The Guardian: "The winner of a new generation of electricity pylons is announced"

Plug into Chris Huhne

"With more than 88,000 pylons in the UK, and a need for new transmission infrastructure, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and National Grid called on architects, designers, engineers and students to come up with designs that balanced energy needs and visual impact.

"The winner is T-Pylon, by Danish company Bystrup Architecture, Design & Engineering, made from hot-dip galvanized steel with a paint finish, and as alternatives, Cor-Ten steel, stainless steel, and hot-dip galvanized without paint.

"It has a classic appearance and elegance, yet its starting point is a pure engineering response."

NLWA clarifies incineration

“Please be kind enough to clarify if the SRF contract statement, made as a press release, is the limit of the information being released, or otherwise.

"(For instance, will details of the possible rail arrangements and routes be made public? Does the NLWA have any sort of confidentiality agreement with Network Rail, or rail-freight operators?)”

"In response to your questions, this is the limit of the information that will be released about the proposed sites put forward by bidders in the Authority's procurement for the fuel use contract. Release of any further information would be in the hands of the bidders, and could arise in connection with public consultation ahead of a planning application.

"Similarly, details of the possible rail arrangements and routes will not be made public by the Authority.

Under the Authority's procurement, transport requirements are contained within the scope of the Waste Services Contract. There is therefore no negotiation relating to these services with Network Rail, and no Confidentiality Agreement."

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Link to HOME (see all posts).

Evening Standard: "Resident's 'BinCam' catches flytippers"

Link to Evening Standard

"A city worker frustrated with his local council for failing to clean up rubbish outside his house has set up a 'BinCam web site' to shame flytippers.

"The action centres on a green council bin in West Hampstead, alongside which the flytippers dump rubbish. The bin is seen overflowing because the rubbish is only collected once a week. A still image is taken every minute and uploaded to the website. Mr Robertson, 33, said:

"There were two weeks just over a month ago where there was rubbish everywhere. People were dumping it all the time and that was really the crunch point. I didn't want to hang around all day taking pictures of rubbish so BinCam was born to do the work for me."

Amongst highlights:

"Return of the Night Plonker"

Evening Standard: "Campaigners win incinerator battle"

Link to Evening Standard

"Campaigners have won a High Court battle and thrown plans for a £117 million waste incinerator project in the West Country into disarray.

"In a judgment with important implications for new waste management schemes nationwide, a judge quashed Communities Secretary Eric Pickles's decision to grant planning permission for the incinerator project at St Dennis in Cornwall.

"Mr Justice Collins, sitting at the High Court in London, ruled there had been a failure to properly consider whether the EU Habitats Directive required special assessment to be carried out before permission was granted."

Pinkham Way Alliance: "Application is not withdrawn", but also: "Concert by Dame Emma Kirkby"

HARINGEY CONTINUE TO VALIDATE PLANNING APPLICATION, DESPITE THEIR PROMISE TO PUT IT 'ON HOLD'

"Given the promise to Haringey council tax payers in the statement of 19 July, the continuation of the validation process demonstrates bad faith on the council’s part – the council elected by us."

On 19 July, Haringey Council proclaimed on its website: “Pinkham Way application on hold”. Despite this, it transpires that Haringey’s planning department has been in contact with the applicants (Barnet Council and the North London Waste Authority) over the summer months about ongoing, major changes to this supposedly “on hold” application.

Haringey planners are insisting that they have to continue with this evolving planning application until they can ‘validate’ it (that is, confirm that it is legally complete). We have made clear our serious concerns about this attempt to validate the planning application in a recent letter to the Haringey Cabinet. There are legal questions that need clearing up; we’ll keep you posted.

Read more information on this worrying situation, and why it only benefits the applicants.

Please help us pressurise the politicians of Haringey right away to get them to do what they said they would do and not take this planning application forward until after the planning inspector has scrutinised the over-arching North London Waste Plan next spring.

Information for contacting Haringey Councillors.

HARINGEY FAIL TO NOTIFY ALL RESIDENTS OF KEY CONSULTATION

　

Thank you to all of you who have contacted Haringey about the ongoing ‘reconsultation’ through which they are seeking to redesignate the Pinkham Wood site for industrial use and, it appears to us, diminish its conservation status.

