A Cold Christmas for Fuel Poor Britons

 

This has been a Christmas season like no other, one where most of us have been obliged to spend much of our time at home. A not altogether cheerless prospect if your home is warm and well lit.

 

Unfortunately for many people living in the UK that is a long way from being the case. Based on 2018 figures 10.3% of UK households are fuel poor, paying for light and heating is something they must balance off against eating or paying the rent.

 

My hometown of Stoke-on-Trent is one of the cities where this problem is most prevalent, according to figures published in the Sentinel in 2017 the city has the ninth highest rate of fuel poverty in the country.

 

The same figures showed that 15.4% of households were paying above average for their gas and electric, leaving them below the poverty line.

 

The pandemic, as in so many other cases, has changed things dramatically; and not for the better. Fuel poverty charity National Energy Action estimate that 12,000 people die every year from health conditions made worse by living in cold homes.

 

Chief executive Adam Scorer told The Big Issue this November that this has, thanks to COVID-19, been a 'far from normal winter ' when things are quite bad enough.

 

The pandemic has, he said, 'hit household incomes and confined people in cold, unhealthy homes, people are spending more time in homes they cannot afford to heat, using more energy and paying more for it while earning less'.

 

A perfect storm of health and social problems brewing up and waiting to burst with all the awful consequences that are sure to follow.

 

What is to be done about such a serious problem? There is a question that brings the politician and policy maker in their long costs running over the frosty fields.

 

The solution, or part of it anyway, is already there in the legislative programme for the new parliamentary year in the shape of The Local Electricity Bill, which is due to have its second reading on 5th February.

 

Introduced as a Private Members Bill by Conservative MP for Waveney Peter Aldous the proposed legislation would, among other things, establish a right to local supply. This would make it easier and, more importantly, cheaper for small community run electricity companies to generate and sell electricity in their local area.

 

This would break the stranglehold on the market exerted by the big four energy companies, in the process using a little of the competition capitalists preach about endlessly to lever some fairness back into the system.   It would also help to kick start the generation of renewable energy, ensuring as it did so that through community ownership customers are also partners in the business.

 

Private Members Bills have made history in the past, although the process is more often even when successful tends to be a sort of parliamentary parlour game. This one matters more than most, even if on the face of it how we generate and buy our energy is neither a sexy nor emotive subject.

 

Poverty is not dissimilar to the virus that has haunted us for the past year, it kills with quiet efficiency and can, if their personal planets align in the wrong way, strike down pretty much anyone. Just as it will take more than one vaccine to beat coronavirus, putting poverty back in its box will also require a range of actions.

 

One that needs to be taken early this year is for parliamentarians from all sides to ensure this unglamorous, but vital, bill gets passed.

 

More information about the Local Electricity Bill can be found at: Local-Electricity-Bill-Briefing.pdf (powerforpeople.org.uk)

Green Party Activist Refutes Claim Plan to Rescue Cannock Chase Will Have a Negative Impact on Disabled Visitors.

 

Steve Jones, a member of the Green Party Disability Group, has today refuted claims made on social media that a plan to protect Cannock Chase Special Area of Conservation (SAC) from further damage will impact on disabled users.

 

Mr Jones said: ‘I have yet to read or hear from a disabled person giving their opinion. In fact, I see lie after lie and disabled people are being used to propagate these falsehoods; be it path closures, carpark losses and restricted access for the disabled’

 

The comments made on Facebook relate to proposals by the SAC to remove 51 out of 123 parking locations at various points around the Chase, 33 of which are pull-in bays for 4 cars or less and so unsuitable for disabled parking.

 

Speaking about the comments Mr. Jones said: ‘Disabled people have a voice and an opinion, and we do not need social media hooligans speaking for us! he added, the SAC is improving access for disabled people as well as making the Chase disabled friendly’.

 

 

The SAC also plans to create 100 parking spaces at the Marquis Drive visitor centre, these will operate under the council’s blue badge scheme. The visitor centre is a focal point for disabled visitors to the Chase and off-road electric scooters are available for hire, making most trails starting from that point accessible.

 

At 26 square miles Cannock Chase if the smallest Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in England, it attracts 2.5million visitors a year, this is expected to rise to 3million by 2026.

