Golcar By Election - What's pink and hangs from a lamp post?

Pink, deceptive and hanging from a lamp post

What's pink, deceptive and hangs on a lamp post? Well it's these pink posters on streets around the Golcar Ward where coincidentally a Council By Election is to be held on November 21st.

The posters say in big bold words 'Stop Labour's Gridlock'. If you look at some really small writing at the top you'll see a line indicating it is part of the Lib Dem election campaign. So though it looks pink it is in fact yellow! It also looks like it is part of some sort of community campaign (which it is not) and there is no indication of what party it represents. It is clearly deceptive, cynical and wholly negative.It is clearly the start of some contrived campaign that the Lib Dems will run during the election to drum up support.

You can imagine when the Lib Dems were dreaming up this idea that they thought it was a really clever thing to do by pretending to run a non partisan community campaign against the party they regard as their principal opponent. The problem for them is that people aren't stupid and they can spot when they are being manipulated. It will backfire on them.

I'm no fan of the Labour Party, but if I am going to criticise them I will do it openly on literature bearing the  name of the Party I represent. If the Lib Dems are going to be so deceptive in their election campaigns why should we trust them if they are elected? Actually we know they can't be trusted in Government with pledge after pledge being broken such as backtracking on no rise in Student Tuition Fees, opposing nuclear energy and privatisation of the NHS.

If they behave so cynically in their election campaigns the they deserve to be treated cynically by the electorate.

PRESS RELEASE - Dan Greenwood selected as Green Candidate in Golcar By Election

Dan Greenwood Golcar's Green Candidate and Cllr Andrew Cooper

The Greens have selected a local music teacher as its candidate for the forthcoming Golcar By-Election. Dan Greenwood is 41 lives in Longwood and owns a business, ‘The Boom Rooms’ based in Milnsbridge which provides rehearsal and recoding facilities to a range of local musicians.

Dan has been a member of the Green Party for 8 years and joined because,

“there was nothing  out there in mainstream politics which appealed to me. The Greens offer a principled alternative that works for social and environmental justice. By Elections are always an opportunity for local people to vote for something different from their usual party allegiances so I’m looking forward to this election campaign”

Dan is a strong supporter of the Red and Green Club in Milnsbridge and has helped organise and performed at a benefit at the club recently. He is a keen cyclist and runner and has recently completed his 50^th Park Run at Greenhead Park.

Dan has a music degree from Huddersfield University and is a qualified teacher. He was brought up and educated in Huddersfield and has 3 children who attend local schools.

Councillor Andrew Cooper, Leader of the Greens on Kirklees Council, said

“it is great to have Dan as our Candidate in this important By-Election with his strong local connections and commitment to the community he lives in. There is a real opportunity here for the people of Golcar , Milnsbridge, Cowlersley and Longwood to reject the local Party machines and to back a Candidate who is independent  of them.  The Greens have a strong track record in Kirklees with 5 Green Party Councillors elected. It would be marvellous to have Dan as our 6^th.”

Contacts

Candidate - Dan Greenwood – 07837 760425   

Agent – Cllr Andrew Cooper – 07721 348619        andrew.cooper@kirklees.gov.uk

Andrew Cooper - LDF Speech to Full Council - 23/10/2013

The Yorkshire & Humber Regional Spatial Strategy - its not dead its just resting!

When we last discussed the LDF at this Council the Green Group voted against it and at the time we did that on the basis that we would call the Tories bluff on housing numbers. The Conservative Leader Cllr Light maintained that we had total flexibility to determine our own housing numbers and that there was no threat of government intervention to force us to have higher numbers in line with the now supposedly abolished Regional Spatial Strategy. On that basis he proposed a target even lower than that proposed by the Labour administration which was itself way below that required under the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Spatial Strategy. The truth is that the ‘abolished’ RSS is a Zombie policy – dead but somehow still alive with the evidence base for the housing numbers in it somehow valid despite its abolition.

So now we have the Government’s bureaucrat from the Quango the  Planning Inspectorate in Bristol saying Kirklees have not fulfilled the ‘duty to co-operate’ with neighbouring Councils and therefore we are being ‘advised’ to withdraw the Local Development Framework.  When the LDF was being drawn up there were no guidelines on how to fulfil the duty to cooperate so how could the Council comply. It would be like playing Monopoly for the first time without any rules and not being told how many of those houses had to be put on the board.

