Category: Winchester

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City Council Environment Winchester

Winchester City Council carbon management programme – time for fresh commitment

Back in March 2006, Winchester City Council, then led by the Lib Dems, put forward a carbon management programme which committed the City Council to a 50% reduction in emissions by 2012.

It had clear targets.

It had a clear baseline measurement to compare against.

And it laid out a draft implementation plan to kick off the process of delivering those targets.

The Conservatives took over control of the council a few weeks later.. and since then – silence.

Their recently published strategy paper – Live for the Future: Tackling Climate Change – and the accompanying action plan – make no reference to these previously agreed targets – nor do they set any targets to replace them. Indeed, one of its most disappointing features is that the strategy paper sets almost no targets for anything.

So, while it’s good that the Council is thinking about CO2 levels for the District as a whole, it’s not enough. They need to start by putting their own house in order.

Rather than scrapping, sidelining or ignoring their CO2 target, the Council should be strengthening it.

Lib Dem-led Eastleigh Borough Council is aiming for Carbon Neutrality: I’d love to see Winchester City Council do the same.

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City Council Environment Winchester

City Council Climate Change Plan: an embarrassment to Winchester

Back in February, Keith House set the ambitious goal of making Lib Dem-led Eastleigh Borough Council a zero carbon council by 2012. This builds on Eastleigh’s climate change action plan launched in 2005.

Given the recent coverage of Winchester’s environmental footprint, you’d hope that our City Council would be thinking in similarly ambitious terms.

Last Wednesday, the Conservatives in Winchester agreed their plans for Winchester City Council (‘Live for the Future: Tackling Climate Change‘).

And their target for CO2 reductions by Winchester City Council?

They haven’t set one. There is no target for CO2 reductions by Winchester City Council in the climate change strategy they agreed last Wednesday!

The document is an embarrassment.

It sets one overall target – to reduce CO2 emissions for the overall district by 30% by 2012 (even though much of what needs to be done to achieve this is outside their control and this target is barely more than the Government required minimum).

There are some specific targets on housing – although these are mostly inherited from the Lib Dem administration or mandated by government.

And then… nothing.

The officers have come up with a long list of useful ideas, but there is a complete absence of any serious overall framework and of any political commitment or leadership.

Almost all the feedback they have received has been fobbed off with waffle.

Overall, there is:

  • No target for any City Council activities.
  • No target for Renewable Energy.
  • No target for Transport.
  • No target for Adaptation Planning.
  • No target for community involvement.

The one encouraging decision from the Council was to provide some grant funding to Winchester Action on Climate Change. I’ve been involved with WinACC since the initial meeting back in July and working as part of the Communications team to get the WinACC website ready for launch. (One of my contributions was the abbreviation ‘WinACC’, after it turned out that the WACC web addresses were taken by the World Association for Christian Communication and the Wichita Chamber of Commerce). It’s good to see all the work by WinACC volunteers (from all parties and none), especially the Convenor Robert Hutchison, recognised with some funding.

But, funding WinACC is not a substitute for serious leadership on climate change from the city council. And sadly, that is now proven to be seriously lacking.

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Alresford Housing LDF Planning Winchester

Consultation. What consultation?

The City Council has announced their consultation plans for Winchester City Council’s Local Development Framework.

This is a hugely important paper for the future of the Winchester area. To quote the paper itself, it covers:

what need(s) to change across the District over the next twenty years

and covers:

  • The broad location and balance of development across the authority’s area,
  • Management of the housing supply,
  • The balance between employment and housing
  • The delivery of affordable housing

Despite the critical importance of this strategy, it is currently proposed to have only two consultation meetings in the new Winchester constituency – one in Alresford and one in the new Discovery Centre. And the one in the Discovery Centre is in a room that contains fewer than 180 people (or 120 people if it’s organised for a workshop as planned).

The proposed consultation in Alresford makes sense, but the proposed consultation for the rest of the area around the city of Winchester is completely inadequate.

