Operation Insulation: Part 1 Completed!

Well, it's been a bit of a mammoth undertaking, involving moving furniture from room to room and kipping at Ute's for half the month, but finally my under floor insulation is all done and the floor boards all sanded, sealed and oiled. Most importantly, my flat feels noticeably less draughty, with a few inches of hemp insulation underneath the floor boards. Really pleased with the work - it took longer than envisaged, due to extra problems such as rotten joists being discovered, but more than happy to recommend the carpenters who did it to anyone interested in getting similar work done. Now just got to paint the skirting boards, move all my things back to the right place and wait for planning permission before I can embark on part 2 and 3, which involves replacing the windows and getting the walls insulated. . .

Ladywell Leisure Centre Users' Forum

Just a quick post to flag up the Ladywell Leisure Centre Users Forum and the Ladywell Pool Users Group. The former is a quarterly meeting organised by Parkwood, who run the centre, as a forum for users to air concerns and suggestions. The next forum in on Thursday 26th March, 6pm, at the Leisure Centre.

The Ladywell Pool Users group was set up to prod the Council to maintain the pool properly at least until its replacement is up and running. You can contact them by e-mail or use the discussion forum on the Save Ladywell Pool site.

Next mtg of LVIG: this Wednesday

The next meeting of the Ladywell Village Improvement Group will be held this Wednesday (18 February) at the St Mary's Centre, Ladywell Road at 7.30pm.

Agenda below. The committee have also put together an action plan of what they feel are the key issues and events to work towards over the next few months, and are keen to get feedback. Come along to the meeting or join the discussion at: www.ladywell.blogspot.com.

Agenda:

1. Welcome / Apologies for absence
2. Minutes of meeting held 21 January
3. Ladywell Action Plan
4. Play Tower update - presentation of current proposal
5. Financial report
6. Publicity update
7. AOB

New Play Areas for Foxborough Gardens and Hilly Fields

Good News Flash! Foxborough Gardens and Hilly Fields have both got funding for new play areas. Ladywell Fields, Blythe Hill Fields and Clare Road estate are among other areas locally that are also set to benefit. The funding comes from the £1.15m of funding Lewisham Council has got from the government as part of the 'Playbuilder' scheme, to provide good quality play areas for under-8s. We were hopeful that we would get the funding, and the Mayor formally approved the officers' recommendations at Mayor and Cabinet last night. The full report and list of areas set to get new play areas can be found here.

The funding for Foxborough Gardens is for a new play area (there is nothing on the estate at the moment), while the Hilly Fields funding is part of a bigger scheme HFUG (Hilly Fields Users' Group) is working on to overhaul the play equipment at the top of the park, and will be pooled with other funding already secured.

The funding for Ladywell Fields is for extra play equipment from natural materials for the proposed adventure playground in the middle field (at the end of Malyons Road, by the spiral bridge).

Great news for the ward, and it's lovely to be able to pass on some good news when the wider economic picture is all doom and gloom at the moment. Particularly pleased about Foxborough Gardens, as I've been working with residents on that since last summer. In June last year I presented a petition to the Mayor signed by more than a hundred residents of Foxborough Gardens, calling for a play area. This coincided nicely with the announcement of the Playbuilder funding, so we started working with residents, Pinnacle and the Council's Early Years team on a proposal.

Residents set up a TRA (tenant's and residents association), with the support of Pinnacle, and organised the successful Foxy Fun Day to fundraise for the play area (as well as bring the whole community together for the day). I understand that a planning application should be submitted within the next few weeks, and all being well, the play area could be ready in time for the summer holidays.

Planning Application for New School at Lewisham Bridge

The planning application for the proposed new 3-16 school at the site of the current Lewisham Bridge Primary School has now been submitted and can be found on the Council's planning portal.

The application is for full planning permission for "The redevelopment of Lewisham Bridge Primary School, Elmira Street SE13, to provide a part three/part four storey all-age school (ages 3 -16 years) and a two-storey sports hall, together with landscaping including play areas, provision of 96 cycle spaces and 16 parking spaces."