If you've received an email invitation to take part from Haringey Council, please hold your fire. We are seeking expert opinion, and will circulate what we’ve learned in the week of  Monday 24 October - the reconsultation closes on 3 November. If you've already replied, there's nothing to stop you adding to your submission later.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Haringey Council have taken little notice of our requests to ensure as many people as possible are included in the reconsultation. They appear to have made little effort to contact more people than the first time around. We also know of people who responded to Haringey's first, flawed consultation who have been told late about the reconsultation, or, in some cases not at all. This is not good enough, and we're making sure that the council and the inspector who instructed them to ‘reconsult’ know it.

You can help by printing out copies of a single A4 page (also available on our website) and delivering it to as many houses in your road as you can. It has a tear-off strip so people can send it to Haringey asking to be consulted. It would be great if we could all do this as soon as possible. We must let people who don't get this newsletter, and especially those who do not have access to email, know what is going on.

CONCERT BY DAME EMMA KIRKBY

To end on a high note… we are delighted that internationally acclaimed soprano (and Muswell Hill resident) Dame Emma Kirkby will be performing locally in aid of the PWA.

Her concert will be at 4pm on Sunday 20 November, in St Andrew’s Church, Alexandra Park Road.

More information can be found on our events website. Please keep the date free - it'll be a fantastic afternoon.

Once again, thanks for your help. I should stress that the next few weeks and months are crucial in this struggle. Please don't think that the best chances to stop these plans are all in the future; they're already happening.

---

Don't forget you can also follow us on Twitter, join the Facebook Group and visit our partner website the Pinkham Panthers. You can donate here.

Kind regards,

Bidesh Sarkar

Chair

Pinkham Way Alliance

Pile of Rubbish Crisis: NLWA's Chair Clyde Loakes steps in

Naughty, naughty: Binmen appearing to put rubbish
and recycling into the same section of a refuse truck. 
Link to 'Waltham Forest Guardian'

"AN investigation is to be launched into claims that the council's new rubbish contractors have been failing to recycle waste.

"Cabinet member for the environment, Cllr Clyde Loakes, today announced that the team photographed by the Guardian is to be investigated. He said:

"The council...will expect our contractor to take the tough disciplinary action required, should it be found that staff failed to collect recycling correctly. We take a zero-tolerance approach to recyclable materials that are either contaminated or collected incorrectly.

The recent change of contract, the new single collection day for both bins, and the introduction of split-body vehicles are all designed to make sure we drive up our recycling rates."

Saturday 15 October: Friern Barnet Loved-by-Locals-but-not-by-Council Library

(Click to enlarge)

More Q&A from the NLWA (no point asking Barnet anything)

Question 1:
Clarification of the status of the 'North London Joint Waste Strategy' (the what?)

Question: The NLWA web site says the following:

Q: How does the 'North London Joint Waste Strategy' fit in with the procurement and the 'North London Waste Plan'?

A: The North London Waste Plan identifies where in north London sites to deal with all waste could be situated.

The North London Joint Waste Strategy sets out how municipal waste is going to be dealt with in north London through to 2020.

The procurement process is the identification of what facilities are needed to manage the municipal waste. Each of these processes contribute to a new environmentally sustainable approach for managing waste in north London into the future."

Does that mean that the NLWP is only about "Sites", and not about "Issues"?

Or how do the NLWP (intended to be 2012) and the NLJWS (of 2008) interrelate, and have preference?

The Independent: "Global warning: climate sceptics are winning the battle"

Link to The Independent

"Climate sceptics are winning the argument with the public over global warming, the world's most celebrated climate scientist, James Hansen of NASA, said in London yesterday.

"[Yet] significant climatic 'extreme events' were now occurring over 10 to 15 per cent of the planet annually, whereas between 1950 to 1980 they occurred over less than 1 per cent. He added:  

"So in places like Texas this year, Moscow last year, and Europe in 2003, the climate change is so big that they are undeniable. Within 10 to 15 years they're going to occur over 15 to 20 per cent of the planet, so people have to notice that the climate is changing."

BBC: "Tax havens: Is the tide turning?"

Link to BBC web site

"Protesters stage sit-ins in shops and banks around the UK, in the hope of getting tax avoidance by massive corporations on to the political agenda."

"In recent months, a loose coalition on 'tax fairness' has emerged, uniting angry taxpayers, business ethics pressure groups and development NGOs. The focus is now on tax avoidance - legal arrangements to pay less tax, sometimes using complicated financial structures - rather than just illegal tax evasion."

