Peter Kent-Baguley

A Democracy Commission, with an independent chairperson with the appropriate experience and expertise will command respect. The Commission's terms of reference would be agreed by Full Council. All individuals and groups that wished to give their views on what they regard as the best way forward for the governance of the City Council would be invited to do so. The Commission would collect and collate all submissions for a Report which would be published and thus made available for all interested indviduals and groups. The Report would subsequently be presented to Full Council for debate and decision.

I can't think of a more open, honest and systematic way to gain the views of all interested parties and to ensure that the public have a clear and comprehensive outline of the suggested system of government for the City, each with their key features, advantages and drawbacks.

What on earth have councillors to fear from such an open and trasparent approach?

19th June 2007 

It will be six months after Councillors all-but unanimously rejected the setting up of a DEMOCRACY COMMISSION when City Council Manager, Steve Robinson, presents a Report to the Full Council meeting on 4th August 2007 recommending that Councillors approve the establishment of a DEMOCRACY COMMISSION. I have been pressing for this since December last year. Earlier this year, at Full Council on 1st February, I withdrew my motion proposing the estabishment of a Democracy Commission in the face of total opposition from around the Chamber. Now, apparently, the Conservative-Labour coalition on the City Council have at long last reluctantly come round to the idea of voting for it. Perhaps, however, for no better reason than they now know that the government will impose a Democracy Commission so we might as well appear to be in favour! The spin on that will be nauseating to witness. 

Earlier this year in my blog entry for 22nd January I wrote|:

It is absolutely essential that the various options for a new system of local government in our City are set out clearly and objectively. If there were to be the slightest whiff of party political bias or councillor self-interest, the process would not command the respect and support of the voters.

A Democracy Commission, with an independent chairperson with the appropriate experience and expertise will command respect. The Commission's terms of reference would be agreed by Full Council. All individuals and groups that wished to give their views on what they regard as the best way forward for the governance of the City Council would be invited to do so. The Commission would collect and collate all submissions for a Report which would be published and thus made available for all interested indviduals and groups. The Report would subsequently be presented to Full Council for debate and decision.

I can't think of a more open, honest and systematic way to gain the views of all interested parties and to ensure that the public have a clear and comprehensive outline of the suggested system of government for the City, each with their key features, advantages and drawbacks.

What on earth have councillors to fear from such an open and trasparent approach?

BRINDLEY FORD RESIDENTS AT PLAY

Clearly, you're never too adult to thoroughly enjoy a see-saw! Fellow Ward councillor, Ann James and I met Brindley Ford Residents' Association chairperson, Michelle Brown (right) and secretary, Margaret Hodgkins (left) at the village play area this morning along with City Council officers.

The Residents' Association think the young people of the village deserve a little more than the see-saw, swings and climbing frame currently in place. They also think the play area should be accessible throughout the year. The City Council-owned playing field is so badly drained that it is inccessible for much of the winter - and summer after heavy rain. Needless to say, the City Council has no budget for play equipment and so the whole funding responsibility falls on the capacity of the residents. Some potential grant-making bodies will only fund Resident Associations if the RA either owns or leases the land. That presents an additional hoop to jump through - the legal process of having the land leased to the RA.

For the installation of eight or so modern items of play equipment, the likely cost will be in the region of £150,000. That's going to require an awful lot of form-filling to grant-making bodies! It also requires an awful lot of commitment and stamina.

So that the labour of the volunteers is not wasted, and needless pitfalls can be avoided, at my request the City Council officer agreed to prepare a draft play area development protocol that we can agree. The RA was promised the draft by mid-July.     

LIDL SUPERMARKETS STOCK FAIRTRADE

Good news - the four LIDL supermarkets in Stoke-on-Trent now stock a limited range of FAIRTRADE products. The FAIRTRADE bananas are in the fruit & veg section but the other FAIRTRADE products are grouped in a special section, well signed with the Lidl FAIRGLOBE logo. My local LIDL in the High Street, Tunstall, has FAIRTRADE brown sugar, orange juice, drinking chocolate and instant organic coffee. At £1.99 for a 100g jar it is very competitively priced.