If you would like to comment on this application please send an email to planning@lewisham.gov.uk including the Application Number (DC/09/70671/X ), your name, address, comment and reason for interest, before 17th February.

Some artist impressions from the developer's application are shown here (as always with artist impressions, they should be treated with caution. The one picture at the bottom makes it look like there will be a grassy path with landscaping leading up to the school, but of course that is the existing Cornmill Gardens and the school itself is in the background.)

I think it will probably go to a strategic planning committee, but just in case it comes to my planning committee, I need to be careful what I say and to keep an open mind at this point about the specifics of the planning application. However a few general thoughts on the proposals:

• It's not an ideal site, but we need a new secondary school and there is no other obvious, well-located site available to the Council within the timescale it needs to deliver a new secondary school (ie a few years ago). In my opinion it is a much better site for a secondary school than the Ladywell Leisure Centre site previously proposed (not on a busy main road, slightly closer to the north of the borough where the need for secondary school places is greatest, very close to public transport hubs).
• It is a small site for a secondary school, but this is inner-city London and unfortunately, we don't have sites with rolling playing fields around here to choose from. Other schools, such as Northbrook and Addey & Stanhope are on similarly constrained sites (I think this site is actually bigger than these two). The current site is arguably under-used, ie the school is big enough for a 3-form entry primary but it has for a number of years only had 1 and a half-form entry.
• Greens, along with the Socialists and other parties, called for a community school, ie one run by the local authority, but this was blocked by education minister Ed Balls, and Mayor Steve Bullock backed down on this rather than put up a fight and further delay the new school. We could argue about the pros and cons of this for ages, but given that there is unfortunately little imminent prospect of a Green or Socialist government, only a neo-liberal government (be it Tory or Labour) which supports acadamies etc, we may just have to accept that as a battle we can't currently win. Prendergast has an established and generally good reputation in the borough and is now conforming to the borough's admissions policy.
  
• Like all the other schools being built under the BSF (Building Schools for the Future) programme, it will be built using PFI (private finance initiative) money, ie on tick and we'll be paying it back over the next 25 years. Not something Greens support, but again, the funding of choice of the current government.
  
• There have been and will be local concerns about the extra pressure on surrounding roads due to the increase in pupil numbers, and the cumulative effect of this, alongside the proposed developments at Loampit Vale, Lewisham Gateway and Thurston Road. This is an issue that the highways officers will have to address when making their recommendations to the planning committee, and the school will need to demonstrate that it has a robust school travel plan which will do everything it can to encourage pupils and staff to walk, cycle or take public transport to school. It is a well-located site, near to cycle routes, buses, the DLR and the train station.
  
• There will be inconvenience to existing pupils, staff and parents while the current school is decanted to the Mornington Centre, but I think the impact of the decant will be considerably less than trying to build the new school in phases with the existing school still on site. A limited number of families and staff will be inconvenienced for a limited amount of time. The constraints that would have been placed on design and construction by trying to build a new school with the existing school on site would, I believe, have resulted in a far inferior design and much greater inconvenience to many. That said, much of my own primary education was spent in portakabin classrooms and between several different sites as the school was being changed, and to be honest, we adapted.
• Not building a new school would mean that many Lewisham children would have to commute outside the borough or to the other end of the borough to get to school, as many already do.
  
• The flipside of this of course if that in reducing a primary school down from 1 and a half-form entry to one-form entry, while at the same time there are plans for hundreds of new homes to be built next door, is that there may well in the future be a shortage of primary school places in central Lewisham.
  
• A number of people have expressed concern about how an all-through school will work, eg if there will be an increase in bullying etc. I'm no expert on this, but it seems to work with public schools, many schools elsewhere in Europe and the site is being designed in 3 distinct zones, with separate play areas and entrances for the nursery, primary and secondary school pupils. I taught at a 6-19 school in Minsk, Belarus, for a year, and it simply wasn't an issue - the younger children had separate play times to the older children, and each would look out for the other in corridors etc.
  
