Association of Green Councillors meet in London

The Association of Green Councillors' annual conference this year was Friday at the Local Government House, Smith Square, just down from the House of Commons then Saturday at Camden Town Hall.

Friday was hosted by the Local Government Association Independent Group - see my news release here. Three Greens from Stroud District Council were among those attending.

The conference kicked off with LGA Chief Executive, Paul Coen (pictured right), welcoming delegates and giving the opening speech. One of the first things he noted was that this group of a 100 or so Green delegates must be the youngest ever group to grace this venue. To me that is a sad reflection on the state of our politics when young people don't wish to participate...there is currently a Councillors Commission which is looking and barriers and incentives to becoming a councillor. I made a submission a couple of weeks ago raising various points including:
- Proportional representation is essential to ensure more voices are represented
- Decentralisation of powers: seeing people being able to make the local changes that are needed.
- Scrutiny, Cabinet and indeed all committees are increasingly demanding more knowledge and skills. If this comes with increased local powers then we need to reward this financially and provide training so that we can improve local services.

Anyhow I am getting side tracked - after Paul we then had another excellent session - "Climate Change and Local Authorities" - with Green MEP - Jean Lambert, Green London Assembly Member - Cllr Jenny Jones AM and Cllr Andy Cooper - Kirklees. Followed by Q and A.

We have heard many exciting examples of Green party action in local authorities. How Greens on the London Assembly hold the balance of power so Ken Livingstone needs them - hence £150m going to tackling climate change and more - read Green news release at the time here.

We also heard from Andy Cooper (pictured left giving his talk, "Only the Green Party can save us now!"), a Green party councillor in Kirklees who negotiated a £21 million funding from various sources to provide free cavity wall and loft insulation to 40,000 properties.

This is just the sort of scheme that makes sense: it cuts householder bills by an average £150 each year, an estimated £4.5 million will annually go back into the community rather than to power companies, a jobs boost for the local economy, it tackles fuel poverty and will be the largest carbon saving project in the country.

Andy also shared much more like Kirklees now has 5% of the countries solar panels plus a £3m householder renewable energy fund (poss plus another £3m) - basically it is a revolving fund that you pay back when your home is sold. They also have the first LA Budget that takes account of carbon. Plus lots more......

There were many other sessions including a look at Local Government Reforms by Paul Wheeler, Leadership Centre for Local Government. Green approaches to crime, Influencing Local Development Frameworks, Making best use of Scrutiny, and Working with the major parties.

After my many hours due to the floods trying to get back to Stroud by train from London (see previous post) it is ironic that one of the issues we were discussing at the conference was the failure by many councils to resist building on flood plains and the lack of a serious commitment nationally to Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems - which are now mandatory in countries like Scotland and Ireland. Let us hope the recent disasters make people listen more closely to the solutions we need to put in place.

Of course there was also time to talk and catch up news from fellow Green councillors around the country - including a trip to the pub - although I missed the curry night.

One slightly shocking thing to hear was about the 'dirty tricks' of other parties - this picture of a Labour newspaper shows them celebrating their win to get cotton bags - yet it was part of a Green party project and a Green party amendment to the Budget. Then again it's good they are wanting to sing green ideas out!

Similarly this picture is of the front page of their newsheet saying 'Greens backed tree massacre' - it couldn't be further from truth - so what to do - I was pleased to hear Greens there did not respond in kind but instead made a statement on the back page of one of their leaflets reassuring people that they did not back the massacre. See Ladywell Green comment on that incident here.