letter

Letter to Hampshire Chronicle, published 28 October 2010

On Thursday morning, with frost on the roofs and the temperature below freezing, a short walk along Winchester High Street, from Colebrook Street to Jewry Street, showed the following premises with wide-open doors: 

Letter to Hampshire Chronicle, published 30 September 2010.

Now that the City Council’s Planning Committee has signalled a positive attitude towards wind energy with the approval of turbines at Kirton Farm (front page, 23 September 2010), Winchester Green Party urges all public sector organisations in Hampshire to get on with a transfer to renewable energy. After an initial investment, massive savings could be made in heating and lighting costs, and Hampshire’s overall carbon emissions would be substantially cut. 

Letter to Hampshire Chronicle, published June 2010. 

Winchester City Council is about to sign off a lengthy document, the Economic Strategy for the Winchester District, 2010-2020, which will have a major influence on local jobs and our environment. How frustrating that its grasp of how things will be different in the years to come seems so tentative.

Letter to the Hampshire Chronicle, published 1 April 2010.

With the recent reminder that house prices in Winchester are 40 per cent above the Hampshire average, how depressing it is to see yet another formerly publicly-owned building, the Hampshire Reference Library, Austen House, being developed into expensive flats.

Tories on the city council know that average household incomes in this district mean 74 per cent of households can’t afford to buy even the lower-priced properties, but they do little to tackle the problem.

Letter to Hampshire Chronicle, published 11th March 2010.

The planning application for the Pitt Manor development makes the extraordinary claim that it will reduce traffic on the Romsey Road. The basis of the claim is that the developers will provide a 200-space car park on the site, which will operate with the proposed bus service from the Bushfield park and ride site to be opened in April.

Letter to Hampshire Chronicle, published 4 March 2010.

The decision by the Conservative group of Hampshire County Council councillors on 18th February 2010 not to sign up to the 10:10 Campaign on climate change – a commitment to reduce HCC’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent in 2010 – was nothing short of disastrous for Hampshire. 

Letter to Hampshire Chronicle, published 3 December 2009.

On the eve of the global Cophenhagen climate conference, the gulf between what people want, and what politicians are delivering, could not be more clearly illustrated than in Hampshire.

(Letter by local Green Hazel Agombar published in the Hampshire Chronical)

Sir,

I was appalled to read the comments from the chair of New Alresford Town Council - Ken Yeldham, in last week's Hampshire Chronicle (9th October) about the Alresford Greening Campaign. I would like to challenge Mr Yeldham's criticism that the group is 'spitting in the wind'. Firstly Alresford is far from alone. They are one of many, many grassroots group across the UK which are being established to address the issue of climate change. The combined efforts of this are enormous and help to put pressure on the UK government to pass a strong Climate Change Bill. Here just in Winchester we have groups such as Winchester Action on Climate Change (WinACC) and Friends of the Earth who are working to the same aims.

Secondly, Mr Yeldham trots out the tired arguments about the pollution created by China and India's industrialistion which are used as an excuse for the UK to do nothing. I'm afraid that Mr Yeldham has failed to grasp how interdependent the world is. It is the wealthy countries - mainly Europe and North America - that have caused the problems of global warming, and therefore have the responsibility to take the lead in finding a sustainable way forward. China and India need to develop - we should be promoting the techonologies that enable them to do so without destroying our shared life support systems. Indeed, it will be great for our economy to be at the forefront of developing low carbon technologies.