• I went along to the exhibition at Lewisham Bridge School before Christmas, to see the designs for the new school. I went with some trepidation and to be honest was pleasantly surprised with what was being proposed. I thought the designs made good use of the space available. I think we are now on something like the third version of the plans that have been to the design panel, the previous versions having been heavily criticised. I'm told that once the decision to decant rather than build in phases had been made, this freed the architects up to look at the whole site. Whereas earlier incarnations of the plans had considered having air-conditioned classrooms with windows that wouldn't open alongside the railway line, the current plans propose having the sports hall and dining area next to the railway, in a separate building (with covered walkways), which can be opened up for community access out of school hours.
• Off the top of my head I can't remember exactly what percentage of the site the footprint of the buildings comprise, but I did ask at the exhibition and if I recall correctly it was around 50%, ie a fair chunk of the site is ear-marked for outdoor play areas. Not as much as many of us would like, I'm sure, but not as bad as I feared it might be, given the site constraints. There is also the potential for the school to make use of the new leisure centre next door, when it is finally built.
  
• Sustainability issues: from what I have seen of the plans for the school so far, they seem to address sustainability issues much more comprehensively than the schools that have already been built/are being built under the BSF scheme. The applicants seem to be aiming for a BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) excellent rating, which, if achieved, will be no mean feat. You can read the full preliminary BREEAM report here. It's disappointing that grey water recycling doesn't appear to have been incorporated into the plans, but designers seem confident that a substantial percentage of the school's energy needs will be met on site with a combination of solar panels and a biomass boiler.
  
• The Sustainable Development Committee, which I chair, is undertaking an ongoing review of the extent to which the BSF programme is addressing sustainability issues - not just looking at solar panels etc, but also wider issues around how the building meets the needs of the local community etc. We will be looking at the proposals for the new school at our meeting this Wednesday.
• Ladywell Society briefly discussed the new school plans at its meeting last Tuesday, and both Lewisham Central councillor Andrew Milton and I were there. A number of concerns were expressed, but members decided to go away and look at the proposals again in more detail before reaching a firm view either way.
• Biodiversity: efforts will need to be made to relocate the frogs, newts and other wildlife, which my ward colleague, Mike, who built the wildlife garden a few years back, assures me are still living in the wildlife garden. The time to do this is very soon, ie before they lay spawn this Spring.
  

Apologies for the rather long post; I've been mulling this over for a while as I realise it's quite a controversial issue and not everyone in the ward (or within my own party) will agree with the comments I've made here.

Rail works this Sunday

Just received the following e-mail:

"We have just been advised by Network Rail that they need an emergency track possession to replace a set of points between New Cross and St. Johns.

As a result, Southeastern train services will NOT call at New Cross and St. Johns stations on Sunday, 8 February. We will be operating replacement bus services for passengers requiring those stations.

Information will be posted on our website and on posters at stations"

I'm assuming this is if the tracks aren't submerged under 6 inches of snow again . . .

Violence in Sri Lanka

The dire and deteriorating human rights situation in Sri Lanka, where hundreds of civilians have reportedly been killed over the past few weeks, including an incident where one hospital was bombed a number of times, has only fleetingly made the news in the UK.

However for the many Tamil residents in Lewisham, including many in Ladywell, it is obviously a grave concern, and I know some are still trying to contact friends and relatives to check they are safe. There have been a couple of recent demonstrations in London, and Jean Lambert, Green MEP for London and former human rights MEP of the year, spoke at one this Saturday and she issued the following statement:

"I am appalled by the human rights violations currently taking place in Sri Lanka. I have been informed by aid workers that hundreds of civilians have been killed in the last week and the fear is that this situation could become far worse than the recent dreadful devastation of Gaza.

"On Thursday next week, a resolution on Sri Lanka is due to be debated in the European Parliament at the request of the Green MEPs. I also call on the UK Government and the international community to respond immediately to help the many innocent people caught in the crossfire.

