Wasted targets

Further exploration of South Tyneside Council's Draft Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy reveals another example of target-itis. Here we have the policy aspiration for recycling:

"Policy 7: The Partnership will aim to achieve the following recycling / composting targets:
- 30 per cent by 2010
- 35 per cent by 2015
- 45 per cent by 2020"

Look impressive? Challenging? Compare South Tyneside's aspirations compared with what other UK councils are doing now:

Top 10 recycling councils:
North Kesteven 51.5 per cent
Rushcliffe 49.9 per cent
South Cambridgeshire 49.4 per cent
St Edmundsbury 48.6 per cent
Huntingdonshire 48.0 per cent
Melton Mowbray 47.1 per cent
Waveney 46.6 per cent
Forest Heath 46.1per cent
Teignbridge 45.4per cent
Lichfield 45.4per cent

These councils are beating South Tyneside's 2020 recycling target now.

Like the Council's pathetic 'target' to reduce it's carbon dioxide emissions by 5 per cent over 5 years, it seems the council only like targets which are easily achievable with the minimum output. It looks good on performance target press releases I suppose.

If the council wants to avoid accusations of being cynical and lazy, it (and that includes councillors too) really needs to up it's game and aim higher.

Burning ambitions

South Tyneside Council has launched it's consultation process covering the new Draft Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy which will take us to 2020. Among the commonsense "three R's" (reduce, reuse, recycle) proposals, the council is raising the subject of incineration.

South Tyneside Council has entered into a partnership agreement with Gateshead and Sunderland councils to establish the new waste strategy.

Incineration is proposed as one of the possible methods of disposal for the waste which we cannot (or we can't be bothered to) recover. Since the terms 'incineration' and 'burning' aren't easy to sell, the process comes under the wizzy euphemism of "Energy from Waste" (EfW) or "energy recovery".

If incineration is selected there's a rumour that the preferred site is on the site of the former incinerator at Wrekenton, on the border between Gateshead and Sunderland, although it should be noted there is no official documentation supporting this.

So soon after seeing off the industrial park on the green belt at Fellgate, and the rehabilitation of the Monkton cokeworks site it seems that residents in that part of South Tyneside may be faced with another dark environmental cloud. Not to mention the people in the Wrekenton area who thought they'd seen the last of local waste incineration.

Dioxins are a pretty nasty bunch

Incinerators release dioxins and heavy metals, which can cause cancer, birth defects and endometriosis.

The rise of endometriosis – a painful condition possibly afflicting as many as ten per cent of British women – is linked to emissions of dioxins. British mothers carry in their breast milk levels of dioxins which significantly exceed the World Health Organisation’s recommended “tolerable daily intake”, partly due to the widespread incineration of hazardous waste.

Studies have repeatedly linked dioxins to both breast and testicular cancers.

A study by the US Environmental Protection Agency suggested that as many as 7 per cent of all cancers are caused by dioxins, mostly from incinerators.

Progressives - the crazy bunch?

At the East Shields CAF meeting on the 5th July Progressive Councillor and Progressive Party leader Jim Capstick nailed his colours firmly to EfW (yes, that's incineration) as his party's preferred method of disposal for the waste designated as 'unrecoverable'. The Draft Waste Strategy concedes that incineration "will generate additional hazardous waste".

Quite why his party is called 'progressive' is odd. They have lent their support to a practice which will damage the environment and will precipitate a new crisis in public health. The victims will be among the poor and the young. In my understanding this is about as far from progress as you can get.

Poor rating

I need to get more hardcore!

Hat tip: prisonlawinsideout/

Human touch

All too often designers are criticised for ignoring the human element. Sometimes it's through poor specification or implementation, or sometimes intentionally to accentuate a design aesthetic.

In terms of usability, design can decide success or failure.

For instance, when designing software user interfaces, poor design can not just define whether a product works or not, if done badly can lead to health problems; unclear text causing headaches, too many mouse movements and clicks leading to RSI. This is called Human Computer Interaction, or HCI for short. When software testers talk about software being 'intuitive', 'organic' or 'natural' in operation, this often reflects the amount of work that the developer has done to ensure the most comfortable user experience.



But when it comes to South Tyneside Council, design seems to have become a function of expediency. The awful fake chimneys on the former Nook public house won a design award for 'innovation'. They were introduced to allow a mobile phone company to hide their telecommunications equipment. Three years later and the appearance of these 'innovations' just gets worse.

