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/

more … ]]> It seems a while since Winchester City Council had its troubles with Icelandic banks.

I realised to my surprise that I never uploaded the video of the original BBC News report on it, so here it is:

I particularly like Steve Humphrey’s line about the Conservatives in Winchester feeling the blues and the Lib Dems in Eastleigh basking in a golden glow!

more … ]]> More catching up. Here’s a BBC South Today report on ambulance response times from April 16, 2009 using the results of an FOI request I did on ambulance response times.

The response to this FOI request and subsequent meetings with the trust, led to the discovery that Hampshire had too few ambulances per capita, persuading the trust to admit this at their AGM, and an increase in ambulance numbers towards the end of last financial year.

more … ]]> I can’t find a website with this information, so here it is:

WINCHESTER’S BIG LUNCH EVENT AT ABBEY GARDENS –
SUNDAY 18th July from 12 until 3pm

DELICIOUS FOOD FROM AROUND THE WORLD, LIVE MUSIC AND DANCE is all on the menu at Winchester’s Big Lunch event on Sunday 18 July in Abbey Gardens, next to the Guildhall.

For only £2 for three portions, guests will be able to enjoy authentic Indian, Chinese, Thai, Nepalese, Philippine and African dishes prepared by the city’s varied restaurants and community groups. Portions are small so that you can try servings from several nationalities. Take your place at One Big Table!

For everyone’s entertainment there will be steel drums, salsa dance lessons, story telling for the whole family, traditional dance from Nepal and Thailand, African drumming, plus music from around the world.  The event will be launched by Councillor Richard Izard, Mayor of Winchester, from the Guildhall with a Chinese “lion dance” procession to Abbey Gardens.

Entry and entertainment is free and everyone is welcome!  There is, however, a charge if you wish to have food from the various cuisines on offer. Here’s how it works:  You purchase a ticket which entitles you to a three-portion serving from one of the six national cuisines.  Each ticket costs £2.  Portions are small so if you want to try dishes from another nationality you pay for another ticket and try another country.  For £12 pounds you can try all six nationalities – if you can handle it!

One Big Table is a local version of The Big Lunch.  One Big Table has the aim of bringing together and celebrating the increasingly diverse cultural communities in Winchester.

CultureNet was set up just over a year ago to bring together Winchester’s ethnic minority communities to promote opportunities for greater integration and to celebrate the rich cultural diversity of the city and district.  Culturenet aims to do this through various means, including events such as today’s One Big Table, as well as various social forums.  One Big Table has been devised by Winchester’s ethnic minority groups including CultureNet and Footsteps, working in partnership with Winchester City Council’s Arts Service, Hampshire County Council’s Community Service and Winchester Area Community Action, with additional funding from Awards for All Lottery grants.

We look forward to seeing you in Abbey Gardens.

For more information contact Christopher Newberry on 01962 712858.

ends

Many thanks to Miff Kayum of Bangkok Brasserie for sending the information through.

more … ]]> First, a big thank you for the incredible support given to me by so many people during (and after) the recent election.  The level of support was astonishing and humbling – the personal support, along with all the hours spent delivering, canvassing, writing and stuffing envelopes, printing, sticking up posters etc.  It was something to behold and I am intensely grateful.

Regrettably this didn’t translate to a win the in Parliamentary Election.  Through everyone’s work, we got 43.1% of the vote – the fourth highest losing vote share in the country, a higher share of the vote than Mark achieved when first elected in 1997 and 24,107 votes – more than 458 of the MPs in Parliament. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough.

We won the local election vote, but too many of our local voters switched to back the Conservatives in the General Election because (ironically) they believed the line that voting Conservative was the only way to avoid a hung parliament and get rid of Gordon Brown!

Taking majority control of the City Council for the first time since 2002

Despite our disappointment in the parliamentary campaign, we do have grounds for celebration. As a second result of the team’s hard work, we won the majority of seats on Winchester City Council for the first time since 2002!  We now have outright majority control for the first time since 2003.

The results in Chandler’s Ford are equally encouraging. We beat the Conservatives across Chandler’s Ford in the Borough Council vote for the first time ever (or at least since Martin Kyrle’s records begin in the mid-1960s).

Preparing for the future

Obviously, our councillor team have a lot to do preparing to lead the City Council, but we also need to build up our organisation and our funds for future elections and a referendum on the voting system.

As Winchester and Chandler’s Ford residents know, we are active all year round across the whole constituency. The money we raise to produce our leaflets, pay our staff and run our offices also comes from local people.