"I will be attending the protest this Saturday in central London to demand action to alleviate the suffering and provide emergency medical supplies and humanitarian aid, which have so far not been forthcoming. This war demands the attention of the press and world leaders and I will be doing all in my power to raise the alarm and involve decision makers in finding a peaceful outcome."

People are still having fun

It really shouldn't be allowed . . .
Brockley and Ladywell were looking particularly lovely today, and there were more people on Hilly Fields than I've ever seen, except for the midsummer fayre.

All 3 Lewisham Labour MPs back government on aviation expansion

Assuming the Standard has got it's voting figures correct, it seems that all 3 Lewisham Labour MPs, including Lewisham Deptford MP Joan Ruddock, junior minister for climate change, backed the government and supported the expansion of Heathrow Airport in yesterday's vote in the House of Commons. Nice one Joan, but you're supposed to be the minister that takes action to prevent climate change, not to guarantee runaway climate change. Just keep telling us to change our lightbulbs, that should do the job . . . not.

'Disgusted of Ladywell'

Re-Elect Jean Lambert MEP

Along with lots of my fellow Green bloggers, I want to give a plug today to the work of Green MEP for London, Jean Lambert.

Jean was elected as London's first Green Party MEP in 1999- and in 2004, she was re-elected with an increased share of the vote. On June 4th 2009, she faces re-election again - but due to EU enlargement, there are less European Parliament seats to go around in the UK, and more votes are needed every time to achieve re-election.

Second on the Green Party's London Region list for the European Parliament is our very own Ladywell ward councillor, Ute Michel. Getting two Green MEPs in London is a tall order, but I know Ute would do a brilliant job given the chance, as has Jean.

Pictured above: Ladywell ward councillor Ute Michel, with Shahrar Ali and Jean Lambert, the top 3 London Region Green candidates for the Euro Elections.

The work of the European Parliament can sometimes feel remote from people's everyday experience - but much of the UK's environmental, social and human rights legislation is now decided at an EU level, and the often unheralded work of our MEPs makes an enormous difference to the shape and impact of those laws. Jean has been tireless in working for social justice, environmental sustainability and peace - as recognised by the fact that she was named Justice and Human Rights MEP of the year in 2005.

Among other issues, Jean has focused on trade union rights, fairer treatment for asylum seekers, and the abolition of the UK opt-out to the Working Time Directive. She has been a prominent voice in proving that Green issues are not confined to the environment, but are concerned with building a more fair and just society.

It was Jean's 'Hothouses' report on climate change and greening London's housing stock, that first got me thinking seriously about ways of insulating my flat. The report highlights the importance of insulating London's existing housing (97% of London's housing was built before 1995), including the challenge of dealing with the 1.7m solid wall homes in London (over half of London's housing stock, including much of the Victorian housing in and around Brockley and Ladywell).

Her more recent 'Green Work' report looks in more detail at the need to create thousands of jobs in green industries such as insulation, and train up thousands of people to meet the 'green skills gap' in insulating homes, the renewables and recycling industry, plumbers, builders etc.

The BBC who have done a week-long blog and feature on the role of MEPs this week, in an attempt to demystify their work slightly, which includes an interview with Jean.

To continue her excellent work in Europe, Jean needs to get the message out to millions of Londoners, but she isn't funded by corporations, lobbyists or millionaires, so instead, her re-election campaign is relying on the efforts of ordinary Londoners. If you'd like to donate to her campaign, you can do so here via Paypal. If you'd like to volunteer in anyway, contact the campaign (or e-mail me for details of local events), and keep in touch with developments through Facebook.

Insulation Day 3

OSB (oriented structure board) has started to go down in the front room today. Just 8mm thick, but enough to give extra support to the boards that will go over the top, as well as add an extra air-tight layer over the insulation. Apparently OSB is better than using plywood or MDF as it contains less formaldehyde and wastes less wood. Slight hitch in that my phone line was accidentally cut today when the skirting boards were removed - apologies to anyone who tried to call and couldn't get through - it's back up and running now though, so do call again.

