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As we told you recently, bus services in the Yate and Chipping Sodbury area will change appreciably from this coming Sunday, 13 April. Click here to see the new timetables on the South Glos website, but both versions are showing until the changeover - please make sure that you look at the versions marked "From 13 April 2014" to see the new services. For more detailed journey planning you can contact Traveline online or call them on 0871 200 2233. For your convenience, our previous summary of the new services is repeated below (including some later clarifications now that we've ...
We didn't think putting a bit of paint on the road was too complicated – the Council's pretty good at doing it without a huge amount of fuss (if it's yellow lines then there's the legal stuff to sort out, but it works). The Highways Agency apparently take a different view. We've been pressing for a "Keep Clear" box or similar to help residents from the South Park Road Estate exit onto the motorway slip road and join Kingsway southbound. We had the news this week that, following our pressure, it's being looked at. It seems the first consultants looked ...
[IMG: Sajid Javid] The first three words of novelist and poet Michael Rosen's open letter to the new Culture Secretary I liked. "Dear Mr Javid". Nice strong start. But oh, then it goes on. We've never met, but that's because I work in "culture" and you have spent most of your adult life so far in banking. Read that quickly and it sounds like just a fairly standard bit of leftist bashing of capitalism. But stop and think about it for a moment. Whatever you think of banking, it undoubtedly has a huge influence on modern life. Indeed, the less ...
The Leicester Mercury story about the head of a primary school who has been granted nearly one month off during term time to get married has hit the national press. I don't feel outraged myself, but I do think, given the length of the school holidays, that she could have arranged her marriage to avoid the need for this. But it seems some parents are outraged, and you can see why. Take this Mercury story from November 2011: More than 600 parents have been fined since September for failing to make sure their children go to school. All but seven ...
From Sue Carpendale and Kathy Pollard, Babergh District Councillors Mid Samford covers the villages of Capel St. Mary, Holton St. Mary, Stratford St. Mary, Little and Great Wenham In this report: Renewable energy technologies Suffolk's energy-from-waste site Development of planning policy New Anglia's Strategic Economic Plan Community Land Trusts 2014 Housing Needs Survey Renewable energy technologies Generating energy from renewables is key to the Council's intention of reducing its carbon emissions. The first phase of a programme to deliver this is the installation of solar photovoltaic panels on suitable council housing. Further phases might include other council owned buildings and ...
Current hair colour is the remains of what I did for conference, and needs sorting. I have no outside-the-house engagements this evening, and I'm bored of washed-outness. I'm not going to bleach the roots this time, so this will be a tide-over till the next dye-job, and as such I am just going to use what I have in the cupboard. And I won't have the time or energy for separating out for several colours. So what colour should I dye my hair tonight? If you haven't a DW login, feel free to tweet your answer at me (people usually ...
The decision in the case of the planning appeal over the application to build 100 new homes at Upper Chapel has come through. The appeal has been allowed and permission for the new homes has been given. As local residents will know, the detailed town framework plan discussed where new developments should go around the town and came to the conclusion that the area off Upper Chapel was the wrong area and could not be supported, mainly because it would make a bad highways situation even worse. Sadly, the inspector has not supported this view. In his opinion, the congestion ...
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Sometimes something happens which reminds me how broad a church our party is. Not talking about the left-right axis here; everyone knows we cover the full range of that and have the factions to prove it. I'm looking at the vertical axis. There are people in the Lib Dems who are liberals. Then there are Liberals. Then there are LIBERAL!!!!1!eleventy!!'s*. Then there are people who joined up because they thought we were cuddly and nice and want to compromise on everything; or because they wanted something equidistant from labour and the tories on the left-right axis and hadn't considered the ...
This morning I joined local councillors and North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson to formally cut the turf to start the building of the new council office building in Bodmin. The reason behind the project is to save money for Cornwall Council and, therefore, for Cornish taxpayers. Every pound that we do not have to spend on our own offices is a pound we can spend on vital frontline services. At the moment, the council's office estate in Bodmin is old and dilapidated in parts. It is certainly not efficient or cheap. By spending money on new offices now, we will ...