If you’re able to help with any upcoming campaign, please let me know.  We also want more people to join us as party members. You can join online at http://www.winld.org.uk/join.

Despite any personal disappointment, my commitment to Winchester and my commitment to tackling the environmental, social, economic and political crises we face – and working for a freer, fairer and greener way of living – remains undimmed. And there are a thousand ways to change the world other than being a Member of Parliament!

Once again, if you were one of the many thousands who helped my campaign or voted for me on May 6th, thank you.

more … ]]> Liberal Democrats in Winchester & Chandler’s Ford have set out plans to revitalise Britain’s high streets, protect the future of the Post Office, and help small businesses establish and grow in a fairer marketplace.

The announcement comes as research shows one in eight shops is now empty after the recession. The report, published by the Local Data Company (LDC), says that vacancies shot up by 24% in the second half of 2009.

Vacancies in Winchester in December 2009 were 9.1% – below the national average of around 12.5% – in line with Basingstoke and Reading – better than Southampton (16.3%), but significantly worse than Salisbury (5.0%) and Chichester (5.7%).

Martin Tod, Prospective Liberal Democrat MP for Winchester & Chandler’s Ford said:

“Even though our vacancy rate is below average, we can’t afford to be complacent. Other cathedral cities like Salisbury and Chichester are doing much better than we are.

“Even before the credit crunch hit, we’d lost too many small independent shops from Winchester’s High Street.

“The Government’s skewed planning system has seen almost every high street in Britain end up as an identical collection of chain stores and coffee shops.

“We need a thriving high street in Winchester, one with real character that allows local businesses to survive and grow.

“Our economy has suffered from treating the City of London as the most important part of our economy at the expense of everything else. We need to give greater focus to small business. Small businesses are the biggest engine for new jobs and will be the key for building a healthy and distinctive High Street for Winchester.”

Commenting, Nick Clegg said:

“Thriving high streets are at the heart of local communities.

“But it has been our high streets that have borne the brunt of this recession, with boarded up shops scarring towns and villages across Britain.

“I believe that people value the wide range of goods and services available locally and want to see their high streets thrive and prosper.”

more … ]]> Hampshire Health bosses are now planning a significant number of extra NHS dentist places in Winchester – including a new centre that will be open 7 days a week from 8 a.m. till 8 p.m.

Winchester’s Prospective Lib Dem MP, Martin Tod, met Hampshire health bosses in late October to get an update on plans following his campaign over the last 2 years for more dentist places.

Martin Tod commented:

“I’ve been pushing to get extra NHS dentist places for Winchester for over 2 years, so I’m very pleased to see this plan for a new centre.

“There’s a real need for these new places. There was a collapse in the number of people going to NHS dentists after Labour brought in a new contract for dentists in March 2007. The numbers are now recovering, but they’re still below what they were.”

In Martin Tod’s 2007 Health Survey, 43% of local people had problems finding a local NHS dentist. Even now, NHS places only rarely come available. In a survey by Mark Oaten in Summer 2009, 22% of people said they had not visited a dentist in the last year.

Mr Tod got national news coverage when he helped Winchester resident, Elizabeth Green, find a dentist after she felt forced to pull out two of her own teeth – and this was one of the things that led NHS bosses to look again at plans for Winchester.

To find the nearest NHS dentist or to get emergency care, call the Hampshire Dental Helpline on 0845 050 8345 or visit http://www.hampshiredentalhelpline.nhs.uk/.

more … ]]> I was very pleased to see that Will Hancock, the Chief Executive of the South Central Ambulance service, has admitted that there’s a problem with the number of ambulances we have in Hampshire.

Back in September, the Chairman of the Trust said something very similar when I challenged him at their Annual General Meeting (as reported in the Echo):

To achieve all our targets we need more ambulances, more crews and more money.

Having the problem recognised from the top is a good first step.  Now we need to see some action to fix it.

more … ]]> Enquiries by Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate, Martin Tod, have finally solved the mystery of the broken clock outside the old Guildhall (now Lloyds TSB bank) on Winchester High Street.

The clock is one of the most recognisable sights on Winchester’s High Street. Over the summer, the glass on one side of the clock shattered and was originally thought to have been damaged by vandalism, but clock specialists, Smiths of Derby, brought in by the City Council’s insurers have concluded that the damage is the result of deterioration of the clock face.

Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate, Martin Tod, uncovered the story when he wrote to the council asking when they intended to repair it and whether they could cover the broken side with bird-proof netting to prevent further damage:

“The Old Guildhall clock is a very recognisable and visible part of Winchester’s High Street. It’s important that it’s fixed sooner rather than later. Leaving something so visible unrepaired makes an unnecessarily poor impression and risks making people think we don’t care about our town.

