Full Council last night and here's a brief summary of some of the issues:Photo: Council Chamber
- Renewables - the meeting unanimously supported a recommendation regarding Renewable Energy Supplementary Planning Advice. The advice is along the lines of the 'Merton Rule' which requires a 10% reduction in CO2 emissions from on site renewables on new larger developments. This blog has much previous discussion about this - also sent out last night a press release saying why I was reluctant to sign - basically 10% is pathetic but I signed because it is a first step, there is an agreement to review and basically the Council's hands are tied by recent central government guidelines. Greens will be working to see this figure increase - see my press release here with more info.
- Severn barrage - Greens are opposed to the barrage - see recent letter here and also a report on our Glos Green party website - it was good to see that the proposal this evening had been adjusted to call for further investigations into impact of all ways of getting energy from the estuary. We were happy to support that as I am sure if done it will show up the advantages of tidal lagoons and other measures compared to the barrage.
- Painswick Gateway project - See my comments on 18th July blog entry re Painswick Gateway (scroll down) - Greens abstained as I am not convinced that we should be supporting the library service which is a County matter - could this lead to more library closures if teh County think the community and District will pick up the pieces? However it would be proper to support other elements of the project like community rooms etc. I would prefer to see this more explicitly laid out as I think it could lead to problems further down the line....
- Triservice - Last up was a motion re the Triservice - Full Council passed a motion for the Government to scrap plans to close Gloucestershire's Fire Control. After a lively exchange Greens, Conservatives and Lib Dems councillors supported the motion and Labour councillors opposed. Green party policy is about maintaining local services and we were among the first to support retaining Gloucestershires' fire control centre at Quedgeley. I agree with the fire service representatives and experts that the regionalisation of fire control rooms will lead to a poorer service where potentially life-saving local knowledge is no longer available. It is crazy to have a Fire Chief seventy odd miles from his control staff. Plus there are dangers in relying on Satelitte Navigation Systems. This state-of-the-art TriService centre has proven it's worth in the recent floods why change to a centralised system where there is no evidence that it will lead to a better or indeed cheaper service? It was a shame this debate was politicised in the way it was as I am sure anyone watching the webcast would be put off politics altogether.
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