Check it out with Green Doors

A new event has arrived in the Bristol social calendar - Green Doors weekend. In a very clever reworking of the Bristol Open Doors concept, Green Doors is about visiting homes which have undertaken energy efficiency and production measures to see how they've done it and talk to the owners about the costs, benefits and pitfalls.

There are 50 homes available to visit during the weekend of the 11th and 12th September at various different times. There are plenty in Cotham and around the surrounding area, encompassing a range of different measures across different price brackets, housing types and technologies. There's a full list on the Green Doors website, including timings for each.

I think this is an excellent project that will help to demystify household energy adaptations and it will hopefully encourage another generation of people to do what they can to reduce their energy usage while saving themselves money. The great thing about it is that it is 'human' - real people talking to other real people, rather than a showhome or a sales pitch. I wish the organisers all success!

Update: I will be doing a tour of the houses in Redland and Cotham with Stephen Williams MP on Saturday morning, so hope to see you around!

Stokes Croft Tesco applies for license

The controversial planned Tesco store on Stokes Croft, where Jesters Comedy Club used to be, has applied for an 'off' licence from 6am to 11pm, seven days a week. It is application number 10/02897/PREM, the consultation period last until 15th September and you can comment by e-mailing licensing@bristol.gov.uk.

It just over the boundary in Ashley Ward, but I have put in an objection just now on the basis of the impact on street drinking in the area, which is already a considerable issue. This application would make alcohol more readily available and probably at the knock-down prices that supermarkets love so much. I think that 6am opening is ludricrously early and I have proposed shorter hours and conditions to try to limit the impact on street drinking.

As with the previous Sainsbury's application, objections have to framed in terms of one or more of the 'four licensing objectives' - it's not enough to just say that you don't like it!

Sites and green spaces roadshow

The Council officers who are organising the consultation about the Site Allocations & Development Management DPD and the Area Green Spaces Plan are doing a 'roadshow' around the city to enable residents to drop in, have a look at the maps, ask questions, discuss the options and provide feedback.

The roadshow comes to our neck of the woods on Monday 13th September. The officers will be at Redland Parish Church Hall on Redland Green Road between 12 noon and 8pm. There's no need to book or anything like that - it's just a drop-in-at-your-convenience affair.

If you can't make that, they are also doing two days with the same hours at Brunel House (behind the Council House) on 6th and 7th October. The consultations are open through to 29th October, so there is still plenty of time to get involved and express a view.

Kicking off the Green Community Challenge Fund

I spent this afternoon at the first panel meeting for the Green Community Challenge Fund. This was something that I led on the setting-up of, using the extra money that our administration put into carbon reduction work (and that Labour and the Tories tried to cut). The Fund provides relatively small amounts of money to community organisations and charities to help seed innovative work around carbon reduction and energy security.

The panel is made up of local eco-experts (and me!) and will be deciding on which projects get funding. This afternoon we looked in detail at the 21 project bids that have come in for the current round of money; they collectively spend the available money three times over! It's obviously a hard task deciding between them, especially as the vast majority were very good and had clear wins for the environment in Bristol. They were from a range of organisations - some small and new, some well-established and from all over the city. It was really encouraging to see the enthusiasm of local people about making a difference on climate change issues.

We haven't yet made final decisions about which projects will be funded (we're meeting again next week to finalise), but we've broadly identified a shortlist, which includes some really great and exicting projects. If we're going to get to the bottom of the climate change problem, we're going to need some innovative thinking, especially about how we 'reach the unreachables' who either don't understand or who choose to ignore. That's what I hope the Fund will achieve: ushering in the next generation of carbon reduction solutions that we'll need once we've exhausted the current generation.

Cotham Forum

A quick note of notification that the next Cotham Forum will be held on Thursday 9th September at 6.30pm at Tyndale Baptist Church (on Whiteladies Road, opposite Clifton Down station).

The Forum is a chance for local residents to come and air concerns and problems with councillors, council staff and the Police - all of whom will be along - or just to find out about things that are going on locally.

The meetings are designed to be informal and friendly. We do have an agenda of things that we think are useful to discuss, but the idea is that we take all-comers. The Forum is then linked back to the Neighbourhood Partnership (with Redland and Bishopston), so that hopefully decisions can be taken that start to address some of the concerns.

The agenda for the next meeting has not yet been finalised, but I have suggested that we discuss:

• The proposed new pedestrian crossing on Cotham Road
• Changes to bars, restaurants and shops on Cotham Hill and Whiteladies Road
• The Cotham-wide parking review that's about to kick off

There is lots of confusion about where Cotham actually is, so please click on the map above to see if you live in the Cotham ward - many people who think they live in Redland actually live in Cotham.

Stadium flak looms!

One of my many and varied responsibilities as a councillor is as a member of the Public Rights of Way and Greens Committee (PROWGC). This is a usually relatively sedate affair, assessing claims for new footpaths and ensuring that the existing ones are as well maintained as possible. Just occasionally, all this changes.