I contacted the council to find out how quickly it could be fixed and what they were doing to stop further damage from birds and the weather while it remained open to the elements.

I’ve had tourists stop me in the street and ask why the town wasn’t getting the clock fixed. The last straw was when it looked like pigeons might be moving into it as well through the opening created when they removed the broken glass. It’s essential we look after our heritage. I’m glad it’s being fixed, but wish it could have been done sooner.”

more … ]]> More than 950 students backed the Lib Dem campaign against tuition fees at the University of Winchester’s Fresher’s Fayre on Saturday.

Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate, Martin Tod, commented:

“This year was even better than last year. Every year, more students back our campaigns, sign petitions and sign up to the Liberal Democrats – and this year was no exception. We ran out of badges and nearly ran out of stickers. There is still enormous support for our campaign to scrap tuition fees and more students joined Winchester Liberal Democrats than ever before.”

Ray Love, local ward Councillor for St Paul’s added:

“I’ve helped run our stall at the Freshers’ Fair for many years now and this was our best year ever. We had queues of people wanting to sign our petitions.”

more … ]]>

On Friday, we found out that we had won 6 out of 7 seats in the new Winchester constituency.

Across the new constituency, the Lib Dem team got 48% of the vote. The Conservative vote slumped to 38%. Labour collapsed to 4%. UKIP got 6% of the vote and the Greens 3%.

These are better results than we achieved at the County Council elections on the same day as we won the 2005 General Election. Compared to 2005, the Lib Dem vote is up. The Conservative vote is down.

Overall, we saw a 4.4% swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats compared to our vote last year and a clear swing in our favour compared to the results on General Election day in 2005.

Many congratulations to Jackie Porter, Charlotte Bailey, Brian Collin, Phryn Dickens, Peter Mason and Alan Broadhurst on their victories and many thanks to Terry Holden-Brown for his commitment and hard work on the campaign in Chandler’s Ford.

A big thank you to the voters who decided to back our candidates. We also owe a huge debt to the staff and volunteers who worked so incredibly hard over the preceding months, and to our exceptional candidates for their incredible commitment and hard work over the last few months and years. There’s no doubt that their personal work played a pivotal part in our success on Thursday.

It still hasn’t fully sunk in, but these results put us in very good spirits for the General Election campaign – whenever it may come.

more … ]]> Thank you to everyone who gave so generously to members of the Lib Dem Sleep Out team (or anyone else!) as part of the Big Sleep Out.

Thanks to your generosity the Lib Dem team has so far raised more than £3,800 towards the Nightshelter and the Trinity Centre!  

We almost all got rather heavily rained on and didn’t sleep too well from around 3 a.m. onwards, but it was great to be part of such a well-organised and successful fundraising event for such a good cause. And, after all, no matter how wet we got, sleeping out on one damp night in May is nothing like having to do it through the winter or for weeks or months on end. We all knew we had dry homes and beds to go home to afterwards. The important thing was that we raised as much money as possible to help people who don’t have that choice.

Earlier in the evening, there were an excellent series of talks and speeches moderated by Debbie Thrower, who also read a very thought-provoking text on her own account (which I unfortunately didn’t note the source down for).  It was particularly moving hearing from people like Ed Mitchell who had been rough sleepers, how charities like the Winchester Churches Nightshelter and the Trinity Centre had helped them get their lives back on track.  (You can buy Ed Mitchell’s book here if you would like to know more).

There are some good pictures and reports on the Sleep Out at the main Big Sleep Out website.  If you’re interested, you can also read the live Twitter reports of the evening.

Even though the evening is over, it remains an urgent cause and both charities are very stretched by high demand. 60 people a month are turned away by the Night Shelter due to lack of space. On average, 20 of the 50 people who use the Trinity Centre report that they slept rough the night before.

If you’d like to donate to the Big Sleep Out by sponsoring the Lib Dem team, you can do so at http://www.justgiving.com/martintod. You can also give directly without sponsoring anyone. Either way, every penny you give (plus Gift Aid) goes straight to the two charities and will help make a real difference.

more … ]]> A short excerpt from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (with thanks to a Private Eye, a Private Eye reader called Colin Knox – and an unnamed chronicler):

A.D. 1125.

