On Monday 22^nd February 2010. Lib-dem Cllr Ken Howard proposed a motion to full council with the support of the Lib-dem group for Woking Borough Council to sign up to the 10:10 Campaign. The 10:10 Campaign is a grassroots campaign that encourages individuals, private businesses, government organisations and charities to cut emissions by 10% in 2010. Many councils of all colours have signed up to it and it is an excellent way to show commitment to the environment as well as saving money. The motion was defeated as was an olive branch effort of an amendment by Cllr Howard to reduce the commitment from 10% to 3% or more as a means of gaining cross party support.

The main obstacle for the supposedly environmental conservative party was that as Woking was already so good at reducing emissions and caring for the environment that achieving 10% was much harder for Woking than some other boroughs who had not made so much effort to reduce emissions in the past. There was further worry that while the 10:10 Campaign will celebrate achievements of reductions of 3% or more, some conservative councillors expressed concern that if a league table was published it could confuse residents by making Woking look less good on the environment that it actually is.

This sort of argument, mixed in with some climate change denials misses the point that we have to take action now and the more action we can take by supporting this initiative the better, what message does it send out that Woking a supposedly leading council on the environment is not supporting the 10:10 campaign? For me personally I do not think 10% is enough and favour more radical measures such as lowering the heating temperature in council buildings to help the council lower fuel use as well as save money. If we are really serious about climate change we will not make much difference without some discomfort and significant changes in our life style. I would much rather Woking was known as a council that signs up for things sends the positive message and tries really hard for the environment, where people say ‘wear an extra layer if you are coming to our offices, it is cool for the climate’, rather than worrying that if we try we might not be successful and look bad in league tables that may or may not be published. Our future is more important than this!

For more information about 10:10 see http://www.1010uk.org/

On Saturday after I had finished running Saturday detention at school I went over to see the Rainbow Warrior – Greenpeace’s famous ship in Docklands. 

As a member of Greenpeace I had an email last month inviting me to visit the ship and take a tour.  The Rainbow Warrior is moored in Docklands, London on its way to Copenhagen where it will take part in campaigning at theCopenhagen summit next in December.

It was amazing to learn about life on the ship and hear firsthand from experienced campaigners the lengths that Japanese whalers will go to, to meet their quota and the efforts Greenpeace activists go to, to protect the whales.  Having met a lot of staunchly pro-whaling Japanese people when I lived and worked in Osaka and now having met some very determined Greenpeace activists I can imagine it really must be quite a tense experience.

While I was there I signed up for the Greenpeace Airplot campaign to be one of thousands of beneficial owners of a strip of land Greenpeace has purchased that will be needed by developers to build the third runway at Heathrow.  While this may not actually stop the runway being built, it will significantly complicate and delay the process.  More information can be found at http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/whats-your-plot-stop-third-runway-20091022 

Next time the Rainbow Warrior is in town I recommend a visit to anyone interested in the work of Greenpeace!

I met the Sue Morley CEO of the ambassadors over a year ago to express my desire for visitors to the Ambassadors to be able to recycle their paper and plastic waste on leaving the cinema or theatre.

It has taken a long time due to the need for the Ambassadors to renegotiate their waste collection contract, but I am delighted that people visiting the Ambassadors can now recycle used paper and plastic after a show.

I am pleased that the Ambassadors are taking a leading role in promoting recycling for customers by businesses in Woking. I urge other businesses to follow this example. I know that the Ambassadors will be more than willing to give advice on how they achieved this.

These small changes do add up to have a real impact to reduce our impact on the environment. I warmly applaud the work by the Ambassadors in doing this.

All residents in Woking should have received a letter telling them what day their waste and recycling collection days will change to from this week.  I have not received my letter yet and so I went to this website (http://www.woking.gov.uk/localservices) to see what day my collection changes to.  If you do not know what day your waste and recycling collection will be on from this week, please go to http://www.woking.gov.uk/localservices

You should also receive a bag for battery recycling, again I have not received mine yet. To find out more about these changes see http://www.woking.gov.uk/environment/wasterecycle/householdwastecollection/daychanges

Woking Borough Council has just announced a new rate of parking for people parking all day.  Reducing the price from £8 to £5 in all town centre car parks.  This is good news, but is it enough?  To see the press release click here WBC car parking charges press release

 

However, it seems to me that parking charges in Woking go up and up.  Has it got the point when they can not go up any more?  I understand that revenue from parking may even be falling.

