Welcome to Hendon Greens

Welcome to the blog of the Barnet Green Party's Hendon group. Andrew Newby was Green Party candidate in Hendon constituency in the 2010 general election.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Make Barnet sustainable - and save money


Barnet Council's Conservative leaders have given themselves until December to come up with ideas to turn their Future Shape strategy into a serious policy rather than just a collection of political soundbites.
Here's my proposal: Abandon the dogma about 'cuts' and 'privatisation', which might end up costing more money rather than creating savings. If they want genuine buzz words I suggest 'sustainability' and 'solar panels'.
Birmingham Council has agreed a 100 million pounds scheme to create jobs and sharply reduce the city's carbon emissions. The project will start by giving an energy efficiency upgrade to 10,000 existing homes and energy savings in the retrofitted homes will generate funding for similar work on thousands more homes in the city.
Birmingham is a Conservative-Liberal Democrat administration so why can't Barnet's Tories come up with a similar plan that would create jobs, improve the lives of occupants of the improved homes and lead to a sharp reduction in energy costs and carbon emissions?
Before anyone asks where Barnet would get the initial funding, can I point out that Birmingham Council itself is only putting up 25 million pounds, ie roughly the amount that Barnet Council handed over to Icelandic banks.
I'm sure banks (British not Icelandic ones please!) would be eager to lend Barnet Council the money for an equivalent energy savings scheme and there might be ways of reducing the council's proportion to an even smaller percentage of costs.
The feed-in-tariffs which energy companies pay for power from sustainable sources mean, for instance, that photovoltaic panels can generate surplus electricity every year worth up to 10 percent of the cost of their installation. After ten years the panels are paid for and the electricity is pure profit.
Companies and syndicates are starting to spring up to develop rooftop “sun harvesting” operations and Barnet Council's thousands of homes, schools and other buildings would be an extremely attractive resource.
That's the kind of project that Future Shape should be looking at: dynamic, exciting, forward-looking, job-creating and sustainable.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Future Shape is so... shapeless

Barnet Green Party calls on Barnet Council’s Conservative administration to cancel its notorious Future Shape strategy after auditors Grant Thornton criticised the policy as lacking direction.

The damning report to the council’s audit committee by a team of expert professionals highlights that council leader Lynne Hillan and her cronies don’t have the faintest idea how much money Future Shape might save, nor do they have a serious programme for implementing the scheme.

“Grant Thornton’s report shows that Future Shape, better known as easyCouncil, is a complete mess,” says Andrew Newby, who was Barnet Green Party’s candidate for Hendon in this year’s general election.

“Barnet Conservatives’ concept seems simply to be: ‘Let’s privatise as much as we can and hope it saves money’,” Newby said.

“I call on Barnet Council to cancel Future Shape and go back to the idea that local authorities exist to provide accountable, democratically-controlled services, assessed according to the needs of local residents rather than treated as a trial ground for baseless political dogmas.”

Grant Thornton’s report spells out clearly that the easyCouncil idea is all talk and no substance. The experts wrote: “The council needs to develop and agree a more fundamental mandate for the programme by developing a programme level business case that sets out the planned costs, benefits, time scales, risks and outcomes of the programme.”

Councillor Brian Coleman this week launched a typically childish tirade of insults against the organisers of the Barnet Alliance for Public Services but his outburst was no more than a desperate bid to distract attention from the fact that Future Shape is a shambles.

Newby said: “Grant Thornton’s report provides proof if any were needed that Future Shape is merely an attention-grabbing attempt to implement political dogma without a scrap of evidence that it could achieve real savings and efficiencies. Future Shape? It is definitely Shapeless and let us hope it has no Future.”

Even Coleman might be taken aback if he had any real idea of what happened at Thursday’s launch of the Alliance at the North London Business Park. Not only was the meeting well organised with a panel of prestigious speakers including film director Ken Loach, but more than 200 local people crowded the Emerald Suite to express their anger at the current threats to local schools, hospitals, social services and libraries. Hardly the “lone voices” imagined by Coleman.

Everyone went away fired up to campaign to save our vital local services and facilities.