The Quadrus Centre

The cubist monstrosity of the Quadrus Centre is another example of design which seems to be ugly form more than pretty function. However, South Tyneside Council seems desperate for a signature icon to represent it's aspirations for a thrusting entrepreneurial culture, so if the council feels a couple of oddly placed boxes do the job, then who am I to argue?

'Streetscape' design though, is less esoteric than the concepts behind Jenga wannabe Quadrus.

Street planning, if done badly, can mean the difference between life and death. Streetscape isn't just about green verges and pretty flower planters, it serves a 'mission critical' function.


Walking along the Nook shopping centre I came across what has got to be a beacon of council design incompetence. The road sign to the left has been positioned in such a way that 4 feet of pedestrian space has been effectively removed, also creating a pinch right next to a road crossing point. In this one simple instance, pedestrians have been failed by the road planners.

However, looking at the sign from another angle (image below), from a driver's perspective, and the realisation of impractical planning practice is complete. The sign's position means that it isn't visible to drivers coming out of the lane until they are 7 feet away from the end of the lane, a busy pedestrian crossing point.

I'm sure that the planners have followed all the neccessary rules and regulations and that the sign's position is perfectly legal. However, the sign's position is not sensible, not for pedestrians or drivers.

There are practical alternatives. One could be to extend the 20mph zone to the perimeter of the parking area adjacent to Prince Edward Road, and place the sign at the exit from the parking area onto Prince Edward Road. However, this would likely require changes to road orders and byelaws. A simpler alternative would be to move the signpost closer to the road, a matter of two feet, remove the existing signpost which holds a parking restriction sign, adding the parking restriction sign to the speed signpost.

It seems like a big deal all because of a simple street sign. But if the Council can't get the little things right, then what hope have we for the big projects?

Soft target

Taking time off from massaging easyJet's overblown eco ego, South Shields MP and Environment Secretary David Miliband yesterday hosted the "Climate Change Citizens' Summit" in London, with the objective of highlighting "the need for government, business and consumers to work together to reduce CO2 emissions." Sounds like a great idea - let's get citizens involved in working out solutions to our rising carbon emissions. But there seems some confusion over contexts here though - was it a citizens' summit or a consumers' summit? It seems like our Government doesn't know the difference between a citizen and a consumer, which is disturbing.

And hold on, which citizens were attending? Apparently, they were "...a representative sample of 150 people, recruited from six locations around the country...". I'm sure the citizen representatives are righteous people, but how 150 hand-picked people out of a population of 65 million can be termed as 'representative' is difficult to comprehend.

I'm hoping that the event wasn't managed to achieve preferred outcomes - ie giving the Government the opinions it wants - but given the history of this Government I may be being a little optimistic.

If the nu-Lab command and control machine does have the climate change Bill in it's sights then we can say good-bye to the controls that a coherent Climate Change Bill requires like annual targets and ministerial accountability.

But considering that Richard Lambert, Director General of the CBI and Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC were speakers at the event I've got to wonder if it's part of an attempt to warp the Bill to be as business friendly and pro-nuclear as possible. I know it's important to get business buy-in in the battle against climate change, but self interest groups like the CBI already have an enviable level of access to Government, and when they're given the keys to influencing supposedly 'representative' events like this it's reasonable to suspect the Government is putting the interests of it's chums in business before saving the planet.

Given the Government's policy of appeasement towards the road building lobby and the aviation industries despite the increases in emissions, at the moment there's little hope of what is needed - a strong government not afraid of using regulation to do what we need to survive.

Guilt trips

Quite often anthropogenic climate change is characterised by it's opponents as a faith structure or religion. If that's the case then a church has arisen around this religion and the money lenders are already in the temple. So it's fitting that Environment Secretary and South Shields MP David Miliband had an audience with the Pope last week, as the Church of Rome and the Church of Greenwash have a very similar stance on guilt.

In the Roman Catholic Church sins are forgiven through the acts of confession, contrition, penance and absolution. During the Middle Ages the rich could buy absolutions from priests to avoid eternal damnation. Those folk knew they could carry on sinning, comfortable in the knowledge that they could buy themselves out of hell.

In the Church of Greenwash, burning fossil fuel is the new sin and like the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, absolutions can be bought. We don't call them absolutions now though, we call the process offsetting. I have a problem with offsetting - it's complete bollocks. It doesn't do anything to reduce emissions. Once you've flown to Paris for a tenner your share of the emissions is out there - and they're going to be around for a very long time.

