Camden's Director for Environment & Culture visits Belsize

Yesterday afternoon my fellow Belsize Councillors and I took Camden Council’s Director of Environment and Culture, Peter Bishop, on a tour of the ward. He wanted to get to know us and we wanted to show him some of the issues that came up on the doorstep in Belsize during the election. So we showed him the Belsize Avenue-Haverstock Hill junction (see photo below of my fiancé Laura at the junction) and the England’s Lane-Primrose Hill Road-Belsize Park Gardens junction, both of which we and a lot of residents think are dangerous. He’s promised to look into possible changes for both. We also talked about ways we could get Belsize Library open more often. And about how we might reinvigorate the “farmers market” outside Hampstead Theatre. So hopefully we’ll have some news on all of those issues in the not too distant future.

Are "Green Roofs" the answer to everything?

This morning I attended the launch of a series of “green roofs” on a council estate in Kilburn. What’s a green roof? Well, basically it’s soil and plants instead of tiles or concrete. Now this is great news for a number of reasons. First green roofs provide fantastic natural insulation – warm in winter, cool in summer. Second they slow down rainwater run-off during storms, which helps prevent flash floods. Third they become a haven for birds and other wildlife. Fourth they increase the lifetime of the roof itself because it’s protected from damage by the earth. Fifth the plants and grasses soak up carbon emissions. But best of all, when you look at the entire lifecycle of a green roof it can actually be cheaper than traditional roofs. All those benefits and it’s financially beneficial. Green roofs are a fantastic example of how to rethink our urban landscape using sustainable methods and they’re quite simply delightful to look at. I wonder if I can persuade Budgens, the Holiday Inn and the PFI contractors that are refurbishing the Chalcots council estate to put in green roofs!

Win-win for Sir Richard Steele and local residents

It was my distinct pleasure on Wednesday to chair the first liaison meeting between the owner of the Sir Richard Steele pub, Paul Davies, and Belsize residents that live around the pub. It was an extremely constructive meeting which allowed both sides to understand each other far better. Mr Davies has agreed to put in air conditioning and curtains to stop the noise from the upstairs bar disturbing neighbours. He is also hiring an acoustic expert to look at ways noise from the garden could be minimised. The residents now have a phone number they can ring if there's a particular problem and the liaison group will meet again in six weeks time. All in all a great result for community relations.

Nappy Happy - with photos!

I spent a very happy hour today with a room full of underwear models. One of the perks of the job, I suppose. Lucky old me eh? Seventh heaven and all that. Did I say they were all under three years old and wearing the latest environmentally friendly nappies? Amazing. It was a joint Camden-Islington Fashion Show for babies and their re-useable or “real” nappies. And it was a real eye-opener.

Did you know that by the time their baby is potty trained most parents will have used between 4,000 and 6,000 disposable nappies? That’s got to be because they don’t know that modern eco-friendly nappies are not the terry towelling of yesteryear. Modern reuseables are made of layers of muslin that are as absorbent as a disposable nappie. What’s more they don’t leak, they don’t cause nappy rash (or at least no more than disposables), they’re good for the environment and they’re a lot cheaper. If you home wash them costs can be as low as £1 a week. Or, for the price of disposable nappies, you can use a laundry service like “Nappy Ever After” or “Number 1 for Nappies” which offer weekly services that collect used nappies and provide a fresh supply. And Camden Council even gives you money towards real nappies. (Email: nappies@camden.gov.uk). All I need now is a baby!

Trying to reduce my carbon footprint. And Camden's!

When I read last year that the North Pole was going to melt whatever we did, I decided I had to take action. My partner, Laura, and I have spent the last year trying to reduce our carbon footprint significantly. We now recycle about 80% of our household waste. That equates to a bag of general rubbish about once every two weeks. The compost bin was the biggest contributor to this. It’s quite amazing how much waste from the kitchen can be recycled in the garden or on a roof terrace.

We’ve virtually stopped using our car in favour of travelling by bicycle and train. We’re now thinking of getting rid of it altogether and joining one of Camden’s excellent car clubs (Google: Camden car club).

We’ve changed our electricity supplier to the renewable energy provider Good Energy (www.good-energy.co.uk). Our organic fruit and veg come once a week in a box from Abel & Cole (www.abel-cole.co.uk). We’ve cut down on meat consumption because the livestock industry uses so much energy. We’ve bought a water butt to collect rainwater from the down pipe on the outside of the house which we use to water the garden. We grow our herbs on the balcony and we refuse plastic bags in shops.