Saturday 15 October: Bowes Park Environment Fair

[Updated] London Borough of Barnet: Moving the Waste Incinerator out of the Borough

The 'Pinkham Way' plant seems identical to the 'Mechanical and Biological Treatment' plant (MBT) that was intended for the A5 Edgware Road, London Borough of Barnet, by Brent Cross shopping centre developer Hammerson. [Link to Opposition report.]

This would have been across the road from housing and a school in the neighbouring borough of Brent. Outline planning permission for this plant has already been granted - by the London Borough of Barnet.

MBT plant on A5 Edgware Road, Cricklewood (looking north
towards Staples Corner/North Circular Road).
[Click to enlarge.]

The MBT plant would create 'incinerator-fuel' [which Pinkham Way would also produce].
This would be sent, via conveyor belt, under the Thameslink railway line behind the plant, to the 'Combined Heat and Power Plant' (CHP), where it would be incinerated (releasing gas, to be burned separately in the same building).

'Illustrative picture' of the incinerator/CHP plant
(strangely lacking the 140-metre approved chimney!)

This plan now seems abandoned. [Because of campaigning?]

An attempt is now being made, under compulsory purchase, for a 'Materials Recycling Facility' (MRF - pronounced "murf") on the Edgware Road site instead. This would be supplied by the boroughs' kerbside recycling lorries, instead of by their dustcarts.

---

Part of the successful planning application from the Brent Cross developers (mainly Hammerson) on 12 November 2008:

WASTE HANDLING

"The application proposals involve the creation of a new rail-linked Waste Handling Facility [essentially the proposed Pinkham Way building, with railway sidings] on a site adjacent to the A5 [Geron Way, off Edgware Road; originally the Roman Road, Watling Street]. The existing facility will not be closed, until a new facility has been constructed. [The current plant just loads domestic rubbish on to trains, which then travel to Calvert in Buckinghamshire.]

Evening Standard image
(the incinerator is south-west of the shopping centre)

"The waste facility is likely to be operated through a new contract, yet to be awarded by the North London Waste Authority (NLWA). The 'Development Partners' [in 2010, Multiplex gave up, just leaving Hammerson south of the North Circular Road; typical for the shambles that is Brent Cross, their web site still said 'Multiplex' for another year] are in advanced discussions with the Authority, regarding the design, specification and programme of this facility. [It's moved to Pinkham Way. Ask the NLWA to explain.]

"Key elements of the specification proposed by the Development Partners are that the Waste Handling Facility:

• will be connected directly to the Combined Heat and Power plant [incinerator]
• should be designed to manufacture a 'Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF)' [no known difference from Pinkham Way's 'Solid Recovered Fuel' - you can call it what you like! There is more here.] from residual municipal waste, suitable for use in the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant [incinerator], to be constructed as part of the development [further east, near Brent Cross shopping centre];
• will produce sufficient fuel to meet the requirements of the CHP, when it is fully operational [serving the 150 hectares, made up of 14-million-square-feet of development over 20 years].

Click above to enlarge
(the 'Pinkham Way MBT waste plant' at Brent Cross - 
Hammerson, the site developer, described initial heat treatment of 
residual waste "at up to 700 degC.", and "there could be a stack".)

 "Negotiations are continuing with the NLWA, concerning these and other aspects of an agreed specification and programme for developing the Waste Handling Facility (WHF).

"... The [incinerator] stack will be a maximum height of 140-metres above finished ground level, ... with a [CHP] building size of 65 by 45 metres, and 45 metres high.

"... If RDF from the WHF [for the CHP!] is not available, an alternative fuel source would be used, which is likely to be natural gas. ... The development partners [would then] consider the use of free-standing wind turbines."

All this got approval from Richard Cornelius, the current Barnet Council Leader.

Link to pre-approval 'Estates Gazette'
video at Hendon Town Hall

Unilever: Claims about packaging

Pinkham Way Alliance: 'The letter's in the post'

PINKHAM WAY ALLIANCE

c/o Hollickwood School

Sydney Road, Muswell Hill, N10 2NL

7 October 2011

To: Haringey Cabinet Members, River House, 225 High Road, N22 8HQ

“Pinkham Way application on hold”

You may recognise the above quote as the headline for the Council’s statement of 19 July last, which stated:

“The submission of a plan to put a waste processing plant in Pinkham Way has been put on hold following intervention by Haringey Council…..the NLWA has agreed to the Council’s demands, which will see them submit a detailed plan for consultation with residents and consideration by the council’s planning committee after the Inspector reports (on the NLWP) in April 2012.”

