DEFRA spend £85,000 pushing for Council Tax rises

The Daily Mail reports that the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs believe residents would like to have higher Council Tax as this would result in cleaner streets.

The report says:

DEFRA, which tried under Gordon Brown to charge ‘pay-as-you-throw’ taxes to take household refuse away, drew up its scale of possible council tax rises on the basis of research it commissioned.

The Institute for Transport Studies, at the University of Leeds, and the Transport Studies Group at Loughborough University picked 561 people in London, Manchester and Coventry and set them questionnaires asking how much extra council tax they were prepared to pay.

The results were greeted with outrage from campaign groups, saying the litter tax scale amounted to a stealth increase to council tax.

DEFRA said that for improved litter clearance people would pay £3.95 a month for each person in a home, which amounts to £189.60 a year for a family of four.

In all, a four-person household would be willing to pay more than £900 for noticeable improvements in ten aspects of their local environment, DEFRA said.

The sum would mean a rise of almost 90 per cent on the average English council tax bill of £1,045.

The document said potential charges would be ‘assessed and reflected in the decision-making process’ and that the numbers could ‘usefully inform national decisions’.

This is quite appalling on two levels. First of all the premise of the question is flawed. It suggests a correlation between high Council Tax and clean streets.

If a new project is right then don't be put off by noisy well-funded protests

Cllr Peter Jones, who is standing down as leader of East Sussex County Council, says why he stuck to his guns on a new incinerator and a new road

As I prepare to stand down as leader of East Sussex County Council, I can celebrate two victories over scare mongering protestors; one several years ago in relation to building an incinerator and just recently final Government approval and funding for a new road to link the towns of Bexhill and Hastings.

Both projects involved long and complex consultation, planning, public enquiry and court processes and both ignited a storm of protest from so-called environmentalists. The incinerator gave us protestors climbing up cranes and our short (3.5 mile) new road has so far seen them camping up in trees and holes in the ground. Both projects bring great advantages to our communities; the incinerator means effectively 90% recycling and electricity for 25,000 homes while the road will drive regeneration through the construction of 2,000 houses and new business parks providing at least 3000 jobs.

Our latest road project is the first of a hundred plus schemes nationwide to start construction and so has become the focus for a vicious campaign of opposition by anti-road groups, mostly peopled from outside our area. They have targeted us presumably to try and undermine the determination of others as well as trying to stop us. As with the incinerator, we have so far been able to defeat the antis latest antics
and would be happy to share our experiences with others who are yet to start their projects.

Going Green on the Isle of Wight

Cllr David Pugh, leader of the Isle of Wight Council, says the innovation that localism allows is helping the Green Revolution

Today, the Prime Minister will be questioned on his energy credentials and the notion of Green Government - frankly there is no better time than now.

'Going Green' is a complex challenge. We know that better than most as the Isle of Wight is on the path to becoming fully sustainable in the next decade. But if you look at the news coming out of the Doha Climate Change Conference which ended on Saturday, getting a global consensus on issues with this much gravitas is at times almost impossible.

Ed Davey himself said only "moderate steps" had been taken, but this is no surprise as it is at local level where the rapid progress is being made.

The key aspect is that everyone needs to play a part. Going Green isn't just a buzzword; it requires direct action on the ground. We are fortunate that just off the south coast we have a community that is willing to put this work in at a local level - but we believe this could be replicated nationwide.

Haringey Council employs 11 union officials - but just three gardeners

Haringey Council has virtually given up on park maintenance. According to a report in The Observer they now have only three gardeners for their 46 parks. A visit to Downhills Park reveals:

Cardboard and polystyrene takeaway boxes are strewn around, nettles are flourishing and there is no sign of a park attendant or even someone sweeping up the leaves.

"Its shabby," said local resident Yash Khan, walking alongside his scootering granddaughter. "This litter didn't used to be so bad. What's going on?"

Of course "the cuts" are blamed. It is true that the Government grant to Haringey Council is down from £155 million last year to £144 million this year. The level of the cut varies a bit from one council to another according to a complicated formula that nobody can understand. My council of Hammersmith and Fulham got £126 million last year, down to £116.5 million this year. Councils also raise their own revenue via the Council Tax, and Haringey's is exceptionally high - their share of the bill at Band D is £1,184.

Richmond Council to hold referendum on Heathrow third runway

Conservative-run Richmond Council is holding a referendum on the expansion of Heathrow Airport. I am not clear whether it will be a purely postal ballot (which would be cheaper) or would also include the full network of polling stations (which would encourage a higher turnout.) However it will be held before May next year and other west London councils will be encouraged to take part.

The Council Leader, Lord True, said:

“Richmond Council has again taken a united stance on an issue where people righty expect us to put aside party bickering in local politics. We are all elected to fight for our residents - and there is no issue more important to them than this.

I deeply regret that the nightmare vision of Heathrow expansion that had been so wisely laid to rest by our Coalition government has been resurrected. This time we must kill it off for good. As far as this Council is concerned it will be all-out war with the big money interests and slick-suited PR men peddling this foolish project. It is perfectly possible to deliver increased airport capacity in south-east England without expanding Heathrow. No-one in their right minds would consider building a new airport on the Heathrow site today - that must surely go for a new runway, too.