None of these things were too hard to do – although Laura found the composting a little disgusting! The really hard thing for us, as two professionals working in global industries, was cutting down on travelling by plane. We now pay a voluntary tax for all the carbon created when we fly using a charity called Climate Care which spends the money on environmental projects (www.climatecare.org), but we haven't yet persuaded our companies and clients to do the same. As Area Sales Manager for Northern Europe I can just about take trains and ferries to go about my daily business. Laura is putting her faith in greater use of video conferencing.

I firmly believe that people want to do more for the environment and would do more if they knew what to do. One of our manifesto commitments was to make the Council’s Energy Efficiency Dept much more proactive. We want to train advisors to go out to peoples’ homes and provide hard advice on what can be done, what grants are available and what the payback period would be for any significant investment. That’s the only way we’ll get a step change in energy efficiency – by actively helping people to understand what’s possible.

It’s not just that we have a moral and political imperative to act now for the benefit of future generations, we also have huge economic interest in pursuing the sustainability agenda. Using less energy or less packaging, recycling more, buying more renewable energy – all these things will reduce business and household costs over time.

The Camden Council Climate Change Action Plan (Google: Camden, climate plan) of January 2006 is a good starting point, but it’s only a starting point. I would like to see Camden generating or buying 100% of its electricity from renewable sources (as Woking does). Car parking permits could be priced according to the emission of a car. I would like to see more local, seasonal, organic food on sale in Camden at reasonable prices. Supermarkets need to be encouraged, cajoled or forced to change their energy wasting ways. I would like to see Camden introduce a Zero Waste strategy (as many UK councils have already done). Re-use of rainwater should be mandatory in all new planning applications – whether for a new building or a refurbished restaurant.

So much to do and so little time to do it in! With your support Camden’s new Sustainability Taskforce can make a difference. Our remit is to put life in Camden on a more sustainable footing. In the fight against global warming we will operate cross-department, cross-party and across Camden. We have to change as individuals and as a community. We need action from the top down and from the bottom up. We need to change our mindset, our behaviour, our systems and our values.

I’m looking forward to the challenge. If you have any suggestions, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Is there a God? Of bicycles?

I suppose it serves me right for writing to the Ham&High and the CNJ about the need for more cycling paths. I got my first bad press - a letter from an ex-Tory councillor complaining about overpampered and dangerous cyclists. Does he really not know that riding a bike is de rigeur in Cameron's Conservatives? But whilst a stinky letter is to be expected now and again what happened this weekend was not.

My fiancé Laura and I bought new bikes on Friday. We're taking part in a charity ride from London to Paris in August on behalf of Children with Leukaemia so we thought we'd better get some new bikes and some practice. So off we set, at 7am on Saturday morning, heading for Paddington to catch the train to Worcester, and from there a 100km bike ride across Herefordshire to a delightful looking organic hotel-cum-farm. The perfect weekend off.

Sadly however the god of bicycles had other ideas. I got my first puncture in St John's Wood which meant we missed the train because the last time I changed a tyre was about 20 years ago! So we decided to cut our losses and take the train to Hereford thereby reducing the ride to 30km. Eight punctures in my back wheel later I gave up and called the hotel who picked me up in a car.

EIGHT punctures? Surely that's something of a world record. Does Norris McWhirter actually need to be on the bike in order to register me in the Guinness Book of Records? The one upside was that on the way we met a delightful couple who served us tea and cakes, as well us donating us a bicycle repair kit. Because you know what - the repair kit we'd brought was about 20 years old. Well, I did say the last time I fixed a puncture was 20 years ago!

Four inner tubes, eight punctures, all in different places. Is that unlucky or what? It wasn't a protruding spoke head and there was no sign of glass or nails or anything sticking through the tyre. It was a complete mystery. But we're tough. The next morning we patched up all four inner tubes and prepared to leave for Hereford station. Oh no you don't - the ninth puncture struck before we'd even left! So much for our cycling weekend - it was more of a puncture repair workshop. The hotel came to our rescue again and shipped us to Hereford.

Enough already. But no there's more. The front tyre burst in sympathy on the train back to London. That's ten punctures in about two hours of cycling. I can only assume that the ex-Tory councillor who complained about me supporting cyclists is into voodoo magic.