 

I hear more people than ever before opt to get a lift into Woking and to be picked up again by relatives, doubling journeys and damaging the environment. I also worry that given that the new payment machines in the car parks do not take 5p coins, rises in parking charges will be rounded up to the nearest 10p each time.

 

I wonder if in Woking parking charges should be linked to cost of providing parking services and public transport and that the money raised should not be spent on other things.  In Woking this would probably mean a threat to services that are paid for by the profit from parking.  I would not want this to happen, but what about restricting any additional income from rises in parking charges to be ring fenced to only be spent on improvements in parking facilities and better public transport.  This might dissuade councillors from the damaging effect of raising parking charges that current rises are having on our local economy and environment. If something is not done, the predictions that councils will seek big rises in car parking charges to fill black holes in funding such as in this newspaper report might come true in Woking.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6788767.ece

Details of my question to the full council of Woking borough council on Thursday 16^th July are below, as well as the answer from the leader of the executive.

 Question from Councillor O E K Wells “Could the Portfolio Holder responsible state if statistics are recorded for the proportion of Council staff travelling to work by foot, bicycle, bus or train and if so what these figures are? Is it possible to break these figures down for comparison with Councillors travel methods? How does the proportion of WBC staff travelling by each method differ with the general population of Woking?”

 Reply from Councillor J Kingsbury “As part of the Council Travel Plan, periodic surveys are undertaken – the last one being in October 2005. The position at this date for those staff who responded to the survey was as shown below. The data for Woking respondents is taken from the 2001 census. There is no data available on modes of transport for Councillors.

To see the data provided by the council click here: Data table 

In my supplementary question I noted that it was disappointing that the council didn’t have more up to date figures, especially in the context of Cycle Woking.  I also commented that it would be good if councillors declared how they travelled to council meetings when signing in with a simple tick box.  I said this as I think that it would be interesting to see how many councillors travel to meeting by sustainable or public transport, as it would not surprise me if very few travelled by bicycle and even fewer by bus and it would be useful to explore why.

My actual supplementary question was ‘what is the effect of increased use of cycling in Woking on the income to the council from car parking’.  The reply from the Leader of the executive Councillor John Kingsbury was an honest one noting that there was an impact on parking revenues from increased cycling, but that it is worth it.  Cllr Kingsbury also agreed to include councillors in transport surveys.

Greenpeace as ever at the forefront in the flight against the destruction of our environment are on their way to the arctic on their ship the Arctic Sunrise to monitor the progress of global warming on the arctic. They will gather evidence to submit at the next global meeting of world leaders on climate change in Copenhagen at the end of the year. To see their progress in video, photos see links at the end of this post.

To see pictures that were declassified recently by the US showing how dramatic the melting of ice caps has been see this link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/26/climate-change-obama-administration 

With even more possibilities to recycle and travel by bicycle in Woking, we can all do our bit everyday. 

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/video-arctic-sunrise-expedition-polar-north-20090723?utm_source=ebulletin20090724&utm_medium=email&utm_term=arcticsunrise&utm_campaign=climate 

 http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/melting-20090715?utm_source=ebulletin20090724&utm_medium=email&utm_term=arcticsunrise&utm_campaign=climate 

With recent efforts by some supermarkets to reduce unnecessary packing there are some things we can all do to reduce the amount of waste we create, including using reusable shopping bags.  I discovered them about a year ago having not been too keen on them before, thinking they were just too unfashionable.  Now I use them I think they are great, not only do they save on plastic bags, but they make it much easier to carry shopping home, being more durable and having more comfortable handles.

The only problems they cause, is when I can’t find a plastic bag when I really need one as we hardly ever use them now.  Some of the bags are obviously better than others due to how they are made or the rate at which they degrade after they have been used and as consumers we have a role to play encouraging shops to stock the bags with the least impact on the environment realistically possible.