This statement was clearly designed to be taken at face value. Indeed the Bounds Green councillors, who had faced unprecedented pressure from concerned residents, took the chance to publish a newsletter that interpreted it in such a way.

Simultaneously however, a private response from an official in the planning department, answering a resident’s query, indicated that the attempts to validate the application would continue. On 21 July our legal advisors wrote to Mr Crompton, asking for clarification of this discrepancy.

At the date of writing – 11 weeks later – they have received no response, save a holding letter mentioning the difficulties about premises. This silence gives us the clearest indication of the attitude within some circles in Haringey, much clearer, in fact, than a written response ever could.

We would like to make the following points.

By allowing its officers to continue, or being unable to prevent them continuing the process of validation, the council has failed in its promise to put the application “on hold”. Were validation to happen now, the applicants would have the right to demand that Haringey proceed to determination. The council would have no option, otherwise the applicants would have the right to appeal to the Secretary of State on grounds of non-determination during the statutory period.

In that case, the ‘agreement’ made by the NLWA and Barnet would have been cast aside, and your 19 July announcement would have been, in effect, shown to be untrue.

Should the council permit its credibility to be put at risk in this way by the applicants and its own officials?

If the application is not validated, however, the question of determination would evidently not arise, and the council could fulfill its publicly stated promise to put the application properly on hold - a promise that ratepayers have the legitimate right to take at face value, as, plainly, did your colleagues in Bounds Green, who as you know include Ali Demirci, the present Chair of Haringey Planning Committee.

Furthermore – and very importantly – what was always indicated to be, and was when submitted, an outline application, is now suddenly being treated as hybrid, which, your officials claim, is one part detailed (for change of use) and one part outline (for buildings etc).

While there is no statutory definition of a hybrid application, a crystal clear illustration can be found in Section 24 of the DCLG document dealing with planning application fees:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/10.pdf

Section 24, however states that a hybrid application is ‘one that seeks outline planning permission for one part, and full planning permission for another part, of the same site’.

The illustration states that such applications deal with different parts of the same site, not different parts of the same application. There are no qualifying phrases, such as ‘in the majority of cases’, simply an unequivocal statement.

Thus, in our opinion, there is no evidence to show that this is in any way a well-founded route to validate these applications, which were plainly flawed from the outset. We have corresponded with officials about this, but remain unconvinced by the legal basis for the council’s actions.

Should validation go ahead and our above concerns become confirmed, the council, for the price of a few months delay for the applicants, would have needlessly laid itself open to a legal challenge and the loss of its own credibility.

The conduct of the previous (November 2010) Regulation 27 consultation, which, as you know, dealt with the redesignation of the Pinkham Way site, shows that our concern about procedures and motives is well justified. Entirely because of the points raised in the PWA’s submission to the Core Strategy examination, subsequent correspondence, and in our appearances at the public hearings, the Inspector found that consultation to be so flawed that a re-consultation was required. This is in progress at present; please be assured that its conduct is under minute scrutiny.

Whether the previous consultation’s flaws arose through human error, incompetence or willful disregard does not concern us. What it has led us to do, as you will appreciate, is to question ever more closely the council’s actions in this whole matter. We feel sure that in our position you would have the same concerns.

Given the promise to Haringey council tax payers in the statement of 19 July, the continuation of the validation process demonstrates bad faith on the council’s part – the council elected by us.

We ask you to instruct the planning department:

1. to cease their attempts to validate, and 
2. to return the applications relating to the former Friern Barnet Sewage Works at Pinkham Way to the respective applicants, the NLWA and Barnet council, as being inadequate and unacceptable as valid applications at this time.

Yours sincerely,

Bidesh Sarkar

Chair – Pinkham Way Alliance

---

Link to HOME (see all posts).

[Updated] Haringey Journal: "Consultation blunder in Muswell Hill waste plant saga"

7 Oct: Statement from the Pinkham Way Alliance:

"The consultation by Haringey Council is running until 3rd November. We are working on a response to the consultation, and aiming to publish this by 24 October if possible, and by the end of that week at the latest."

Link to Haringey Journal, 19 September

"Legal concerns have forced Haringey Council to repeat a consultation relating to the proposed waste plant in Muswell Hill.

