zone it was in.

But I wanted to be here for the beginning of the conference yesterday afternoon because I had sponsored the very first policy motion on "Giving Citizens a Voice in Parliament", and was hoping to speak in the debate.

This is what I said:

Last year, in the debate on ‘The Power to be Different', I spoke about our commitment to empowerment. This year, I'm delighted that the commitment is given some shape with these radical suggestions.

I was pleased sponsor this motion. Later I submitted lines 13 to 17 and lines 38 to 40 as an amendment, because of the surprising news that the Government had closed the International Centre of Excellence for Local e-Democracy.

e-Democracy is all about something that now seems pretty obvious - using the resources and culture of the Internet and mobile phones, to encourage more citizens to become democratically active.

There are whole segments of the population who are not energised by traditional forms of communication, but who do respond to the new media.

Now as a party we have been good at exploiting these, with some innovative uses of websites, email, text messaging, discussion forums, video, social networking and blogs.

But there is always going to be a limited market for what the parties can do to reawaken an interest in political campaigns - some people will never touch anything labelled ‘politics'.

So there is an opportunity here for governments at all levels, from Parish Councils to the European Parliament.

* They can provide easily accessible information

* They can provide tools which allow citizens to respond to proposals

* They can be open to proposals from citizens themselves

* They can positively encourage active participation in decision making

* They can devolve decision making to the relevant communities

To this end governments can provide and encourage e-petitions, live interactive webcasting, videos, chatrooms, blogs, online community spaces, indeed everything that we now refer to as Web 2.0. 

Now with this in mind, the International Centre of Excellence was set up to provide support specifically to local authorities in England. It also acted as an international exchange of ideas and good practice. During its short life, I was pleased to serve as Vice Chair of this body.

The Labour Government has recently launched its "Communities in Control" White Paper. Its strap line is ‘Real People, Real Power'.

So you would imagine that the White Paper would talk about eDemocracy tools and methods.

Well, there is some sensible stuff about making information available online, and about tackling digital exclusion.

But beyond that it only actively promotes one e-democracy tool, and that is online petitions.

The White Paper emanates from the Department of Communities and Local Government - the very department that has now short-sightedly closed down the International Centre.

What is now needed is a body that promotes and supports e-democracy at all levels of government.

As Liberal Democrats we know how important democracy is.

And as Liberal Democrats we know that the Internet provides a rich, interactive environment in which democracy can flourish.

As Liberal Democrats, committed to empowerment, please support all of this motion.

 

You can read the full motion (F3) by downloading the Motions document from this page. There was a lot of debate about the 'People's Veto' - the power to call for a referendum on Bills passed by Parliament - and conference voted to exclude this paragraph, whilst supporting the rest of the motion.

Contrary to appearances, we have actually been in beautiful Canada for the last couple of weeks. (I don't like to advertise my absences from home too widely, so didn't mention it before)

So here are a couple of photos, as evidence.

Our son Stuart with Ian trying out the canoes

Just to show we were in Canada - you can't find beaver dams in England

We were there for the marriage blessing of my niece Michelle and her husband Jason

Well, thank you to everyone who nominated me for the LibDem Blogging Awards.  I'm really delighted and rather surprised to be shortlisted again.

Now I will turn up to the event on Saturday at Conference with absolutely no expectation of winning - there are plenty of perceptive and entertaining political blogs around. I'm just pleased that I've done something to encourage the rapidly growing numbers of councillors and MPs who see a blog as a useful campaigning tool and a good way to keep in touch with the electorate.

In any case, there should be a protocol that says you can't win two years running.....

That's the title for a competition being run by the Sunday Telegraph. Now it's not a paper I normally read, but the details cropped up on the Rose Theatre website, because the theatre is jointly sponsoring the competition.

The shortlisted entries will be performed by professional actors at a gala evening in November in the Rose.

It comes at the end of the 'Love's Labour's Lost' season so the theme is ... love, loss and anything in between. Well, we've all been there, so that may inspire you to craft an entry. I may even send in a bon mot myself. There are categories for children as well, so do encourage any young poets you know.

You may have noticed that some of these around the borough  ...

have been replaced by some of these ...

The old-style bollards are lit by a bulb, so the Council has to pay for the electricity and lightbulbs, and also for the labour involved in changing the bulbs and electrical testing. Repair of vandalised bollards also cost the Council up to £60,000 a year.

The new bollards are reflective and don't need power, and the saving in power, bulbs and labour is over £27 per bollard per year. There are 324 in use at the moment (out of 861), so they represent a saving of nearly £9000 per year.

They are also much more robust and already the repair costs have come right down to £22,000.

All good stuff, I think, and good for the environment because of the carbon reduction.