Operation Insulation and the Lunacy of Expanding Aviation

The insulation has been laid in my front room now, and it already feels warmer, even before the floorboards have been put back on top!

I wondered for a while today why I'm bothering to make the effort though, when our government has today announced it was to press ahead with Heathrow Expansion, which would cancel out any carbon savings individuals make and put us well and truly on course for runaway climate change.

- Sorry Bangladesh, our government thinks BAA's business interests are more important than rising sea levels that will put your country underwater.
- Sorry Londoners, 1,000 of whom already die prematurely each year due to air pollution, but your government has just decided to make it all much worse and build an airport that will almost certainly be in breach of EU air pollution laws.
- Sorry to all those who already get woken up at 5am by the first planes overhead - for those of you who don't yet - stand by as it's going to get a hell of a lot noisier soon.

I am absolutely furious, and for me this is a line in the sand. I will do everything I can within the law to oppose this, but will also now consider taking part in direct action and if necessary risk arrest, as I think what the government is proposing is criminally negligent (and they didn't even have the guts to put it to the vote in parliament).

I haven't heard much from our 3 Lewisham MPs on this issue, but have written to Joan Ruddock MP asking for clarification of her stance on this, both as my constituency MP and as Parliamentary Under Secretary in the Department of Energy and Climate Change. By dodging having a vote in parliament on this issue, the government has tried to avoid embarrassment for any of its ministers with London constituencies.

Of course there is every possibility that we could end up with a Tory government after the next general election and if so they have pledged to scrap the plans for Heathrow expansion, but can we really trust them not to cave in to big business on this one? Clearly some of their members are less than supportive of their leaders' stance (not to mention being head in the sand climate change sceptics).

Good press release from the national party today and it was also announced that the Labour group leader on Bury St Edmonds Council has resigned from Labour and applied to join the Green Party in disgust at the Heathrow decision.

Finally, if you haven't already done so, why not sign up to Greenpeace's Airplot campaign, and declare a beneficial interest in a plot of land within the site of the proposed new runway? There is also a Flashmob at Heathrow Terminal 5 at midday this Saturday (17th).

Have your say in shaping improvements in Ladywell - come along to the Ladywell Assembly on Tue, 20.01. from 7-9pm

The next Ladywell Assembly will take place on 20 January from 7-9pm in the modern science block of Prendergast School on Adelaide Avenue and it is open to everybody who lives, works or studies in the ward.

At the last assembly, residents selected the top five priorities for the ward: Local Shops, Streetscape and Environment, Lack of Youth and Community Facilities, Anti-Social Behaviour and Crime, and The Playtower. At the forthcoming assembly, feedback from a meeting of the assembly coordinating group and councillors with Council officers about these priorities will inform the discussion on concrete action to tackle issues raised, and on specific project proposals that could be put forward for funding from the Mayor’s Fund, a pot of money from which the Mayor has allocated £50k to each ward (£25k from this and from next year’s Fund) as part of the assembly process. This is in addition to the Locality Fund of £10k, and so £60k will be available for improvements in Ladywell ward. This assembly will start considering good uses for the money and at a later assembly meeting the detailed proposals will be assessed for funding.

In addition, one of the participants will give a brief update from the recent LINC meeting on reducing our impact on the environment. This is a project that was launched at the last assembly but is independent of it and taken forward by a group of Ladywell residents. The discussions we had on waste and recycling, home insulation for both Victorian and more recent properties and transport issues were very lively and informative, and more information on practical activities and access to further information will be available soon.

There will also be information on the activities funded with this year’s Locality Fund, and the popular community update will focus on youth provision in the ward. In addition, everybody who would like to share local information is going to have an opportunity to do so. It is a great opportunity to find out what is going on in the ward.

Last but not least there will be elections to the assembly co-ordinating group for a one year term.

It would be great to see many of you there as it promises to be a very interesting meeting and is local residents’ chance to shape the look and feel of Ladywell ward.

Operation Insulation has commenced!

