Budgets, budgets

Hardly a glimmer of good news today. First of all a sombre discussion about the pressures that are looming on the Council's budget. How to continue to fund the extras that Stockton Council and other local authorities provide on the free bus pass for over 60s, the pass introduced by the government with a great fanfare but only designed to work after 9.30 in the morning. That's a fat lot of use if your hospital appointment is at 9 or even 10 unless you live very near to the hospital on a direct bus route. And of course that's only one example of when older people need to use a bus before 9.30. So Stockton and other Tees Valley councils decided to put money into providing a pass which works all day, every day But that costs money and these days with rising electricity and gas bills and falling interest rates the Council is in the same position as many households - it's belt tightening time. So what should we cut back on? Bus passes for older citizens? Social workers for vulnerable children? Road mending? Pavement sweeping? Street lights? Litter bins? Difficult decisions lie ahead and whatever is decided will hurt someone.
That was followed by a meeting of the Environment Select committee at which we had a presentation of a seemingly very good action plan to reduce the numbers of rats and pigeons infesting the borough - not a huge problem in most parts of the borough but visible and irritating in some parts. The action plan sounded great till we realised that it could only be implemented if there was a bit of spare cash to fund it - not likely in the present economic climate. So the chances are that it's going to be a tinkering with the problem because we can't afford the full blown action plan.
However, there's always someone worse off than me, as my mother would tell me. So, as the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights approaches (10th December for those who like to know these dates) I encourage you to support the campaign to help retired Gurkhas to have the same rights as the people they served alongside in conflict zones around the world. It's something that Liberal Democrats have been supporting for over a year now and it was heartening to see the High Court give a boost to the campaign last month. Let's get it sorted out by Christmas!

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

Today was the first evidence-gathering meeting of the Environment Select Committee review of Waste Management in the Borough. We had Dr Andrew Craig, a local expert who's been involved in formulating strategy at Tees Valley level and in the North East as well as having some input into national thinking on the subject. I think that everyone in the room learned something from the session and we had lots of our questions answered.
One question to which the answer was less than satisfactory was whether there are plans to make it easy for people to find out which products contain recycled material and which don't so that we can make informed choices when shopping. Toilet rolls are easy - clearly labelled so that we can make our choice. In fact, it seems to me that the paper industry is ahead of everyone on that - we can buy all sorts of paper products that are clearly labelled. But what about that jar of jam? Is the jar 100% recycled glass or 50% or zero? There's nothing on the label to tell us. Apparently there are no plans to make this common practice, and no plans on the part of government to help us at all. We have to do our own research and that is jolly difficult.
On the other side of the Atlantic, however, in California there's a whole website devoted to the subject of reducing waste, reusing it and recycling it including buying recycled products. There are links to companies producing jewellery from circuit boards, clothing from all manner of recycled materials, toys, furniture, building materials and many more. If a state of the USA can make that kind of effort can someone explain why the British government can't? (Rhetorical question - it's too near Christmas for philosophical essays)
We also approved the consultation programme for the review so watch out for questionnaires and opportunities to comment in the New Year.
In the New Year a small group will take on the job of looking into Vermin control in the Borough because we're suffering from a much increased rat population compared to 10 years ago and need to find ways to deal with it. This committee gets all the interesting jobs!
Nationally, I was pleased to see that the new party leader was getting generally positive comment in the press. Long may it continue.