Our next meeting will be to take the formal decision on an application for Town Green status for the Ashton Vale land on which Bristol City Football Club want to build their new stadium. I say 'formal' as we will be deciding on whether to accept the recommendation of the Inspector who convened the public inquiry and who heard evidence from a range of different people. They then prepare a detailed report and judgement on whether the land meets the strict legal criteria to be a Town Green. The role of the PROWGC is pretty much to rubber-stamp the Inspector's recommendation, unless we have serious and specific concerns about the conduct of the process.

Nevertheless, I am expecting a pretty hefty inward e-mail flow in the coming few weeks, with City fans, environmental lobbyists and Ashton residents all pushing for the outcome that they want. If the heated (and sometimes very unpleasant) exchanges after the Sainsbury's planning decision are anything to go by, I'll be getting plenty of flak! As with planning decisions, I am legally dutybound to go into the meeting with an open mind and I can't/won't be expressing a view in advance - I'll have to draft out a standard response message.

The Inspector's report is due to be submitted to the Council tomorrow and it will become public shortly afterwards, I would imagine. So, my e-bashing begins early next week, I guess...

Update (16th Sept): I've disabled further comments on this post, partly as they were getting tedious, but mostly because I don't want it to become a rantosphere for the various campaigners. As I say above, I can't comment on the report in advance of the PROWG meeting.

Stephen Williams joins the blogosphere

Bristol West Lib Dem MP Stephen Williams has today set up a new blog. He's been talking about doing this for a while now, so he must have decided that he does have the time.

He writes an excellent weekly e-mail that goes out to Lib Dem members and supporters which gives a really good insight into his day-to-day work as an MP and hopefully his blog will be just as thoughtful and informative.

Carping on about turbines

I've just done a live interview for Radio 5 Live about the government permitting councils to generate electricity and sell it to the National Grid and I am doing another one for Radio Bristol in the morning at 8am.

This is a key piece of the jigsaw which will enable Bristol to push forwards with its plans to build and operate two wind turbines at Avonmouth - with the scope for more to follow. In 1978, the then Labour government banned councils from doing so (not sure why - to protect the nationalised monopolies, I guess) and the rule has remained in place ever since.

Even through the empty rhetoric of the last 13 years about renewable energy, the ban stayed in place - partly explaining why the UK is so far behind the game in terms of renewables compared to the rest of Europe. This simple change made by Chris Huhne as the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change opens the door to a whole raft of possible projects which could cut carbon emissions and save the Council (and therefore taxpayers) money. We're already planning out a large scale solar power project and I am also starting to look into the possibility of small-scale tidal power from the harbour.

You can read more about how Bristol is at the forefront of this revolution in the press release from the government from a couple of weeks ago.

(P.S. The title of this post is a reference to the rather bizarre and surreal item on 5 Live before me, which was about a dead carp somewhere in Kent. The presenter was having so much fun ridiculing the editor of Carp Weekly magazine that I lost some of my airtime! Sadly they didn't drop the dead carp...)

Traffic updates - Cotham Road and Cotham Park North

It's like buses - you campaign for road safety projects, wait months and then two come at once!

• Cotham Park North. It's the final legal consultation on the works that I have been pushing alongside the governors and the school management to improve safety for children walking and cycling to Colston's Primary School. There are also some measures to help the older persons' and disabled persons' housing opposite the school. Click on the first map on the right to see the detail.
• Cotham Road. It's the initial consultation on the plans to install a new pedestrian crossing on Cotham Road near the new rear entrance to Cotham School. I have been hawking around various places to get together the money to make this happen, which we now have. Click on the second map to see the detail.

There is another one on the way in the near future to deal with some safety issues on Hampton Road and Hampton Park.

Back from smoky Poland

It's all been quiet on the blog front for a couple of weeks as I have been away on a train holiday around Poland - much more enjoyable than it initially sounds, especially given some fantastic weather, neatly dodging the floods there.

One of the things that our trip helpfully brought into focus was the massive leap forwards that the UK took in 2005 when it banned smoking in public places. Despite being a lifelong non-smoker, I was initially slightly sceptical about what it would do to the pubs and clubs that I still occasionally (!) frequent. Now, in retrospect, I can't imagine ever going back to where we were.

My girlfriend and I actively avoided going out in the evenings while we were away as everywhere was just so horribly smoky and smelly, aside from the health implications of being in that sort of poisonous atmosphere. When we occasionally did find a restaurant which was non-smoking (including the chain of good veggie places!), we breathed a huge sigh of relief. I'm off out to the pub in a minute and I just love the fact that I can do so without compromising my health or personal hygiene!

My colleague in parliament, Stephen Williams, is now the chair of the all-party group on Smoking and Health and he is currently pressing for progress on the next stage of legislation to remove tobacco from public life which the last government was stalling on - namely, stopping the public display of tobacco products in shops and bars. This will help to cut exposure to smoking even further, cutting addiction rates and improving health.