“It became clear to me that though Tory councillors are eager to slash jobs and cut budgets, what really motivates them is privatising as many of the council’s services as possible. Council workers told the meeting of how they had asked fruitlessly for details of how outsourcing their particular operation would save money – it was obvious that there were no details,” Newby said.

Unfortunately, outsourcing privatisation often leads to greatly increased costs rather than savings, as Private Eye magazine spells out in case studies in almost every issue.

“It is far from proven that Barnet Council needs to make the humungous spending cuts that a being talked about but even if savings are necessary the first priorities should be to save jobs and avoid any hardship to people who use council services. Those are definitely not uppermost in the minds of Barnet’s Conservatives, who simply want to make a name for themselves with massive privatisations,” Newby said.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Barnet Greens earn 20,000 votes but still denied seats


Barnet Green Party would like to thank everyone in the borough who voted Green in the national and local elections last week and we would particularly like to thank the dozens of people who helped out, some of whom contacted us out of the blue.

The number of Green votes in the Barnet borough elections almost doubled from 11,637 in 2006 to 20,388 this time, which would have entitled us to several councillors under a proportional election system. Unfortunately, the current winners-take-all system continues to deny us any seats on the council, demonstrating at a local level the urgent need for major electoral reform.

Thankfully Caroline Lucas managed to win the Greens’ first ever parliamentary seat when she triumphed in Brighton Pavilion constituency, while across the country additional Green councillors were elected in Bristol, Cambridge, Reigate, Reading and Hull, though the vagaries of the dreadful voting system and linking of the parliamentary and local elections meant we lost a few seats on some councils in London.

“As I monitored the count for East Finchley, the ward where I was a candidate, I saw that an enormous number of people had voted for names from two or three different parties, rather than backing three candidates from a single party. Judging from my strolls around the marquees where the votes were tallied, the trend was the same in other wards,” said Barnet Green Party press officer Andrew Newby.

This proves that a large proportion of people in Barnet borough really would like to see a balanced council, with a fair representation of all the political parties rather than the overwhelmingly Conservative administration that we are lumbered with.

Let us hope that the new British government, in whatever shape it may take, brings in a truly proportional voting system for local councils as well as for parliament.

Meanwhile, Barnet Green Party will continue to campaign on the many urgent local issues, not least our efforts to persuade the council to adopt a 20 mph speed limit in all residential streets in the borough. This would not only reduce accidents but make side streets more pleasant to walk or cycle along, improving people’s quality of life and boosting community spirit.

We will very much need your help in future and hope you will continue to support us as we begin preparations for the next major electoral challenge, the London Assembly elections in 2012, when we and activists across London will be fighting to increase the number of Green members of the London Assembly. Greens have played a key role in shaping policies on the assembly and could have even more influence if we win additional seats.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Lucasmania grows as Green policies top survey

Forget Cleggmania, what the media should be reporting is Lucasmania, reflecting the nationwide surge in support for the policies championed by Green Party leader Caroline Lucas.

Unheralded by national newspapers or television, the Green Party's pledges under various headings are by far the most popular policies in a giant survey being carried out by http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/

From more than 190,000 people who had completed the survey at the time I wrote this blog, Green policies have been selected as best by more than 26 percent of participants, with Labour second on 18.5 percent, the LibDems on around 18 percent, the Conservatives at 16 percent, UKIP on about 11 percent and BNP slightly less than 10 percent.

The special feature of the survey is that it does not tell you until afterwards which party each policy comes from. But it does show you that Green policies are liked by a large proportion of people, something which I have already discovered for myself while campaigning for the election.

I have lost count of the number of people living in the Hendon constituency who have said to me: “I like your policies but you aren't going to get in so I'm going to vote Labour to keep the Tories out.”

My personal view is that the three main parties are as bad as each other. None of them are proposing the policies this country needs such as scrapping British nuclear weapons, getting out of Afghanistan, stopping subsidies to sunset industries such as North Sea oil etc etc.

But it is hard to argue with the people whose first priority is to keep the Conservatives out when Britain's old fashioned electoral system rigidly maintains the traditional two-party system which has led to the current political crisis in this country.

A large proportion of voters have been alienated by the expenses scandal but the antiquated electoral system is forcing them to continue voting for people who have been deeply immersed in it and is denying people the chance to vote for much-needed electoral reform.