Frankly, Richmond and other west London residents have had enough. They have patiently borne the scourge of Heathrow, with all the noise, pollution and risks, for decades. In 2010 they were given hope of permanent relief from expansion - they trusted the word of those who gave that promise and it should not be broken.

As their elected representatives we are not prepared to sit meekly and take incoming fire from the Heathrow lobby without giving our residents the chance to hit back and have their say. The proposed ballot will give the long-suffering people of west London an unprecedented opportunity to shout loud and clear to those that run the airport, and anyone inside government who may support them, that Londoners simply won’t take it. I hope that other boroughs will join us.”

Tidal power not wind power

Cllr David Pugh, the Leader of the Isle of Wight Council and a Director of the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership, says we should harness the energy of the sea

From our island off the south coast of England – surrounded by sea water gushing up and down the English Channel – I read with interest the article by Greg Barker MP (the Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change) to coincide with his launch of the UK’s second Marine Energy Park in Scotland.

This interest was sparked because my native territory – the Isle of Wight – has the ambition of being the third such location; and in doing so help deliver a key commitment of the Coalition Government to secure the development a diverse range of renewable energy technologies.

On the Isle of Wight, we are playing a key leadership role in co-ordinating a marine energy project immediately off our shores – where we have some of the strongest tidal currents in the country.

Our project includes £1m of council investment – complemented by financial backing from the private sector and technical support from the University of Southampton – to bring to fruition our plans for a Solent Ocean Energy Centre. We have also applied for £1m in matched funding from the Regional Growth Fund.

Lincolnshire Conservatives introduce presumption against wind turbines

By Tim Montgomerie
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Conservative-controlled Lincolnshire County Council is about to issue planning guidance that will be greetred with enthusiasm by anti-wind farm campaigners:

“There is a presumption against wind turbine developments on the grounds of negative cumulative visual impact.”

The report in The Sunday Times (£) says that the new guidance may prevent the county getting 16 new windfarms. It already has eight.

Although opinion polls show that most voters are in favour of wind power in general they are very unpopular when communities are faced with having them locally. Earlier this year Chris Heaton-Harris MP led one hundred Tory MPs in a rebellion against windfarms, calling for subsidies to be cut. George Osborne is reportedly in agreement - supporting a 25% reduction in energy subsidies according to today's Observer. On a number of fronts, including airport capacity, the Chancellor is enraging green lobby groups.

The Committee on Climate Change should be abolished

The Committee on Climate Change has its offices in Holbein Place just off Sloane Square and has a budget of £4.4 million all from the taxpayer (up from £4.3 million under Labour when Ed Miliband was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.) It has a board of veteran Quangocrats.

Judging by their latest report this is a ludicrous waste of public money. It is banal document urging local authorities to try harder to meet carbon emission targets.

It doesn't matter what your view is about climate change or of the various recommendations in the report. I can't see the document being of practical benefit to any local council.

The CCC wants councils to approve more wind farms:

There is an opportunity for local authorities to support power sector decarbonisation through the granting of planning approval to onshore wind generation projects. A significant proportion of onshore wind projects required to meet 2020 renewable energy targets and carbon budgets are likely to go through local planning processes. It will be important that future planning decisions at the local level objectively balance national priorities with local impacts.

Councils should audit and maintain war memorials

A report from the Local Government Information Unit entitled Honouring the Armed Services Community on behalf of the Royal British Legion includes an number of recommendations. For instance it proposes that councils should give those leaving the armed forces in terms of housing allocation and schemes for shared ownership to get on the housing ladder.

There was also the following recommendation on war memorials:

 A key duty local communities owe to their Armed Forces community is to organise activities and provide facilities which commemorate their sacrifice. These include permanent war memorials, Remembrance ceremonies and homecoming parades.

Councils also need to ensure demobilised Service personnel are integrated into community life; to reduce their sense of isolation. This can be achieved through supporting veterans’ groups or by providing discretionary services which promote active elderly citizens.

New Forest District Council asks Government to scrap emissions targets

On 24 October the New Forest District Council voted by 47 to 5 votes to ask the government to abandon their unilateral targets on reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The Council agreed that the UK should not cut emissions any faster than other major industrial nations.

Cllr Derek Tipp, who proposed the motion argued that since the UK only produces 2% of the world’s emissions of man-made CO2, any cuts made in the UK will by themselves have a negligible impact on atmospheric levels. He also asked members to consider the massive increase in emissions being made in China where they are building the equivalent of one new coal-fired power station a week, and have plans to build 100 new airports. It was also reported that China emits more CO2 per person than both France and Spain, and if it continues to grow at the same rate it will emit more CO2 per person than the UK by next year, and more than the USA by 2017.

I think this is the first debate of this kind by a local authority. When Chancellor, George Osborne stated recently that he believed we should cut our CO2 emissions no faster than our European neighbours, it seemed that there might be a re-think of the current stance of the government on this issue.