Co-Operative join the dig up the fields Brigade

An unlikely player has joined the dig up the fields Brigade to decimate the British countryside by building a crematorium on a green field site in rural Leicestershire. This is despite objections to the plans from the local council and  residents of the village of Great Glen which 7 miles to the south east of the city of Leicester.

The site of the crematorium is on 30 acres of farmland that is owned by the Co-Operative just off of the A6 London Road. Originally the scheme is rejected by the council on the grounds that that the project failed to meet policies on landscaping and design, however this was overturned by Government inspectors. The council had asked  asked the inspector to hold a public inquiry in the village, however the requests were refused despite the huge opposition to these proposals, by the Government inspectors. In my opinion typical of this Conservative Governments Policy to develop greenfield sites without listening to local people.

The Co-op scheme is opposed by villagers and organisations in Great Glen who do not want the funeral centre on their doorstep. Peter Hockenhull said he and other Great Glen residents had been left "extremely disappointed" by the plans."Villagers have got a number of major issues that concern them," he said."We wants assurance that lorries won't go through the village during construction" While staff at a nearby school said it would be an inappropriate and insensitive site given its proximity to young children.

County councillor for Great Glen, Kevin Feltham, said: "I'm very disappointed he has overruled the decision made by local councillors.". Currently the Council are investigating if they can put in a legal challenge to overturn the Government Inspectors decision. However Leader of the Council, Blake Pain, said there was "little action the council could now take as further appeals could be costly.". This could mean that basically the council have been silenced just because of the process which seems so undemocratic when so many oppose the plan.

Co-Operative are under going restructuring to secure the groups future because of losses inured by its banking business, during the banking crisis and affects the business today. In the local area of the development they have already sold off some 4,700 acres of farmland at the Stoughton Estate, east of Leicester, to health charity the Wellcome Trust. At one point it was hoped the site for the crematorium would be part of this deal, but the land was retained by the Co-Operative for the development of crematorium for their funeral business.

A spokesman for the Co-Operative, according to reports said "We are naturally delighted to have been granted permission". Before going on to say "It has been our belief from the beginning that its construction will be enormously beneficial." Which isn't a lie as the profits will go straight into the Co-Operative's bank account while another 30 archers of land will produce food this country needs. All this from a company claims it is “Championing a better way to do business for you and your community". Well it just goes to show what they think of the community of  Great Glen.

I personally think it is wrong that the views of local people should be walked over without at least the Government Inspector listening face to face the local residents so they could raise their concerns to the effect it would have on the local community. As for the Co-Operative I don't know how they can claim that they champion a better way to do business for the community when they don't listen to the community. Finally there is the loss of the farm land, yes it is only 30 acres, but add all these projects up and we are losing tens of thousands if not more acres of farmland year. Land we need to feed our children and their children.

HS2 Divides the County

There was an interesting news post on the BBC News website yesterday about the different views on High Speed 2 rail project and what it means to the people in different parts of the country and the support it receives from different country councils around the country. As you can imagine depending on where people live the view of the project is quite different. 

In the news item on the BBC website it identifies the gap in views about the project between the councils in the North and those further south. With counties like Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Staffordshire,  Buckinghamshire, Essex and Oxfordshire all being opposed to HS2. All some of these counties see is that it will destroy their countryside and bring them nothing in return and in fact in some cases could adversely affect the local economy. All ready land prices are dropping anywhere near the proposed work and communities are also being destroyed. Personally I am sure once HS2 is completed we are going see money moved from these counties to the South and the North and it will have a negative effect investment in the  counties opposed to the project.

In the North Councils such as Leeds and Manchester are welcoming the train to their towns with cities even where HS2 is going nowhere near, like Hull and Newcastle, are supportive of the proposals. They see the project that could bring money into the region from London, but some studies have shown that might not be the case. They completely ignore that getting from one Northern city to another can be a compete nightmare and this has an impact on growth in the region too. It is no good places like Hull thinking they will benefit at all when your still stuck with the existing transport infrastructure in the area. The people that appear to speak up for the scheme are those that can afford to use trains to commute and not the majority people who live in the north. The councils seem so out line in the region to what people actually think if polls are to be believed. 