"Lynne Featherstone, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, said: 

"It’s clear that at every turn local residents have been shut out of a decision on a massive development on their doorstep. Haringey Council has now been told that it cannot continue with its behind-closed-doors approach, and needs to let local people have their say.”

---

Link to Pinkham Way Alliance web site

The 'Pinkham Way Alliance' issued a statement: 

"In June, the government inspector looking at Haringey’s new Core Strategy agreed with the Pinkham Way Alliance and our lawyers – that it may not be sound.

"In the inspector’s view, Haringey’s consultation on certain ‘fundamental changes’ - including a change in designation for the Pinkham Wood site from ‘employment’ to ‘industrial’ usage - was not fit for purpose.

"Haringey has been forced to hold this consultation again, which it is planning to do from Thursday 22 September, for six weeks.

"However - and this is where we need to act immediately - the council is not planning to advertise this consultation widely; instead it says it will only notify people who are already on its records as ‘consultees’ (people it has consulted in the past).

"The change of designation from 'employment' to ‘industrial’ on this site paves the way for the massive industrial waste plant proposed by the North London Waste Authority to be granted planning permission.

"This is clearly an issue that affects the lives of many residents living in proximity to the site – not just in Haringey, but also in Barnet and Enfield.

"Unless you are already on Haringey’s limited ‘consultees database’, or are an avid reader of the Haringey Journal, the council will not be telling you about this re-consultation.

"Please join us right away in contacting Haringey Council to let them know that we are not happy about this. Demand that they invite you - and others whose voices are clearly relevant - to take part in this re-consultation.

"Visit our website now for details of how to demand your right to be consulted.

"For deeper context and explanation on the changes Haringey are trying to make, read more about the PWA and the Haringey Core Strategy.

"Once the consultation is underway, we'll be in touch with our thoughts on how to respond. Please consider that, as ever, to reply to best effect will require us all to pay for professional expertise - if you're able to donate to help with this, please do.

Grrr!

"Don't forget you can also follow us on Twitter, join the Facebook Group and access information from our partner website the Pinkham Panthers.

"Please encourage your friends and neighbours to contact Haringey about this re-consultation. People are much more likely to act when asked by someone they know personally."

---

Link to HOME (see all posts).

See proposed boundary changes, nationwide

Click above for web site
(and on proposed new constituencies for voting predictions)

Frog Island: Information courtesy of Barnet Council, 'Putting the Community First'

There have been previous comparisons made between Pinkham Way and Frog Island in east London (although the latter is not 'fully enclosed, under negative pressure').

Barnet Council has produced some images (from 2009, as part of the Brent Cross Cricklewood development). [Click to enlarge images.]

(The 'Putting the Community First' is thought to be included as irony.)

8-9 October: London Transport Museum: 'Depot Family Open Weekend'

Link to web site

Date: Saturday 8 - Sunday 9 October 2011  

Time: 11.00 - 17.00 (last admission 16.00) 

"Visitors can explore behind the scenes at London Transport Museum Depot, Acton over the weekend. As the custodian of the world’s most comprehensive and important record of urban transport, the Museum stores over 370,000 objects [more than enough] under one roof, and the collection comprises of road and rail vehicles, engineering drawings, signs and ephemera. Highlights of the weekend include guided tours of the small object store, exciting demonstrations by Transport for London’s Emergency Response Unit, and an opportunity to meet the experts of the Museum curators’ Top 10 engineering objects. 

"The Family Open Weekend is dedicated to children and their families, and with that in mind we will run fun make-and-take workshops, 'Tickets please' object handling sessions, and rides on the open-air miniature railway and life-size heritage vehicles."

The Guardian: "Airlines can be charged for carbon pollution, court rules"

Link to The Guardian

"Airlines can be charged for their greenhouse gas emissions on flights to and from Europe, according to a landmark court ruling.

"The indicative ruling, by the advocate general of the European court of justice, is a blow to airlines and non-European governments that had hoped to escape from the extension of the European Union's emissions trading scheme to cover air transport from next year. It was greeted with jubilation by environmental campaigners, who want to ensure that emissions from aviation are subject to the same controls as those of other industries.

"If the ruling is followed, airlines will be forced from next year to pay for their carbon emissions on all flights to and from, as well as within, Europe."

