The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way we all relate to nature, with many people now recognizing it as being integral to their physical and emotional wellbeing.
North Staffordshire Green Party have responded to this by launching a campaign for Stoke-on-Trent to join the internationally recognized ‘Tree Cities of the World’ scheme.
In a letter sent to Councilor Carl Edwards, cabinet member for the environment, they write:
'The coronavirus crisis and the lockdown imposed in response have brought about a significant change in the public’s awareness and appreciation of green spaces. They are now, rightly, seen as integral to the maintenance physical and mental wellbeing'.
Adding that:
'As part of the responsibilities it accepted by declaring a climate emergency in July 2019 Stoke-on-Trent City Council needs to respond to this issue'.
The Tree Cities of the World scheme has its origins in a call for action to protect and develop urban trees issues at the 2018 World Forum on Urban Forests held in Mantova, Italy.
The official Tree Cities of the World website states that:
Urban forests help define a sense of place and well-being where people live, work, play, and learn. The Tree Cities of the World programme is an international effort to recognize cities and towns committed to ensuring that their urban forests and trees are properly maintained, sustainably managed, and duly celebrated.
Adam Colclough, Campaign Coordinator for North Staffs Green Party said: ‘lockdown has reminded many of us just how important contact with nature is to our personal wellbeing, we want to carry that forward into the recovery period and the new normal that follows’.
To be accredited as a Tree City of the World applicants have to meet five core criteria, these are establishing a person or group with responsibility for trees, creating an accurate inventory or local tree resources, putting in place clear rules for managing urban forests, having an allocated budget for managing trees and celebrating trees and their role in the life of the city.
Achieving Tree City status brings a number of benefits including higher property values, lower energy costs and stronger social cohesion. Participation in the Tree Cities of the World programme has also been shown to improve how people feel about the place in which they live.
Cities from around the world have achieved accreditation as part of the programme including six in the United Kingdom, amongst these is West Midlands neighbour Birmingham.
Adam Colclough said: ‘becoming a Tree City of the World will help to market Stoke-on-Trent as a great place to live and work, more importantly it will help to address some of the public health problems that have held us back for so long.’
Friday, 12 June 2020
Sunday, 7 June 2020
England Awakes-Slowly.
This weekend I went to Newcastle-under-Lyme, a market town around three miles away from my home to do a little shopping.
At any other time, the sentence above would be so mundane as to be not worth the bother of typing. In the strange days we are living through just not it has almost become a statement of intent, a way of saying that I am coming out of enforced hibernation.
My last visit to the town was during the strange, panic-stricken weekend that preceded the imposition of lockdown back in March. An elderly woman I passed on the Stones, the street where the town’s market has been held every Saturday for the past eight hundred years, was saying to her friend ‘it doesn’t seem real’.
It didn’t’; in most ways it still doesn’t some three months on. Everything had changed and yet the world also seemed to be carrying on as normal. People in supermarkets were panic buying toilet roll and pasta, here though everyone was carrying on as if it were an ordinary Saturday.
For the next three months, of course, nothing was normal, the busy, intricate clockwork of everyday life came to a grinding halt. Work, pleasure, sports, even the market on the Stones went into enforced hibernation, the longest hiatus in its history.
As someone granted, somewhat spuriously in my opinion, key-worker status I was able to leave home for more than the permitted trips to shop or exercise, it was not a pleasant experience. Familiar streets had been turned into the set for a creepy sci-fi movie, silent spaces the few people out and about scuttled through as if running from one fox hole to the next.
What brought me back to Newcastle this week was the government’s decision to allow outdoor markets to resume operations from the first of June. Another small step in lifting the lockdown and taking tentative steps into the new normal.
Unsurprisingly the town looks much the same at a surface level, its architecture is still a jumble of the genuinely old with intrusions from the concrete crassness of the sixties and a sprinkling of latter-day corporate blandness. The market still operates under the kindly shadow of the eighteenth-century guildhall.
Similar to the town I have known all my life, but not exactly the same. Most of the shops are still closed; as are all the pubs. The shops will, probably re-open on the 15th June, the pubs maybe in July. On the pavements there are by now familiar markers for where to queue for particular shops and reminders to keep two meters apart.
