Greens leafleted parts of Flitwick on the siting of the Leisure Centre. Sense has prevailed. We will continue to monitor the other proposals for the Town Centre and fight for green and sustainable options.
Mid Beds Green Councillor Gareth Ellis is worried about the plans, and is working on ways to avoid the need for an incinerator: for example he has spoken out in favour of extending the food waste collection trials for the District and also suggested how this might be funded.
Liberal Democrat 682 (43.6%)
Conservative 668 (42.7%)
Independent 119 (7.6%)
Chris Fryer (Green) 95 (6.1%)
In Lewisham, South London, Green Councillors saved a council run swimming pool and leisure centre earmarked for closure by the Labour-run council there.
Oxford Green Councillors have got half of housing in new developments to be affordable homes, up from one fifth.
In Lancaster, Green Councillors have saved a school bus service, used by 32 children every day, from closure.
Locally, Cllr Gareth Ellis has kick-started the Flitton and Greenfield Carbon Challenge. It launched with a meeting to come up with ideas for reducing carbon to go to the “Big Green Challenge Fund”. Gareth got the backing of the Parish Council and many offers of help. Next steps include seeking other funding sources to put carbon saving measures on community buildings.
See our special page on the threat to this important area
The following letter was sent to Beds on Sunday newspaper on 19th April 2005:
Sir,
Your anonymous correspondent who works at the Fire Control Centre at Kempston is quite right - the Government's proposal to "regionalise" fire controls will cost lives. He or she asks us to guess who he/she will be voting for. If the constituency is Mid Beds, or somewhere where we have a county council candidate, the answer is easy - the Green Party Candidate.
Clearly your correspondent will not support a Labour Government which is planning the closure of the Kempston Centre. Equally clearly, your correspondent would be daft to support Tories who took local control away from both water and gas in the 1970s, and later privatised both. On that form Tories can be expected to centralise and privatise the fire service too, if given a chance. Greens, unlike Tories, have philosophical objections to both centralisation and privatisation. So, by contrast, Green opposition to the closure of the Kempston Fire Control Centre rings true.
The Fire Brigades Union has recognised the Green Party's commitment to the fire service by donating much needed money to our election campaign*. Those of your readers, like your correspondent, who care about fire safety, might be wise to follow their example and support the Green Party.
Yours,
Ben Foley
Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Mid Bedfordshire and County Council Candidate for Kempston Rural, 70 Spenser Road, Bedford
* London Evening Standard 18.4.2005
Green Party member & Flitwick Town Councillor Marina Torselli strongly opposes the widening, pointing out that it's certain to increase traffic on all local roads leading up to the motorway. The M25 has shown that more lanes mean even more traffic leading to worse congestion. The Highways agency intends to spend £623 million widening junction 6A to 13; could this money be better spent? What do you think? Read Marina's thoughts on the subject on this separate page .
The White Hart pub in Flitton - the only pub in the village - was closed and in danger of having its land developed into housing. This would not only have affected the look of the village but also have meant the loss of the most accessible green space in the centre of the village. The development of the land may have generated funding to modernise the pub, which is falling into disrepair. However there was no guarantee that the pub would survive. CAMRA (the real ale people) launched a campaign to save local village pubs and it appears that much can be done where a village community is prepared to act and particularly when it is the last pub in the village there are funds and assistance to be had.
The Green Party, as a part of its policy of generally retaining basic amenities in villages, supported the campaign to retain the White Hart as a village pub, which we are delighted to be able to report was successful. The White Hart has been sold, renovated and is now open for business again.
Gareth Ellis has launched a newsletter to provide news on local and environmental issues in Mid Beds. He writes in the first issue, by way of introduction:
"This newsletter has been launched with the aim of raising awareness of environmental issues in Mid Beds. Increasingly the environment is being endangered by the relentless drive to develop and use limited resources. One of our most limited resources in this part of the country is green space and it is under greater and greater threat. This is a constant issue we suspect we will return to often in subsequent editions. But we will feature news both good and bad which people send in. The intention is that this newsletter is part of a positive move to protect our environment and improve the quality of life of people in Mid Beds."
If you have any local or environmental issues you think need dealing with, please click this link to let Gareth know.
Sir,
It was a pleasant surprise that Mid Beds Council, like the Green Party, is opposing Labour's daft plan for 30,000 extra houses in this area (T&C, 18 Jan), and good to see that you gave the issue due prominence.
There was no clue, though, what Mid Beds' politicians would do instead. The Green Party, at least, knows that something must be done. With over a hundred thousand homeless people nationally, and ever more people who can't afford to buy, just saying 'not in my back yard' is not good enough.
Top priority should be getting the half million or more empty homes* back into use. The Green Party would bring in and use Empty Property Use Orders. Empty properties can blight an area, and need to be brought back into use before they are vandalised.
The Green Party would also bring empty flats above shops back into use. We don't need more green fields built over, and we don't need more houses within villages putting a strain on local facilities, but we do need to give alternatives. The Green Party gives a real alternative.
Ben Foley
Green Party
70 Spenser Road
Bedford
* Source:
http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/groups/odpm_housing/documents/page/odpm_house_609773.pdf
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