In 2005 Tony Blair and Labour managed to gain a majority of parliamentary seats even though the party received the votes of only 22 percent of British people entitled to participate.

This time it could be even worse. If David Cameron becomes the next prime minister he will lead a Conservative government whose policies are supported by barely 16 percent of people, if the Vote for Policies survey is accurate.

A hung parliament sounds a tempting idea but how do you avoid letting Cameron in or, equally bad, letting Gordon Brown stagger on for another five years?

The best way in my view is for everyone to vote with their consciences. Think what a political earthquake there would be on May 6th if 26 percent of people voted Green – the level our backing in the Vote for Policies survey.

That really would be Lucasmania.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Greens’ protest kite soars into the empty skies



A protest kite launched by Barnet Green Party was the only authorised craft in the skies above London on Sunday 18th, as Donald Lyven, the party’s candidate for Finchley and Golders Green, attempted to fly the kite to 140 metres, the height of the chimney at an incinerator planned as part of the Brent Cross Cricklewood development.

The flight, for which Donald obtained prior permission from the Civil Aviation Authority, mocked the Brent Cross Cricklewood developers’ denial that the 140 metre chimney will spew fumes across the whole of North London.

“Of course it will,” said Donald Lyven. “140 metres is an enormous height, (460 feet). The legal maximum height for flying a kite is less than half of that – 60 metres in fact. It seems crazy the developers expect to get away with building a polluting chimney 140 metres tall when we can only fly a kite to 60 metres.”

Donald, helped by the Greens’ Hendon candidate Andrew Newby, launched the two-&-a-half metre wide Giant Cody box kite into sunny plane-free skies as all commercial aircraft remained grounded over London because of volcanic dust in the upper atmosphere.

“The fact that volcanic dust from Iceland can halt air traffic over Britain shows just how far any kind of airborne pollution can travel,” he pointed out.

The Green Party were joined by other environmental groups and concerned residents at Clitterhouse Playing Fields, Claremont Road, NW2.

When pulled along, the kite soared above the expanse of the Playing Fields, a stone’s throw from where the Brent Cross Cricklewood developers want to build a chimney taller than any cathedral in Britain. “Unfortunately variable light winds prevented us from getting the kite as high as 140 metres, but that just shows how tall the chimney would be,” Donald said.

Andrew Saffrey, Golders Green candidate for the Green Party in the coming Barnet Council elections, believes the incinerator would blight Golders Green and spread pollution far and wide.

The waste incinerator has been dressed up in the consultation material as a “gasification plant” or a “CHP station”. Whatever it is called, it will emit large quantities of harmful emissions from a 140-metre chimney into the suburbs of North London, and produce tonnes of waste,” he said.

With prevailing winds taking these emissions to the east, the Boroughs of Enfield, Haringey and Waltham Forest would also be affected, as would the Counties of Essex and Hertfordshire,” he said.

Andrew Newby said: “When the Brent Cross Cricklewood plans came before Barnet Planning Committee its Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat members of the planning committee all just rolled over and let their tummies be tickled by the developers.

They approved the plans almost on the nod when the sheer number of objectors and the broad scope of the various objections – the incinerator is just one of many problems – meant that the only truly democratic decision would have been to call a public enquiry,” the Hendon candidate said.

Barnet Council needs a strong Green group to hold the administration to account not just on environmental policy but on jobs, housing, social issues and certainly planning,” he added.

Labour’s Communities Minister John Denham may have blocked the development for the moment but he has not ruled out approving the scheme after the election, still without the vital public inquiry needed to expose the many flaws in the scheme.

Andrew Saffrey said in his submission to the ministry: “With an estimated 29,000 vehicle trips a day predicted to be generated by this development, clearly this project is seriously jeopardising efforts to control and reduce CO2 emissions.”

Suggestions that a light-rail system is sorely needed to serve Brent Cross have been derided by Conservative councillors yet providing light rail has been enormously successful in other large-scale development projects, notably Canary Wharf,” he said.

