Greening Newcastle

Greening Newcastle Welcome to issue 3 of the Newsletter of Newcastle Green Party Green Deputy Leader visit Adrian Ramsay, Deputy Leader of the Green Party, will be speak- ing at a meeting organised by neighbouring Sunderland Green Party (see below). In the 2010 General Election he secured the second highest Green vote in the country in the Norwich South constituency, doubling the party’s vote share to 15%. Adrian is part of the largest group of Green Party Council- lors in the country on Norwich City Council. The Green Party is the second largest party at Norwich City Hall, holding 14 seats, just two behind Labour. Born and brought up in Norwich, Adrian went on to gain a First Class Degree in Politics and Sociology from the University Greenest city? of East Anglia in 2002, where he received an award for his Poli- he Council now trots out on a regular basis as a justifi- tics essays. He later gained a Masters’ Degree. Tcation of its works the accolade it received from Forum Adrian joined the Green Party in 1998 at the age of 16 be- for the Future which described Newcastle as Britain’s greenest cause he felt the other parties were overlooking environmental city. (See http://www.forumforthefuture.org/projects/sustaina- issues and were not tackling poverty and animal cruelty. He still ble-cities09). Certainly the good work that is being done does feels strongly that the Green Party is the only party with strong deserve recognition yet, in reality, only small progress is being and coherent policies on these issues. made. In terms of necessary urgency, given the speed and scale As a prominent councillor and Deputy Leader of the Green of threatening change regarding global (over)warming, peak oil, Party, Adrian is motivated by the need to make a difference on and many other ecological threats, it is very much a matter of these issues at a local and national level. Adrian was first elected too little, too late. All kinds of policies also being pursued by the as a City Councillor in 2003 at the age of 21, gaining 50% of the council that contradict what limited sustainability initiatives it vote. He was re-elected in 2007 with 62% in Norwich’s Nelson has taken. At the same time, equally unsustainable social inequi- Ward. He was elected as the Green Party’s first Deputy Leader ties within the city remain grievously wide. in 2008 and re-elected in 2010. For more information about There is much that is appealing about the city: the Grainger- Adrian’s campaigns and his work as a local councillor please Dobson architectural legacy, the Metro system, cutting edge visit: health facilities, some attractive residential areas, parks like Jes- www.adrianramsay.org.uk mond Dene, the Ouseburn project… Rose-tinted spectacles must of course be discarded when viewing the city’s past. The old Quayside was ugly and badly polluted, especially around the old Thomas Hedley factory (later P&G). Its redevelopment had a number of pluses, even if some of the new architecture is a bit like a Legoland construction, designed by Albert Speer. Local air and water quality is generally much better than, say, 100 years ago. For all the talk of ‘yobbery’ and unsafe streets, it might be remembered that, only 40 years ago, local teen gangs like the ‘Droogs’ swaggered around in search of violent ‘entertainment’. Some of these qualities are rightly spotlighted in the ‘Sustain- able City’ assessment. Yet, overall, the indicators it uses are of limited utility. Sometimes it is a bit like comparing oranges and lemons, with little sense of what must come first for overall well-being and how the different pieces of the jigsaw fit together. Thus there is a category called ‘ecological footprint’ yet this is separated from ‘climate change’, biodiversity’ and ‘air quality’ First anniversary meeting (water is omitted) as if the human impact was something sepa- of Sunderland Green Party rate from these key components of ecological systems. Date: 13.00, Saturday, October 2nd. More seriously, employment is treated as an independent Venue: ‘Revolution’, Low Row, Sunderland variable. Yet some jobs might be very destructive in ecological terms, even if others may be useful and sustainable. No dis- The main speaker will be Adrian Ramsay (see above), with tinction is made, however. ‘Economy’ is separated from both musical entertainment from local band the Summer Tumblers employment and environment so the opening of a number of plus comedy from John Appleton. highly automated plants making armaments would have boosted Newcastle’s green standing. Such classifications are as meaning- ALL WELCOME less as that grotesque picture of the national economy, Gross Domestic Product, counting, as it does, both ‘goods’ and ‘bads’. [It is estimated that, in the USA, each murder increases the GDP by $1 million, so a more murderous Newcastle would be a more economically ‘successful one’!]