Offsetting is not so much absolution as an absolving of responsibility.

In Tuesday's Guardian Monsignor Miliband praised budget airline easyJet for promising a scheme where it's passengers can purchase offset credits from easyJet. To back his support for offsetting, he said:

"Businesses and consumers need to be sure that the way they offset actually results in a robust and verifiable emission reduction."

To the objective eye this seems like a reasonable statement, but he followed up with:

"That's why the government has consulted on a proposed voluntary code of best practice for all providers of offsetting products and is now considering the responses."

Voluntary. Let's think about that word. It's certainly not a synonym of "robust". Then think of the phrase "best practice". My spidey senses tell me that Miliband didn't really mean "robust" at all. Translated out of Westminster bullshit into English it really means "businesses can do what the fuck they want". That's New Labour's dogma - let's talk about how terrible climate change is, but never actually do anything about it that may upset our chums.

In Rome, Mr Miliband and Pope Benedict called for a moral and ethical approach to climate change. To most sensible folk this is a no-brainer - if it's not dealt with global heating can bring about the deaths of millions, if not billions, of people.

As an aside - if Pope Benedict wants to reduce the Catholic Church's carbon footprint then a good start would be to look at the human footprint. He could kick in the Church's support for family planning, including contraception, straight away. Less people on the planet means a bigger share of the planet's resources for everyone.

But on the ethical conundrum, the problem is that most businesses don't know how to be ethical - their prime function is to make profit. Profit in itself is neither good or bad, it's merely an economic surplus. It's how the profit is made that defines it's moral and ethical boundaries. For most citizens we have laws drawing those boundaries. But in the UK there is no law saying that businesses should act ethically or in the interests of society. Gordon Brown saw to that by ripping out the corporate social responsibility reporting requirements for companies' financial reports.

But offsetting gives businesses a chance to sell themselves as somehow caring and responsible, whilst not actually doing anything to reduce their emissions and profiting off the enviro-guilt of their customers.

If businesses and consumers need to be sure of anything, it's that offsetting is nonsense. It produces nothing but apathy and feeds the current ambivalence towards the environment and the peoples in other countries who are going to feel the pain of global heating before we do.

Offsetting promises guilt-free polluting but gives us business as usual and sod the planet.

I am a plastic bag

No doubt a comment on the greed displayed by some ebayers profiting on the back of the non-profit "I'm not a carrier bag", an ingenious satirist is selling a "GENUINE 100% AUTHENTIC SAINSBURY'S CARRIER" on ebay.

Before I get the morally bankrupt 'profit at any cost' bunch on my back I'd just like to let them know - this kind of cashing in makes Baby Jesus cry.

So there.

Try something new today, or perhaps not

Sainsbury's, in an attempt to impress on us that they've come over all green and responsible, attached itself to the collaboration between wearewhatwedo.org and designer Anya Hindmarch which created the reusable "I'm not a plastic bag". The project was based on the premise that it can be stylish and fashionable to reuse bags and avoid using plastic carrier bags.

Normally, Anya Hindmarch bags can fetch hundreds of pounds, so when the "I'm not a plastic bag" was originally released for £5.00 a bag it sold out from wearewhatwedo.org in minutes, the massive web traffic generated also crashing their servers. Many of the £5.00 bags sold ended up on ebay changing hands for hundreds of pounds.

A second release of bags today at 8.00am at large Sainsbury's stores saw queueing outside stores up and down the country. Outside their Washington Galleries store, one couple had been waiting since 1.00am to be the first for two of the store's allocation of thirty bags. By about 7.30am fifty or so people had queued outside the Washington store, when tickets were given out to the first thirty people in the queue (I was number 14) to avoid jostling when tne store opened at 8.00am.

So when the store opened the lucky thirty ticket holders queued at the service desk to hand over their £5.00 notes for their reusable bags. In retail terms, the operation was very slick and professional. In terms of the "I'm not a plastic bag" project it was a lesson in idiocy. At the service desk, Sainsbury's management had set up one member of staff taking the money, and another packing the "I'm not a plastic bag" inside - yes, you guessed - a plastic carrier bag!