Monday, April 12, 2010


Barnet Greens waved their Oyster cards to show their support for public transport as they gathered for the launch of the party's council election campaign.
The party is running 51 candidates across 19 wards, almost a full slate and easily the biggest contingent that the party has put up for election.
Its key pledges are:
Jobs: We will press Barnet Council to do more to help prepare local 16-24 year old people for the world of work and to help them find jobs.

Nationally, the Greens want to create a million new jobs through the Green New Deal.

Homes: We will work to ensure that Barnet Council takes serious steps to encourage the building of affordable homes to buy or for rent.

Barnet’s performance in meeting local housing needs is among the worst of all the London boroughs.

Insulation: The Greens’ national ambition is for free insulation in all homes. We plan to submit proposals to Barnet Council for improved policies on insulation for public and private homes.

20 mph Speed Limit: Barnet Green Party is proposing a 20 mph speed limit on all residential and shopping streets in the borough.

Lower limits lead to a sharp reduction in accidents and also reduce people’s sense of fear and danger. People walk and cycle more and feel safer about letting their children walk or cycle to school.

Public Transport: Greens will continue to campaign for better local bus services and will fight any threat to Tube services or ticket office staffing at stations in the borough.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Greens focus on jobs in Barnet election

Barnet Green Party is prioritising job creation in its pledges for both the national and local elections. Here are our pledges for the Barnet Council election on May 6th:

Jobs

We will press Barnet Council to do more to help prepare local 16-24 year old people for the world of work and to help them find jobs.

Nationally, the Greens want to create a million new jobs through the Green New Deal.

Homes

We will work to ensure that Barnet Council takes serious steps to encourage the building of affordable homes to buy or for rent.

Barnet’s performance in meeting local housing needs is among the worst of all the London boroughs.

Insulation

The Greens’ national ambition is for free insulation in all homes. We plan to submit proposals to Barnet Council for improved policies on insulation for public and private homes.

20 mph speed limit

Barnet Green Party is proposing a 20 mph speed limit on all residential and shopping streets in the borough.

Lower limits lead to a sharp reduction in accidents and also reduce people’s sense of fear and danger. People walk and cycle more and feel safer about letting their children walk or cycle to school.

Public transport

Greens in will continue to campaign for better local bus services and will fight any threat to Tube services or ticket office staffing at stations in the borough.

Green Party councillors in Barnet will also:

* Support community services such as libraries and post offices.
* Fight any new plans for major supermarkets in the area.
* Protect local parks, green spaces and allotments.
* Propose measures to help local businesses continue providing vital services to local people.
* Encourage a high visibility by local police and support officers to deter crime and make people feel safer.
* Spur Barnet Council to adopt a more sustainable approach

For further information contact Andrew.Newby@barnetgreenparty.co.uk

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Tube ticket office plans could see off Boris

Reported plans by Transport for London to axe 800 tube station staff, affecting around 12 ticket offices in Barnet borough among dozens across London, could be the broken pledge too far that causes so many people to end their support for Boris Johnson that he will fail to win re-election if he stands again as Mayor of London in two years' time, predicts Andrew Newby, Green Party candidate for Hendon.

In 2007 when previous mayor Ken Livingstone announced plans to shut the ticket offices at Totteridge and Whetstone, West Finchley and Mill Hill East stations among 40 proposed closures, tube travellers were so keen to make their objections known that they literally grabbed draft protest letters from the hands of Barnet Green Party campaigners who offered them to people emerging from the local stations.

"Some people told us awful stories of problems they had had when no staff member was around to help them - elderly people who had had to climb over barriers, mothers with children in pushchairs who had had to lift the chairs over stubbornly closed barriers before climbing over themselves, and so on," Newby said.

Wily Ken backed off from his idea and so will Boris if he has any sense. Despite the impression given by the vociferous road lobby that most people rely on cars, in fact around 80 percent of people who work in central London commute by public transport every day and they deserve improved tube, train and bus services, not reduced.

The objections to reduced ticket office opening hours are as strong now as they were then - greater risk to everyone, delays to journeys, loss of revenue. Worst of all, the heightened feeling of insecurity when no staff are around might put some people off travelling by Underground altogether.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Newby says give carers more care

It is already certain that health will be one of the major issues in the coming general election amid talk of a need for cuts despite all parties' pledges of support for the NHS.

