I read an article in the Independent about the contest for the national Green Party leadership yesterday. What struck me was that only one of the four contenders mentioned was quoted on environmental issues, and then only to defend herself for driving a Jaguar.
This makes me think that our local Brent Greens are not the outliers I had assumed. They also seem to be uninterested, or even antagonistic to, environmental objectives. In the past what one might loosely term Brent's green activists have attacked the new Civic Centre, emissions based parking, the increase in Brent's recycling, efforts to spread messages around climate change by the Borough. And so on.
Perhaps this is more common within their movement than I had thought. Just as well for them that political parties are not covered by the Trade Descriptions Act.
1 comment:
Hi James, good to see you following our democratic leadership process and I hope you will be able to make use of what you have learned in the near future.
Regarding your claims and speaking for Brent Green Party:
We were against the Civic Centre on the grounds that it was a grandiose and self-serving project and its £100m finances never fully explained when you were closing half our libraries. However 'green' the eventual building in terms of running costs, the public were entitled to full disclosure of the building costs. New buildings have an environmental cost in terms of the works and the procurement of scarce materials.
We made positive suggestions for increasing recycling but were concerned that co-mingled collections would be contaminated making the waste unacceptable to recycling specialists, resulting in contractors eventually sending it to landfill when it was outside the purview of Brent Council. We need figures on the eventual destination as well as pick up rates, which obviously have risen with the inclusion of plastics etc.
We sought to strengthen Brent Council's climate change strategy and make it more practical rather than just a PR effort, this included opposing the council's decision to sack the staff who would implement the strategy.
We did not oppose emissions based parking charges. I gave a factual account of the proposals on Wembley Matters.
Martin Francis
Post a Comment