A busy morning catching up on Council emails after my teaching week. The key theme today seemed to be transport.
Got in touch with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority about the new rail timetable between Saltaire and Bradford. A resident is worried about the longer gap between trains during the morning rush hour. It turns out that the number of Shipley-Bradford services remains the same, but that the gap between the peak trains has grown from 35 to 40 minutes. WYCA acknowledge that the gap should ideally be only 30 minutes, but that they are trying to accommodate additional Leeds services to meet rising demand. The good news is that they will ask Northern to reduce the Saltaire-Bradford gap when the timetable is refreshed in December.
Contacted the Area Managing Director of Yorkshire Tiger to find out more about their plans for services to the Higher Coach Road estate, where residents are concerned about their new bus timetable. Found out that the new service is secure for at least three years and that there are no plans to cancel it, which is great. But still trying to assess the extent to which the new bus service is less frequent than the old one. Will meet with residents in early June to chase this, and have contacted the transport authority for more info in the meantime.
Got hold of data from the wonderful Friends of the Earth that confirms illegally high levels of NO2 traffic pollution at the junction of Otley Road and Bradford Road, near the Branch Hotel. The pollution is also worryingly high in the playground at Shipley CE Primary School. The problem, of course, is high levels of traffic and diesel-powered vehicles, the result of decades of unsustainable transport policies from both Conservative and Labour governments. It's all about economic growth, with air quality and the health of our local communities very much sidelined in the list of priorities.
Have written to City Connect and the Canal and River Trust to ask them to upgrade the canal towpath in Saltaire for the benefit of walkers and cyclists - again, in response to concerns expressed by Shipley residents. There is a popular stretch near the mill that regularly becomes waterlogged and muddy, yet nothing has been done there for years. I've also asked City Connect if they are going to get around to dealing with the two unimproved parts of the towpath between Shipley and Apperley Bridge that were not upgraded as promised three years ago. I've asked before and they have done nothing about it, but thought I might as well pester them again. Tellingly, the money being wasted on demolishing the Branch Hotel would more or less pay for all these towpath improvements if our local decision-makers had the requisite vision and ambition.
Ultimately, of course, it all comes down to political priorities. We can continue to widen our road junctions, create more space for more traffic, pursue growth at all costs and allow vehicles to be sold in the UK that pump out pollution into our communities. Or we can invest more in better mass transit, clean, reliable train and bus services and attractive walking and cycle routes while quickly phasing out dangerous technologies like diesel engines (2040? Don't make me laugh).
Friday 25 May 2018
Wednesday 16 May 2018
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
This week saw a fresh intake of councillors taking their seats in Bradford. The ruling Labour group has now swollen to 52, leaving them with even greater control of the Council and all of its committees.
The Green group of councillors now includes Martin Love and myself. Two councillors out of ninety. We have lost Hawarun Hussain, who worked hard on behalf of Shipley constituents for fourteen years and will be greatly missed on Council. She was a true progressive councillor who grew up in one of the poorest parts of the District, went to a local school, put herself through university, raised her children here in Shipley and has spent her entire working life in the voluntary and public health sector. She knew Bradford to her finger-tips and was a brilliant networker who worked closely with colleagues of all political persuasions. We wish her well.
It says a lot about Labour's determination to oust our local Tory MP that they pulled out all the stops to eject Hawarun from the Council after her many years of dedicated service to the community. Their campaign was framed around 'sending a message to the Tories', and I fully understand why they are so keen to ensure that Shipley elects a Labour MP at the next general election. In many ways, Tory Austerity has been a disaster for Bradford and Shipley, as our Labour-run Council staggers from one round of savage budget cuts to the next.
For me, though, the message I heard was that Labour has no real interest in working with like-minded political groups like the Greens, either locally or nationally, in order to bring about the positive, progress change that this country badly needs. The message I heard is that Labour will sweep anyone aside on order to try to get back into power. It was not enough for them to have a controlling group of 48 councillors in Bradford, and it will not be enough for them to have 52. 'The more the merrier' is the order of the day as the benches at City Hall fill with councillors who will bend their knee to the Labour whip.
Our new Labour Council is only a day old, yet has already approved plans to build over 1,500 new homes across the District. New homes are good and the Green Party want to build thousands of them, but not if they are so energy inefficient or devoid of renewable technologies that they are effectively 'mini carbon factories' as these will be. Over the coming decades, they will add hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon pollution to our atmosphere. New homes are wonderful, but only if they are affordable for our children (and most of these will not be). New homes are fantastic, but not if they carpet swathes of our Green Belt as many of these will. This is why the Green councillors have consistently criticised and voted against these controversial planning decisions.
Labour also wasted no time in abolishing the Environment and Waste Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee that has been chaired by Martin and myself for the past five years. This committee has worked well across party lines and done a very good job ensuring that our Council meets its environmental responsibilities. This key area of civic oversight will be undermined by the new committee arrangements pushed through by the Labour group against Green opposition.
Martin and myself and our colleagues in Bradford Green Party will continue to 'bear witness' to these kind of irresponsible Labour decisions, and campaign for more local people to vote to return more Green councillors to Bradford Council in the next round of elections.
The Green group of councillors now includes Martin Love and myself. Two councillors out of ninety. We have lost Hawarun Hussain, who worked hard on behalf of Shipley constituents for fourteen years and will be greatly missed on Council. She was a true progressive councillor who grew up in one of the poorest parts of the District, went to a local school, put herself through university, raised her children here in Shipley and has spent her entire working life in the voluntary and public health sector. She knew Bradford to her finger-tips and was a brilliant networker who worked closely with colleagues of all political persuasions. We wish her well.
It says a lot about Labour's determination to oust our local Tory MP that they pulled out all the stops to eject Hawarun from the Council after her many years of dedicated service to the community. Their campaign was framed around 'sending a message to the Tories', and I fully understand why they are so keen to ensure that Shipley elects a Labour MP at the next general election. In many ways, Tory Austerity has been a disaster for Bradford and Shipley, as our Labour-run Council staggers from one round of savage budget cuts to the next.
For me, though, the message I heard was that Labour has no real interest in working with like-minded political groups like the Greens, either locally or nationally, in order to bring about the positive, progress change that this country badly needs. The message I heard is that Labour will sweep anyone aside on order to try to get back into power. It was not enough for them to have a controlling group of 48 councillors in Bradford, and it will not be enough for them to have 52. 'The more the merrier' is the order of the day as the benches at City Hall fill with councillors who will bend their knee to the Labour whip.
Our new Labour Council is only a day old, yet has already approved plans to build over 1,500 new homes across the District. New homes are good and the Green Party want to build thousands of them, but not if they are so energy inefficient or devoid of renewable technologies that they are effectively 'mini carbon factories' as these will be. Over the coming decades, they will add hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon pollution to our atmosphere. New homes are wonderful, but only if they are affordable for our children (and most of these will not be). New homes are fantastic, but not if they carpet swathes of our Green Belt as many of these will. This is why the Green councillors have consistently criticised and voted against these controversial planning decisions.
Labour also wasted no time in abolishing the Environment and Waste Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee that has been chaired by Martin and myself for the past five years. This committee has worked well across party lines and done a very good job ensuring that our Council meets its environmental responsibilities. This key area of civic oversight will be undermined by the new committee arrangements pushed through by the Labour group against Green opposition.
Martin and myself and our colleagues in Bradford Green Party will continue to 'bear witness' to these kind of irresponsible Labour decisions, and campaign for more local people to vote to return more Green councillors to Bradford Council in the next round of elections.
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