In the Barnet area the spotlight has been taken by proposals to axe key services at major hospitals including the Whittington, Chase Farm, Barnet General and North Middlesex. Many parliamentary candidates have quite rightly taken a stand against many of the reductions.

However I urge voters to seek pledges from candidates that they will also work to improve support for family carers – those thousands of unsung and unpaid people who spend much of their time looking after relatives who cannot fully fend for themselves.

I have written to my Hendon rivals, Labour's Andrew Dismore, Matthew Offord for the Conservatives and LibDem Matthew Harris, to ask them to endorse the aims of www.Carerwatch.com which is campaigning for recognition that family carers are at the heart of the care system.

Many members of all the major political parties have already signed up to the campaign's "Pledge to End Carer Impoverishment" and I hope all parliamentary candidates in the Barnet area will do so too.

Carerwatch are concerned that governments have failed to recognise that family carers are at the heart of the care system. They believe that unless family carers are acknowledged and supported, both financially and through care services, no new system will be sustainable. Family carers are not an optional extra to be added on as an after thought, Carerwatch says.

Carerwatch campaigners are also fighting to restore unconditional benefits to all people with severe and enduring illness.

The 2001 Census identified 30,000 adult carers and 1000 young carers (under the age of 18) living in the borough of Barnet.
If anyone doubts that the situation of carers is a major issue they should drop into my local supermarket, where Barnet Carer Watch is one of three charities of the month. The pile of tokens in support of Carer Watch is currenty higher than those for the other two charities put together.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Greens demand BXC public enquiry

Andrew Newby, the Green Party parliamentary candidate for Hendon, is urging the government to call in the 4.5 billion pounds Brent Cross Cricklewood redevelopment scheme so that a public enquiry can be held.

In a letter to John Denham MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Newby says: "You have no doubt received many other letters highlighting the major problems with the scheme but there are two overwhelming reasons why the project should go to a public inquiry.

"1/ Even supposing the developers fulfill their pledges of high standards for all aspects of their monstrous proposals, the size of the scheme is so enormous that it will have an impact on the national target of an 80 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

"The BXC plans include only token sustainability measures, so the expanded shopping centre, the new homes and the other buildings are likely to churn out hundreds of thousands of tonnes of CO2 in their many decades of existence. Residential buildings will only achieve level three (out of six) under the Code for Sustainable Homes although the government's target is for all buildings be carbon neutral by 2016.

"This scheme is an ideal opportunity to install energy conservation measures and sustainable power facilities right from the beginning. There is plenty of scope on the site for enough wind turbines, solar arrays and ground source heat pumps to make the whole area carbon positive, never mind carbon neutral. Yet the requirement for 20% renewable energy is proposed to be met entirely by burning domestic waste. Not a single solar panel or wind turbine is proposed.

"As well as benefitting the environment, carbon neutrality would save money for the people who live in the new town and for the businesses, as their energy bills would be much lower – they might even make money by feeding electricity back into the grid. Can it be that the developers are more interested in building cheaply than in saving on running costs for the future occupants of the homes and commercial buildings?

"It is vital that all nations reduce their CO2 emissions rapidly in order to prevent global temperatures rising to levels likely to trigger environmental disaster. But there is no chance of Britain achieving its crucial CO2 reduction target if other planning authorities adopt the Barnet planning committee's approach of ignore the wider environmental impact of schemes under consideration.

"2/ The scheme is not just about new housing and a so-called town centre, the whole thing is based on "an expanded and improved" shopping mall, with an "enhanced retail offer including new stores at Brent Cross Shopping Centre", to cite the developers' own documents. It would seem very probable that the expansion of Brent Cross would have further harmful affects on the several shopping areas within a few miles of the development.

"Shopping district likely to suffer from the expansion of Brent Cross include Golders Green, Hendon, Temple Fortune and Finchley Central. Many businesses in those areas are already struggling under the impact of the recession and Barnet Council should not have approved the BXC plans without studying their likely impact on local communities and implementing whatever measures are needed to support those communities.

"I also urge you to call in the scheme for these further reasons:

"*There are elements of the plan that have significant impacts outside the Borough of Barnet: in particular 29,000 extra cars per day on the road, and the impact on local shopping and communities. A North West London Light Railway would mitigate some of these effects.

