Greens call for an end to bottled water for Kirklees Council meetings

Green Councillors have called for the practice of providing bottled water for certain Council meetings to end.

Councillor Andrew Cooper was at a recent Public Question Time event at Huddersfield Town Hall about the Kirklees Budget where leading Councillors from each of the political groups on the Council were answering questions. Bottled ' Harrogate Spring Water' was provided for speakers at the event.

Councillor Cooper went to the Huddersfield Town Hall kitchen and filled up a jug of water to show how simple the tap water alternative to bottled water was.

"I was astounded that we were being provided with bottled water, which costs the Council money when we can get the same thing from a tap in the Town Hall kitchen just a few yards away for free. Not only is there the financial cost of transporting bottled water but also the cost of getting rid of the glass bottle afterwards. It doesn't make financial or environmental sense. What really annoyed me was the fact we were given single use plastic cups as well when we could have used a reusable glass."

The saving to the Council of getting rid of bottled water will only be small but it will demonstrate that the Council has a culture of thinking carefully about how it spends public money because if we are not wasting it on bottled water then we can use that money on services for local people."

The Greens will include the banning of bottled water in their amendment to the Kirklees Budget that will be decided at the next Full Council meeting on Wednesday February 14th.

Greens secure funding for Hall Bower Defibrillator

Newsome Green Party Councillors have secured  Kirklees funding to back a community led campaign to get a defibrillator for Hall Bower near Newsome.

Hall Bower Athletic Club which is run by community volunteers has been fundraising for the life saving equipment which provides emergency help for people who have suffered a heart attack. The local campaign by the Club, 'Keep Hall Bower's heart beating' has already raised £355. Newsome Green Councillors have secured a further £1000 from a Kirklees budget to support local projects.

Councillor Andrew Cooper said,

" This has been a fantastic and enthusiastic campaign by local people to get a defibrillator which could mean the difference between life and death for someone suffering a heart attack in the village. This  funding together with the funding raised by the community means that the project can now go ahead and the defibrillator can be installed on the wall of the club."

Hall Bower Athletic Club are still raising funds for the ongoing upkeep of the defibrillator when it is installed and will be holding a 24 hour pool Marathon on the 3rd of March. This will help ensure the equipment is insured and maintained.

PRESS RELEASE - Kirklees overlooked in Regional Investment Guide

The Leeds City Region Investment Guide 2017 - 'Insider Location' is aimed at attracting businesses to  West Yorkshire and nearby Councils such as York, Barnsley, Harrogate and Selby. In its 28 pages it has a total of 46 photographs illustrating why moving businesses to our region is such a good thing to do. Not one of the photographs is from Kirklees. Bradford, Wakefield, Calderdale and Leeds all feature but not a single picture from Huddersfield or the wider Kirklees area.

Councillor Andrew Cooper said

"In the text there is scant mention of our area. A fleeting reference to the HD1 development and outline planning permission in Bradley and that is pretty much it. So I have asked the Labour Administration of Kirklees Council how influential do they feel they are at the Regional level? With millions pounds worth of funding now being handled at the West Yorkshire and wider City Region level it is vital that Kirklees Council is 'on the ball' with attracting appropriate investment into the area".

"The Council have clearly 'dropped the ball' on this one. Simply having one person in the Council with the ability to give a draft copy the 'once over' would have been sufficient. Clearly that did not happen and clearly no one at the regional level thought it would matter too much if Kirklees had very little mention and no visibility in the document. The Kirklees Labour Cabinet needs to reflect on their role in attracting investment to our area and how influential it really is at the increasingly important regional level. If they don't we all could lose out."

Contact - Cllr Andrew Cooper - 07721 348619

The signs are good!

Green Party Councillors Karen Allison and Andrew Cooper spent their Sunday morning cleaning the boundary signs for Newsome and Berry Brow in the area they represent on Kirklees Council.

Councillor Karen Allison said 

"Every couple of years the grime and sap builds up on our local Village signs so we spent a couple of hours going round and giving them a really good clean.  It is an easy way of helping give a good impression of our area. There's nothing worse than entering an area with a mucky sign. It makes the place look uncared for. We could have sent an email to someone in the Council to go and do it but it was easier to fill a bucket with soapy water and just go and do it. Its such an easy thing to do and shows that Councillors can be about more than just sitting around in meetings all day."

Councillor Cooper said,

" The sign cleaning is something we have done for a few years now but volunteering is part of our ethos which is why we do a Christmas Bus Service and organise local community clean ups. I think its important that people see  their elected representatives not just talking the talk but walking the walk"

"I could do your job!" - The death of deference

'Deference' being sought in Planet of the Apes

One thing I've always been uncomfortable with is deference. I don't like the hierarchical nature of our country. It is what makes me an instinctive Republican. I've never been a big fan of authority in any form. Living in a country where we defer to people who have privilege and position by accident of birth makes me feel like I am living in some sort of bizarre Ruritanian fantasy kingdom as opposed to the modern European democracy that I wish we were but just aren't.

I've never believed that people in managerial or political positions are inherently in any way superior and I have, what I regard, as a healthy disrespect for authority. It's one of the things that got me involved in politics in the first place. The need to take on the pompous, the bullies and those who believe they have a right to the positions they hold or those who believe that no one has a legitimate democratic right to challenge them.  When I was first elected and many years afterwards I inwardly winced when Council officers referred to me as 'Councillor' and I tried to steer them in the 'Call me Andrew' direction. Now I recognise that Council Officers referring to me as 'Councillor' is a way of them emphasising their professional detachment and being clear about our respective roles which is not the same as the deference I so despise. I live with the title, I guess I've earn't it.

