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
Sierra Leone

Bitten by a dog: minor problem or a death sentence?

Yesterday afternoon I got a nip from a dog while out delivering leaflets.

No big deal you might think. Clean and disinfect the wound. Check that tetanus is up to date. Get on with life.

But it reminded me of a sign I saw posted up while I was out in Sierra Leone a few weeks ago running some training for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

There were a team of us from the Lib Dem, Labour and Conservative parties working with local council candidates from the SLPP, APC and PMDC to help them prepare for their local elections.

Continue reading “Bitten by a dog: minor problem or a death sentence?”
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
QR codes Technology

QR-Codes – some more ideas

I’ve been surprised by the response to my previous post on QR-codes – the 2-d barcodes that can be read by mobile phones.

I’m still skeptical, but Roger, the editor of http://2d-code.co.uk/ wrote to point me at the impressive Japanese experience with QR-codes – apparently 51% of Japanese mobile phone users use the barcode function.

Continue reading “QR-Codes – some more ideas”
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!