Glastonbury Festival: a lesson in town planning?

Oh boy, what a busy week it's been - lots of committee and ward work which I'll try and do an update on in the next few days, as well as local party meetings and campaigning in Goldsmid for the by-election (all pretty punishing in this heat to be honest *wilts*).

My Inbox has been exploding as usual (the London Rd station CPZ is clearly a matter of great concern to residents, and again, more to come on that soon).

As well as receiving emails from residents and council officers, I'm also signed up for daily updates from trade and industry media, and this story from the Planning Blog really caught my eye:

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GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL: A LESSON IN PLANNING

Posted on June 30, 2009 by Mark Wilding

The Glastonbury festival has been and gone. With just a few weeks preparation, the festival site is transformed from bare fields to a veritable metropolis. For the space of a weekend, once bare fields become the site of a large town.

Can you see where I’m going with this?

Assuming the majority of tents are occupied by two people, that’s 75,000 dwellings springing up over the course of a few days. In other words, almost 75 percent of the affordable homes Gordon Brown has pledged to deliver in the next two years. And you don’t get much more affordable than a tent.

All this is achieved without a regional spatial strategy, a core strategy, or any other strategy than making a shed load of money by charging people to live in a field for a weekend.

The most amazing aspect of this phenomenon is that the festival seems to work. Throughout the course of the weekend nobody died, everyone on television appeared to be having fun and if there were any major disasters then they slipped well under the radar.

Infrastructure provision copes, there’s mixed-tenure (see the contrast between the hospitality field and the man who pitched up next to the toilets) and plenty of green energy provision. The perimeter fence means there’s no chance of any urban sprawl.

Having said that, the flood risk planning policy might need a bit of work…

Is it possible that planners have got it all wrong? Maybe people should just be left to get on with it?

Then again, creating a town for three days then leaving while someone else cleans up the mess isn’t exactly ‘sustainable development’…

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This article really struck a chord with me. My colleagues will attest to the fact that I am a bit of a broken record when it comes to holding up the Glastonbury Festival model of a sustainable community as a beacon which local authorities can learn from (particularly when it comes to dealing with waste and recycling).

The general Planning arguments outlined above are very thought-provoking, but one thing's for sure: Glastonbury regularly achieves recycling rates of 50% plus, something which councils in the UK can currently only dream about.

I have been progressing recycling and waste management at events in Brighton & Hove since I was first elected, and the local authority is now seeking to achieve the new British Standard BS8901 (guidelines surrounding sustainability at large-scale events) thanks to Green calls for action on this, but we could learn from the Glasto model for our household and commercial operations too...

Weekending

Apart from a spot of leafleting in Goldsmid earlier this evening, I am taking it easy this weekend after a rather epic week. The predominant theme was trying to catch up on council work following the Euros. Here's a bit of a round-up:

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On Monday, I had a meeting at the Phoenix with fellow Trustees and senior council officers to discuss plans to refurbish the building.

I've got a soft spot for this modernist landmark, but it's urgently in need of an upgrade and a makeover, not least because there are real problems with solar gain in parts of the building.

RH Partnership are the architects for the project, and they've done an excellent job with the initial design concept:

The design's moved on somewhat since the image above was produced, but this should give you a flavour of the proposals. It's all very exciting, not least because Phoenix are aiming to self-fund the project. I'm hoping pre-application discussions with the Planning officers will happen over the next couple of months.

On Monday evening we had a Group meeting, which included a presentation by CityClean officers regarding the new Waste Strategy for Brighton & Hove. Obviously Greens are always going to be hard to satisfy when it comes to the way in which the city currently manages its refuse and recycling, but there are some surprisingly good proposals in the emerging document.

Sadly nothing as yet regarding taking action on the plastic containers and cutlery used by food retailers on the seafront and throughout the city, but I'm going to keep pushing on this. If we can introduce compulsory biodegradable / compostable vessels and cutlery at events in Brighton & Hove, it will be easier to make the case to local businesses I hope.

And the Supermarket Summit is back on! Apparently.

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Tuesday was devoted to ploughing through my groaning Inbox and dealing with emails, and on Wednesday I had a Planning Committee meeting, preceded by a meeting (wearing my Deputy Convenor hat) with Cllr Brian Oxley in which he outlined his aims as Chair of the Governance Committee over the next municipal year, and asked for feedback from the Green Group on his proposals (guys, if you're reading this, I'll be typing up the notes on Monday).

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On Thursday morning I met with a senior CityParks officer to discuss a request from residents on Preston Park Avenue for an access ramp into the park at the northern-most end of the street. This is an ongoing campaign, and I'll be posting more about this soon.