The general populace has caught up and deference to politicians is not what it was in years gone by. This has got to be a good thing. It comes as a bit of a shock after 18 or so years on the Council to find that some people regard you as part of 'the establishment'. So one Saturday night a few weeks ago  I'm wandering through Huddersfield Bus Station and this drunken guy shouts across at me  "Hey! you're Andrew Cooper, my MP. I could do your job but I bet you couldn't do mine!", It was on the tip of my tongue to come out with some witty remark referencing what I thought his job might be but I decided instead to just give him a cheery wave and say 'Bye!'. Of course, and unfortunately, I wasn't his MP and a Councillor gets about a seventh of the salary of an MP. I also guess that he only had the faintest idea of what I actually did as a Councillor (or what an MP did come to that) and that to him it would be something along the lines of just saying whatever came into my head in a meeting and who can't do that for goodness sake? 

Just as a drink or two can make people bold so can social media and I often read, whimsically, the inaccurate comments made about me, or my role, on the Huddersfield Examiner Facebook page. The latest was someone who asserted that I could claim back my energy bills in expenses from the Council ' I'm afraid not matey!' I didn't bother trying to correct him. Maybe I should have done.

 So has the lack of deference to politicians gone too far? I don't think so and politicians can worry too much about what some guy posts (it usually is a guy) on social media about them. We've just got to a certain extent 'suck it up'. Every now and again someone will cross a line but generally we've got to live with it or take them on as you see fit. A bit of a thick skin can be helpful to people in the public eye.

Deference and the love of positions for their own sake is not dead. For some politicians the title as opposed the role, and the deference/respect that comes with those positions, remains a prime motivator. It concerns me greatly because a desire for a position is not generally a good measure of someone's suitability for that position. If that position is achieved by patronage to secure the deference of colleagues then that concerns me even more. So though some regard me as part of 'the establishment' these days I will continue to challenge those in power and those who seek it for the wrong reasons.

 I've never sought deference and I won't be providing it to anyone else any day soon.

Fire without smoke - Green Councillor proposes banning a 'banned substance'

From 'Huddersfield - The Handbook' 1960!

The whole of Kirklees is a Smoke Control Area This means that if you burn fuel that gives off smoke you could be fined up to £1000. The original Clean Air Act was introduced in 1956 as a way of dealing with the epidemic in respiratory conditions arising from people living  in an environment with thousands of chimneys belching out smoke. Most homes were heated primarily by housecoal, which is not smoke free. The introduction of smokeless coal and more homes getting connected to gas meant that air quality was vastly improved. The whole of Kirklees is a Smoke Control Area which means that it is effectively illegal to burn housecoal anywhere in the district.So if it is illegal to burn it why can you still buy it? You go to petrol stations, hardware stores and solid fuel merchants and they stock it and they presumably sell it. The people who buy it I'm guessing don't just stockpile it to look nice for display purposes only. I can't really imagine someone proudly showing their visitors their huge bile of the black stuff saying "Come and have a look at my heritage coal which I can't burn. Looks great doesn't it! Really black and dirty." So tonnes and tonnes of this stuff flies off the forecourts and coal yards each year and adds to the atmospheric soup of pollution we all breathe in. So one idea I'm exploring with Kirklees Legal officers is whether we can establish a local byelaw to ban the stuff. It should be uncontroversial. Why are people allowed to buy a fuel they can't burn anyway?  I remember when smokeless fuel was a bit rubbish and difficult to light compared with housecoal. Now smokeless fuel is a better product and some even boasts it contains 50% renewable components like Ecocoal. Smokeless or not,  coal is bad for our global environment in terms of carbon emissions but dealing with the immediate health impacts of housecoal by restricting it's sale should be something we had done years ago so lets see if we can do it.

What happens next having advocated a ban on the sale of housecoal is a chorus of "What about you greenie types and your woodburners? That may be renewable but it gives off smoke?" This can be true if you have a  poor wood burner and fuel with a high moisture content but it doesn't have to be like that. Kiln dried fuel and DEFRA approved wood burners/boilers can ensure smoke is kept to a miminum. The other benefit is that you can help support local employment by buying a DEFRA approved Dunsley Yorkshire Boiler like mine, manufactured in Holmfirth .No I'm not on commission!

PRESS RELEASE - 25 years of Green Party Christmas Buses

Huddersfield Greens are marking 25 years of the volunteer buses they have been running over the Christmas Holidays since 1992. Councillor Andrew Cooper who is a volunteer driver said,

“I remember the first one we ran in 1992 which we ran as a protest against the removal of services over the holiday period. Since then some services have been resumed in some areas in recent years on Boxing Day”

Newsome Green Party Councillor Karen Allison who has also been a volunteer on the bus service said

“I really enjoy doing the bus service each year and it is now very much part of my Christmas holiday

routine. At this time of year when there are limited public transport services taxi journeys can be expensive particularly from rural villages so people who use the minibus we operate really do value it. We put timetables on bus stops and in local shops so people are aware of our schedule. The service is free to use but donations towards fuel costs are always welcome. A copy of our timetable is below.”

The minibus is now provided by Kirklees Council through Commodle which provides a wide range of Council equipment for community activities.

The 2 services provided are on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. On Boxing Day a service connects Grange, Moor and Flockton with Huddersfield Town Centre and on New Years Day the service runs from Berry Brow,Newsome into Town and on the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.”

Boxing Day - Flockton/Grange Moor/Lepton/Huddersfield