Once upon a time you needed to be a strong supporter of FAIRTRADE with an equally strong stomach to cope with the FAIRTRADE coffee available over ten years ago. Now, however, with more than 400 brands of instant, ground and beans on the shelves it must be impossible not to find a FAIRTRADE blend to suit your taste. Certainly, LIDL's own brand FAIRGLOBE Fairtrade coffee I find smooth with no hint of the bitter taste of some cheaper coffees. Lidl's FAIRGLOBE range adds to the cheaper-priced FAIRTRADE products, emphasising that the old objection that FAIRTRADE goods are more (and too) expensive is no longer true.

With more than 2,500 FAIRTRADE products on the market there is now a price range for many of the products just as there is for non-Fairtrade goods. The important point to remember, too, is that whatever the RETAIL price may be the PRODUCER price has been agreed and guaranteed.

The guaranteed price means third world producers are lifted out of the UNFAIR, so-called "free trade" market system which has bankrupted millions and led to unnecessary illness, famine and death. FAIRTRADE means third world production is both economically and socially sustainable. It's not charity, it's fair trading. It's treating others as we would like to be treated. It is loving your neighbour as yourself.

The other three City LIDL outlets are at London Road, STOKE; Dividy Road, BENTILEE; the Strand, LONGTON. So LIDL have joined the Co-op, ASDA, Morrison, M&S, Sainsbury and Tesco chain stores that sell FAIRTRADE goods.

Nick Oaks, a local Co-op store manager was filling my Stoke-on-Trent FAIRTRADE Group bag with a variety of Co-op own brand FAIRTRADE goods.

What's the highest number of FAIRTRADE goods you've managed to buy during one of your supermarket shops?

Why not drop me a comment and let me know. The person with the highest number of FAIRTRADE goods in their shopping trolley at any one time will be welcome to a complimentary hessian S.O.T. F/T shopping bag as shown in the picture.

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 SINGING FOR SANITY

Phil Jones, lead vocalist with local band, HERE'S TO THE ATOM BOMB, http://www.myspace.com/bombthepast was in strong voice this afternoon on stage in Piccadilly. The vibrant, energising sound struck just the right note to lift the grey, overcast un-festive gloomy-grey weather. The band not only played well together but looked as though they really enjoyed making music together. Rick, Tom, Pete, Alex and Phil deserved a bigger audience. The dozen or so stalls lining both sides of the street towards Fountain Square attracted small groups of interested people but the street wasn't exactly heaving with supporters of the SANITY FAIR event. Perhaps there had been a mass exodus to Glastonbury...or special bargain sales in the Potteries Shopping Centre. Anyway, congratulations to all the people who contributed to SANITY FAIR - a valuable and increasingly valued event.

GREAT NEWS!

At last! I have managed to twiddle the right controls so that readers can leave a message! Until now, readers were not able to post a comment other than by email to me. Sorry it's taken me so long...but some of us weren't born into the techno age!

What no picture? Oh alright then...

Martin Burt, 5th generation stonemason, repainting the names on the granite war memorial at Brindley Ford three years ago. The Burts came down from Scotland to Trentham Gardens with the Duke of Sutherland five generations ago. The Sutherlands are long gone from the area but the Burts live on at Trentham.

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GOVERNMENT LAGGING BEHIND CONSUMER SUPPORT FOR FAIRTRADE

As Co-ordinator of the Stoke-on-Trent Fairtrade Group I welcome the generally excellent House of Commons' report on Fairtrade, published yesterday. It has made some very important observations and recommedations.

The report, Fair Trade and Development maintains that the Government's commitment to promoting fair trade has not kept pace with a marked increase in national support for fair trade. It adds that the Department for International Development (DFID) has not been sufficiently proactive.

The Committee recommends that DFID should appoint a senior DFID official to be responsible for fair trade within Government and for this responsibility to be properly publicised and supported. The Committee also urges DFID to consider how best to generate more resources for fair trade. 