I was truly astounded. All these hours later I still feel the outrage. Despite their connection with the project, Sainsbury's didn't have a fucking clue what it was all about. When I loudly pointed out the rare irony to the store manager, who was so far smugly enjoying the whole episode, he looked at me like I was talking Martian, then he quickly disappeared from the scene.

Try something new? Why don't the witless bastards at Sainsbury's try thinking? That would be new.

Lies, damn lies and educational resources

South Tyneside Council leader Councillor Paul Waggott has decided to play the legacy card for the second Tyne Tunnel (thanks for the nod Curly) stating magniloquently that "a new generation now stands to benefit from the second Tyne Tunnel" in his support for new internet-based 'teaching materials' prepared by the North Tyneside Education Business Partnership.

This isn't the first time the North Tyneside Education Business Partnership and the Tyne Tunnel bods have got together to provide pro tunnel educational materials. Their previous stunt pretending to be an educational resource was known as 'Xingthetyne', which had a pro tunnel 2 bias of the like which would normally be considered unacceptable outside schools teaching Creationism as a science.

It's not surprising given that a lot of political reputation rests on the Tyne & Wear Passenger Transport Authority's pet project. Even the Lib Dem council in Newcastle turned two faced and gave the tunnel it's full support, despite what Lib Dem leaders said about road building not working. You could argue that such propaganda stinks of totalitarian control of our childrens' minds to meet political ends.

Of course road builders like the TWPTA would say we 'need' the tunnel, and would do their most to support their position. Further, the education departments in North and South Tyneside belong to councils which are both members of the TWPTA and support the second Tyne Tunnel so any lack of balance in the materials may not be so rigorously examined.

I haven't seen the new Key Stage 3 and 4 resources (you've got to register to access them) but with the travesty that was Xingthetyne you could ask why would any school want anything to do with the new Key Stage 3 and 4 materials from North Tyneside Education Business Partnership? It's a bit like fast food giants or tobacco manufacturers being allowed to distribute to schools 'educational resources' which mention their products.

I'm looking forward to the first bright student asking why we are building more road space when it's proven that building more roads doesn't reduce traffic? Or why we are encouraging more traffic when we are supposed to be reducing CO2 emissions?


Coun Waggott also tells us that "It is timely that young people in both boroughs understand why a second tunnel needs to be built". Why indeed? Let's see what the tunnel inquiry inspector said.

The Inspector who nodded the tunnel through was also bit vague on the benefits issue and despite his decision to favour the project go ahead (from www.tyne-crossings.org) made the following observations:

"the NTC (New Tyne Crossing) would substantially increase the number of journeys taken by private car"

"the NTC would not reduce journey lengths, but would increase them significantly"

"there's very little chance of better bus services"

"I see little to prevent the spare capacity realised being utilised by additional cars"

"a linear or corridor development of this sort can only deflect from the creation of sustainable communities"

"such locations [of employment opportunities opened up by the NTC] are less sustainable and unlikely to further the reality of sustainable communities"

I'll bet you'll not see these comments from the Inspector in the learning materials.

A borough near Newcastle

I've come to the conclusion that our borough has a really crappy name. South Tyneside. A boring mid Seventies bureaucratic name born out of a post socialist miasma designating more of a geographical position than an identity. Just saying it, South Tyneside, and you're stifling a yawn. I can see why our folk in the council have a hard time selling the area. The name is little more than a soulless pin on a map instead of an icon to fire the imagination. South Tyneside doesn't say 'winner', it says 'well, whatever'.

It's so boring it often gets downgraded to an abbreviation. ST - even that conjures up a soporific image of a settee.

So perhaps here in South Tyneside we need a new name. Something that encompasses the three main towns of South Shields, Jarrow and Hebburn. A proper name that sticks in people's minds. A name you'd be comfortable saying, 'I come from xxx', without having to add on the end almost apologetically, 'near Newcastle'.

I haven't thought of something that doesn't sound like a wanky car name, so a referendum is probably the way to go, but avoiding the likes of the ironic 'Spirit of the Tyne', where a black joke became the name of the Tyne ferry which was built in Portsmouth.

Better not tell the council though. If they get in on the game they'll be signing cheques to branding consultants before you can say 'Comedia'.

Edinburgh rocks

I love Edinburgh and really feel at home there. Like every other major city it has it's dark underbelly and fair share of nutters but there's also a canny optimism and confidence. Also there's a real concentration of great places to eat and drink. My favourite pub is probably the Halfway House in Fleshmarket Close and it's an example of one of those gems you find by accident. There's also places to find food you can take home, and not just the famous ones like Jenners and Valvona & Crolla.

