Scottish Council Elections, 2012, An Introduction

In less than a month, Scots go to the polls to elect their councillors for the next four years. Nominations for candidates have closed and councils have published lists of the candidates, although I have not seen much campaigning yet.

The local election campaigns do not make the headlines to the same extent as a General Election but our councillors can have a significant influence on local environmental issues through local policies and their implementation of national policies. Particular environmental issues in my area include, not in any particular order:

• Fuel Poverty - a significant proportion of households are now in fuel poverty in Glasgow
• Air Pollution - Parts of Glasgow regularly fail to meet air quality standards
• Sustainable public transport - public transport use has declined over the past year and operators are threatening to cut services further
• Recycling - Glasgow has the poorest recycling record of all local authorities in Scotland
• Biodiversity - Although Glasgow is a predominantly urban local authority, biodiversity and access to open places is still important
• Local development plans - through local development plans, councilors have the ability to influence how green the city is for decades to come
• New Housing - by insisting on the highest standards for new housing, councilors can set the city on a more sustainable path.

Read more »

#CTWW - Daily Challenges 2012

Change the World Wednesday is a fantastic concept curated by  Reduce Footprints which sets a weekly challenge to reduce our environmental impact.  Over the period of Lent, Reduce Footprints has set a daily challenge under the banner of an Ecumenical Lenten Carbon Fast.  I have been following these challenges on and off but March has been a particularly busy month and I haven't had the time to blog or otherwise respond to most of the challenges but now as Lent draws to a close I have some free time to reflect on the challenges and post some comments.

The challenges:

Read more »

The Age of the Train

The Government announces that High Speed 2 will go ahead...

Britain needs a fast and integrated rail network. It lags far behind its nearest neighbours, largely due to Thatcher privatising the railways in the 1980s when other nations were investing. To her, spending money on roads was investment, spending on railways was subsidy. Is this finally The Age of the Train? In a country almost 600 miles long by 300 miles wide, the 90 miles that High Speed 2 (HS2) represents will not make a difference for the vast majority of rail users.

For the record, I haven't really done any research for this post, its only a bit of fun. I don't have the time or inclination to wade through the volumes of reports, assessments and evaluations that are available.

An extra 8 miles of the route will be in tunnels to mitigate environmental concerns...

Read more »