The Norwich Green

Urgent Action Needed On Climate Change

Green MEP Caroline Lucas was among the speakers at the Climate Justice rally in London on 4th November. Dr. Lucas argued that the Government must take urgent action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to prevent catastrophic climate change. Green Councillor Rupert Read said: "We are already starting to see the effects of global warming, with freak weather events such as hurricanes and heat waves becoming more common. We need governments, businesses and individuals to bring about an 80-90% cut in carbon emissions by 2030 to prevent the further increases in global temperatures that would cause species extinction, new diseases, flooding in some areas and drought in others.

Tackling climate change should not only involve higher taxes on the most polluting activities. It should include bringing down the prices of those things that will help solve the problem, such as energy efficiency measures, renewable energy and public transport. A localised, low-carbon economy would mean many new jobs in these areas.

Greens Push for Ethical Investment at County Hall

Green County Councillors have persuaded the County Council to take a more transparent approach when deciding how to invest its pension funds. In May it was revealed that the Council has £9.4m invested in three arms companies. Green Councillor Chris Hull proposed that this money be re-invested into ethical funds, without jeopardising returns for pension holders. The matter was referred to the Pensions Committee who agreed that fund managers will in future have to explain exactly where they are proposing to invest money so informed decisions can be made. The Green Councillors feel this is a small step in the right direction and will continue to press for a fully ethical policy.

Plumstead Road Aldi Application Rejected

The City Council Planning Committee has rejected an application for an Aldi store to be built on Plumstead Road, by the Harvey Lane junction. The application involved building on a site currently occupied by three bungalows, a bowling green and the Heartsease Public House car park. A group of local residents attended the Planning meeting to oppose the application, raising concerns about the traffic implications of the proposal and the loss of housing and green space that it would have involved.

Action Needed on Former Clarence Harbour Pub Site

At the time of writing, the former Clarence Harbour pub site (between Carrow Road and Cozens Road) is still in an appalling state. The site became neglected when building work ceased last year and has since attracted large amounts of fly-tipping. The site also poses some safety risks, especially for the children who are often found playing on it. In one place a wooden pallet covers a deep hole. Local residents sent a petition to the Council's Environmental Health Department and ward councillors in July but no action has been taken to clear the site.

Green Councillor Bob Gledhill raised the issue at the last full Council meeting. He was informed that the Council has limited powers to force the owners to clear the area as it is not currently a building site. However, the good news is that the site is being sold and the Council will press the new owners to tidy the area. The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act will soon give Councils more power to tackle problems on such untidy and unsafe private land.

The Recycling Column

Recycling is the most common issue that residents raise with the Green Councillors so we are starting a regular column on the facilities that exist and our lobbying for improvements.

Greens Provide Constructive Opposition

Norwich City Council is in no overall control, with Labour (as the biggest party) running a minority administration. This means that, on key issues decided in full Council, the Labour Group needs the support of one of the other large parties (the Greens or the LibDems) if its proposals are to be passed.

Some LibDem Councillors have been claiming that there is a Labour-Green coalition at City Hall. This is factually incorrect. The Green Councillors provide constructive opposition to the Labour administration. We use our bargaining power to negotiate policy improvements. One recent example is the agreement to require developers to include on-site renewable energy generation and more affordable housing in new developments.

Green Councillors oppose plans of the Labour administration when they are contrary to our manifesto policies. It is often the case that the Greens oppose Labour proposals on an issue but the LibDems back Labour up. For example, only the Greens oppose mass tree-pollarding and the demolition of some structurally-sound council flats on Barrack Street.

Comment: Funding Public Services

Green Party City Councillor Adrian Ramsay examines the problems with the Private Finance Initiative.

Public services in Norfolk have suffered major setbacks in recent years due to the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). In October 2004, plans to refurbish 37 Norfolk schools fell through when Jarvis, the company set to enter into the deal with Norfolk County Council, decided to sell the PFI wing of its business. This illustrates the first problem with PFI: the dependence on private companies not to pull out after Councils have spent time and money negotiating.

More recently, the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital at Colney has run into problems because its PFI company, Octagon, 're-mortgaged' the hospital after it had been built. Octagon obtained a £116m payment as a result. It gave just £34m of this to the hospital - and attached the worrying condition of extending the 30 year contract. This meant extending the number of years in which the N&N has to 'repay' money to the company. This premium is currently £7m per year - a cost partly met by central government and partly by the hospital itself.

Those who support PFI argue that the new N&N would never have been built without the scheme. I would argue that the short-term financial savings made by Government by borrowing money from private companies to build new hospitals (and schools and prisons) are extremely bad value for taxpayers' money in the longer-term. PFI puts significant financial burdens on our public services, requiring them to re-pay money to the private sector for decades. At the N&N this has resulted in losses of front-line staff, putting pressure on the remaining staff to work overtime. Meanwhile, Octagon declined a request from the Chair of the N&N Trust to help clear the hospital's debts.

The Government should reassess its priorities and fund our public services properly. If we consider the billions of pounds it is intending to spend on replacing Britain's nuclear weapons of mass destruction, there clearly is enough money in the Treasury to fund public services in the traditional way without mortgaging our children's future through PFI deals.