Planning White paper, monitoring children and more

Yesterday, a few days late, I put together the monthly summary of Gloucestershire Green party news - it is only a taster but gives an idea of the issues we covered over the last month - it also covers quite a number of news items I've not had time to do blog items on...examples include:

Photo: From the Planning Disaster coalition

The Government's White Paper on planning - this is a serious erosion of democracy, more centralisation of powers in Westminister and a removal of our right to consultation. We don't need this proposed unelected, unaccountable new body to make decisions for us. It is no wonder so many organisations like RSPB, Friends of the Earth, CPRE, the National Trust and others including the Green party are objecting to it. It is very worrying as this White Paper could have a catastrophic impact on communities, the countryside and the wider environment. It basically gives the green light to massive developments and seems to be more about helping Labour's friends in the supermarket and nuclear industries, rather than giving local people a real say in planning. What we need instead is a planning system which allows people an effective say in how their area is developed.

Plans to monitor every child in Britain - from 2008 the government will be monitoring every child from birth. The go-ahead for ContactPoint which will contain significant amounts of personal information ON EVERY CHILD IN THE UK was buried in the rush of announcements and over 40 written statements put out in the final days of the Parliamentary session. Over 300,000 people will have access to the inevitably insecure system, which is intended to be up and running by next year. Read what I had to say here.

There is plenty more including Green letters on Iraq/Afghanistan, the attack on the gay couple in Stroud and Son of Star Wars being Labours most undemocratic decision yet. See full August edition here. If you want a monthly news summary free then go to the left hand column of the website www.glosgreenparty.org.uk and sign up for GNN - the Green News Network.