If you're in the Edinburgh area, make your way to Portobello to visit butchers Findlay's of Portobello. Take along a cool bag as I can guarantee if you're a foodie you'll be impressed by their range of meats, along with their award-winning haggis. I've yet to taste a better haggis. They do a wide range of haggises and even a vegetarian version. Once you're meated out, cross the road to the small deli and café Kitchener's. Their coffees are great and are an excellent accompaniment to their cakes, which are made on the premises. Add to this a massive range of organic foods packed into the tiny shop area.

Taking the high road

I've returned from a few glorious days in Edinburgh and what struck me while I was there (apart from the great food and drink) was the huge amount of public debate there is about the May 3rd elections. Not just on the telly, but in the pubs and cafés. Even the graffiti shows a spirit of engagement in the elections that we haven't got here in South Tyneside. I know the Scottish are voting in both Scottish Parliament and local council elections, but there's a real anticipation of change in Scotland, not just for the SNP, but also for the Scottish Green Party. Viewing the visit of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair to Scotland from the Scottish perspective, it was clear that Labour are on the defence, with the Lib Dems and Conservatives definitely sidelined by the media.

Back in South Shields, I reviewed the past few days' papers and came crashing back to the reality of politics on planet South Tyneside. I found more of the same old bollocks we've become accustomed to here - councillor photo ops or election leaflets telling us how bad the other lot are. I know councillors need to tell us how great they are so folk know they're doing something sometimes, but how do we inject life back into politics (is it principle that's missing?) and get the Scottish electoral spirit here?

Listening to be heard

It was handbags at dawn between Fellgate and Hedworth ward councillors Paul Waggott and Steve Harrison in the Shields Gazette yesterday, and it indicates that there may be more media contretemps before the May 3rd election. Hijacking of media credit is not new in South Tyneside - recently Couns Brady and Gibson basked in the glow of a misleading headline whilst [Independent candidate] Steve Pattison and his Friends of Temple Park did all the legwork to stop the development of the site's former caretaker's residence into a surgery.

So I can understand Coun Harrison's petulance at Coun Waggott's alleged press hijacking but the real point has been missed. Residents' concerns have finally begun to be addressed, and if it took the fear of losing Fellgate and Hedworth ward to the Independents to get things moving it shows that sometimes our electoral system does work.

What the voters will see though is two councillors fighting very publicly, when it's obvious they should have been working together, or at the very least talking to each other. It's apparent to anyone watching from the sidelines that it's partisan politics that's all that matters in South Tyneside, and particularly Fellgate and Hedworth, not consensus resolution for the benefit of residents.

While the sitting councillors are noisily sound biting each other in the press, apparently today the prospective Green Party candidate for Fellgate and Hedworth ward quietly collected nomination signatures and listened to residents concerns.

Re-engineered opinion

It's been said that there's no such thing as an original thought when it comes to writing, and I've got to agree with that to a certain extent. As a computer programmer by trade, I acknowledge that much of my professional work stands on the shoulders of others.

Reading Curly's blog yesterday I came across his comment on a piece in Celia Walden's 'Spy' column in the Daily Telegraph, discussing South Shields MP David Miliband's alleged status as a 'gay icon'. Not a paper I read much, but when I read the full text on the Telegraph website I was struck by the familiarity of the context of the article, and particularly the phrase "His voting record on gay rights has regularly been used by Pink News to contrast against Gordon Brown's".

So back to my blog entry of 9th December 2006, where I found I'd written "His voting record on gay rights is regularly used by pink news to contrast against Gordon Brown's", discussing Mr M's new entry as a celebrity; strikingly similar to Celia Walden's statement. The main difference between her comment and mine was the tense.

The 'no original thought' rule could easily explain this similarity. Surely hundreds of folk on t'interweb have commented on the Miliband vs Brown gay rights voting record, and the likelihood of a similar or the same sentence being used would be high?

So to slay the paranoia demon I did a literal search on Google for the consistent part of the quote, the phrase "used by Pink News to contrast against Gordon Brown's". It brought up only one entry. Mine.

Did my original blog post provide Celia Walden with inspiration for her own piece? If so, it's comforting to have at least one reader out there. Then again, it may just be coincidence.

I suppose at the very least it's nice to be ahead of the professional opinion writers. And then there's the old saying about imitation and flattery...