 

The £7.5 million SAC plan to improve paths, parking and signage on the Chase will be paid for through a levy on local housing developments.

 

In 2019 the a spokesperson for the SAC said in reference to the impact of rising visitor numbers ‘let it be under no doubt that Cannock Chase is dying’, the aim of the plan is to safeguard the long-term future of the site.

 

Jade Taylor, Coordinator of North Staffs Green Party who are supporting the SAC and local campaign group For the Love of Cannock Chase said, ‘it is so sad that people who are campaigning to protect a vital natural habitat are facing insults on social media’

 

She added that although local Greens would like to see the SAC plans go further ‘we recognize the efforts they are making to protect Cannock Chase for future generations and fully support them’.

 

A council vote due to be held on the SAC plan this week has been postponed until the new year.

 

Nature is Key to Our Physical and Mental Health - That's Why We Need to Fight to Protect Our Green Spaces.

 

Earlier this month analysis carried out by the Met Office about the consequences global warming was reported by the BBC's Panorama programme. The way they explained this unsettling conclusion caught the national imagination.

 

If climate change continues at the current rate white Christmases will only be found on greeting cards. By the 2040's most of Southern England will no longer see the thermometer fall below zero in the Winter; by the 2060's snow will only be found on then most remote parts of Scotland.

 

Dr Lizzie Kendon, a senior scientist at the Met Office told the BBC 'We're saying by the end of the century much of the lying snow will have disappeared entirely except over the highest ground'.

 

The news coverage focussed on the idea of a Christmas without snowmen, sleigh rides or snowball fights, or as Dr Kendon warned striking a more serious note, a ' shift towards more extreme ' weather events.

 

The Met office based its unsettling predictions on the world warming up by just 4 degrees. This was only the latest warning about the poor health of the Natural world.

 

In 2018 the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England warned that the amount of green space lost to development has risen by 58%. That includes the paving over of farmland, forests, and other green spaces.

 

The Green Space Index produced by Fields in Trust in 2019, 2.5million Britons live more than ten minutes-walk away from a park or other green space.

 

The link between having access to green spaces and better mental and physical wellbeing is well known. Fields in Trust estimate this to be worth £3.2billion every hear, as Alison McCann, policy and insight manager for the charity told the BBC people with access to green spaces nearby are 'reaping some huge rewards'.

 

The State of Nature report (2019) based on the details of scientific monitoring conducted from the seventies onwards shows a fall of 41% in the UK's animal population. Worryingly 15% of wildlife species found in the UK are threatened with extinction.

 

There have been some hopeful signs in recent years including the reintroduction of red kites, bitterns, and other species however the losses outweigh the gains.

 

Leading figures in the conservation world expressed their concerns at the launch of the report to the Ecologist magazine.

 

Tony Juniper chair of Natural England said, 'more needs to be so e to reverse nature's decline, so that our children can benefit from a richer natural environment '.

 

Rosie Halls of the National Trust said the report showed that the natural world was 'at a crossroads ' and that we all need to 'pull together with actions not words to stop the decline'.

 

Daniel Hayhow, the lead author of the report said that its findings should make people 'sit up and listen', he added the  an urgent and determined response is needed if 'we are to put nature back where it belongs'.

 

The crisis affecting the future of the natural world can be seen in a hand sized version by anyone who visits Cannock Chase in Staffordshire where fears for the future of one of the county's iconic landscapes.

 

The plan put forward to protect and revive the Chase by campaign group For The Love of Cannock Chase is a determined response to environmental crisis of the sort recommended by Daniel Hayhow and others. It is sad that it has met with a negative response from some members of the local community.

 

As Sophie Pavelle, a young conservationist who helped to launch the State of Nature report told The Ecologist, 'people protect what they love', sometimes that means doing what is right for the long term; not trying to please a few people right now.

 

Cannock Chase is a unique and valuable green space loved by the people of Staffordshire for centuries. As MS Pavelle might have put it, now is the time for everyone who truly cares about its future to  come together, work together; to 'dig deep and find real hope for a better and sustained future' for the natural world.

Eat Like There Is A Tomorrow.