Mrs Angry: "An Alternative Residents Forum in Broken Barnet"

Link to Mrs Angry's 'Broken Barnet' web site

"Last night, Mrs Angry went to a Residents Forum. A real one. ... This was a meeting arranged by residents, for residents, with no rules and no restrictions. Sounds like dangerous anarchy, doesn't it? How on earth could that work? Well, in a very British way, it did: we don't actually need an imposition of dogmatic regulation in a meeting of this sort, do we?

"A resident ... welcomed the idea of the Alternative Forum, and asked how the debate could be extended to those who have been excluded from the process of consultation - people living with disabilities, special needs and impairments, and also elderly residents, a group which is so dominant and yet, in this borough, is increasingly marginalised and without a voice."

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[On a lighter note:] "... Look what another spy at the [Manchester] Conference tweeted on Monday:

"Just walked up to @EricPickles and passed on @BrokenBarnet best wishes. He was very chuffed. Clearly likes Mrs Angry."

"Ahem. What have I told you? Don't mess with Mrs Angry: Eric will be very cross with you."

Enfield Independent: "Pinkham Way plan leaves Muswell Hill family unable to sell house"

Link to web site

"A MUSWELL Hill family has described the 'direct consequences' of a proposed major new waste plant in New Southgate after their house sale fell through.

"Chantal Heneghan and her partner Daniel Bailey decided to move to Berkshire in April, but after agreeing to move on 5 November, the buyer of their Cromwell Road house pulled out yesterday, citing the Pinkham Way development as the reason."

Enfield Independent (2), and Enfield Advertiser

 (Click on the images to enlarge, and usually again to magnify)

See also the EnvironCom web site for contact details.

RSA: "Inequality: the real cause of the crisis?"

Link above to web site

"At the depth of the downturn in October 2009, St Paul’s Cathedral hosted a spirited and timely debate on the subject of the role of the growing divide in market-led economies. Sharing a platform with Nicholas Sagovsky, canon theologian at Westminster Abbey, and Vince Cable, then Lib-Dem deputy leader, Brian Griffiths, the Vice-Chair of Goldman Sachs and a former adviser to Mrs Thatcher, defended higher inequality ‘as the way to achieve greater prosperity for all’.

"For the last 30 years, the gains from growth in a number of rich countries have gone increasingly to big business and a small corporate and financial elite. Between 1980 and 2007, average real wages in the UK rose by half the rate of economic growth, a process of decoupling that accelerated from the late 1990s. In the US, living standards for four-fifths of the workforce have been little better than stagnant over the last three decades. In Germany, real wages started flat-lining from the millennium.

---

The Guardian: 

"Tinkering on the economic brink"

"The mechanisms that link inequality and economic malfunction are still at work. Falling real wages are stifling demand in the world's richest economies. The globe's largest corporations are sitting on near-record volumes of cash, money that is mostly standing idle. 

"When they are spent, they are likely to finance another wave of high-margin financial and industrial restructuring, rather than the productive investment that creates robust economies. Bank assets are even larger today than they were before the crash, and the power of the City and Wall Street remains intact."

Jonathon Porritt: "What a Waste?"

Link to web site

"Utter the words ‘the waste industry’, and most people’s thoughts turn automatically to seagulls wheeling noisily over smelly landfill sights, wheelie bins and wrangles over waste collections, and dodgy dealing off a Steptoe and Son broken-down lorry. Every single aspect of last week’s RWM Exhibition (organised by EMAP at the NEC) gave the lie to that utterly redundant set of perceptions.

"In every field of waste management, resource efficiency and recycling, the whole place (which seemed to go on and on forever!) positively bristled with new technologies, innovative ideas and companies, and a sense of dynamism and forward-looking energy that I found incredibly uplifting."

Tuesday 18 October: Barnet UNISON Strikes Back

Barnet UNISON web site

The September strike / lockout

('Barnet Times' article)

Enfield Independent: "Dawn Barnes selected as Lib Dem Enfield and Haringey GLA candidate"

Link to Enfield Independent

"A SOUTHGATE woman who stood against the Prime Minister at the last election has been chosen as the Liberal Democrat GLA candidate for Enfield and Haringey. 

"Party activist Dawn Barnes has entered the race for the London Assembly seat currently held by Labour's Joanne McCartney, and will contest the election next May. She said:

"I’ve been active in Enfield and Haringey with grassroots organisations on issues such as the empty homes around the North Circular, the YES to fairer votes campaign, and in saying no to the Pinkham Way waste plant."