"*The proposal's sustainability needs to be reviewed in terms of: density, the environment, pollution, carbon emissions, the incinerator, siting of waste processing plant, and the effect of high-level walkways on cyclists and pedestrians.

"* The huge dump and 140 metre waste incinerator will pollute the air we and our children breathe. Barnet Council (with six other boroughs) wants to build the domestic waste dump next to an infants school, possibly harming the most vulnerable."

If you want to ask the minister to call in the plans, write to: john.denham@communities.gsi.gov.uk
The deadline for submissions is March 12th

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Greens warn young people ‘Beware of ID cards’




Zain Sardar

Barnet Green Party is urging young people in the borough to shun the government’s new offer to sign them up to the national identity card scheme.

The Home Office this month invited 16- to 24-year-olds in London to apply for identity cards at a cost of £30. For any young person who does apply, up to 50 categories of personal and biometric details about him or her will be added to the National Identity Register. These will include finger prints, National Insurance number, current and past addresses and full history of the card’s use.

There is little or no practical benefit for young people in having the card over other current forms of ID, as shops, bars and other premises don’t have biometric scanners. However, even more worrying than wasting the upfront £30, is that while getting a card will be voluntary, once on the National Identity Register, young people will not be able to get off it, will have to keep the register up to date with their personal details for life and not doing so could lead to a fine of up to £1000.

Also, the life-time cost to the card holder of updating the register and obtaining replacement cards is completely unknown.

Barnet Green Party Youth Officer and Council candidate for Colindale, Zain Sardar says, ‘With the current economic climate, and the pernicious effect this had had on youth and graduate unemployment the last thing we need is for the government to be wasting money when it could easily have been used to help universities fund extra places for students that are currently out of work.

“The London School of Economics estimated the costs of the scheme will be between £10 billion and £20 billion but there is no evidence that this scheme will reduce terrorism or benefit fraud. Thus is a smack in the face for students and young people, who really need the government to invest in their future right now.”

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Let's be eco-friendly in Hendon


Everyone in Hendon needs to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions they cause and adopt a more sustainable way of life to help in the worldwide fight against climate change. Why not start in 2010 with a 10 percent cut in your carbon "Perkin - the purrfect draught excluder" footprint? And there's no need to be miserable. We can still have fun while we adapt ourselves.

ANDREW NEWBY'S 10 WAYS YOU CAN LIVE MORE SUSTAINABLY IN 2010:

Food and clothing:

1/ Eat food grown in Britain when possible, to save on 'food miles' -- energy used in transporting imports. Eg, don't give up bananas but when you eat an apple make sure it is a British one.

2/ Eat meat no more than once or twice a week. Producing a kilogramme of beef uses ten times the resources needed to produce the equivalent amount of vegetarian food.

3/ Grown your own food. Grow fruit and vegetables in your garden or on the patio, where tomatoes, peppers and chillis will ripen nicely in pots. In a flat, grow herbs in pots on the windowsill.

ECO-FUN: 4/ Fed up with your clothes? Swap items with your friends instead of buying new garments that need a lot of energy to make and to import to Britain. Hold a clothes swap party!

Transport:

5/ Walk or cycle as much as possible, eg when going to the shops. It is good exercise, it will save you money and you will see sights and hear sounds you would have missed inside a vehicle.

6/ Use Hendon's many bus services or the train or underground instead of going by car. You can relax on buses and trains by reading or sleeping. If you are tired (or drunk!), public transport is the best way home.

ECO-FUN: 7/ When planning a holiday see if you can avoid travelling by air, which has a high carbon footprint. Try the Eurostar train to Paris – it's luxurious and can be cheap as a bargain flight.

In your home:

8/ Close your curtains at night. Day-to-day habits like closing your curtains and internal doors can lower your gas and electricity bills. You can save even more money by ensuring the loft and walls of your home are well insulated and by installing high-grade doubling glazing.

9/ To make a meal use a microwave instead of the oven, when suitable. On average, cooking a meal in a microwave uses only half the electricity of cooking the same food in an oven.

ECO-FUN: 10/ Sit under a duvet to watch television instead of turning up the heating in your living room. Better still, invite a friend to sit under the duvet with you.