. So the yardstick of the number of VAT registrations used in the survey to measure business start-ups will include new lapdancing joints, burger bars, casinos, SUV salesrooms, and so forth. The proliferation of ‘value’ stores (Poundstretcher etc) and pawn brokers tend to suggest a decrease in well-being but all signify “economic vibrancy” according to Forum for the Fu- ture’s criteria. In most cases, the categories beg more questions than they answer. So recycling is used as one indicator. But a high score Consumerism reigns supreme on Northumberland St., just based on material collected as a percentage of total waste while, below, unsustainable levels of traffic clog local roads. gives little insight into the actual ecological worth of the activity. If it means an energy-intensive collection system in which collected waste is sent long distances for recycling, then it might do more ecological harm than good. Newcastle’s system seems designed to suit the likes of Biffa and Sita rather than make it as easy as possible for local citizens to minimise the waste they generate. The amount of litter strewn all over the city needs no comment here nor does the level of sheer noise. Similarly the criterion of ‘green space’ could cover ster- ile lawns, parks playing fields or wildflower meadows. It says nothing about land use practices on such sites, such as use of synthetic chemicals and cutting regimes. Housing is not given any prominence, so histories like all the unnecessary demolition under the ‘Going for Growth’ programme go ignored as does the bias towards cul-de-sac and often quasi-gated ‘executive housing’ developments. [Anna Minton’s Ground Control (Penguin, 2009) has good sections in Newcastle’s record here.] Education does feature but its assessment is more compli- cated than suggested. For a start, given problems like grade infla- tion, pass rates are no longer a good guide to how schools are actually doing. Allowance must also be made for the fact that many Newcastle schools are sited in comparatively poor areas where broad social factors hinder attainment. In such circum- stances, a school might still be achieving considerable success even if pass rates look comparatively low. Given that one or two of the city’s ‘best’ schools like Gosforth High are seeking to opt out and gain ‘independent’ academy status, it looks as if educational inequalities are set to widen in the locality. In terms of sustainability, any judgement would need to study both the curriculum, exploring the extent to which ecological dimensions inform what is taught, and the environmental im- Newcastle continues to sprawl outwards,most obviously in the case pact of the schools themselves. Given that one Heaton primary of the perhaps ironically named ‘Great Park’ (above) school won several awards for its building – despite the fact it while expansion is still the name of the game at Newcastle airport, is so dark indoors that lighting has to be left on all the time and co-owned by the council & several other local authorities in the area that it seriously overheats – a degree of caution may be necessary about some of the claims made for local schools. Forum for the Future takes such a narrow view of sustaina- bilkity that it ignores the fact many new developments like Ken- ton School are funded by the Private Finance Initiative, thereby crippling future generations with unsustainably massive debts. In Jesmond, PFI deals have also created a situation whereby school buildings can no longer be used at night for adult education and the like due to the contracts. In a sustainable society, full use would, of course, be made of buildings to maximise efficient use of resources. On transport, the measure used is the number of minutes it takes per month per person to travel to four key services: food, GP, Further Education and secondary school. This gives little insight into different modes of transportation and their impact. For instance, pedestrains and cyclists are still ill-served The history of Eldon Square epitomises a lot about Newcastle in compared to private drivers, while the on-going march of big su- general. The ‘Venice-of-the-North’ vision (?) of T. Dan Smith created perstores, welcomed by many councillors, will mean the closure the shopping mall as well as several new big roads (the ‘canals’), of more easily accessible local shops. At times, as in the case of while the recent make-over has the aesthetics of a 60s job centre, Percy Street, quite contradictory goals are being pursued, name- with cheap standards of finishing. ly road access to two bus stations and two big multi-storey car parks. While the Metro might boost Newcastle’s overall sustainability rating, that would mean little to the west half of the city which, of course, it does not serve.

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