For perspective, over 450 people turned up to discuss the Tower Arts Centre in the Guildhall and over 200 people turned up to Littleton Village Hall to discuss the closure of their post office. Over 100 people turned up to discuss the Oliver’s Battery village design statement!

The proposals on the table (including an effective assumption in favour of developing on Barton Farm, Abbots Barton and Pitt Manor, and including possible further expansion north and east of the current Barton Farm site, on Teg Down, on Bushfield Camp and further into Pitt Manor Farm) are going to be hugely controversial across the city and also have a potentially huge impact in areas outside the city, such as Oliver’s Battery, Badger Farm, Kings Worthy and Compton.

There’s also a problem that not every option has been properly examined. Some villages are asking for faster expansion than proposed in the paper so that they can continue to support their local school. And important issues such as the Micheldever ‘eco-town’ are not being given the scrutiny they deserve.

In light of this, the proposal to have a single meeting in the Winchester area, in a room that holds 120 people, to discuss the future of the Winchester area over the next 20 years, is a total joke.

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Tower Arts Centre Video Winchester

Tower Arts Centre – bad news

Bad news on the Tower last Friday as you can see from the following news report:

[MEDIA=10]

Despite Ken Thornber being forced to wriggle on the issue of rapidly increasing head office costs in Recreation and Heritage (because the Tower is being cut to fund head office costs – not adult social care); despite his officers being forced to admit that the ‘evening programme fund’ proposal is completely half-baked; despite his refusal to even address Alex Hoare’s outstanding speech on how John Tellett and the Tower Arts Centre have nurtured arts in Winchester – and the critical role of artistic direction in a successful arts centre; and despite his failure to address almost any of the points raised by Jan Moring, Ken Thornber decided to go ahead with the paper proposed to him and transfer the Tower to Kings’ School, slash local arts funding, and set up a tiny ‘figleaf fund’ – supposedly to support the evening arts programme in Winchester.

It’s frustrating. It’s infuriating. And it’s tragic to know that so much of the work of John Tellett and his team will come to an end this April.

The ‘Save Tower Arts’ campaign tried everything. I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues tried everything. The Lib Dem controlled Town Forum signed up to put money into the project. We were regularly talking to our local Conservative opposite numbers, asking them to do whatever it took to save the Tower. And we were more than happy for them to take the credit for it, just as long as the Tower was saved as an arts centre.

But it was not to be.

The infuriating thing is that the failure to save the Tower is not due to financial crisis. It’s due to lack of political will and lack of political vision.

The last few months have been a farce. The Conservatives have organised a consultation – and then refused to listen to it. They’ve asked for a report into different options – and then ignored it. They’ve said that they need more details of their preferred option – and then decided to proceed anyway when they don’t got them.

This goes beyond party politics. Ultimately it’s a question of competence and commitment to the arts.

We’re not giving up just yet. There’s a very small chance that we can stop the current proposal. We certainly need to try and improve it. However we can’t deny that last Friday’s decision is a very heavy blow.

Here’s the speech I made at Ken Thornber’s decision day:

Continue reading “Tower Arts Centre – bad news”
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Litter Parking St Paul Winchester

Parking, litter-picking and tidy-mindedness

A good session helping Winchester Litterpickers at the station this morning. They meet every Monday at 9.30 a.m. on the Station forecourt – anyone who wants to help is very welcome – equipment will be provided if you don’t already have a litter picker of your own. It’s both amazing and depressing how much litter can build up in a week – and very satisfying to help pick it all up.

The Litter Pickers are a great institution and make a really important (and noticeable) difference to the city: it was excellent that John Green-Wilkinson’s role in setting up the Litterpickers was recognised in the New Year Honours with an MBE.

I was invited along to their annual party on Friday night as one of their occasional helpers – but unfortunately could only get there towards the end due to a public meeting at Peter Symonds about proposed parking restrictions in Weeke.

This was set up by a local resident, Steve Feeney, who also set up a helpful website to explain the issue.

Continue reading “Parking, litter-picking and tidy-mindedness”