Www.barnetgreenparty.co.uk
Http://hendongreens.blogspot.com

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Barnet Council's Icelandic day of reckoning will come


If Barnet Council leader Lynne Hillan really believes that the millions lost in Icelandic banks have "no effect on council tax", as the Barnet Press quoted her as saying, then she is no more fit to oversee the council's finances than previous leader Mike Freer was.

Total losses on the the council's investments with Glitnir and Landsbanki are likely to add up to at least 11.5 million pounds, based on the figures reported by the Press, and if the council didn't need this money why does Hillan think it was collected from Barnet's council taxpayers?

It may well be that Barnet can still stave off an increase in council tax for the coming year, at a time when the Conservative administration wants to impress voters ahead of the May 6th local elections, but the day of reckoning will surely come in the near future.

Once the final losses are established on the 27 million pounds that Barnet foolishly handed over to the Icelandic banks, the council will have to start rebuilding its finances and my prediction is that there will be a sizeable increase in council tax in the next year or two to restore the contingency reserves.

And if Barnet council really didn't need the money, why has it brought in the "easyCouncil" Future Shape strategy and launched a programme of swingeing cuts? For example, that 11.5 million pounds could have paid for wardens to remain at sheltered housing sites for donkeys' years and saved the council from its costly planned appeal against the court order banning its cold-hearted plan to scale down the warden scheme.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Greens urge councils to act to cut bus fares

The Green Party of England and Wales has urged local authorities across the UK to take advantage of new legislation and cut bus fares.

An amendment to the Local Transport Act of 2008 which came into force this month enables local governments to create Quality Contract Schemes. Such provisions allow authorities the power to instate London style quality control over service provision including fares, timings and routes.

Caroline Lucas, Leader of the Green Party, said: "Greens welcome amendments to the law that allow for Quality Contract Schemes. We must make sure buses are a financially viable alternative to cars. While such provisions give local authorities a fantastic opportunity to move ahead with plans to reduce fares, the current government has done little to make buses an attractive option.

"In the past decade the cost of motoring has fallen by 13% in real terms whilst bus fares have risen by 17%, and funding for buses is poor compared to many of our European neighbours. In addition 53% of people would take the bus to work if the service was better [1]. Cutting bus fares is a sure fire way of easing congestion and pollution on city roads. The QCS's present a real chance to make this happen."

However the optimism over QCS's may be short lived. Exponents of the scheme have warned that local authorities must act quickly after reports surfaced that a Conservative government would repeal the part of the act that allows for QCS's in favour of a more competitive bus industry.

A spokesperson for the CBT (Campaign for Better Transport) said:

"Shadow Transport minister Stephen Hammond wants to scrap Quality Contracts. We advise Quality Contracts should thus be quickly approved, and that the Department should play an active role in encouraging and supporting local transport authorities who want to use these new powers. Currently bus services in the UK receive some of the lowest funding in Europe. A better funded and attractive bus system would do a good deal to lower carbon emissions and create more pleasant city environments."

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Is Dismore serious about tackling violence?

Well done to Hendon MP Andrew Dismore for urging people to support the White Ribbon Campaign, a movement for men working to reduce violence by men towards women. But is he just talking the talk or is he planning genuine policy initiatives?

The Labour government which Mr Dismore supports has sadly failed to take the problem seriously during more than 12 years in office.

In a statement last week (12th January) Green Party leader Caroline Lucas said: "The government needs to address the funding crisis faced by many specialist support agencies like Rape Crisis centres, which offer enormous support to women when they are most vulnerable.”

"In the UK, the statistics speak for themselves; the British Crime Survey suggests that there are more than 300,000 rapes and serious sexual assaults each year. The conviction rate in rape cases is around 6.5 percent, the lowest in Europe, according to a recent survey," she said.

Lucas, who is already an MP for South East England and is forecast to win the Brighton Pavilion seat in this year's UK general election, praised the Spanish government for giving a commitment to tackling violence against women across the European Union as it begins its six-months rotating presidency of the EU.

“The Spanish government should be applauded for recognising that urgent coordinated action is required at the EU level to tackle the crisis of gendered violence. Not enough is being done to address the causes, care for the victims, adequately punish the perpetrators – and make violence against women absolutely unacceptable," Lucas said.