In reality this has nothing at all to do with the duty to cooperate. Does anyone here really believe that if the housing numbers were in line with the extortionately high figures in the RSS that we would be in this position now? Only apparently the Tories but this is a deception just as the ‘duty to co-operate’ is a diversion.

The truth is that we are being asked today to withdraw this plan by the Governments Planning Inspectorate or they will declare it invalid. It is like Kirklees is standing on the precipice of a cliff with the Planning Inspector with a gun to our head saying ‘jump’. Well I say ‘shoot’ do your worst. It will demonstrate to everyone that there is no true localism in the Planning process and that it is the Conservatives hand in glove with the developers that is the real threat to our countryside.

So what happens if the Government’s Inspector does fulfil his threat to overturn the plan decided by this Council? Is that it? Is it Game Over? It doesn’t have to be because the Government in the form of Eric Pickles as Conservative Communities Minister can himself overturn the Planning Inspectorate. Only last week he overturned the Planning Inspectorate by opposing a solar farm in Sussex that had been approved by the Planning Inspector. It is however possible for Eric Pickles to use his powers for good as well as evil.

The choice today is clear. To withdraw the plan and have even more green space around Kirklees threatened with development OR to hold our nerve with what is by no means a perfect plan but has been decided in a democratic fashion. Our choice is between democracy or the diversion and deception we have seen here from the Conservatives today.

The Cr8 Barn at Stirley Farm

  Great new space at the Cr8 Barn at Stirley Farm for supporting the educational work and demonstration sessions at the farm. Really low energy design refurbished to EnerPHit standards. For full details go to the Green Building Company at www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk

PRESS RELEASE Fracking under the spotlight at public meeting - Thursday 10th October - Huddersfield Town Hall

A public meeting on ‘Fracking and the clean energy alternative’ will take place in Huddersfield next week. The Green Party event will include speakers from Friends of the Earth and No Dash for Gas as well as Kirklees councillor and Energy spokesperson, Andrew Cooper. The meeting that will be chaired by Councillor Julie Stewart-Turner, will be held at 7pm on Thursday 10th October at Huddersfield Town Hall. The meeting will be an opportunity for members of the public to find out more about the dangers that fracking poses to the environment and dispel some of the misconceptions about its potential impact on energy prices and security. It follows a summer of protest in Balcombe over this unconventional fossil fuel. In the past month high profile figures such as the economist Lord Stern and the ex-Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir David King have expressed concerns about fracking. Sir David King has spoken out about the ‘enormous environmental consequences’ of developing fracking while Lord Stern spoke of the ‘baseless economics’ of the government’s claim that it will reduce energy prices. Fracking will not provide a reduction in energy prices as we have seen in the United States. The US is essentially an isolated market. By contrast, the UK is plugged into an integrated European market where gas is sold to the highest bidder, whether inside or outside the UK. Experts say that even a huge increase in the amount of domestic gas the UK produces would be likely to dent the wholesale gas price. Nor is it clear that it is a ‘green fuel’. Studies have shown that fracking can have a higher global warming impact than coal due to methane emissions. It is also likely that fracking will be a distraction from the primary task which is fully developing the green economy by investing fully in renewable energy and improving energy efficiency. In addition to greenhouse gas emissions, fracking causes environmental damage through water use and water pollution as well as geological disturbance. All are welcome at the meeting to express their views and provide questions for the panel about this important issue about the UK’s energy future

A Social Energy Target for the European Union

An EU Social Energy Target - a lightbulb moment?

One of the features of the European Union are the Targets and Directives that are produced for the member states to sign up to, to abide by and to seek to achieve.

The 2020 targets seek to improve energy efficiency by 20%, achieve 20% renewable energy as a percentage of total energy and reduce carbon emissions by 20%. Across the member states different policies have been established to achieve these  targets. In the UK much of the funding to help us reach our share of the target comes from energy companies so we all effectively pay for it through our fuel bills. Policies in the UK such as the Energy Company Obligation and the Feed In Tariff are paid for through a levy on our fuel bills. though the vast majority of rises in energy bills are nothing to do with 'green taxes'. This still doesn't stop climate change deniers and the Daily Mail (as if they were different in some way!) attributing energy bill price hikes seemingly exclusively as a result of 'green taxes'. Nethertheless it is important to ensure those on the lowest incomes are the ones who benefit most from environmental taxes to ensure fairness is a fundamental consideration when seeking to address environmental concerns. This is where the concept of a Social Energy Target came from. 