Rt Hon Malcolm Bruce MP, Chair of the Committee, said:

"The fair trade movement in the UK has made enormous strides in recent years with growth in recognition of the fair trade label, growth in sales, and growth in the number of companies, organisations, churches, towns and schools which are all engaged, in one way or another, with fair trade. Fair trade offers an excellent means of ensuring purchasing has a positive impact on poverty reduction. The Government should now develop a clearer strategy for its support for fair trade."

And of course, Stoke-on-Trent was recognised as FAIRTRADE CITY by the Fairtrade Foundation in 2004. The City Council played a major role in that process and has continued to promote and practice fairtrade policies.

The Committee argues that fair trade can deliver real benefits to producers in developing countries by providing a stable income and long-term contracts.

Malcolm Bruce said: "There is still room for fair trade to grow in terms of product coverage and in terms of reaching more producers. We would particularly like to see a greater focus on engaging the most disadvantaged producers in the poorest countries."

The Committee is right to note that while the FAIRTRADE Mark has reassured consumers about the way in which fair trade products are traded, the growth in the variety of ethical labels and phrases which claim a product is "fairly traded" has created confusion for customers.

I agree with the Committee chair, Malcolm Bruce, when he says: "Consumers must be able to make informed choices easily." But I feel he may have assumed a too simplistic solution when he says: "A system of labelling which indicates the share of the retail price that producers receive would help in this regard, particularly as consumers are also becoming concerned about the environmental costs of production."

Rather than helping it would add to confusion, even if it were possible which of course it is not, for a variety of reasons, not least since we do not have retail price maintenance.

In the Stoke-on-Trent Fairtrade Guide leaflet, I emphasise that:

The FAIRTRADE Mark does NOT control the retail shop price. So, if a particular FAIRTRADE product is £1 in one shop and £1.50 in another it makes ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE to the guaranteed price already paid to the producer. 

We should be just as vigilant over prices of FAIRTRADE products as with other products. Retailers trying to cash in on FAIRTRADE sales should not be encouraged.  

Encouragingly, the Committee's Report goes on to say that it believes that DFID could be more proactive in encouraging other Government Departments to procure more fair trade goods.

The membership of the Committee is as follows: Malcolm Bruce MP (Chairman, Lib Dem), John Battle MP (Lab), Hugh Bayley MP (Lab), John Bercow MP (Con), Richard Burden MP (Lab), Quentin Davies MP (Con), James Duddridge MP (Con), Ann McKechin MP (Lab), Joan Ruddock MP (Lab), Mr Marsha Singh MP (Lab), Sir Robert Smith MP (Lib Dem).

Do you try to include goods with the FAIRTRADE Mark in your shopping basket?

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CITY COUNCIL SCORES OWN GOAL

Had you invested £3.1m in 1997 would you be over the moon with it being worth £4.5m in 2007?

Most of your City Councillors are because at the meeting of the Full Council today, I was one of only a handful of Councillors to vote against the sale of the City Council's 1997 £3.1m investment in the Britannia Football Stadium for the cash price of £4.5m. Any investor worth their salt knows that we should have sold for at least twice that price. Any shrewd business person also knows that the sale should include an UPLIFT CLAUSE. That means, the City Council would receive an agreed % of any increase in the future sale price. Who knows, if the footballing fortunes of Stoke City improve and they go up into the premiership and/or an overseas billionaire buys the Club and Stadium lock, stock and barrel for mega millions then it is only fair that the City reaps the benefit of that windfall.

The Elected Mayor, Mark Meredith, bolstered by strange bedfellows Labour Group Leader, Cllr Mike Tappin, and Conservative Group Leader, Cllr Roger Ibbs with their cobbled coalition maintaining Labour's control of Council, time and again repeated that the initial brave £3.1m investment in 1997 had after all kicked-started the regeneration of the former colliery site at Trentham Lakes. So, well done, it achieved that target. But that's no reason for selling our share in that initial investment boost for less than it is really worth. But, again, what's new about topsy-turvy party-political logic?!

I argued that it was irresponsible to sell at less than real market value and without an uplift clause to ensure a share of a future sale profit. I think the City Council has scored an own goal. What do you think? Are you happy with the Labour-Con decision?