 

'We all need to look at ourselves and what we are eating and doing and ask am I doing the right thing for the planet?'

 

These words were spoken by Vicky, an activist for Stoke-on-Trent Animal Rights (STAR) when she gave an online talk to members of North Staffs Green Party recently.

 

She made a powerful point, there are few subjects more controversial than what we eat and how it should be produced.

 

The figures are stark something close.to 70 billion animals are killed for human consumption worldwide every year, the majority of these raised in the bleak conditions of the factory farming system.

 

For members of STAR, most of whom have chosen to adopt a vegan lifestyle this is both morally wrong and environmentally unsustainable.

 

They also resonate powerfully with a wider green movement that recognises climate change as the greatest threat to human survival decades ago. Industrial agriculture, particularly in relation to meat production, plays a major part in this.

 

We have all, Vicky went on to say, benefited this year from clearer skies and a more visible presence of nature in our lives this year during the two lockdowns.

 

Most people have also seen the important and previously ignored role compassion and empathy between humans during 'this awful year '.

 

The time has come she said, for the same compassion and empathy to be extended to animals and the environment. Not least because many pandemics are caused to a greater or lesser extent by our lack of care for nature.

 

The facts are her colleague Emily said, 'shocking and depressing' but, she added, we can ' all change things round and make a difference '

 

This, STAR advocate can be done by moving away from the current unsustainable system of food production towards a plant-based diet. Those who do so, she said, are choosing 'compassion and not to be part of a way of living that harms the planet'.

 

Taking part in the annual post-Christmas Veganuary campaign is Emily said, a good way for someone to start their 'vegan journey'.

 

STAR actively support local people embarking on this journey and both Vicky and Emily advised that is one people should take at their own pace without feeling they have to do too much too soon.

 

Ultimately it is for most people, as Vicky said, ' a big change; but a worthwhile one'.

 

The talk certainly exploded many of the inaccurate representations of vegans portrayed in the mass media. Far from being an austere and judgemental position, it is one rooted in compassion and positivity.

 

Veganism may not be for everyone, but its core message of thinking harder about what we consume and making more ethical choices will certainly ring true for anyone who is concerned about the future of our planet.

Cannock Chase is Too Valuable to be Allowed to Die.

 

'Let it be under no doubt Cannock Chase is dying, the biodiversity is decreasing, habitat is fragmenting, vegetation is in a poor state. The Chase is in a downward spiral and the habitat and wildlife you see today will not be here in thirty or forty years-time'.

 

This is the bleak assessment of the current state of the iconic Staffordshire beauty spot given by team managing the site as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) in 2019.

 

North Staffs Green Party have given their support to For the Love of Cannock Chase, a campaign group working to protect the Chase.

 

The Chase was designated as a SAC in 2005, the highest possible designation for a wildlife habitat in England. This brings together the local authority, landowners, wildlife conservation groups and other organisations to develop the infrastructure of the site and provide free environmental education.

 

Housing development in the Cannock area, predicted to increase by 15% to 20% by 2026 is putting increasing pressure on infrastructure such as footpaths and the wildlife to which the Chase is home.

 

A spokesperson for North Staffs Green Party said 'The Chase is a unique and valuable landscape and one we must do all we can to protect. That is why we are giving our full support to this campaign '.

 

In an article published earlier this year For the Love of Cannock Chase set out some of the problems faced by the site. These include erosion of footpaths by increasing numbers of visitors, along with littering and damage caused by illegal BBQs.

 

The Chase has, they write, been 'undervalued and underfunded for years', although it has had some grants in the past, including to reinstate heavy footed grazers, 'it is still not enough ' to meet the challenges of the years to come.

 

Among the changes the group are calling for are the introduction of a paid parking g scheme they say is 'absolutely necessary ' to manage visitor numbers, along with the closure of part of Chase Road.

 

The article concludes with the authors saying there is ' a long road ahead' to protect the Chase and ' all the small pockets of wild space we have left in the UK, but with public support and understanding we can make thing better '.

 

The Green Party spokesperson said 'we will be working with For The Love of Cannock Chase in the new year to  protect the site as valuable wildlife corridor, whilst allowing the public to enjoy it responsibly as they have for decades'.