Meols Ward Lib Dem Councillors John Dodd, David Rimmer and Nigel Ashton, together with FOCUS Editor Jo Barton, are holding their next advice centre on Saturday 12th April, from 11 am to 12 noon at St John's Primary School, Rufford Road, Crossens. We will be there to meet you and discuss any Council problems you may have. No appointment necessary. Just pop in. We hold our advice centre at St John's School, Rufford Road, Crossens every month (except August) on the second Saturday of the month. We also hold a monthly advice centre in Churchtown, at Cafe Moo Moo on ...
Here is the lastest newsletter from the North Meols Library Association
The BBC reports some unsurprising but fascinating research on the vexed question, Does a baby's name affect its chances in life?: For the main part the effect of a name on its bearer rarely amounts to more than the effect of being raised by parents who would choose such a name. [IMG: names oxford university] A similar conclusion is reached by Gregory Clark, the economist behind the book The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility. Although the main focus of his research is family names, Clark has looked at first names too – specifically, the names ...
Rewired State have just announced "End Of The World Hack" We know the earth is about to be bombarded with solar flares and magnetic storms of varying ferocity on July 4th, 5th and 6th 2014, by which time the infrastructure of the energy and communications networks will have been completely decimated across the entire planet. You have 48 hours to best prepare the human race for survival, through the chaos, and on to a successful future. After which time there will be no electricity and no electronic technologies available. That's such a cool idea for a hackathon! It got me ...
[IMG: ben-nicholls] We're a bit behind the times with this one, but better late than never... Ben Nicholls was selected as the Lib Dem candidate for Romsey & Southampton North – the seat which Sandra Gidley won in a famous 2000 by-election – at the next general election. Here's how the local party reported the news: At a packed meeting in Romsey's Crosfield Hall [on 21 March], Romsey and Southampton North Liberal Democrats selected Ben Nicholls to be their prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC). The General Election will take place in May 2015. Ben, 26, is a local man, having first ...
Earlier today, I received an update from the City Council on the bus shelter reinstatement at Blackness Road near to the West End Schools' Campus : "Work has started and the majority of the footway work will be complete today. Unfortunately we were unable to get the lighting column removed this week, and until this is done, we cannot install the bus shelter. I have been advised that the lighting column will be disconnected and removed on Tuesday next week and I hope that the installation of the shelter will take place a few days later. Contractors will be asked ...
Earlier this week, I reiterated my view that there is significant support from residents for 20mph speed limits in highly residential areas. This morning's "Courier" covers my comments on this issue and my view that the City Council is dragging its feet on the matter. This is very starkly different to the proactive approach of other councils - Edinburgh, Fife and Angus for example - have been proactive. Just look at the Angus/Dundee boundary at Monifieth - Navarre/East Navarre Street - both highly residential - 20 on the Angus side; 30 on the Dundee side. 20s Plenty need not be ...
The proposal for Dundee weekly bin collections to be scrapped is a real concern. Opposition councillors are only now being issued with the SNP administration's proposals and although I will await to see the full detail, my initial reaction is that there would be significant detrimental issues that would arise from getting rid of weekly general refuse collections. Dundee has a very high proportion of flatted and tenemental properties - about half the housing stock - and there will be real refuse storage difficulties if people are being expected to store a fortnight's general refuse. I am meeting the Environment ...
[IMG: logo_lg new Liberal Democrat logo] Last week saw the final, rearranged, Manifesto Roadshow in Leeds chaired by Sal Brinton. Those of us present had soon good opportunities to suggest and debate policy ideas for the 2015 General Election manifesto. There was lots of discussion of transport issues – around the quality and reliability of buses and trains and the capacity of the rail network. I raised the point that transport links between and within the northern cities has been identified as a vital ingredient in the agglomeration recipe that supports economic growth. While there has been some progress on ...
Cuts to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew risk the loss of 125 jobs, many in science and public engagement. Continue reading...
It has been announced that the US comedian Stephen Colbert is to take over from David Letterman as host of The Late Show. As Jesse David Fox argues this is in one sense a tragedy because it will mean the end of the Colbert's alter ego "Stephen Colbert", a brilliant parody of the right wing [...]
It saddens me to know that there are people lucky enough to live within a stones throw of a wonderful natural environment, and yet just treat it as a dump. So here, in this woodland near Fensomes Drive, we have a divan, two bases and a mattress. Quite a lot of effort to remove these items from a home. Whoever it was, and probably more than one person, lacked the common sense to arrange for it to be collected and disposed of properly. So now, hapless council employees are going to be faced with the hassle of removing them. I ...