One has to wonder if the whole thing is worth it. In the end it will destroy the environment and  for what so some business people can travel to London and pay fair to get there that most of us can't afford. It not the sort of train a family will travel on, not with the ever increasing rail fair that have risen year on year above inflation. This project is for the few that can afford the high prices the rail companies will charge. Even economically the whole projected is flawed it will just divert money to the from the Midlands to the North rather than making the whole country grow. Just look at the plans and you can see many big population areas will not benefit at all. If we are going do anything at all should benefit the whole country not just one region. There are far more important problems in the country, none of which this project will go part way to solving that this money could be better spent on including regional transport in the Middle England and the North.

Today we don't live in a Victorian world where the train was king and brought transport to the masses and cemented the industrial revolution. Life to day is very different and much of it works at the speed of light thanks to the internet and related communication technology. This is the digital age and with ever and ever faster data services the need to meet face to face becomes diminishes when so much can be done online with video conferencing  and electronic information  and data exchange. And when you do need to travel you can work on a train with fast internet connections available on some trains today and with more coming online in the future. I would go as far saying that by the time the project has been completed the need for it will no longer exist and technology will come alone that eclipses that of the railways and the train .It won't matter that you can save just under a hour getting to Leeds from London if you can save the time of the complete journey by using the Internet to you business instead.

If my predictions are correct we will live to regret one day the decision to destroy the countryside and ancient woodlands and in the process spend billions of pounds that could have been to better use developing other parts of this counties infrastructure. Going ahead with HS2 will be a mistake we all pay for dearly in the future and any benefits it does bring to the few and to the many.

Poor year for Swifts

One thing I have noticed this summer is that it been a poor year for seeing swifts high above the village feeding. In past years you would see number of pairs of birds low over the village eating the insects on the wing. This year I have just counted the one pair in all, which such a shame for they are lovely to watch in the warm evening of the summer.

The swift is an amazing bird spending most of their life in the air and can fly to attitudes in excess of 18,000 feet when migrating. They feed, drink, mate and sleep on the wing, and in fact they only land to breed. They are just beautiful to watch as they soar high in the sky on a summers day. They spend their winters in Africa and flew through Spain and France every year to get to our shores to breed and leave our shores once the insects they feed on become harder to find. While in Africa they follow the winter rains to and the insects population which swells in numbers in the rain and the heat.

Now there are a number of reasons sight for the lack of birds this year the major one of them being the weather the cold wet summer meant when they arrived in this country there wasn't enough food for them to eat. Many left in search of food and those that stay were seen pushing unhatched eggs from the nests as they couldn't feed themselves let alone the chicks if the eggs if they hatched. Hopefully those that left and those that stayed found enough food to fly home to Africa for the winter.

The other is that we are destroying the places where they nest. Each summer when they return to Britain they are finding harder find spaces in the lofts of old buildings which are being renovated and more and more of their habitat is being developed into housing without any thought to what it is doing to the wildlife of this country, something I have talked about before on this blog.  

They say when the swifts leave the summer is over. If that is the case it never began. Even the pair I have seen I fear have left to return to warmer climbs given the weather we have now. There are even predictions of frost for some areas of the country this week, if you believe the papers, but I know one thing for sure it feels more like autumn than summer, which is not the way to end the summer holidays for the children.

Think, don't bin it (Food Poverty)

The levels of food poverty in the world continue to be a problem and one that we never really see unless it is thrust in front of us on some charity night on the television. Then we make our donation and that makes us feel like we have done our bit and carry on without thinking about. The reason we don't think about it is we live part of the world where the supermarkets that are full of food, with the only indicator that there are those without food is a generally a collection point for the local food bank.