CLASSIC K6 DELIBERATELY DAMAGED IN MIDDLE CLASS ENDON

Who can be so craven as to want to deliberately attack such a much-loved feature of the UK as the once ubiquitous K6 red telephone kiosk? Who deliberately sets out, armed with a hack-saw, smashes the windows and saws through the cast-iron window frames of the kiosk door?  

The debris was cleared out about a week after the wanton destruction, along with the telephone apparatus and the door sealed. Given that some 50% of BT's telephone kiosks are unprofitable and given BT's past record at being only too eager to remove K6s this may well be the end of Endon's K6.

Endon, within the Staffordshire Moorlands District Council (centred on Leek) is located just outside the eastern boundary of Stoke-on-Trent on the A53. Leek and a number of the surrounding villages are fortunate to have held on to their red kiosks. As I have said in earlier postings, Stoke-on-Trent unfortunately, has only two K6s, each of which await a much needed repaint.   

If you ever see wanton attacks on these treasures of design, please, please, please alert the police in the hope that the culprits are caught and prosecuted.    

VILLAGE WALLS

The four terraces, East, West, and William Terraces along with the terrace fronting Oxford Road in Fegg Hayes are known as The Village. Admittedly, the properties fronting Oxford Road have undulating facades having borne the brunt of mining subsidence associated with Chatterley Whitfield coalmine which closed in the '70s and is now a Schedule Ancient Monument and subject to a long term multi-million pound English heritage conservation and development project. The terraces were the original miners' cottages. 

As one of the Ward councillors and as the City Council's Heritage & Design Champion I am campaigning for their retention and refurbishment.

Unfortunately, some of the properties are run-down and neglected, while some others have been badly refurbished with inappropriate materials. Some, the owner-occupied ones, have been well maintained, often with delightful gardens. At the moment, RENEW North Staffordshire, one of nine government housing market renewal agencies operating in the north of England, is undertaking a condition survey of the houses. The finding should be available by the end of November.  

The variety of architectural detail around the windows, doors and eaves, as well as the variety of brick bonding and the collective ambience of the Village marks the area as something particularly special. The rear alleyways illustrate well the principal requirement: design and works that will re-introduce a harmony of materials without necessarily straining for uniformity.

RENEW has funded free of charge new boundary walls for the terrace properties fronting Hamil Road, Burslem. Some such treatment here is a basic need, along with similar treatment to the rear outbuildings. A surface for rear alleyways more appropriate than black asphalt is also needed.

We don't need to give these terraces the radical URBAN SPLASH makeover but we do need equally creative and able designers to enhance the environment and thus boost and reward those residents who have been striving against all odds to mantain a high standard of care.    

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URBAN SPLASH

It was a real pleasure to experience the excitingly innovative approach to building homes that has marked URBAN SPLASH as a cutting edge design team. I spent the whole day with a score of planning and design officers from Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Newcastle-under-Lyme District Council, a couple of Councillor colleagues and several local architects and officers from URBAN VISION, North Staffordshire's Architecture and Urban Design Centre (one of 20 such centres across the country).

At Chimney Pot Park at Langworthy, Salford, URBAN SPLASH have literally turned C19th terraced housing upsidedown! Bedrooms downstairs, living space upstairs but more than that, it is the quality of the design and finish which makes you want to unpack and settle in there and then!

The backs of two terraces are joined by a first floor terrace, below which is "underground" parking...at ground level. Spaces purchased for £10,000. On-street parking space can be purchased for £5,000. And when the builders have finished, the terrace looks like:

The central walkway is at the front left edge of the picture and the individual terraces run beyond the one with the chairs. We don't have to copy what URBAN SPLASH are doing here but we could at least alow ourselves to be inspired and to creatively convert many of our terraces in the Stoke-on-Trent rather than settle for the easy option of mass demolition.

This has stiffened my resolve even more to ensure that the greater part of the terraces of Fegg Hayes Village in my Ward are adapted for the community and not abandoned to the bull-dozers. The facades of our terraces are not as uniform as the ones at Langworthy:

The decorative brickwork arches over each front door are identical throughout the terraces as are the stone window lintels and sills. The variety of decoration on our terraces in many cases is just as appealing but usually masked by inappropriately daubed paintwork! But that can be removed and the brick and stone cleaned.