Sajid Javid may make a perfectly decent Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, regardless of whether he's a painter or not. Following the resignation of Maria Miller, the Prime Minister engaged in a small shuffle of ministers to fill the gap opened in the cabinet ranks. The man chosen to replace Maria Miller at the cabinet table is Sajid Javid, MP for Bromsgrove. Javid is British-Pakistani, the son of a bus driver from Rochdale, attendee of a state school and the University of Exeter. His career after that was in the financial industry, working for several large banks ...
Next week, on the 15th of April, it will be the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. There are expected to be thousands at the service at Anfield and it [...]
It's the norm in politics, as in many other walks of life, to eulogise figures from the past and lament the supposed end of the truly great individuals. This Conservative leaflet from the 1964 general election, for Roy Wise (Rugby), does show how in one respect past MPs certainly were different: the amount of casework they did for constituents. Roy Wise boasts of writing 15,000 letters and seeing 2,000 people in person over 5 years. That's just under 8 people a week and just under 60 letters a week on average. These days, there certainly are MPs whose attitude towards ...
[IMG: davidcameron_markreckless] You might not have heard, but there's been a vote and Britain has decided to leave the EU. All right, Kent has decided that Britain should leave the EU. Hold on, scratch that, three thousand people in Mark Reckless' constituency have voted to leave the EU. In a quasi-referendum that Mark Reckless put on all by himself. I'm no fan of direct democracy, but even it deserves slightly better than this. It's moments like these that really crystallise what it is I so dislike about the Conservative Party. When you're inspiration for something comes from the Vladimir Putin ...
[IMG: 700taxcutgraphBlog] Starting this month 24 million people will receive a £700 tax cut compared to 2010. This will put £700 back in the pockets of the lowest earners. Thanks to the Liberal Democrats, the new income tax personal allowance kicks in, reaching £10,000. It means 24m working people are paying £700 less in income tax than they were under Labour; people on the minimum wage have had the amount they pay in income tax more than halved; and 2.7m of people in the lowest paid jobs will no longer pay any income tax at all. This was the top ...
[IMG: cigarette] As Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on smoking and health, I welcome the publication of Sir Cyril Chantler's review of the public health case for introducing standardised packaging for tobacco products. The Review is a thorough assessment of the public health evidence, particularly as it relates to marketing smoking to young people. One of the key objectives of the all party group is to help prevent the next generation of children and young people from taking up the habit. Among existing smokers, two thirds report they began to smoke before the age of 18, and almost ...
Liberal Hero of the Week (and occasional Villains) is chosen by Stephen Tall, Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, and Research Associate at CentreForum. [IMG: cf hero iain mansfield] Iain Mansfield Winner of the IEA's Brexit Prize 2014 (and Director of Trade and Investment at the UK's embassy in the Philippines) Reason: I approached Iain Mansfield's essay outlining a blueprint for 'Britain after the EU' with some trepidation. I half-expected a Ukip-style turn-the-clocks-back digression into right-wing isolationism. I was wrong. Iain's 20,000-word essay, A Blueprint for Britain: Openness not Isolation, sticks to the brief set by the Institute of Economic Affairs: ...
An open letter to brogrammers "you think that girls can't code, just remember girls invented coding. And invented the tools that finally let softies like you play at being programmers. They did the heavy lifting so programming could be easy enough for noobs like you." This rant could also be written about Sci-fi, with names like Mary Shelley and Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin OfC. (tags: ) David Cameron claims 'Jesus invented the Big Society' - he is just continuing God's work Oh. My. God. SO MUCH FAIL IN A PRIME MINISTER! *headdesk headdesk headdesk* (tags: ) Colonial Gin ...
Here's some of the articles that have caught my attention in the past couple of days... The IEA Brexit Prize: A Blueprint for Britain – Openness not Isolation | Institute of Economic Affairs Just read Iain Mansfield's IEA Brexit Prize-winning essay, Openness not Isolation http://bit.ly/1gRgHCE Impressive, rigorous analysis. If this is the case for Brexit, I worry for eurosceptics | Off Message Forensic, fair stuff » "If this is the case for Brexit, I worry for eurosceptics" http://on.ft.com/1n9yxGn OECD educationtoday: Charting the way towards excellence and equity in education "Benefits of devolving responsibty to schools [requires] educatn system to be ...
