Category: Winchester

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Housing Winchester

A big thank you to everyone who sponsored the ‘Big Sleep Out’

Morning after the Big Sleep Out in WinchesterThank 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!  

Big Sleep Out, Winchester, 2009We 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.

Categories
Winchester

Punishing bankers: the Winchester solution

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.

Categories
Housing Winchester

Police Headquarters move should be an opportunity, not a threat

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.

Categories
Environment Mark Oaten Winchester

Green power for our Winchester office

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:

Lib Dems switch office to ecotricity

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.

Categories
Environment Whizzgo Winchester

Whizzgo comes to Winchester

Whizzgo cars outside the Guildhall

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!