Finally, after months of reading up and getting estimates, and just over a year after I joined the Green Homes scheme and got my home energy audit, my plan to insulate and 'green up' my flat took a step forward today, with the start of the work to insulate under my floor boards. Living in the ground floor flat of a converted Victorian house with stripped floorboards and single glazed sash windows has been more than a bit draughty over the past few weeks, but hopefully that's all set to change. The works are going to take a few weeks, and involve moving all the furniture out of one half of the flat while all the floorboards are taken up. Any inch of space that isn't taken up with furniture, is jam-packed with huge bales of insulation material.

Work started today in the front room. The floorboards have all been lifted and the skirting boards removed. 'Periscope vents' have been fitted onto the air bricks to channel the air down. It's important that air continues to circulate underneath the insulation to avoid damp problems. A fair amount of rubble has been removed to make sure the air holes are clear. A breathable membrane is going to be placed over and between the joists, to hold the insulation in place.

The insulation that I'm using is hemp based, and (I'm assured) both fire retardant and treated with smthg which makes it unappealing to mice. After discussion with the builders today, we decided to add an extra 6mm layer of board on top of the insulation and joists to add extra support to the floorboards (they've already been sanded once and after being sanded a second time might be slightly thinner than ideal).

All this insulation will just about bring my floor insulation up to modern day building regs standards, ie not by any stretch of the imagination zero carbon, but significantly better than it currently is. We're limited in what we can do by the fact that the gap under the floor boards and the depth of the joists is not that big, but the insulation should certainly be enough to block the draughts that currently blow through the place and help to make my home a bit cosier and more comfortable than it has been.

Blogging may be slightly intermittent while the works are underway . . .

Free Compost Bins Available

Lewisham Council has a limited number of free compost bins to give away to residents.

Why compost?
42% of the waste in the average rubbish bin is compostable kitchen or garden waste. Home composting can save you money on buying expensive compost and helps the environment by reducing car and truck journeys.

To request your FREE compost bin and for more information, call Envirocall on 020 8314 7171.

Algernon Road does it again!

Well done to the residents of the Loampit Vale end of Algernon Road, who have been crowned the 2008 Lewisham Recycling Champions. They achieved a recycling participation rate of 84%. The scheme itself was a great success with an average increase in recycling through the kerbside collection scheme in nominated streets of 9%.

This is the second time Algernon Road has won the recycling champions award - the Ladywell end of Algernon Road won the first ever recycling champions award in 2006. In 2007 it went to Champion Street in Sydenham, but in 2008, I think a bit of friendly neighbourly rivalry may have kicked in with the 'other' end of Algernon Road determined they could go one better than their neighbours! Well done to all concerned.

Quick roundup

I was away on a training course over the weekend and have a pile of things to catch up on, but wanted to very quickly flag up a few things:

A blog from the Hilly Fields Birdwatch project and update on Hilly Fields playground from the park users' group, over on Brockley Central.

South London Garden Organic want your plastic bottles to make a greenhouse.

A quick reminder that Friends of Brockley & Ladywell Cemetery have their next workday this coming Sunday, 18th January, and their next meeting on Wednesday 21st January. For the workday, meet by the chapel at 10am. The meeting is at Brockley Grove depot at 7.30pm.

Interested in the Transition Towns movement? Well, an e-mail discussion list has now been set up for people interested in starting some kind of initiative in Lewisham. There are already people from Brockley, Ladywell, New Cross, Sydenham and Catford on it. Join the list for further info, or see here for my previous posts on Transition Towns stuff.

Finally, Lewisham Green Party's monthly meeting is tonight at Brockley Social Club, 7.30pm. All members and supporters welcome, although only members are entitled to vote on any items on the agenda, which includes among many other exciting things (honestly!), the selection of our candidates for the Downham double by-election.