In recent visits to local residents the issue of litter in and around the streets of Knaphill has been overwhelmingly the single biggest issue raised.  I have been speaking to the local Neighbourhood officer for Knaphill to raise the issue.  I have learned that Knaphill High Street should be cleaned every day seven days a week and that surrounding smaller roads are cleaned approximately every twelve weeks.  There is a section on the Woking Borough Council Website where you can find out when your road is next going to be cleaned at http://www.woking.gov.uk/localservices

Street and pavement cleaning in Woking is contracted to Serco, it is also possible for residents to directly contact Serco on 01483 775422 or by email at helpdesk@woking.serco.com residents are also always welcome to contact me direct with any concerns regarding litter or other issues.

Two road signs in Knaphill, Mint Walk and Dunnets have been in a terrible state since before I was elected as a councillor.  I have been asking for them to be replaced since May 2008 and finally it has been done.  If you know of any other road signs in Knaphill that need replacing please let me know, I just hope we don’t have to wait 10 months again!

 

At February’s full council meeting I asked the question ‘what is the cost of the food waste component of non recycling waste refuse collections in Woking?’ I was told that the cost is dependent on the number of properties visited and not the weight of collection.  I was also told that the cost of sending waste to landfill is going up.  What I wasn’t told is how much waste we send to landfill.  Once I found this out, I was able to calculate how much it will actually cost Woking this year not to have implemented food waste recycling.  My calculations are estimates, based on the fact that Guildford Borough Council, one of the areas to pilot food waste recycling have increased their recycling rate by nearly 20 percent through the introduction of food waste collection.  If Woking was able to do the same, with the increase in the cost of landfill tax and the reduction we could make in waste sent to landfill, the actual cost of implementing food waste collection is approximately a third less than the estimated £660,000 that the Conservatives have decided to put off spending.  

It wouldn’t be so bad if this didn’t mean that this summer the people of Woking will again suffer stinking bins caused by bi-weekly collections rather than weekly food waste collections enjoyed by their neighbours in Guildford and Elmbridge.  Woking is proud of its record on recycling yet we are falling behind other local councils.  I hope that the Conservative executive makes the right decision and progresses towards weekly food waste recycling collection in 2010.  If they don’t they will find that not only do bins smell, our recycling rate will be lower than our neighbours rather than higher than our neighbours and we will be spending half a million pounds on landfill tax rather than food waste collection.  Surely that is a stink worth avoiding!

Last month a local resident alerted Lib-dem councillors at our monthly surgery in Knaphill to the broken telephone access cover in Victoria Road.Cllr Diana Smith and I visited the site and saw how dangerous it was. We are pleased to report that through Diana’s hard work the cover has been fixed.  I have also spoken to Woking Borough Council about the state of the equipment bunker on the park area and this has been tidied up. Although the bad news is I am told it will be staying for another six months. Read the rest of this entry. Read the rest of this entry.

Following on from my previous post about this issue, I can confirm I have been chasing and chasing Woking Borough Council about the fact that there still aren’t any recycling facilities in the Ambassadors for cinema and theatre visitors.  I have been assured that the issue will be resolved by April.  I look forward to recycling my empty popcorn bag in style soon.

On the morning of Saturday February 7th, I visited Oak Tree House, a recently renovated low carbon home created in partnership with Woking Borough Council and the local community.

 

I was keen to see if I could add to the improvements I have already made to my own home.  Over the summer last year, I increased the insulation in my loft which will save on both the cost and carbon footprint of heating my house.  I also bought an OWL wireless energy monitor which allows me to see how much each electrical device uses and what this costs and therefore to make appropriate changes to save both energy and money.

 

I was amazed just how many different things can be done to a home to lower energy consumption, increase insulation, decrease the carbon footprint and generate renewable energy.  Nearly all of them are on show at Oak Tree House, many of them practical and easy enough for people to apply in their own home, saving money and the environment.  The knowledge and examples available from staff really make a visit to Oak Tree House worth while for local residents.

 

I really hope the Woking Borough Council can put some of these changes into place to really improve the environmental quality of many of the Council owned properties across the borough.

 

For more information see

http://www.thewokingmagazine.info/winter20082009/inbrief?item=0000492537DE.C0A801BA.0000083F.001A

I recently met staff from Surrey County Council to find out more about the Woking Cycle Forum. 