I had a cultural lunchtime, and then went up to the local party office to stuff envelopes for the Goldsmid campaign with Ben and our friend Alison. After a quick dash home to eat and see Mr K, it was back out for a local party bash at Moksha, to celebrate our success in the Euros.

Dr Caroline Lucas MEP & Cllr Keith Taylor

The lovely Moksha people had made us little cupcakes with green icing :) and a jolly good time was had by all.

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I had meetings throughout Friday morning, with Tourism officers, and then with Planning & Enforcement officers regarding sites adjacent to London Road station. Again, the latter concerns an ongoing campaign, and I'll have more to say on this over coming weeks.

After lunch and a whizz through some emails, it was back to the local party office for yet more envelope stuffing with Jason, Phelim and local party Chair Simon. Four thousand envelopes later, we were finished by 10pm - and retired to the pub.

*phew*

A good deed shines in a naughty world

I've been out and about in the ward over recent days doing some last-minute leafleting for the European Elections this coming Thursday, 4th June.

Plenty of other people have blogged at length about our prospects for this ballot, so I'm not going to jam up any more bandwidth with my hopes and fears for Thursday, but suffice to say I've never met so many people on the doorstep and in the street who say they're voting Green for the first time.

It's incredibly heartening and very exciting - people really do seem hungry for change, and the progressive vote seems to be going our way, not least because our Green MEPs have a track record in making their expenditure transparent, and in speaking out against the "Euro Gravytrain".

Sunday seems like a long time to have to wait for the results... I've got everything crossed, obviously for all our candidates, but particularly for our existing MEPs Caroline Lucas & Jean Lambert, and also for my friend and colleague Cllr Keith Taylor, and for Peter Cranie in my motherland of the North West.

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However, for all the good Green deeds afoot in Brighton and beyond today, the naughty light below was shining in the avenue next to Preston Park at 2.15pm this afternoon, on the hottest and sunniest day we've had so far this year:



You can bet I'll be reporting this, but to whom? Unless I'm reading it wrong, the council website seems to be saying that it's all EDF's fault, but, erm, they won't be doing anything about it:

Why is my street light on during the day?

Modern streetlights are switched on and off by a sensor that knows when it is getting dark. Older lights were switched on and off by area using a network of cables that are owned by the Electricity Utility EDF. These cables are very old and are beginning to fail. EDF when they discover a fault do not have to repair this switching facility and make the cable permanently live or on. This results in day burning columns.

So that's OK then, is it? (hmm) One to add to the list of things to do tomorrow.

Dirty Beach

Gorgeous day today. Mr K & I headed for the seafront, taking in Chloe Hanks & Lou McCurdy's Dirty Beach exhibition on the way.

I first got to know Chloe and Lou when I called on the Council to take action on single-use plastic bags in Brighton & Hove way back in October '07: Chloe is the founder of Plastic Bag Free Brighton, and Lou was then working on her More Plastic Than Plankton project.

Although the Tories have reneged on their supposed commitment to [*ahem*] "eliminate" the free issue of plastic bags in the city (not appropriate in the "current economic climate", apparently - hmm), it's great to see that Lou and Chloe are still pressing the point that disposable plastic and other litter is damaging our environment, and making thought-provoking art in getting this message across.


The exhibition was excellent, and has attracted rave reviews from the Times (amongst others) during the recent Festival. Lou's textural panels (made from the plastic flotsam she gleans from local beaches) contrast wonderfully with graphic designer Chloe's (100% bio-degradable!) eco-graffiti. Here are some highlights:


















Chloe takes advantage of the snow!

Anyone for tennis?

Hanksy at large


Well done Lou & Chloe, and thank you for a wonderful free exhibition - keep up the good work.

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From one Dirty Beach to another: Mr K & I continued our peregrinations down to the seafront, with our sights set on a tasty smoked fish sandwich from The Brighton Smokehouse for lunch. As we waited in the queue, I admired their sign:



































Look! The fish is smoking! :0


While it was great to see traders doing so well today on the seafront, sadly our hunger got the better of us, and after 10 minutes' queuing we decided to head over to the Kemptown side of the beach (where it's generally quieter) in search of lunch, finally hitting upon the fish & chips joint near the Crazy Golf.

"Do you think this fish is from sustainable stocks?" asked Mr K wryly. I guessed not, as I eyed up the plastic debris eddying round the cafe tables:


































Two things:

1. What is wrong with people? There are bins every ten yards or so on the beach. For pity's sake, please pick up your litter and bin it, you lazy idiots. As they say in Suffolk, don't be a tosser.

2. If Glastonbury Festival can stipulate that all food traders use biodegradable / compostable / recyclable plates & cutlery etc, what is stopping Brighton & Hove City Council from working with traders to introduce similar measures on the seafront?

More on this soon I hope, in conjunction with work I've been doing on sustainability at events in the city...