Empty Properties Recommendations

Lewisham's Sustainable Development Committee, which I chair, has this week published a report and recommendations following our scrutiny into the issues surrounding empty properties in the borough, an issue which is of course significant in Ladywell ward, and only likely to be exacerbated in the current economic climate. The full report can be viewed here. Our key recommendations were that:

• Council staff need to share information more effectively about empty properties, and use their full range of enforcement powers to bring them back into use, including compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) where necessary as a last resort.
  

• Owners of shop premises left empty by bankrupted businesses should be encouraged to make available to voluntary and community groups hungry for space, if commercial tenants are in short supply
• The Council's refuse collectors could act as the community's eyes and ears by reporting when bins are consistently not left out, alerting empty homes officers early
• There should be more publicity for residents about how to report empty or problematic properties and those with empty properties should be given more support in bringing them back into use.
• Businesses should be made aware of the empty commercial properties database
  

Lewisham isn't necessarily worse than other local authorities on dealing with empty properties, in fact it has had notable success with its use of Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMOs). However, our scrutiny found that is lagging behind neighbouring boroughs such as Bexley in its use of planning enforcement legislation, and Lambeth in its use of CPOs.

I will present the report to Mayor & Cabinet on behalf of the committee in a couple of weeks, and hopefully the Mayor will look at implementing some of our proposals.

As far as 'problem properties' in Ladywell ward are concerned, as ward councillors we are continuing to follow up with planning and environmental health to get enforcement action taken on a number of properties, in particular 46 Ladywell Road (the former Nightwatch shop) and 67a Loampit Hill (the old shop on the corner of Tyrwhitt Road). We are hopeful of some progress on both soon, after two years of pushing for action, but can't say more at this stage.

Boris Watch

2 things in particular that the Mayor of London has done have annoyed me this week:

1) Motorbikes can now use red route bus lanes on TfL roads. (Borough bus lanes are at the discretion of local authorities and Lewisham has already confirmed that it does not plan to allow motorbikes to use its bus lanes). This measure is not going to encourage people to take up cycling on London's streets. Motorbikes may use less fuel than cars, but they're still dependent on fast-depleting fossil fuels and contributing to greenhouse gases. The Mayor of London should be focussing his efforts on promoting walking and cycling, not pandering to petrolheads while imposing above inflation increases on public transport fares.

2) It's also been revealed this week that he is scrapping the London Green Homes Concierge Service. Regular readers of this blog will know that I signed up to this scheme last January, and since then have been working on ways to improve the thermal efficiency of my home. The scheme was launched a year ago by the previous Mayor of London and the London Development Agency and was designed to help Londoners cut climate emissions and fuel costs by making their homes more energy efficient.

It wasn't perfect (a London-wide free insulation roll-out to every home would have been better), but it's better than nothing, which, as far as I can gather so far, is what it's being replaced with. The London Development Agency has axed the Green Homes Service from its plans for next year and beyond. This was confirmed early this week by LDA chief executive, Peter Rogers, under questioning by Darren Johnson at the Assembly's budget committee. It seems a huge waste of money to scrap something just one on, just as it was getting established.

Anyway, that's the end of my anti-Boris rant for now. You may have gathered that I'm not a fan, and couldn't quite believe that the people of London elected him as Mayor last year, but I guess that's democracy and we just have to make sure a progressive and green candidate gets more votes than him next time!

Greening Your Community event on 8 January

An exciting project is under way in Ladywell which aims at reducing people's impact on the environment and climate change; in the process it will reduce bills and boost community action.

As part of the LINC (Low Impact Neighbourhood Community) project a facilitated workshop is going to take place this Thursday, 8 January, from 7-9pm at Prendergast School, in the new science block on Adelaide Avenue. It will look at environmental concerns of residents, which will be turned into an action plan for individuals and the community and provide information about practical support available to get going. So whether you make new year's resolutions or not, come along to develop some actions to reduce our impact on the environment and amongst other things, find out about how to cut your fuel bills and make your home warmer.

For more information contact Tony Rich at tony@richregeneration.com. If you cannot make it on Thursday but would like to get involved or be kept informed please contact Gordon Cowie at gordon@rockuk.net.