Sky News: "Huge fire at recycling firm"

Link to Sky News

"Eight people have been injured, four seriously, after a fire ripped through what is reported to be an electrical recycling firm on an industrial estate in Surrey.

"Witness Natalie Dugdale works nearby, and told Sky News she heard three explosions and could see 'masses and masses of smoke'. She said fire officers told her the blast was caused by recycled printer toner, and people were being treated for burns.

(Quoted text above is slightly different from current Sky News web page.)

Barnet Council grants planning permission to itself to close its dustcart depot. ... Now then, where might that be moving to?

Click above for overall plan (PDF file from 2009)
The dustcart depot is bottom-centre.

The 'Inglis Consortium' a group of landowners (comprising VSM Estates, Annington Property, and the London Borough of Barnet) has received outline planning permission from the London Borough of Barnet for the redevelopment of its new 'Millbrook Park' ['Mill Hill East' to anyone else] development in London. The site is now expected to be sold on as a phased development. 

Further details, and web site.

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Link to HOME (see all posts).

The Guardian: "Mad Hatter's tea party that is the eurozone crisis"

Link to The Guardian

"The answer to a lack of growth in struggling countries such as Greece is austerity of such ferocity that recessions deepen. The solution to a financial crisis caused originally by the over-leveraging of banks and individuals is to turn Europe's bailout fund into a leveraged €2tn hedge fund. Meanwhile, many of the politicians in Britain who battled long and hard to keep the pound – George Osborne and Ed Balls to name but two – are now born-again evangelists for full fiscal union.

"Up until now, policymakers have solved this [crisis] by refusing to admit that it exists. The assumption has been that the events of the recent past have all been a bad dream from which Europe will wake up. Only recently has it been recognised that the single currency really is plunging down a rabbit hole, and is going to hit the ground with an almighty bump.
 

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Daily Telegraph:  
Charles Moore reviews 'The Fear Index' by Robert Harris (Hutchinson)

Link to Daily Telegraph

The Fear Index: A day in the life of the death of capitalism

"A common fault in novels is aiming too high and failing to know their own limitations, but in this case, I would make the opposite point. I would have liked Harris to have written more seriously about his subject. The world of the hedge funds and the credit crunch is due for its equivalent of The Bonfire of the Vanities, and Harris may have it in him to write it. For me, the best parts of this book are not the action scenes when a man gets murdered in a squalid hotel or the dramatic moment involving the chief risk officer and the lift-shaft, but the build-up.

"In the first paragraph of this novel, Dr Hoffmann is sitting, so absorbed in Darwin that he does not hear the Victorian grandfather clock in the hall striking midnight. In the last paragraph, he is past hearing the chime of midnight, 24 hours later, from the church clock outside the hospital window. Those old clocks frame the narrative of a day in the death of advanced capitalism. They stand, I suppose, as watchmen for a better way of life."

Recycle Now: Try the Rubbish-o-meter

Link to web site

And, for no particular reason, cartons (sent to Sweden):

Cartons - how they are recycled from RecycleNow on Vimeo.

"Many beverage cartons are recyclable. They are made from paper, and lined with either plastic or for longer-life products, aluminium. The collection process for cartons varies between areas. Some councils collect cartons for recycling as part of the recycling collection service; however cartons are more usually collected at recycling centres.

"At present, cartons sent for recycling within the UK are transported to Sweden. The cartons are shredded, mixed with warm water, and pulped for approximately thirty minutes in a large machine, similar to a top loader washing machine. Flotation techniques are used to separate the paper fibres from the plastic and aluminium lining. 

"The recovered paper fibres are rolled flat and are usually used as the paperboard component of plasterboard. At the moment, the recovered aluminium and plastic is separated out to be used for energy to power the mill, but the carton industry is currently working on other things that these materials can be recycled into."

The Independent: "The Transition movement: Today Totnes... tomorrow the world"

Link to The Independent

"When the first Transition town was established five years ago in Totnes, Devon, the 'experiment' was simple. Like-minded people would work on creating a more sustainable community to reduce their dependency on oil. By 2008, there were 100 registered initiatives, in 11 countries. Today, there are more than 850 Transitions, in three times as many countries. More than 300 groups have signed up in the past year.

"In London, there is a network of around 40 Transition initiatives. Projects range from a new mobile-phone-based local currency, launched under the 'Brixton pound', to the creation of a community allotment on the platform of Kilburn Underground station."