Park pride

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

This year urban park visits are up by 13% and 93% of the population agreed that having open green spaces close to where they live is important*, proving the significance of quality local green space and acknowledgment of the commitment made to these spaces over the past decade.

Despite the economic struggle that green spaces have encountered this year, awareness raising campaign Love Parks Week has over 900 free events listed and will be reaching out to communities across the UK with 1.3 million people expected to join the festivities throughout the week, which display exactly what parks and green spaces can, and do, offer to communities that need, use and love them.

Mark Camley, Director of Park Operations for the London Legacy Development Corporation said, “The range of activities planned across the country for Love Parks Week is great news for parks and park users. Parks are the most democratic of places providing spaces for activity, relaxation, education as well as offering great health benefits. This year’s launch of the Inspire Program will be a fitting tribute to all the celebrations in 2012 bringing people into parks by staging events linked to the excitement of the Games. I’m excited to say that only a year after the hosting of the 2012

Games, we expect the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to be reopened and host a range of events and activities as part of Love Parks Week 2013.”

Love Parks Week is now in its sixth year and is a campaign which aims to raise awareness and call for continual reinvestment of green spaces. Paul Bramhill, CEO from organizing parks charity GreenSpace “These results prove that quality, easily accessible green space really counts, particularly

to those in urban areas where it can provide escapism from every day troubles and good old fashioned family fun at little or no cost, whilst also strengthening communities, making them a more desirable location.”

Bramhill continues “The challenge we are faced with is maintaining these much loved quality green spaces with diminishing budgets. Continual erosion of funding to the sector could result in a decline in visits and therefore a potential increase in crime, obesity, chronic stress, unsociable behaviour, not forgetting the effect on the environment. We need people to understand the risks and stand strong for their parks.”

This year the campaign is also running a Park Health Check asking people to think about and assess the quality of their local park and has also created a Love Parks Club both encouraging a greater sense of stewardship.

Public parks, in Britain came about as a result of the Public Health Act in the mid-19th century to improve the health of the nation, and especially the working classes and they are as important in this respect today than they were then.

Furthermore, parks are of great importance for people who, for many different reasons, decide to holiday ay home, engaging in staycation, as a means of taking the kids and themselves out into some green space in the neighborhood.

Being involved with caring for a large municipal park myself I have personally seen the increase in use of parks and open spaces in Britain in the last couple of years and even more so now where travel is becoming more and more expensive and holidaying abroad is out with many.

© 2012

National Railway System

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Britain must, and I am serious here, re-nationalize its railroad system, including the operating and running of trains, for the good of the nation and the traveling public.

While British Rail of old may, at times, has been problematic and many of us complained and strikes caused problems at times, in general, it worked and was reasonably priced.

Ken Livingstone (and yes, he used to be known as “Red Ken”), the former Mayor of London, said on BBC Radio 4 recently that he would suggest that the government bring all the current franchises back into public ownerships as and when they come up for renewal and this is a noting that one can but agree with.

British Rain (BR) may not have been great and outstanding, and the public railroad systems of our European neighbors put us to shame each and every time, it was, however, like those of our European neighbors, publicly owned.

Other European Union neighbors of our and further afield still have their railroad system in public ownership and most if not indeed all their mass transit system too and their systems work and work well and are much, much cheaper than the systems in the UK – or in the USA where they are also private.

When rail fares are so much more expensive than flying – often four to ten times more – then there is something seriously wrong and one should take a very close and serious look into the situation as to why this may be thus.

I also makes no sense whatsoever, in the case of the UK, for instance, to have shareholders of rail franchisees reap the profits from rail operations during the good times while the going is great only for the taxpayer to have to foot the bill when the companies get into trouble during, say, a recession, as presently is the case, for example.

Time we really thought about this.

The only way to run a railroad and other public mass transit systems is to have then in public hands and ownership and not run to make profits for shareholders. This is the only way. Ken is right.

So far most railroad companies in the UK are not delivering a good service for the traveling public and the prices are well too high.

It does not make sense that a ticket – bought on the day – from a town in Surrey to Birmingham International is quoted to cost 215 GBP for second class rail travel when the same thing can be accomplished on inland carrier from Gatwick to Birmingham International on first class for about a quarter of that. Try again!

We also not not need a high speed rail system doing London to Birmingham in thirty-five minutes but we need a rail service that can do that reliably in a half-hourly departure sequence getting us there in say and hour-and-a-half for a price that can beat flying hands down, at say 25-30 GBP second class. It can be done in Germany! Why not in the UK?

For the USA a similar stupidity rules and train travel is x-time more expensive than flying and, once again, this does not compute nor does it make sense.

If government – regardless where – really is serious about getting people to use alternatives to the car then rail travel and mass transit systems must become cheaper, a lot cheaper. And there need to be more trains and/or buses and they must be more reliable. Otherwise people will not buy it.

© 2009
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Climate change poses serious threat to public health

by Michael Smith

Climate change will bring with it a set of problems that will have a particular impact on the environmental health profession, a conference heard this week.

The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) hosted its “An Unhealthy Climate - a call for action and changing behavior” event at its London headquarters on recently where it looked at the issue of changing weather patterns from a new angle.

While we are all aware of the big-picture problems like drought, floods and melting ice caps, environmental health practitioners will face their own professional challenges, the conference heard.

The threat of pest-borne diseases currently rare or unheard of in the UK, together with storing food in warmer weather conditions and securing a safe food supply are all likely to come to the fore in future years.

Such pest-borne diseases and pest problems will be compounded as well, of this we can be certain, by the fortnightly collection of rubbish from households and especially the latest ideas of the leftover food bins that are supposed to be collected for commercial composting. While we can all but commend the idea of using all parts of the garbage that accumulates with households (and businesses) bins with food rests will, however, attract vermin, especially of the furry long-tailed rodent variety. The fact that the stuff is in plastic bins that have a locked lid is not going to deter those critters.