Can Mr Dismore promise voters in Hendon that Labour's election manifesto this year will include pledges of greater action to reduce violence against women?

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Greens tell Boris: 'don't raise bus fares'

The Green Party's Darren Johnson will be aiming to freeze bus fares when he seeks to amend Mayor Boris Johnson's draft budget.

The £75m that the Mayor is raising from the 12 percent bus fare increase would instead be raised mostly from motorists, with the reinstatement of the £25 emissions charge on gas guzzlers and retention of the western extension of the congestion charge.

Responding to the London Mayor's consultation budget proposals for 2010/11, Darren Johnson said: "I will seek a reverse of this year's fare rises on the buses by urging the Assembly to support an amendment to the mayor's budget.

The Mayor's budget proposals will mean less money raised from car drivers, whilst public transport users are paying more. I want to see the Mayor protecting the poorer Londoners by freezing bus fares and making those who pollute more, pay more.

The Mayor claims that he has to increase bus fares whilst cutting bus services in order to fill a financial black hole, but a large part the deficit is created by for vanity projects such as scrapping bendy buses and dropping charges designed to discourage polluting cars."

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Let's be eco-friendly in Barnet

Everyone in Barnet needs to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions they cause and adopt a more
sustainable way of life to help in the worldwide fight against climate change. Why not start in 2010 with a 10 percent cut in your carbon footprint? We can still have fun while we adapt ourselves.

ANDREW NEWBY'S 10 WAYS YOU CAN LIVE MORE SUSTAINABLY IN 2010:

Food and clothing:
1/ Eat food grown in Britain when possible, to save on 'food miles' -- energy used in transporting
imports. Eg, don't give up bananas but when you eat an apple make sure it is a British one.
2/ Eat meat no more than once or twice a week. Producing a kilogramme of beef uses ten times the resources needed to produce the equivalent amount of vegetarian food.
3/ Grown your own food. Grow fruit and vegetables in your garden or on the patio, where tomatoes, peppers and chillis will ripen nicely in pots. In a flat, grow herbs in pots on the windowsill.
ECO-FUN: 4/ Fed up with your clothes? Swap items with your friends instead of buying new
garments that need a lot of energy to make and to import to Britain. Hold a clothes swap party!

Transport:
5/ Walk or cycle as much as possible, eg when going to the shops. It is good exercise, it will save
you money and you will see sights and hear sounds you would have missed inside a vehicle.
6/ Use Barnet's many bus services or train routes instead of going by car. You can relax on buses
and trains by reading or sleeping. If you are tired (or drunk!), public transport is the best way home.
ECO-FUN: 7/ When planning a holiday see if you can avoid travelling by air, which has a high
carbon footprint. Try the Eurostar train to Paris – it's luxurious and can be cheap as a bargain flight.

In your home:
8/ Close your curtains at night! You can save the biggest amount of money by ensuring the loft and walls of your home are well insulated and by installing high-grade doubling glazing, but day-to-day
habits like closing your curtains and internal doors can also help cut your gas and electricity bills.
9/ To make a meal use a microwave instead of the oven, when suitable. On average, cooking a meal in a microwave uses only half the electricity of cooking the same food in an oven.
ECO-FUN: 10/ Sit under a duvet to watch television instead of turning up the heating in your
living room. Better still, invite a friend to sit under the duvet with you!

Monday, January 4, 2010

Dismore's expenses were immoral

Hendon MP Andrew Dismore is living in a dreamworld if he thinks he has done nothing wrong by claiming a total of 65,000 pounds in expenses for two homes both within easy reach of Westminster, says Andrew Newby, Green Party candidate for the Hendon constituency.
"Dismore's constituents are more likely to think he has had his nose in the trough in a big way."
Parliamentary records released in November show that Dismore claimed a total of 65,000 in second home allowance from 2001 onwards, first for his partner's flat in Notting Hill and then for his own house in Hendon.
"Dismore may not have broken any rules but he has taken advantage of them to cream off a fat sum of money for his own benefit when he quite clearly does not need a second home at all because his constituency is a short Tube ride from parliament," Newby said.