Sunday 25 October 2015

LITTER in New Town

I'm increasingly concerned about the amount of litter I'm seeing around New Town. In one twenty minute trawl this morning I picked up a whole bin bag (see above) of rubbish just from Morant Road, King Stephen Road and part of Winnock Road. I mean the kind of low-level casual litter that makes an area look generally a bit shabby. Beer cans left on the pavement or on road signs and telephone wiring boxes are commonplace along with fast food packaging and plastic bottles. For some reason there were a fair number of plastic coat hangers thrown into the road and half-drunk bottles of lucozade. This kind of littering creates the impression of a lack of pride in an area and the last thing and street needs is to gain a reputation as 'a bit of a dump'.
The solution to this is however is a basic and easy one. If just one person in every New Town Street spent 20 minutes on a weekend day just walking up and down it picking up the most obvious litter a huge difference can be made. I've started doing this on Morant Road.
See below for some examples of the litter I saw this morning.

BAG IT AND BIN IT AND THAT WAY WE'LL WIN IT!


Some of the perennial beer cans, a tray of chips dumped on a hedge next to the pavement and general mess:












Sunday 4 October 2015

The Fight Against Bradwell Continues

Colchester Green Party members were out this afternoon supporting the demonstration on monkey beach, Mersea Island against the building of a new Chinese built nuclear power station across the estuary at Bradwell. We were happy to support BANNG (Blackwater Against New Nuclear), FAB (Fight Against Bradwell) action group and the many local people of all ages who were there. This follows George Osborne's decision to use £2 billion of UK taxpayers' money to underwrite a new Chinese built nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
Admittedly it was a fine, sunny early autumn afternoon today, however I was struck by how beautiful the Blackwater Estuary is. Since the decommissioning of the old Magnox station began in 2002, there has been an explosive recovery in the marine environment. However the proposed new power station would take six times as much water from the estuary as the old one. Removing that amount of cooling water would severely damage the ecology of the estuary. It is also likely that high level nuclear waste could be stored on the site.
Moreover the new plant would be built using Chinese components and most likely by Chinese labour. In China the safety of the Chinese nuclear industry has been questioned by their own scientists. The GMB union has issued the following statement:
"Chinese nuclear technology is unproven and no government should even consider allowing it to be used in a new nuclear power station 60 miles from London".
Mr Osborne has stated:
"If we want places like Bradwell to have jobs... then we must get behind these projects."
Er right......  Its a shame then that 'these projects' are likely to be built using a Chinese reactor, parts made in China and by Chinese labour. Meanwhile the government has slashed funding to renewable energy projects in the UK, placing 27,000 UK jobs at risk in solar energy alone, including 4000 in the south east.