Miliband's moment

South Shields MP David Miliband is a key player in a defining moment in British history. Not over the next Labour leader bun fight, but in the publishing of the Draft Climate Change Bill, released today. The UK will be the first country in the world to introduce a legal framework for reducing carbon emissions and it's an achievement to be proud of.

The Bill is a remarkable monument to people working together for a common cause. It was born as Early Day Motion 178, tabled by former Environment Secretary Michael Meacher, signed by 412 MPs and supported by thousands of British citizens through Friends of the Earth's Big Ask campaign.

South Tyneside is a local pivot to the story. South Tyneside Friends of the Earth has spent the last year or so campaigning for public support, getting hundreds of people to sign 'Ask your MP' postcards. One thing that STFOE volunteers found was the wide geographical range of visitors to South Shields. People from as far away as Canada showed interest at the stall under the bridge on King Street, and UK residents visiting from from Falkirk and Liverpool signed postcards.

To his credit, Jarrow MP Stephen Hepburn was one of the first MPs to sign the EDM. Beats tilting at statues.

However, South Shields MP David Miliband has been a minister of one sort or another during the campaign, which meant that unfortunately he felt tied to ministerial convention which prohibits ministers from supporting EDMs which call for legislative change. He met with local green activist Bryan Atkinson last year to discuss a climate change bill and the meeting spawned the recent Climate Change Conference in South Shields.

Today's news of Mr Miliband's carbon crusade was slightly depressed by him showing symptoms of Labour's schizophrenia over transport. His swipe at the Conservatives' throwaway policy on aviation that, "criminalising aviation isn't going to save the planet", implies that there is an anodyne solution to flying. Labour's projected growth in aviation is at odds with the need to reduce it. There is no way to square this circle; Branson's super fuels, Blair's magical airframes or Miliband's offsetting won't reduce the air industry's fair share of emissions whilst the number of flights are growing. However flawed, the Conservatives seem to be at least thinking about the issue.

But the draft Bill is very far from perfect. There's no year on year annual emissions target mechanism, a 'carbon budget' if you like, essential for the timely monitoring and management of emissions reduction. As Shadow Environment Secretary Peter Ainsworth said:

"To be truly effective, any bill should have three elements: annual emission reduction targets, an independent body to set as well as monitor these targets, and an annual carbon budget report from the secretary of state."

The Bill's target of a 60 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050 has been overtaken by recent findings by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change which suggests that a 90 per cent cut is more appropriate. So if the higher 90 per cent isn't going to be the target initially, the Bill must include a mechanism to allow increases to the 2050 target.

You can expect to see business groups like the CBI and the power industries throw their political and economic muscle at the consultation in an attempt to dilute the Bill even further, which means groups like FOE will have at least another year campaigning to make the Bill even stronger and fit for purpose.

But at least we have a Bill on the table to debate. Considering that there were no voices in the cabinet publicly supporting a Climate Change Bill, that's a worthy enough success for now.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown will try to garner some credit for the Bill reaching Draft stage, but the applause should go to two environment ministers, one past and the other present, Micheal Meacher and David Miliband.

Michael Meacher for Labour party leader with DM as DPM anyone?

Respectable vandals

There's regularly local media coverage of vandalism, with the main perpetrators apparently being disaffected youths with no concept of respect or social reponsibility. Walking down my street the other day I found another kind of vandalism, but one which won't get 'respect' headlines or visible 'blitz it' campaigns.

Pavement and verge parking. I took a few pictures of some stunning examples of parking, planning to prepare a post on the subject and an email to the council. Most of the verge parking was done by residents, people who you would think wouldn't want the area in which they live to look like a day at Diggerland.


But then by coincidence a few days later I received a letter from South Tyneside Council. Once I drew my eyes away from the awful presentation and grammar, I found that our Council was threatening to take action against motorists parking on the green verges. I presume this was prompted by a resident in my street, as residents in adjacent streets with equally Somme-like verge damage haven't received the letter.

So, what will our council do with these anti-social motorists? According to the letter from the Council, prosecution under the Highways Act 1980 or a vague "could be considered to be Criminal damage".

Sounds good. However, our Police are already stretched and this kind of activity comes low on their list of priorities. So we should have cause to celebrate when the recent South Tyneside Council On View magazine told us that new Decriminalised Parking Enforcement would "reduce dangerous and inconvenient parking". But the council's 'Parking Team' dashes hope, saying that "South Tyneside Council can only issue PCNs to cars parked on footpaths where there is a yellow line restriction."