This carrying on without thinking in Britain means we throw away 7.2 million tons of food every year from our homes, let alone what gets thrown away by supermarkets and the food industry which takes the total up to 15 million tons. In terms of food brought for the home, that is almost fifty percent of food and drink that we buy and it is estimated that at least half of this we could have used. The reason it occurs is that we either don't use it in time or we prepare too much food and waste it. The thing is we don't have to waste this food. Not doing so would at the best help reduce prices and help the environment by reducing the use of landfill. It would also save us money, about £60 a month for the average family according to research.

Globally over the years we we have found ways to increased irrigation and improve fertilization which results in increased food production, however the world still has been consumes more food that it is able to produce and the problem is getting worse. This is not helped in some of the poorer counties by producing food for rich counties which then waste the food. In fact, Britain can't feed it's own population and foolishly we continue to build on agricultural land reducing our food production capacity. As global warming takes hold we will find can't rely on imports from our current suppliers in warmer counties and prices will rise.

Avoiding talking about the future for a moment and looking at the current situation, a lots of vegetables are wasted each year in Britain and lot of this food imported from around the world and not grown in the UK. In fact 50% vegetables are imported and 95% of fruit. Some of these countries that grow the food are themselves unable to feed their own populations. If we didn't buy the food and waste it then the land in these countries could be used for feeding the ingenious population as well as providing food for world markets. It made worse in some counties such as Kenya which grow flowers for the UK market on land that could be used for producing food. Something we could all grow in our own garden.

Another problem with the Britain is over consumption of food by the population as a whole which deprives people in poor countries of food. In the UK current 25% of the population is obese and another 37% are overweight. Basically people are consuming more food than they require this goes on the body as fat which is used by the body for times when food isn't so plentiful, evolutionary this was important given the nature of natural food production. However, we aren't using the bodies storage system in the wrong sort of for use in the UK food is plentiful and we do this at the expense of the poor counties of the world. We are not the worse in the world, the US probably tops that league, but it something to think about when we but extra food we don't need.

Clearly over consumption and waste the food in the UK and other rich counties is a big issue and it does lead to food poverty in other parts of the world just because they produce food for us rather than themselves. The reasons this occurs for this are complex but we can all do something about it in our own little way. Here some of things I came up with:

• Look at what you buy and workout where you are wasting food by putting it in the bin, then plan your menu for the week accordingly to avoid waste and save money. Think every bit of food you put in the money is money you are throwing away.

• Check your not wasting food because you are cooking too much food and at the end of the meal you are just scrapping your pennies into the kitchen bin. The land that food was grown on could be used to feed someone else and food not consigned to a landfill.

• Buy British where possible and if that isn't possible seasonal food produced in Europe, this will encourage the governments of poorer counties to grow food their own population. It also has the side effect of supporting the national and local economy by keeping money in Britain if you buy British.

• Encourage supermarkets to put ethics before profit and support the fair trade movement, which makes sure the farmers get a fair price for their the food they produce. This puts more money into the economy of the poor counties meaning people have the money in these counties to buy food.

• Educated yourself and your children not to waste food or eat food they don't need, this will reduce obesity and save the the country a fortune in weight related health issues. It is good for everyone and good for the future of the country.

• Avoid buying produce like flowers from counties that are short of food, especially those in Africa to encourage proper land use in these countries, this also has the effect of helping the environment too by reducing air freight.

• Check you are storing your foods correctly and remember best before dates are manufactures recommendations of when the food will be at its best not an indication of when it has gone off. Check your senses as well as the dates on the food before you throw it away.

• Finally go through your cupboards and look at the dates of those tins you have pushed to the back and forgotten, they might be reaching there best before dates. You have two choices when you find them, either use them or give them to the local food bank. Food poverty is an increasing in problem in Cameron's Britain with decreasing standards of living and cuts to the welfare system.

