more … ]]> Inspired by the LDV Friday 5, I’ve just been checking the stats for the Lib Dems online petitions. Here are the results for the last week:

Five most active local constituencies with online petitions:

1. East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow
2. Bedford
3. Hornsey and Wood Green
4. Ealing Central and Acton
5. Lanark and Hamilton East

Five most active online campaigns

1. Save our ticket offices - http://www.ourcampaign.org.uk/saveourticketoffices
2. Stop the Dovesdale Incinerator - http://www.scotlibdems.org.uk/pages/stopdovesdaleincinerator
3. Save Bedfordshire Police - http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/savebedspolice
4. Borough-wide 20mph limit in Haringey - http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/20mph
5. Save Bradford on Avon Swimming Pool - http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/savebradfordonavonpool

Looking at Winchester, our most popular online petitions over time have been:

Five most active online campaigns in Winchester

1. Quiet Please! – http://www.quietplease.org.uk/
2. Defend Freedom of Information – http://www.ourcampaign.org.uk/foi
3. Save Our Loos – http://www.saveourloos.com/
4. Save our buses – http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/saveourbuses
5. A trip to the shops this Christmas – http://www.triptotheshops.com/

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We’ve just launched a website (http://www.saveourbuses.org.uk) and a petition against the proposed cuts to the Red Rocket bus service in Chandler’s Ford and Hiltingbury.

In essence, almost no Blue Line buses will go north of Fryern Hill or west of Winchester Road.

I was out on Tuesday collecting signatures at Fryern Hill, Ashdown Road and Sutherlands Court and it’s clear that these cuts are going to hit many residents very badly. For pensioners in particular, the combination of the cuts to the Red Rocket bus services and the loss of the Chandler’s Ford post office are a double whammy.

You can sign the petition here and join the Facebook group here.

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Up bright and early yesterday to join the campaign to save the Romsey-Winchester rail-link bus. This entailed getting the 7.04 a.m. bus to Romsey, putting on a Santa hat, and travelling back at 7.35 a.m. with Sandra Gidley and a bus full of protesters from the Save Our Bus campaign – before collecting signatures on the concourse from local travellers. Eleanor Bell joined us as the bus came back through Hursley.

It seems hard to believe that, so soon after all the County Council’s previous bus cuts, we’d be seeing another but cut – this time from South West Trains. As with all the bus cuts so far, it puts pressure on the environment, parking and congestion and severely impacts off-peak travel for people without cars (generally pensioners and the young). In this case, it will also cause major problems for people commuting to and from London before and after peak hours. It follows on from SWT’s off-peak fare hike at the beginning of the year and the upcoming closure of the travel centre and makes a mockery of the various promises from the County and the Government to have a joined-up travel system.

There was a huge public meeting last week in Romsey which Sandra Gidley reports on in her blog which highlighted how poor the understanding of the service is by both South West Trains and Stagecoach. Unfortunately I couldn’t get to it since it clashed with the meeting about the Tower – although I was at a meeting a couple of days earlier in Hursley which was also very well attended.

Matt and Nadine from the Save Our Bus campaign have done an amazing job on this. It’s worth contacting them to let them know you are a supporter, signing up at their website and joining the Facebook group.

Seeing Sandra in full Santa regalia reminded me of some earlier Santa-related campaigning of my own (which is where Michael Portillo comes in).

Back in 1984, I dressed up as Santa and went up to London with my colleagues Chris Thornton and Chris Chantry carrying a sack full of Christmas cards for Sir Keith Joseph as part of the (successful) campaign against his plans to cut the minimum grant and introduce tuition fees. Much to our surprise, we arrived at Parliament just as a brand new MP, Michael Portillo, was entering the Commons for the first time after winning the Enfield Southgate by-election. After taking photographs of Michael Portillo and his wife Carolyn – and then of me and the sack of cards – they followed up with various other combinations. “Excuse me Santa, can we take a picture of you and the Portillos” (no problem) followed by “Mr Portillo – can you get out of the picture please. We want a picture of Santa and Mrs Portillo” (?!).

more … ]]> We’ve finally had confirmation that we’ve stopped the County Council completely cutting the 6A. After a huge amount of pressure, the 10.10 and 12.10 services have been saved. It’s taken a lot of hard work to get the County Council to see some sense on this. The 6A is a service that was designed to support elderly and vulnerable people living in sheltered accomodation and it was a disgrace that the Conservatives on the County Council ever considered cutting it.

We will still be campaigning for more than two services a day, but this is already huge progress. You can get a sense of the indomitable spirit of the ‘veterans against the bus cuts group’, especially Ron Petty, who did the most to save the service, from the following Thames Valley TV report.

more … ]]> Some good news from Chandler’s Ford. After a strong campaign run with local Lib Dems, Haulwen Broadhurst and Grahame Smith, Lib Dem-run Eastleigh Borough Council has stepped in and saved the C service in Chandler’s Ford after its funding was cut by Hampshire County Council.

The Winchester Lib Dem team has been campaigning hard with local people to reverse the Conservatives’ cuts to local bus services in the rest of the new Winchester constituency. Hundreds of people across Winchester have already signed our petitions to reverse the cuts in the 1, 5, 6 and 6a services.

These cuts affect the elderly and immobile hardest – particularly the cut in the 6a to Abbotts Barton.

At a time when we need to be tackling climate change, we also need to be making it easier to use bus services, not harder.

We’ve seen that the Liberal Democrats running Eastleigh Borough Council have true commitment to public transport. Will the Conservatives running Winchester City Council be prepared to step in and save our local services here in the same way?

Do Winchester’s Conservatives actually have any commitment to the environment or have they just been making empty promises about the environment to try and win votes.

If you’d like to back the campaign or print out a petition form, you can do so at:

http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/supportservice1
http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/supportservice5
http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/supportservice6
http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/supportservice6a

more … ]]> There’s been frenetic activity by our Councillors and campaigners to try and stop the Conservatives’ cuts to local bus services. We were given only a few days between the announcement of the proposals and the final decision being taken. It looks like service cuts will go ahead on the 1, 5, 6, 6A in Winchester and the Service C in Hiltingbury and Chandler’s Ford. Most services are losing Sunday or weekday evening services. The 6A is being axed completely..

Our County Councillors have been lobbying and arguing very hard against the cuts. We also managed to turn round and deliver Focus leaflets and online websites very quickly in some wards which added further ammunition to our case. We got an amazing response to the petitions that we sent out – both via Focus – and online