For the most part people put up with the new restrictions and inconveniences with a weary resignation that is becoming familiar in most aspects of daily life. We have passed from disbelief that this could be happening, through outright fear into the stage where we are just putting up with things.
The challenge for the government and for all of us is to work out what comes next, reasonable concerns have been expressed about the speed with which lockdown is being lifted, but we can’t hide indoors forever. Expert opinion is starting to suggest that coronavirus could be something we have to live with in the long term.
In which case my trip into town givens me grounds for hope, for all the awkwardness of life as we are having to live it people seemed to be if not cheerful then at least coping. Finding ways to accommodate each other within the rules with a minimum of fuss.
That is probably the best route out of this and something the government should be putting at the heart of its recovery plan. The difficulties of the past few months have taught us that what we value is what is close to us, be that people or places.
They need to rebuild around towns like Newcastle and all the other small communities across the country making it easier for people to shop, work and socialize locally. We may have discovered a virtual community through Zoom, but ask most people and they would say that when its safe to do so they want to be more engaged with the real one around them.
At any other time, the sentence above would be so mundane as to be not worth the bother of typing. In the strange days we are living through just not it has almost become a statement of intent, a way of saying that I am coming out of enforced hibernation.
My last visit to the town was during the strange, panic-stricken weekend that preceded the imposition of lockdown back in March. An elderly woman I passed on the Stones, the street where the town’s market has been held every Saturday for the past eight hundred years, was saying to her friend ‘it doesn’t seem real’.
It didn’t’; in most ways it still doesn’t some three months on. Everything had changed and yet the world also seemed to be carrying on as normal. People in supermarkets were panic buying toilet roll and pasta, here though everyone was carrying on as if it were an ordinary Saturday.
For the next three months, of course, nothing was normal, the busy, intricate clockwork of everyday life came to a grinding halt. Work, pleasure, sports, even the market on the Stones went into enforced hibernation, the longest hiatus in its history.
As someone granted, somewhat spuriously in my opinion, key-worker status I was able to leave home for more than the permitted trips to shop or exercise, it was not a pleasant experience. Familiar streets had been turned into the set for a creepy sci-fi movie, silent spaces the few people out and about scuttled through as if running from one fox hole to the next.
What brought me back to Newcastle this week was the government’s decision to allow outdoor markets to resume operations from the first of June. Another small step in lifting the lockdown and taking tentative steps into the new normal.
Unsurprisingly the town looks much the same at a surface level, its architecture is still a jumble of the genuinely old with intrusions from the concrete crassness of the sixties and a sprinkling of latter-day corporate blandness. The market still operates under the kindly shadow of the eighteenth-century guildhall.
Similar to the town I have known all my life, but not exactly the same. Most of the shops are still closed; as are all the pubs. The shops will, probably re-open on the 15th June, the pubs maybe in July. On the pavements there are by now familiar markers for where to queue for particular shops and reminders to keep two meters apart.
For the most part people put up with the new restrictions and inconveniences with a weary resignation that is becoming familiar in most aspects of daily life. We have passed from disbelief that this could be happening, through outright fear into the stage where we are just putting up with things.
The challenge for the government and for all of us is to work out what comes next, reasonable concerns have been expressed about the speed with which lockdown is being lifted, but we can’t hide indoors forever. Expert opinion is starting to suggest that coronavirus could be something we have to live with in the long term.
In which case my trip into town givens me grounds for hope, for all the awkwardness of life as we are having to live it people seemed to be if not cheerful then at least coping. Finding ways to accommodate each other within the rules with a minimum of fuss.
That is probably the best route out of this and something the government should be putting at the heart of its recovery plan. The difficulties of the past few months have taught us that what we value is what is close to us, be that people or places.
They need to rebuild around towns like Newcastle and all the other small communities across the country making it easier for people to shop, work and socialize locally. We may have discovered a virtual community through Zoom, but ask most people and they would say that when its safe to do so they want to be more engaged with the real one around them.
Monday, 1 June 2020
From fixing potholes to addressing the European Parliament- how one Green councilor has made a difference locally and globally.