Use the EU jobs calculator: http://britishinfluence.org/jobs/
I was at an internal Liberal Democrat meeting at Westminster some weeks ago - I won't say which, but there was a minister there - and it made me think about the particular trauma of being in government, and the effect it has on people. There is, of course, something of an inevitable divide between parties at Westminster and parties campaigning locally. For the Lib Dems, this is exacerbated by the emergence of a new cadre of special advisers and party staff who might not even have been members before 2010. I don't want to give away much about this ...
I wonder if the people who gave us this gem come with a broader international experience: [IMG: Unusual roundabout - photo via http://i.imgur.com/ihFd5.jpg, some rights reserved]
Sad news today that Sue Townsend, the author of the Adrian Mole diaries, has died. Like many others I enjoyed the books immensely but I could not hope to do justice to a review of them as Alexis Petridis did two years ago in a Guardian piece that has been republished as a tribute to the books' author. The point of course, as Sue Townsend says is that the book wasn't even aimed at teenagers: "It was written for parents, that was the intended audience. It was for the mothers of teenage boys.": That seems obvious now. Reading it as ...
There has been concern from residents about the extent of licensed premises provision in the city and the matter has been discussed locally at the West End Local Community Planning Partnership. The council's Licensing Board is now consulting on the matter and wants to hear the views of local people. The Licensing Board's consultation paper on this gives an assessment of potential over-provision of licensed premises in the city. The closing date for this is 23rd May 2014. You can download the consultation paper and response form here. Any responses can be e-mailed to licensing.board@dundeecity.gov.uk or you can complete the ...
Fri 11th
08:40
Martin Horwood writes ... an important day for disability and international development
[IMG: A Remarkable Young Man] Select committee reports are often considered to be rather dry, even to the most politically active among us, which is why I feel particularly compelled to highlight the 11th report of the International Development Committee – Disability and development. The select committee decided to hold this inquiry because they had been told repeatedly by organisations like Sightsavers that our country's aid system was not delivering for disabled people overseas. Lynne Featherstone also paid attention to these organisations and started championing the rights of disabled people in her first year as a minister, describing disability as ...
Further to my article about the need to tackle the city's potholes problem, I spoke on Radio Tay News about the matter yesterday. You can hear the interview by clicking 'play' below:
[IMG: Heartbleed] In amongst all the coverage about what people should do in response to the Heartbleed bug to keep their own accounts secure, I've been surprised not to find two specific pieces of advice. So in case you've not come across them too, here's two extra things that make sense to do: a. Delete accounts with services you no longer use. It is after all the best way for your password to be secure – for it not to exist. Take advantage of the blizzard of emails from online services about Heartblled to be reminded about services you no ...
I often wonder how many politicians of genuine independent thinking may be left as year on year their all-controlling political masters churn out and then demand that silly sound bites are used during every media interview or are placed within every press release. 'The squeezed middle' comes to mind as a present favourite but there others which are just as meaningless. Ed Miliband, poor chap, seems to be fed a diet of them and looks so wooden as he tries to sneak them into every interview. But he is far from being alone as senior Tories do it just as ...
There has been some coverage in the press over the last few months regarding the introduction of a charging regime for vehicles using the sites. Park and Ride is important for many people in getting to Cambridge City centre. Whilst County Councillors, when making the decision, made it clear they would prefer to keep the sites free, given the financial challenges facing the Council and the fact that the sites cost £1m a year to run, they felt this is the right way forward. All vehicles parking at any of the 5 Park & Ride sites in Cambridge will have ...
IRCymru (Liberal Youth Wales) has called for more focus on mental health provision in Wales to tackle lengthy waiting lists, ensure more support for students returning to education and create greater parity of esteem between mental and physical health. Welsh Liberal Democrats supported a motion tabled by the youth wing of the party at their Spring Conference. The motion calls for action to improve access to mental health services to reduce waiting times, a national framework to ensure continuity of treatment for young people transitioning from adolescent to adult services and a programme of mental health support in the workplace. ...
