Desecration? Restoration!!

I was delighted to meet Toby, a stonemason from Carshalton, today. Toby read the article on the front page of the Sutton Guardian last week about the theft of flagstones from the Carshalton War Memorial, and decided to do something about it. He contacted the Guardian and offered to replace the York stone flagstones at cost, providing his labour free of charge!

True to his word, Toby and his boss from Stonewest Ltd, a company specialising in building restoration, conservation and stone masonry, met me on site today to measure up and get the job underway in time to be ready for the Remembrance Day Service.

Like me, you have probably got used to hearing bad news stories about the way people behave, but just now and again, something happens to restore my faith in the general good nature of people. Thank you Toby, and thank you Stonewest Ltd!

Throw away shopping bags - got a view? Then I want to hear it.

Over 13 billion bags are issued every year to UK shoppers – that’s roughly 220 bags each! But just 1 in every 200 is reused or recycled, the rest end up in landfill, littering our streets or polluting rivers and streams. What’s more it can take over 400 years for these bags to finally break down, giving out climate changing CO2 in the process.

That’s why I am leading a London-wide campaign with London Councils support, to press government to change legislation to introduce a London-wide ban, or levy, on throwaway bags. The public consultation closes soon, but you can make your views known on the London Councils website at http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/thebigquestion

The reduction in CO2 production could be the equivalent of taking 18,000 cars off the road! So if it is adopted, the initiative would have a positive environmental impact.

Greener Food Deliveries By Bike

This morning I joined Ecolocal, Sutton’s well-established environmental charity (previously known as the CEI) and Merry from Noah’s Health Food Store in South Parade, Wallington, to launch a new bike home-delivery service. Shoppers will now be able to order from Noah’s and get their shopping delivered by a ‘green’ cycle courier service.

The project is another innovation to come out of the Smarter Travel Sutton Service. Ruth Noah, who owns Noah’s Health Food Store, was clearly delighted to be part of Ecolocal’s new scheme. “The bike looks fantastic and is capable of holding quite a load. It’s great that we can offer ‘greener’ deliveries that are kinder to the environment.”

If you want to know more about the project, you can contact me here or by email. If you want to know how to shop greener with Noah’s, please contact Ruth or Merry on 020 8647 1724 or at noahealth@tiscali.co.uk

Thames in Hot Water

Tom Brake MP and I met a high level team from Thames Water last week to ask them some tough questions about the damage that sewage and storm water did in parts of the borough over the summer. We also used the meeting to find out how they will avoid the kind of catastrophic accident that killed hundreds of fish recently and damaged the River Wandle for years.

The Thames' team included their External Relations Manager Richard Aylard and the Principal Project Manager Steve Thomas.

At the end of the meeting Tom and I took the Thames’ team on a tour of the worst affected sites, including Nightingale Close and Buckhurst Avenue. We were surprised to learn that Nightingale Close was not on Thames' list of places prone to flooding. Thanks to our meeting this has changed adn residents will be leafleted by Thames to establish the extent of the problem and how often it has occurred in recent years.

There was better news for Buckhurst Avenue, where Thames expect to start building a new pumping station in May 2008 with work due to complete in April 2008. Whilst this is good news, we will need to keep them to their word.

I'm also pleased that Thames have accepted responsibility for the disastrous poisoning of the river Wandle and agreed to provide new planting along the river edge to create a habitat for insects and animals as well as restocking the river with fish. It will take a long time for the river to recover and Thames must ensure that such a disaster cannot happen again. They also face a potential fine from the Environment Agency.

Thames have also said that they want to improve the sewers serving Nightingale Road, and plan to lay new pipes and build an underground storage tank to increase the capacity of the system. According to Steve Thomas, Thames’ Principal Project Manager, this work should start early next year.

Sutton Lib Dems back plan to cut carbon footprint

I know that we can’t solve the problem of climate change alone in Sutton, but local people are doing their bit to tackle what must be the biggest challenges that we will face over the next few decades.

As Deputy Leader of Sutton Council I'm responsible for environmental issues. I’m leading a number of projects that aim to tackle climate change.

Transport – we are running ‘Smarter Travel Sutton’, the world’s biggest sustainable transport project with Transport for London’s support. Most people will have heard of this project by now and the STS team may have visited you too. Thousands of local people have made a commitment to use their car less, opted to use public transport, the bike or even ‘shank’s pony’ more often and more are likely to follow.

Housing – Hackbridge is home to BedZED, the world’s first zero-energy village. We are investigating how local residents can benefit from the lessons we have learned from this ground-breaking project, so that we can build more energy efficient homes in the borough. This work is in its infancy, but I am hopeful that we will attract funding from the EU and government to help.

Waste – we already have some of the best recycling rates in London and less waste goes to landfill here than in almost every other London borough. But the targets are getting tougher, so I am leading work with Merton, Kingston and Croydon that will drive down the cost of waste collection in Sutton and improve the services that local people will receive over coming years.

Sharing the good news

In September I went to Liberal Democrats’ conference in Brighton to tell Chris Huhne MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment about the things that we are doing in Sutton to cut our carbon footprint.

I’m delighted that Chris is leading the national debate on climate change, insisting that the UK must take action now to move to greener and cleaner lifestyles. The Lib Dems have set out a national vision to make Britain ‘carbon neutral’ by 2050. And the steps that we are taking here in Sutton demonstrate that this can be achieved and local people are (once again) giving the rest of the UK a lead.

You can read more about our plans to make Britain carbon neutral by following this link: http://www.libdems.org.uk/media/documents/policies/PP82%20Zero%20Carbon_FINAL.pdf