So what is an EU Social Energy Target? The EU is currently considering the 2030 successors to the 2020 renewables, carbon and energy efficiency targets. There is now an opportunity to develop a complementary target which not only seeks to reduce fuel poverty but also encourages this aim to work in harmony with environmental targets. If this can be achieved the assertion that environmental and social targets are incompatible can be not only challenged but also demonstrably disproved.

What might a target look like and how might it operate? The UK did have a target of eradicating fuel poverty completely by 2016. With rises in fuel prices, cuts in income and frankly utterly inadequate policies to address the energy efficiency of homes this is simply not going to be achieved. There is a clear need to develop a  realisable plan to ensure affordable warmth and an end to fuel poverty. This may result in policies that encourage the installation of solar panels, such as the feed in tariff being directed to those on lower incomes OR incentivise government to direct more of the £1.3 billion/year Energy Company Obligation funding to be directed to people in fuel poverty. 

The other benefits of the  Social Energy Target could be less cold related illnesses, more jobs in the energy efficiency sector. This has got to be worth pursuing and progressing. I'll keep you posted!

Letter to Yorkshire and the Humber MEPs regarding Fracking

RE: September 11 – Plenary vote on the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive – amendments on shale gas and other unconventional hydrocarbons

  Dear MEP

 On July 11, the Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee voted overwhelmingly (49-13) in favour of a report by MEP Zanoni on the European Commission’s proposals for a review of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive.

The Committee notably adopted proposals to adapt the EIA Directive to the arrival of a new type of industrial-size activities in Europe, namely the plans to explore and extract unconventional hydrocarbon such as shale gas in Europe. The negative environmental, health and climate impacts associated with hydraulic fracturing or fracking - the technique used to explore and extract such unconventional hydrocarbons – have been well documented since the shale gas drilling boom started a decade ago in the United States. The proposals in the Zanoni report allow us to take the necessary measures in order not to repeat the same mistakes observed in the US.

 I respectfully ask you to offer your support to the current version of the Zanoni report and to the unchanged provisions on shale gas and other unconventional fossil fuels in particular amendments 31 and 79 point (e). The EIA, Annex I, Article 14 shall be amended as follows:

“(e) the following points (14a) and (14b) are inserted:

 14a. Exploration, evaluation and extraction of crude oil and/or natural gas trapped in gas-bearing strata of shale or in other sedimentary rock formations of equal or lesser permeability and porosity, regardless of the amount extracted.

14b. Exploration and extraction of natural gas from coal beds, regardless of the amount extracted.”

This is necessary to provide a legal clarification. According to the European commission, unconventional hydrocarbon projects are now already subject to an EIA because it cannot be excluded, on the basis of objective information, that the project will have significant environmental effects. But since not every member state or administration / public authority is willing to take this into account, an EU-wide mandatory EIA for unconventional fossil fuel activities is vital.

 These amendments follow strong and clear recommendations, which received broad political support in the vote on last year’s European Parliament resolutions on shale gas. In the own-initiative report on the “Environmental impacts of shale gas and shale gas oil extraction activities”, authored by MEP Boguslaw Sonik, the European Parliament called “for the inclusion of projects including hydraulic fracturing in Annex I of the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive” (§24).

These amendments are crucial, because the current version of the legislation fails to guarantee a systematic and mandatory EIA before new unconventional hydrocarbon projects start up:

• Because they have a maximum daily production rate of between 115,000 and 250,000 m3, they will never meet the 500,000m3/day threshold mentioned in the existing legislation. As a consequence, no mandatory and systematic EIA for UFF projects can currently be guaranteed.

 • Because deep drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques are systematically used throughout the process, including during the exploration phase, several important environmental damages can already occur during the exploration phase. This is why not only the extraction phase should be included in Annex I, but also the exploration activities. The poor environmental record of the development of this industry in the United States has taught us that:

• It is essential to engage in a systematic gathering of baseline data – with samples of air, water and soil quality – in order to prove the causal link between UFF operations and air and/or water contamination around drilling sites.

 • Such industrial developments cannot take place without properly consulting the communities living around potential drilling sites.

 If large-scale UFF operations are allowed to go ahead in an unregulated way, this industry will repeat the same mistakes as in the United States, with the same dramatic impacts for the climate, environment and public health. I believe it is absolutely vital that this recommendation receives strong support, and I look to you to represent my views in this matter for the good of our constituency and for the rest of Europe.

Yours sincerely,

Councillor Andrew Cooper