The "chimney pots" have nothing to do with smoke - there are no open fires in these moderned terraces (modernised carries unfortunate connotations for me!) - in fact quite the contrary. They are capped with a Velus type window and the interior design is such that light cascades from top to bottom.

Finally, all is revealed! Only the street front fascades have been preserved; the rest of the terraces crunched! This picture of the rear of a terrace shows the steel frame, the basis of the reconstriuction of the terraces.

There was of course much more to the day but perhaps this enough for now. Congratulations and thanks to Dawn McDonald, the recently appointed education and training officer at URBAN VISION for organising such a stimulating day. 

Do you share my view that RENEW NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE and the CITY COUNCIL should be doing all they can to retain and refurbish our terraces rather than condemn and demolish? 

BLACK GOLD

I was one of the 500 guests at the Co-operative Group's promotional event at the Manchester Printworks' Odeon Screen 18 for the UK premiere of BLACK GOLD, a hard hitting documentary film exposing the way a handful of huge international companies control the world's coffee market. The focus is on Ethiopia's thousands of small coffee growers. 

The bicentenary celebrations of the Slave Trade Act 1807 which abolished the slave trade within the British Empire is a useful reminder that though legally free, people can be, and millions are, enslaved by economic systems. Black Gold is a vivid illustration of that fact.

The film's directors, brothers Nick and Marc Francis say:

We were provoked to make a film about coffee after it was announced at the end of 2002 that Ethiopia was facing another famine. Twenty years earlier in 1984, people across the world had been motivated to respond to this crisis by giving aid. The difference this time was that coffee farmers were being caught up in this new food crisis while the global coffee industry was booming.

We wanted to urgently remind audiences that through just one cup of coffee, we are inextricably connected to the livelihoods of millions of people around the world who are struggling to survive.

Black Gold is a visually rich adventure to the source of coffee, following the story of Tadesse Meskela. Tadesse grew up on the poor outskirts of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, and went on to establish a union of co-operatives that is ensuring a better deal for farmers through fair trade. It's a movie with a serious message and demonstrates the real difference that fair trade can actually make on the ground.

BBC World said: ‘If the filmmakers have their way then your skim-milk cappucino with an extra shot, extra frothy, not too hot, with a little bit of room, may not be quite so appealing.'  

To find out more about BLACK GOLD and where it is being screened nationwide from Friday 8th June visit: http://www.blackgoldmovie.com/ or just click on the BLACK GOLD logo:

If you would like to find out more about STOKE-ON-TRENT, a FAIRTRADE CITY, click on the link in my favourites box above. In the meantime, try to make sure as many goods as possible in your shopping bag have the FAIRTRADE Mark:

ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE 1807

At the invitation of the founder of the recently established Jamaica Aid Organization, Mike Dockery, I attended the Commemorative Service for the contribution of Josiah Wedgwood to the 20-year campaign that led to Parliament passing the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807. The service was at the Stoke Minster, led by the rector, Rev David Lingwood. The newly elected Lord Mayor of Stoke on Trent, Cllr Bagh Ali, represented the City.

The sermon by the Rev Irvine Johns of the Union Street Church, stressed the need for us all to focus on the common humanity of human beings rather than the divisions. He began by saying there is no blame, nor claims for compensation, but a recognition of the different values prevalent 200 years ago and even 2,000 years ago, relating issues of slavery to teachings in the Bible.

 Stoke Minster, St Peter Ad Vincula. Josiah Wedgwood (d 1795) is buried in the churchyard.

An employee laid a floral tribute at the foot of Josiah Wedgwood's monument on the north wall of the chancel, but the directors of Wedgwood were conspicuous by their absence. Josiah had produced small pottery campaign medallions in 1787, showing the profile of a kneeling black person, with the inscription: Am I not a man and a brother?

What a shame that the Wedgwood company failed to reply to two letters  from a prominent member of the Fairtrade Foundation asking if the company would reproduce the medallions for this year's bicentenary celebrations!