Clearly there is a lot we can do individually at home to save food and prevent waste but there is more we can do as a country too. The Governments around the world do there bit by advising and giving advice on food growing technology to other counties, but this comes at a price for the poorer counties. The technology is often produced or manufactured in the the richer countries and requires foreign currency that can only be earned from selling the food it is used produce back to the richer counties. We as a world need to put pressure on the richer counties to do more and help find local solutions for the poor counties, stop eating their food and do all than can to make food poverty a thing of the past. It is a big problem and it requires a lot of thought to solve but I'm going to try and do my bit.

Enough brownfeild land for millions of homes

The Government in their desperation to build our way out of a rescission and please the Conservative supporting building industry are increasing allowing the use greenfield land for housing development. In the last three years developers have given some £3.3 million to the party, including large gifts from companies seeking to develop rural land in the UK. However this is not the whole picture of the power of the developers, the Conservative Planning Forum raises around £150,000 a year for the Conservative party funds and it charges members £2,500 to meet senior MPs to discuss policy and planning issues. 

Recently in a report by the think tank Civitas which is based on Government figures there is enough brownfield land in the United Kingdom to build between 1.5 million to 2.5 million homes. Of course the Government dispute this figures even though they are based on their own statistics, but this is what you would expect from a Conservative government that  walks hand in hand with the developers and clearly has a hidden agenda. The fact remains that we should be developing this land before we start digging up the farmland of Britain and covering it concrete and tarmac, especially given that in many cases this available land is in the areas where housing is actually needed.

The problem with developers is that are reluctant to clean up brownfield sites before development as there are no incentives to do so financially which would make it economically viable. Depending on the site this can be expensive and it is problem the Government is avoiding addressing. This is poor thinking by the Government since a lot of the brownfield sites scare our cities, adversely affecting the value of land and communities around them.  These brownfield sites are often ugly blots on the landscape that need to be cleaned up and best way to do this is to utilise the land rather than letting it remain idle and derelict. In fact most cases communities welcome such developments since they add to the environment rather than take away from it.

Even where I live, which is in a village in rural England there an example of successful brownfield development. The village once home to Ruddles Brewery which stopped making beer in the village in 1999. This left a large brownfield site at the edge of the village which has since been successfully developed into housing. Although the development is not without some degree of controversy within the village, as the architecture of the buildings which isn't in keeping with the rest of the surrounding buildings, nearly all would agree it was better than having a derelict industrial site on the edge of the village.   

The question then is how should the Government approach the cleaning up and redevelopment of these brownfield sites. Well they need to look to see what other counties are doing. For example, in the United  developers get full tax relief to cover the costs of cleaning up contaminated land this could be introduced into the UK and to it added a greenfeild development tax to encourage the use of brownfield sites and ensure that Government didn't lose out in too much revenue. These are two really simple measures and add to that changes to the planning laws that could be introduced to protect the countryside from the developers, we would see a move to develop brownfield land.

Surely it is just common sense to develope brownfield sites that could go a long way to helping solve the housing crisis rather than using beautiful and productive countryside in a country that already can't feed it own population. We need that countryside for your children and there children's children. We can't cover the countryside in houses, especially when there is land available to develop houses where they are actually needed. It is time to think and protect the countryside while using the land we have wisely and not like fools.

Where is Summer

With another wet day today one is wondering what has happened to the summer. The odd rainy day isn't unusual but this constant rain and the cold isn't something I can remember this time of year.

It makes you wonder what we are doing to the environment. It is clear the effects of global warming are starting to show in the weather patterns. I can't remember a summer that has started like this. It been so wet for so long. It seems all the rain is falling at the wrong time of the year. This is all because the jet stream is in the wrong place, it is far to far south.

It looks like this changing weather is something we are going to have to get to use to. Something we have brought on ourselves. What we need now is to find ways to return things to normal. It not just about not making it worse, it is reducing in our use of carbon fuels to the point that the environment can start to recover. It is about doing things to reverse what we have been doing and putting things right.

To do this is going to take a whole rethink not only how we use fossil fuels but how we live, where we work and how we protect the countryside. The reason we need to do this is for your children and their children. We have to act now and not bury our heads in the sand thinking it doesn't concern us. Saying that is like saying you don't care about your children's future.