The question of how a small party that has limited resources and is often overlooked by the media is one most Green candidates are asked at some point.
It is one Andrew Cooper, a Green member of Yorkshire and Humber council and a Field Organizer for the party, faced when he first stood in the Kirklees ward in 1999.
Speaking to North Staffs Green Party on Sunday evening he explained how he has answered that question over the twenty years he has held the seat. During which time he has made a positive impact locally and represented the Green Party on both a national and international stage.
The meeting was part of a program encouraging members to ‘think local; act global’ and took place via Zoom.
Andrew began by giving some background to his political career, he first stood as a candidate for the Green Party in Stoke-on-Trent back in 1989 when he was a student at the then North Staffordshire Polytechnic. Although he didn’t win, he achieved a respectable share of the vote.
Being a Green councilor, he admitted, could sometimes be ‘really difficult’, and getting things done can be a challenge when faced with entrenched hostility from other parties.
However, it was, he said, possible to challenge the perception that Greens can’ win and if they do, they can’t make a difference. A point proved by the achievements of Andrew and the other two Greens holding the ward.
These include protecting land from development that did not serve the needs of the local community, in one instance by organizing a commando style operation to plant fruit trees. They have also backed projects to upgrade play areas and support vulnerable people.
Andrew credits Target to Win for helping him and his colleagues gain and hold the ward, but cites the secret of their effectiveness in office as ‘doing the basics’ and doing them well. That means working practically locally to fix problems like litter or potholes, then working on larger and more ‘interesting’ projects.
This, he said, creates a political climate where local people feel empowered as partners in bringing about positive changes in their community. It also, he added, shows town hall officials that they are dealing with councilors who are willing to roll their sleeves up and get stuck in, which often encourages them to be more cooperative.
Among the more interesting projects Andrew and his colleagues have taken on are working with the police to stop the sale of counterfeit cigarettes and speaking to the European Parliament about what local government needs to do to address climate change. Andrew also attended the COP2018 climate talks at the United Nations as a Green delegate.
This was a positive and encouraging talk setting out how Green councilors can win and use office to empower communities to bring about positive change. A timely message given the challenges of these unprecedented times.
It is one Andrew Cooper, a Green member of Yorkshire and Humber council and a Field Organizer for the party, faced when he first stood in the Kirklees ward in 1999.
Speaking to North Staffs Green Party on Sunday evening he explained how he has answered that question over the twenty years he has held the seat. During which time he has made a positive impact locally and represented the Green Party on both a national and international stage.
The meeting was part of a program encouraging members to ‘think local; act global’ and took place via Zoom.
Andrew began by giving some background to his political career, he first stood as a candidate for the Green Party in Stoke-on-Trent back in 1989 when he was a student at the then North Staffordshire Polytechnic. Although he didn’t win, he achieved a respectable share of the vote.
Being a Green councilor, he admitted, could sometimes be ‘really difficult’, and getting things done can be a challenge when faced with entrenched hostility from other parties.
However, it was, he said, possible to challenge the perception that Greens can’ win and if they do, they can’t make a difference. A point proved by the achievements of Andrew and the other two Greens holding the ward.
These include protecting land from development that did not serve the needs of the local community, in one instance by organizing a commando style operation to plant fruit trees. They have also backed projects to upgrade play areas and support vulnerable people.
Andrew credits Target to Win for helping him and his colleagues gain and hold the ward, but cites the secret of their effectiveness in office as ‘doing the basics’ and doing them well. That means working practically locally to fix problems like litter or potholes, then working on larger and more ‘interesting’ projects.
This, he said, creates a political climate where local people feel empowered as partners in bringing about positive changes in their community. It also, he added, shows town hall officials that they are dealing with councilors who are willing to roll their sleeves up and get stuck in, which often encourages them to be more cooperative.
Among the more interesting projects Andrew and his colleagues have taken on are working with the police to stop the sale of counterfeit cigarettes and speaking to the European Parliament about what local government needs to do to address climate change. Andrew also attended the COP2018 climate talks at the United Nations as a Green delegate.
This was a positive and encouraging talk setting out how Green councilors can win and use office to empower communities to bring about positive change. A timely message given the challenges of these unprecedented times.
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