In this year sent the King Henry, before Christmas, from Normandy to England, and bade that all the mint-men that were in England should be mutilated in their limbs; that was, that they should lose each of them the right hand, and their testicles beneath. This was because the man that had a pound could not lay out a penny at a market. And the Bishop Roger of Salisbury sent over all England, and bade them all that they should come to Winchester at Christmas. When they came thither, then were they taken one by one, and deprived each of the right hand and the testicles beneath. All this was done within the twelfth-night. And that was all in perfect justice, because that they had undone all the land with the great quantity of base coin that they all bought.

more … ]]> I’m surprised that the Chamber of Commerce and George Beckett are so negative about the impact of the move of the Police Headquarters from Winchester to Chandler’s Ford.

This is not the same as a big local business going bust or moving to the other end of the country. No-one’s losing their job. No families will see a big drop in income. The jobs aren’t disappearing. They’re moving seven miles down the road to Chandler’s Ford. No local families will be forced to move away from Winchester and there will be no reduction in the number of police officers working out of North Walls.

People also spend most money where they live, not where they work, so the extra houses in the town centre are likely to help local business, not hurt it.

Looking at Winchester as a whole, one of our biggest problems is lack of housing, particularly affordable and social housing, rather than lack of jobs. Every day, 18,000 people commute into Winchester and 8,600 people commute out. Thousands of families are on the waiting list for social housing. The move will help address that imbalance, reduce commuting and help Winchester house more local people.

Importantly, we will get these extra houses, which count towards government targets, without being forced to build on green fields.

Some businesses will be hurt by fewer people popping out to shop at lunchtime, but more will be helped by 294 more families living and shopping in the heart of Winchester. Overall, this move should be good for local business, good for local people and good for the local environment.

more … ]]> We’ve decided to switch our office to using electricity from Ecotricity – so the press turned up yesterday to take some pictures in the back garden of our office.

Reassuringly, it doesn’t cost any more than the standard tariff from a non-green supplier.

We’ve had pictures of Mark and I waving low energy lightbulbs around before when we switched all the bulbs in our office.

Here’s one of the rare pictures from yesterday where we’re not all waving light-bulbs around – only one of us is:

On a more substantive note, the head of ecotricity has a thought-provoking blog at zerocarbonista.com. His view is that the biggest barrier to more wind energy in the UK is the planning system – not lack of feed-in tariffs:

Two thirds of all wind projects are refused by District Councils at the planning stage, and two thirds of all appeals are upheld by the government – a lot of bad decisions being overturned, eventually.

And wind energy is the only major generation source that depends for planning on District Councils – the government deals with all others for very good reasons. District councils are not up to the job, on the whole.

I’m loth to see any decisions move towards central government without a very good reason – overall, I’d like to see more local decision-making, not less – but there may be a case for making it a county council decision – like minerals and waste.

I’d also like to see CO₂ as an explicit factor in all relevant council and government decisions. Crediting new wind turbine developments against councils’ carbon targets could be another, more local, way to address the issue.

More on the zerocarbonista blog about feed-in tariffs and planning here.

Another green energy supplier used by Lib Dems (including our national office) is Good Energy.

more … ]]>

I popped along to the launch of the new Whizzgo car-club scheme at the Guildhall this morning.

As the Council’s press release says:

Car Club members will have access to a brand new Citroen car, for less than £5 an hour – including petrol, mileage, road tax, insurance, servicing, breakdown, recovery, maintenance and cleaning. What’s more, independent research shows that Car Club members can cut their total transport bills by half.

As well as cutting transport bills in half, separate studies have also demonstrated that the provision of Car Clubs results in a significant reduction in car miles driven, with members walking or cycling more, using public transport more often or simply re-arranging how they make journeys.

The first WhizzGo cars will be available for Car Club members in specially designated bays provided by Winchester City Council in their off-street car parks in Gladstone Street, Jewry Street, Colebrook Street and Middle Brook Street.

At this morning’s launch, they explained that joining Whizzgo also lets you use cars in Leeds, London, Brighton, Liverpool, Southampton, York, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Newcastle, Worcester, St. Albans and Belfast.

All in all, a very interesting offer.

Since my latest two car service bills alone have added up to more than my current car is worth (admittedly this is not a particularly high benchmark), it may now be the time to get rid of it and go with Whizzgo!

more … ]]> I was very encouraged to see today’s Hampshire Chronicle report on how Winchester’s local hospital is making progress in the battle against MRSA.

Back in January, following an invitation, I accompanied the RHCH Medical Director, Dr Kevin Stewart, on one of the daily ward rounds by the executive team to inspect the hospital environment and see that action is taken on areas that need work.

We spent two hours visiting the hospital – mainly in Florence Portal House – seeing the improvements that are being made and discussing the infection control programme.

