CPZs , Cherie Blair's hair, ID cards

I've spoken to a number of residents who want a CPZ (controlled parking zone) in their street, particularly in Marsala Rd, Gillian St and Malyons Rd, where lots of commuters, town centre visitors and/or hospital workers park, making it difficult for local residents to find a space. A CPZ could help people on the worst affected streets, but it may only shift the problem to just outside the zone rather than reduce the overall problem of there simply being too many cars on the road. Not being a driver, I've never got that excited either way about CPZs, but if the majority of people in a local area wanted a CPZ, I would support it, providing there was proper consultation and a review of how it was working a few months down the line. I would be interested to hear other people's views on this.

Busy weekend as ever - lots of canvassing on Saturday, but a bit wet to canvass on Sunday - Ute thought we would look to miserable with rain dripping off our specs - she was probably right, so we delivered some of our newsletter instead. Postal voters received their ballot papers over the weekend, so a fair chunk of people will already have voted by tomorrow, but lots of other voters still to talk to. A couple more Labour posters have gone up in the ward over the last few days, but there are more Green ones. I'd like to get loads more posters up over the next few days, though, so if you live in Ladywell and would be willing to put a poster up for us, pls just let me know.

What else has happened? Well, our meeting on renewable energy was successful - well-attended and lots of food for thought. Keith Taylor made a convincing case for not going down the nuclear route and David Leal from CND had some great diagrams illustrating how much energy is currently used in various sectors and how much we need to reduce consumption to get our carbon emissions down to the targets set by Kyoto. It was also interesting to find out just how much energy is wasted by the current centralised system we have (leaked, lost in transit, stolen), compared to microgeneration.

I've responded to a letter from Lewisham No2ID - just for the record I think ID cards are a ridiculous waste of money, more so even than spending £7,700 on a hair stylist (Cherie Blair!), over a £1m doing up a school then demolishing it, or over a £1m on renovating a swimming pool then demolishing it, for that matter. See www.lewisham-no2ID.org.uk for details.