Our councillors aren't much better, where similar anti-social behaviour has been met with appeasement by offering to tarmac, concrete over or replace green verges with parking bays - often using Community Area Forum 'environment' budgets (yes I know, it's bitterly ironic). There's little surprise in this attitude - politicians have become terrified of annoying drivers.

Green tree-lined avenues are disappearing. As a community, we don't value the green verges. We park on them, discard our litter and allow our dogs to shit on them.

At least if you drop litter or let your dog poo without picking it up you can get an on-the-spot fine. If you're a Council tenant and cause problems for the neighbours you will become the focus of the Council's remedial 'Respect' policy, with the threat of an Anti-Social Behaviour Order.

But park on the verge and you get little more than Council hand wringing and feeble letters.

The simple answer is to introduce on-the-spot fines for these vandals. Moves are already under way in Newcastle and London to introduce such schemes. If fining irresponsible parkers doesn't work, then ASBO their ass into showing some R.E.S.P.E.C.T. for something that belongs to all of us.

Potts' worthless two-pence

Over on Curly's Corner Shop it seems at first reading that local Tory Councillor David Potts has had something of a revelation over climate change. He's telling us that "a recent consensus has been reached that the cause is human activity of various sorts." Welcome to the 21st Century.

This is a big change from 2005, when Coun Potts challenged "anyone to show me just one single solitary shred of concrete proof that humans contributed or are at all responsible for global warming." He also claimed that "reducing emissions is a complete and utter waste of time and money." I'm guessing Stern kicked that Lomborg-esque nonsense into touch.

His climate change denial mode was matched by a similar position over second hand tobacco smoke. In 2006 he wrote that the "notion that smokers are harming non-smokers is a little shaky to say the least."

His argument moves to the hilarious, accusing some unnamed characters as the "same types of smart people predicted that the world would have run out of oil by now many times over". I presume the "smart people" was the oil industry; but they didn't predict oil running out - it was peaking which caused so much consternation (and still does) to the oil industry.

Coun Potts also bemoaned these same "smart people" for predicting "that the world cannot feed the number of people alive today." Guessing by the number of people who die for lack of food each day, the "smart people" were right.

Potts then places his faith in technology as the answer. It may be part of the answer - we have all the technology we need available to us now. But no amount of technology is a substitute for what we really need to do - reduce consumption of fossil fuels.

Possibly Coun Potts is just jumping on Cameron's greenish bandwagon. Or you could argue that Potts has finally seen the light and decided to listen to the scientists. But I doubt it. He's acknowledging that climate change exists, but all he's done is moved with the rest of the denial lobby to an 'it's not that bad - it's all scaremongering' position. Instead of rubbishing the evidence, he's mocking the risks.

By dismissing concerns over climate change as hysteria, Potts is carrying on that good old denial tradition and burying his head in the sand.

Capstick and Dix, slapstick tricks

The election season for the Harton ward has well and truly started now, with Councillor Jim Capstick in Friday 2nd February's Gazette pleading for independent candidates not to stand against the 'anti-Labour' candidates (read Progressives). He asserted that it's the "public wish" that anti-Labour voters are unified. I've got no particular beef against the Progressives and I think Coun Capstick is a worthy councillor, but I don't remember being asked about this anti-Labour unification. And isn't asking potential candidates not to stand for election in support of their principles just to allow the Progressives defeat Labour a wee bit cynical?

That's politics I suppose.

Labour's local publicity attack has also now got into gear, with former councillor Rob Dix's pamphlet hitting my mat today. The leaflet is a slick multi-colour glossy piece which spends plenty of space berating the Progressives for not communicating with local residents. He also manages some time for that old local election chestnut, the "strong voice".

The leaflet doesn't appear to be printed on recycled paper, which is further evidence that our borough's councillors still need to learn the meaning of 'sustainability'.

Under the witty title "Delivering for South Shields", postman Mr Dix allows the Labour council to claim credit for "The multistorey car park site will be demolished in February and should be completed in less than three months." Perhaps it was shortage of leaflet space that caused Mr Dix to fail to add how long said eyesore has been permitted to crumble?