Graham Jukes, CIEH chief executive, said: "Climate change presents one of the most significant challenges to public health we have ever faced, putting at risk the very pillars of life: clean water, sanitation, air quality and food.

“We believe that health must be at the heart of action on climate change. It must be embedded in the political debate, in strategies to change how we live and in how we plan for the future.

“Environmental health practitioners (EHPs) have a key role to play in this process. Many aspects of environmental health are crucial to mitigating and adapting to the effects of global warming.

“EHPs have the expertise and skills to develop activities and interventions to help reduce carbon emissions but also prepare for the effects of things such as more frequent heat waves and floods, food and water shortages, a rise in infectious diseases and in the incidence of pests and even population movements.”

In addition, though they are not new to the British Isles, mosquitoes and malaria may also spread across the country if the temperatures do rise and especially if the wet weather in summer continues. To stop mosquitoes breeding in Britain on a large level – for in the Fenlands and Epping Forest they have been for ever and a day and never gone away – people must ensure that there are no bodies of water, especially standing stagnant water, in their gardens and such.

This is all something that could come to those Islands here, and more to boot. Bugs are not being killed off as they used to when we had real winters and strong frosts for a length of time. Now, if we get a cold snap it is for a day or a couple and then we are back to rain and mild weather.

The environmental health practitioners are not the only ones that will have to battle this but each and everyone of us must play his or her part. I am sure that in due course, or so at least I hope, we will get the necessary information from the government agencies responsible.

© M Smith (Veshengro), December 2008
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'Public health risk' warning as 50% of councils axe weekly rubbish collections

Almost half of councils in England have axed weekly domestic rubbish collections, according to the latest Government figures.

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The number moving to less frequent bin rounds has now reached 169 out of the 350 authorities across the country.

Shadow local government secretary Eric Pickles said the changes, which ministers say would help boost recycling, were a public health risk, and at the same time he accused the Government of showing "contempt" for voters by not publishing the data until May 1st, the day of the local elections.

"Labour Ministers have shown contempt for the electorate, by hiding the true scope of Labour cuts to local services until after the elections.

"Under Gordon Brown, the weekly rubbish collection is facing extinction, while council tax bills soar year on year", he said and he added: "Labour Ministers first forced up council tax through fiddled funding, and are now forcing councils to axe weekly bin collections, issue heavy-handed bin fines and hit families with bin taxes on top.

"No wonder fly tipping is soaring, given it is increasingly difficult for families to dispose of their rubbish responsibly.

"People genuinely want to improve recycling and go green, but Labour's approach of forcing rubbish cuts is not the answer, as it threatens to harm the local environment and bad for public health.

"As with soaring council tax, councillors are taking the flak for policies cooked up in Whitehall."

Commenting on the figures, Environment Minister Joan Ruddock said: "Government has to set national priorities for tackling waste and climate change.

"We cannot go on sending millions of tonnes of household rubbish to landfill and we have to boost recycling.

"But within that framework central Government does not tell local authorities how frequently they should collect waste.

"There would be a justifiable barrage of complaints if Whitehall dictated when people's bins were emptied.

"We want waste managed in a way which suits local circumstances and this is something local authorities are best placed to decide."

The problem is that Joan Ruddock wouldn't know how to encourage anyone to recycle and with fines and penalties and with removing the weekly refuse collection we certainly will not do that. All we will do is increase the amount of rubbish fly-tipped in the countryside, in public parks, in alleyways, and on farmer's fields. It will do nothing to boost recycling rate. However, it looks good on their books – the ones that get fiddled all the time anyway by this so-called “Labor” government – as only collecting the rubbish every two weeks rather than weekly and they can claim that there is a reduction of rubbish collected. That the local councils will have to pick up the bill for cleaning up the countryside and removing fly-tipped rubbish from wherever does not interest those in Whitehall in their ivory towers one little bit.

A disaster waiting to happen and an epidemic waiting to pounce, and the environment, in addition, will suffer too.

Most countries on the European mainland have no problem with weekly bin collections and still getting a huge recycling rate. Why? Because unlike the stupid British Labor government they give incentives to recycling. All the British government seems able to do is to think of new ways how to punish people for not doing something they are told. The real Nanny state gone wrong.

In some EU countries rubbish is actually collected on a daily basis. Something that, obviously, could never work in Britain, like with all other incentives and initiatives that are used in other countries because, as we get told again and again, while this may all work well in those countries it could never work in Britain as Britain is different.

Bin bag tax and all the rest of the penalties this Labor government keeps thinking about are not just gimmicks that will never work; they are in fact stealth taxes. They have no intention of rewarding anyone for doing the right thing. They just want to punish people that do not do as they are told.

If we have systems in place like in the USA with reverse vending machines and recycling centers that actually bought back the aluminium soda cans and beers cans and also the glass bottles and jars we would have an instant reduction in bin volume. If in addition to that other schemes, as used in other countries (and it is not rocket science to learn from good examples and practices elsewhere) that reward people to recycle and to reduce their rubbish bin load, in the same way as the schemes that reward people for cycling rather than using the cars in such and other countries we would see a great effect.

Alas, however, the British government can only think of punishing people rather than encouraging them by means of financial and other incentives to recycle and go green in other ways.

I know the reason too, or the biggest reason aside from the fact that they could not possibly adopt good schemes from other countries, and that is that they would have to pay out money rather than getting some in through fines.

In all aspects the last decade plus of Labor government in the UK has not been beneficial for anything and anyone in the UK. It all looks fine on paper but in reality everything is spin. More spin and faster than most spin dryers.

© M Smith (Veshengro), May 2008