Category: Environment

Categories
Environment Parking

Attack on Winchester’s air quality

Martin Tod, John Beveridge, Karen Barratt and Jim Wagner protest against the impact of the new Conservative parking plans on air quality

A depressing decision by the Conservatives at the council meeting on Wednesday… in essence, they’ve voted through parking proposals which could have been designed to increase congestion, increase CO2 emissions and decrease air quality in the city centre. Their plans combine a big hike in parking charges at the Park & Ride – dramatically reducing the saving that this represents vs. town centre parking – with the reintroduction of ‘first half hour free’ for on street town centre parking. This has the effect of:

  • Encouraging more people to drive to the centre – rather than using the Park & Ride
  • Encouraging an increased number of short trips into the centre – rather than fewer longer trips
  • Encouraging people to drive around looking for parking meters – rather than parking quickly

all of which will have a negative effect on congestion, emissions and air quality.

Their argument for this change is that it will help a subset of small businesses such as “locksmiths, dry cleaners and sandwich shops”. Quite aside from the complete lack of any thought about the impact of this change on the environment, it’s a pretty feeble argument economically too. Most businesses – whether small, medium or large – benefit from people spending longer in town and, if anything, the majority of Winchester’s businesses are likely to suffer as a result of these changes, rather than see any benefit.

Categories
Environment

Ladybirds in November – an inconvenient truth…

Harlequin ladybirdIf the late autumn and Friday’s torrential rain weren’t enough to persuade me, a surprising encounter with a ladybird while canvassing proved enough to show that climate change is a real phenomenon, even in Winchester.

I was discussing a number of environmental issues while visiting a member in Otterbourne when a ladybird crawled across the window. Aside from the surprise of seeing a ladybird in November, it rapidly proved that this was no ordinary ladybird. It had more spots than usual and was quite large so the person I was visiting suspected it might be a harlequin ladybird.

Continue reading “Ladybirds in November – an inconvenient truth…”
Categories
Crime Environment Terrorism

Sound and fury signifying nothing

What a depressing Queen’s speech: full of more rhetorical Home Office legislation, sounding ‘tough’ for the tabloids, chipping away at freedom and fairness, but having little or no impact on terrorism, crime or anti-social behaviour. If legislation was all that was needed to make Britain safer, you’d expect that the 59 Home Office bills passed since 1997 would have made us the safest place in the world.

Continue reading “Sound and fury signifying nothing”
Categories
Environment Food

Food, glorious food

After the Service for Remembrance Sunday at the Cathedral, I took the chance to visit the excellent Winchester Farmers’ Market.

Winchester Farmer's Market

For some reason, I always end up buying too many jars of pickle at Farmers’ Markets, but on this occasion I managed to resist buying anything until I gave in to a cup of homemade chocolate. Once my guard was down a Christmas pudding and some rare breed sausages followed in quick succession (to take home, not to eat immediately!).

It struck me before the last election just how many policy areas are affected by food. I remember having an excellent discussion on the topic with the owner of Laverstoke Park Farm during a visit before the last election with our parliamentary spokesperson on food. There are obvious and strong links between food and health. There are also links between food and behaviour in school and, according to a report by former inspector of prisons Lord Ramsbotham, in prison too. Quite apart from the local impact of farming policy on the environment, food air miles have a impact on climate change.

I think we could do more to campaign on food in the Liberal Democrats. We had a policy for more local, healthier school food in place before Jamie Oliver’s excellent campaign had even started, and did nothing with it. I’d like food quality to feature more heavily in our campaigning on behaviour, health and education.

Categories
Environment

Climate change and energy

I had a very energising conversation last night with a local member about the need for action on the environment. We were throwing about all kinds of ideas as to what we would want to do at a national, local government, campaigning and, importantly, personal level to reduce our impact on the environment and tackle climate change.

One idea that we both agreed to pursue was getting ‘green tips’ into our leaflets. Many people want to do more to reduce their impact on the environment, but don’t know where to start or what negative impact they might be inadvertently having. Simple advice on things to do and how these might help seems like an excellent step we could take to bring to life our environmental commitment in Focus!