Carving for Samhain (or, my talented husband)

Tomorrow is Samhain - or Hallowe'en if you prefer [*Christian appropriation of Pagan festivals face*].

I'll be spending tomorrow afternoon visiting households in the vicinity of Springfield Road to speak with residents about a couple of live issues in the area: the proposals to introduce a Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) in the streets immediately to the south of London Road station; and the recent deeply regrettable decision by the Planning Inspectorate to allow development on a green site close by. And, or course, anything else that comes up.

The two issues outlined above raise high feelings amongst residents, understandably enough. As a councillor for Preston Park ward, I want to hear people's concerns and objections so I can represent their views at the Environment Cabinet Member Meeting next week.

Once darkness falls at, erm, 5pm [*SAD face*], I'll be joining local party friends and activists at the Open House for nibbles and refreshments (a bit of a social, in other words).

I thought it would be nice to carve a pumpkin lantern to take along with me for the social tomorrow, but finding myself elbow-deep in Equal Pay biscuit dough yesterday evening, I had to try and action Plan H (ie enlisting Help from Husband):

Me: [brandishing printed-off GPEW logo] D'you think I'm having a laugh trying to carve the GPEW logo into this pumpkin?

Mr K: No. Easy.

Me: [waving floury hands] Sweet. But, erm, my hands are floury right now.

[pause]

Me: You're so much better at this kind of thing than I am [*winsome face*].

Me: Mate.

Me: Mate.

Mr K: [*rolls eyes*] Well, I'll have a go then...

Me: [*beaming*] Thanks babe! :D

[fast forward...]

Me: OMG that's awesome sweetie. Thank you so much! [*appreciation face*]



Mr K is an artist and a craftsman :))) I knew he'd do a better job on the carving than I would have. Thank you sweetheart x

Happy Samhain one and all.

Baking for Equal Pay Day

Today was Equal Pay Day.

Women working full-time earn on average 17% less per hour than men working full-time. For ethnic minority women, the gap is even higher at 20%. For women working part-time compared to men working full-time the gap is 36% per hour – rising to 45% in London.

Today, working women effectively received their last pay cheque of the year. This is because the 17% full-time gender pay gap is equivalent to men being paid all year round while women work for free after the 31st October.

The excellent Fawcett Society works hard every year to highlight this important issue by co-ordinating a series of events across the country to raise awareness, and to put pressure on the Government to reform legislation so that this disgraceful inequality in pay is outlawed and brought to an end.

So this morning Brighton & Hove Greens converged on Brighton station, to collect signatures for Fawcett's petition on Equal Pay, and to give out free biscuits to commuters with low blood sugar - with a 17% chunk missing to give them food for thought as well.

















I baked my contribution last night (above).

I used this recipe, and these handy icing pens for (*ahem*) the Propaganda, and they were very tasty biscuits indeed.

But sadly not quite sweet enough to replace the bitter taste in my mouth whenever I think about the facts of pay inequality in the UK.

We got an average of three signatures per minute :) I love proper campaigning :D

Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

Just as I was about to switch the crackberry off on Wednesday night, I got an email from the Planning Inspectorate informing me that a recent appeal by a developer seeking to build on former allotment land adjacent to London Road station had been allowed.

I can't begin to say how gutted I am about this. This site has history - as does the developer.

I was approached by the Friends of London Road Allotments (FLORA) in autumn '07, when a previous application to build nine poky flats on this previously undeveloped site (which is an urban haven for wildlife including slow worms) was the subject of a planning appeal by informal hearing. We defended this appeal successfully, and residents and councillors alike started to brace themselves for the next application.

This latest application was for four three-bedroom dwellings. When this was again refused by Local Planning Authority officers, the developer decided to take it all the way to a Public Inquiry - no doubt flushed by the success earlier this year of the Highcroft Villas PI (a site which was also former railway allotments and owned by the same developer [hmm]). He even used the same barrister - one of the top Planning barristers in England & Wales.

All that money. For four tiny houses. At the expense of not only the public purse (the council did their absolute best to defend the refusal and hired an equally top-flight Planning barrister), but also at the expense of the considerable mental, physical and emotional energies of the residents involved with FLORA, and of course to the detriment (to the point of annihilation) of the wildlife on the site, and the fact that this is a much-loved patch of urban greenery in the midst of the city.

This bitterly disappointing decision comes after years of campaigning by FLORA, residents and councillors.

Despite the fact that FLORA amassed a huge body of evidence to demonstrate that the site had been used as allotments and had never been built on, the Planning Inspector still chose to allow the appeal by Kingsbury Estates Ltd.

The Council fought hard against this, but sadly all our efforts weren’t enough to protect this site. Now this urban oasis, which is a haven for slow worms and other wildlife, will be lost forever, and I have profound concerns for the preservation of other cherished open spaces in our city.

The Inspector cited the Highcroft Villas PI and the recent granting of permission for development on a greenfield site at Princes Road as precedents for allowing the London Road station appeal.

This decision comes as Local Planning Authority officers are hard at work on the new Local Development Framework (LDF), which will replace the current Local Plan in 2010. The LDF contains an Open Spaces Study which seeks to protect urban green spaces, whether publically accessible or not.

But now I'm genuinely fearful that the Open Spaces Study will be severely weakened by this latest decision from the Planning Inspectorate, and that it will become virtually impossible for the Council to fight development proposals affecting inner-city green land.

It is deeply depressing to think that all the hard work that officers have put in to developing robust policies to protect urban open spaces has been totally undermined by the Planning Inspectorate. As a city, we are hemmed in by the sea and the South Downs, and these valuable pockets of wildlife habitat are quite rightly much-loved by the residents who live nearby.

Sadly it may now become impossible for us to protect these sites, despite the best efforts of officers, councillors and residents alike. This is a grim day for the Planning system in Brighton & Hove.