I am one of Woking’s two cycling Councillors, as along with Norman Johns and am a member of the Cycle Forum, although I have not yet been able to attend a meeting as both of the two which have been called since I became a Councillor have happened when I have been out of the country for work.

We discussed the plans for the new cycle routes in Woking, intelligently named after the planets, keeping a connection with Woking’s cultural past.  One of the biggest improvements is going to be the development of the Basingstoke Canal towpath.

These routes as a first step towards increasing cycle use in Woking are well thought out and coupled with new cycle parking in the town centre and the station should enable a greater use of bicycles for commuting.  In the long term the current proposals, which are designed to develop main commuting arteries for Woking, will be added to, enabling cyclists to easily travel to and from different parts of Woking without travelling through the town centre.  Although, the later stages of development will depended on the success of the first stages.

Plans include altering the arrangements for cycling to and from the station around Centrium, enabling cyclists to travel along a cycle path on the pavement as well as along the one on the road which already exists in the opposite direction.

There is a long way to go, but Woking is very fortunate to have been successful in its bid and this is in no small part due to the work of officers in both Woking and

Surrey councils.

For more information see: http://www.woking.gov.uk/transport/cyclewoking

 

Having just spent an hour or two cleaning my bin of maggots and other such nasties, I really can relate to the need expressed by many on the door step to make refuse collection more frequent than biweekly. One solution often mentioned is the collection of non-recyclables weekly during the summer.  I had hoped that more clarity would be available on food waste recycling that may help with this problem, but I understand it will be mid September before this is the case.  I for one hope that Woking opts for the more controversial option of creating its own refuse collection company, so that it is not tied into a contract that does not offer the flexibility needed to change the service to shifting demands and could also possibly offer business recycling at a rate that does not make the cost prohibitive.  I would really be pleased if we could also ensure that any more frequent collection was carbon neutral and did not reduce recycling efforts in the borough.  One way to do this would be through environmentally friendly fuelled collection vehicles.  Although I know that this is not policy for either the Conservative group or the Liberal Democrat group at present, it is a conversation worth having, with cost implications and the views of

Woking residents taken into account too.

A few weeks back, I went to the cinema in Taiwan, while I was over there visiting family and a link school for Westminster Academy.  I was amazed that at the end of the film, everyone took their litter with them and on the way out put all of it into different recycling bins ready for recycling.  There were staff members there to instruct people on the separation process, but they didn’t really need to be there.  I saw the same thing at the school I visited, at the end of lunch students separated their waste from lunch into lots of different bins.  Taiwan seems to be aiming for 100% recycling or zero waste.  I think Woking has to rise to the challenge and do the same.  The recycling bins in the cinema were huge, wheelie bin size, but think how much popcorn, plastic and paper was recycled.

I have raised the issue to some degree with Ray Morgan the Chief Executive of Woking Borough Council and it has been received well.  So hopefully residents of Woking will be able to start recycling even more aiming for less waste going to landfill and hopefully wasting less too.

Woking Borough Council is currently consulting on the future of waste disposal in Woking.  If you want to make your opinions count, please use the following link http://www.woking.gov.uk/wasteandrecyclingsurvey  I completed it and made use of the box which said ‘if you answered ‘fairly or very dissatisfied to any of the questions about the waste collection overall’ please can you tell us why to make the points ‘that It is not possible to recycle enough plastic.  The non-recycling bin is too heavy and is larger than I need.  It needs drainage holes for easier cleaning and gets smelly, because I have to put food waste in it.  The collection vehicles are not running on an environmentally friendly sustainable fuel.’  I made other comments in a later section that it is not possible to recycle plastics and food waste.  It is a pity that garden waste bags are so expensive and hard to buy during the weekend.  I forgot to mention tetra packs, which is a shame, I will have to ask my wife to fill it out and put that in.  This isn’t as bad as it seems as then we’d have two entries in for the prize money

Overall I feel that Woking has done a reasonable job getting the recycling to the level it is at now, but we are still thinking small, we’ve got to aim for something nearer 100% recycling – zero waste, to really have anything to be proud of. Things have moved on and Woking needs to keep up!