I’ve been particularly interested in infection control for several years.  Earlier in my career, I was involved in setting up public hygiene programmes in developing countries – teaching mothers and children basic handwashing habits can have a dramatic effect on infant health and mortality -  and have previously met with experts in infection control to learn more about it.

It was very encouraging to see how totally committed the hospital’s management team and staff are to improving infection control and creating a culture of cleanliness within the hospital – and how hard the staff are working to improve things.  It was clear that their top priority is to get the essentials right: regular hand-washing and hand-sanitising – reducing unnecessary use of antibiotics – making the hospital easy to clean and keeping it clean.  I was amazed how many hospitals didn’t mention handwashing or sinks in the recent Panorama survey the BBC published alongside their ‘How clean Is your hospital’ programme (although RHCH did).  Hand sanitiser (essentially alcohol with bit of glycerin and perfume thrown in) is good as far as it goes, but, if there is any dirt on the hands, it is not as good as soap and water.

We also talked about their programme of ‘prescribing’ the insertion of cannulae. It’s been getting great results and it’s very good to see RHCH taking a national lead on finding innovative ways to go beyond the basics.

Most of the time, the best thing that politicians can do about the NHS is stay out of the way of local health professionals. The one area where they can need more support is in ensuring they have enough funding to pay for the right number of beds for the number of patients they have and to modernise the wards to make it easier to isolate people who get an infection.

I know Mark Oaten and I are committed to doing everything we can to make sure that the hospital has the funding and support it needs to do this.  As recently reported on Panorama, if beds are used too intensively, it can increase the risk of infection – even if everything else is done right.  It’s essential that the hospital gets the support it needs to keep reducing bed occupancy rates and to continue driving down infection rates.

more … ]]> We’re all stunned by the great results of the elections last Thursday:

• More votes and more seats in the Winchester District and the new Winchester constituency than the Tories
• Highest Lib Dem share of the vote in Winchester district or county elections since 1998 
• Swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats for the second year running

We knew that our campaign for a greener, fairer and safer Winchester was getting a strong response – and that people were reacting well to the strong record of our candidates – but getting the highest vote for 10 years was more than we expected!

The picture in the new Winchester Constituency was even better: 49% of the vote, vs only 43% for the Conservatives, and 12 out of 17 seats.  Unfortunately we missed winning Hiltingbury West by only 20 votes or it would have been 13 out of 17 seats.

Even if you include the latest results from the wards which weren’t up this year (which are all Conservative), we still beat the Tories by 48% to 44%.

Overall, a very encouraging night.  And a big thank you owed to all the people who worked so incredibly hard and, most of all, to all the people who voted for us on Thursday.

Post-note: I’ve just checked the County Results.  Our results outperformed those as well – so I’ve updated the post accordingly.

more … ]]>

Conversations at various WinACC meetings, while out campaigning with Winchester Friends of the Earth for aircraft emissions to be included in the climate change bill (see above) and in Green’s after the monthly Winchester Friends of the Earth meeting have thrown up several interesting local environmental websites.

First off, there’s Dave Walker-Nix’s ‘One World’ website at http://www.wwn-oneworld.co.uk. Dave organised the Friends of the Earth aviation demonstration in the town centre (that’s him on the left wearing the mask).  His site has a collection of fascinating inventions for tackling climate change. Very thought provoking and well worth a read.

David Morgan turned up to his first WinACC open meeting last Saturday.  He has an environmental blog at http://www.reallifenews.com/environment/ as part of his real life news website with a local and personal take on living a greener lifestyle.

The Greening Oliver’s Battery team has set up a website at http://www.greening-ob.org.uk/.  It’s great to see Terena Plowright’s inspirational Greening Campaign starting to roll out across the area.

I served on the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Executive with Donnachadh McCarthy at the time of the Iraq War.  He’s now left party politics and is a full-time eco-auditor. He recently came to speak to WinACC about his work and to give advice on a greener lifestyle.  You can find out more at his website http://www.cix.co.uk/~dmccarthy/

The final site isn’t strictly an environmental site, but WinACC wouldn’t be what it is without the brilliant facilitation of James Martin-Jones. WinACC open meetings are fun, constructive, inclusive, positive and action-focused – and also run exactly to time (always 90 minutes!).  The next one is on June 7th.  Several people I spoke to after the last one commented on how much better they are than ‘normal meetings’.  This wouldn’t happen without James; you can find out more at http://jamesmartinjones.com/.

That’s it for now.  As I find more, I’ll post them up and add them to my links.

(Needless to say, none of these links imply that any of the sites, organisations or people mentioned endorse me or anyone else – they’re just sites I hope you find interesting)…