In his leaflet, Mr Dix humbly informed us that at the last local elections "I came within 18 votes of regaining my Council seat" and also asked mischievously "when was the last time the Progressives...delivered an environmental improvement for your community?" I was somehow under the impression that this was a Labour dominated council, so surely the question should be pointed to his chums in the cabinet? No doubt the Progressives will respond to Rob Dix's claims.

With the likelihood that Progressive and Labour will be publicly pieing each other in the months to come, what have other prospective candidates got to lose by trying to slip through them with good old fashioned ideology and principles?

And, of course, a strong local voice.

Jesus - bigger than the BNP

After the BNP's hope to make South Shields the jewel in their crown I decided to look around for a bit of background on them. I stumbled across this old spat between the fundamentalist Christian Voice and the fascist BNP. Despite their handbags at dawn, there are many similarities between the two groups - they court publicity, shout louder than their membership size suggests and criticise any sign of progressive attitudes in modern Britain.

Both groups are paranoid about Muslims, whipping up hate towards the Muslim community. They suggest that Britain is becoming an Islamic state, despite the lack of street corner stonings. Although given the 'tough on crime' image they like to portray, I suspect the BNP may support such a punishment. The groups' accusations that governments show deference to Islam conveniently forgets that British armed forces have killed more Muslims over the last ten years than at any time since the Crusades, and ignores Tony Blair's support for a country which spent much of 2006 using Lebanese civilians for bombing practice.

The BNP and CV trod the same ground over 'Jerry Springer The Opera', both arguing that it should be banned, whilst apparently unaware of the irony that organisations that benefit from our country's respect for free speech would wish to deny that very same right for others.

However, the brief courtship between the two couldn't last, and perhaps a souring should have been expected. Christianity, especially the fundamentalist kind practised by CV, is not compatible with BNP mantra.

Fundamentalist Christians believe that Adam and Eve were the mother and father of humanity. That means that, according to Acts 17:26, that we are all of "one blood". That's blasphemy to the BNP's race-hate core values. Instead, the BNP markets a twisted interpretation of evolution disturbingly reminiscent of Nazi race theory in which, according to BNP press officer Phil Edwards (a pseudonym), "white people are more highly evolved than blacks".

To most Christians the race issue is a no-brainer - BNP ideology is not compatible with the ethic that all Christians are brothers and sisters under God, irrespective of race. This is reflected in the number of Christian organisations opposed to fascists like the BNP, which in turn reflects the massive ethnic diversity of the Christian church.

Over the subject of race, there's no middle ground or 'third way' for the BNP and CV.

In an odd synergy of irrationality, the epic 'Nazi evolution' vs 'supernatural creation' battle between the BNP and CV somehow managed to achieve the impossible, and allow both to conquer the intellectual low ground at the same time.

But despite their ideological mud fight over creation, they still hold similar enough views over homosexuality, Muslims and free speech to confirm that both groups deserve little more than ridicule.

Tommy sure plays a mean hardball with tunnel

Councillor Tom Hanson's forlorn hope that “green groups” would go away and leave his pet project alone (TUNNEL 'HEALTH RISK’), seems to be little more than an attempt to deflect opinion away from the very real worry that local health will be negatively affected by the new Tyne tunnel. That he failed to comment on the research referred to by the Alliance suggests local health issues are secondary where the tunnel is concerned.

The conclusion of the University of Southern California research is clear – high traffic volumes shortens the lives of those who live near busy roads.

Coun Hanson’s "traffic will be free-flowing once the second Tyne Tunnel is built" argument is based upon the presumption that the main cause of the current pollution problem at the tunnel is engine idling. This is a distraction from the real cause of the problem - traffic volumes. The new road tunnel will increase the amount of local traffic, as acknowledged by the PTA's own Environmental Impact Assessment.

The engine idling argument presents the fiction that the PTA is on a mission to reduce the local impact of pollution from cars. If engine idling emissions was the PTA's main concern then mitigation would be simple - oblige drivers to turn off their engines whilst the vehicle is at rest. It's not a novel idea - other European countries employ the same technique. Since the PTA hasn’t already considered this method it's reasonable to assume that concern for the health of local residents isn't the PTA's prime motivation.

Presumably, shortening children’s lives is a fair price to pay to shave vital minutes off the daily commute.

If Coun Hanson genuinely cares about local health, then instead of acting deaf to local peoples' concerns and dumb over the impact of traffic on health, he should do something about getting people out of cars and onto public transport, instead of feeding the roads machine with our children's lives.