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.

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.