1

Greening NewcastleWelcome to issue 14 of the magazine of Newcastle Green Party, October 2011

NewcastleGreen Party discussion meetingAll welcome!

19.00, Wednesday, October 19th,Brown Room, The ‘Central’ pub(Gateshead end of the Tyne bridge, between railway & Hylton Hotel)

Metro: Gateshead

(Please note special arrangements: see back page for details)

Defendthe Green Belt!The English countryside is under dire threat. The government

is rushing through massive changes to the national planning policy framework, which would make it much easier to build on greenfield sites. Indeed it is nothing short of a wreckers’ ball. No wonder the National Trust warns of “unchecked and damaging development” while Friends of the Earth predicts “a building free-for-all that will blight our countryside with bad building”.

In particular, the proposed changes to land use controls will erode the country’s green belt system in favour of a presumption for “sustainable development”. This is but a classic bit of double-speak, as massive estates of ticky tacky little boxes, with no essential facilities or amenities, are not in any way sustainable. But the assault is taking many forms. Up north, outside Aberdeen, American millionaire Donald Trump is carving out his new golf resort, trashing the sand dunes there, while, down south, Basildon Council, which claims to be defending the green belt against gypsies, is flogging off playing fields.

The protection of the countryside is not just a matter of aesthetics, though large parts of rural England are still delightful and worthy of conservation on aesthetic grounds alone. Such things are a staple part of a full and satisfying life. Time spent just rambling around verdant landscapes, away from the hustle and bustle of urban life, is indeed a physical and psychological boost for most people.

Yet there are many other grounds for protecting the countryside. As food prices begin to inexorably rise, we will urgently need good agricultural land, not depend on what, in the future, will be increasingly uncertain sources of imported food from the other side of the world. Farmland is far too precious to bury under brick, concrete and tarmac. Once our fields are gone, they’re gone forever, at least in terms of any relevant time frame. There are clear biophysical limits, as well as food health risks, to the intensification of farming so we cannot hope to keep squeezing more food from less land.

SubtopiaThe green belt grab will produce more urban sprawl. That, in turn, will increase petrol consumption for the extra work, school, shopping and leisure journeys that will ensue… at a time when it looks as if society has crossed the summit of ‘peak oil’ and that, now, the road is downhill. All those extra journeys will further aggravate greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of air pollution. Long distance suburbanisation also increases the cost of providing utilities,

whilst making waste collection for recycling harder (compare terraced streets in, say, Jesmond, with those in developments like Whitebridge Park in north Gosforth).

The costs to Britain’s already beleaguered wildlife will be devastating. Many surviving habitats are too small and too isolated from each other. The present system of tiny postage stamp size reserves amid a flood tide of urban development is clearly failing. At the very least, future human needs must be met by better use of the current built-up area.

However, some critics of government plans from the ‘loyal’ opposition’ of quangos and mainstream charitable bodies fight only certain green belt take-overs, accepting others. Sometimes they glibly argue that there is plenty of space elsewhere in the hope that their favourite patch will be left alone. Yet the threat to wildlife and general ecological sustainability does not stem from the loss of this or that bite out of the countryside. The problem is the cumulative process: all those little bites added together.

This is why so much of once rural England has been lost since 1945. The total area of rural land lost to urban use between 1945-1990 has indeed been drastic: 705,000 hectares, an area the size of Greater London, Berkshire, Herefordshire and Oxfordshire combined. Indeed the loss of agricultural land to development continued, with about 15,000 hectares developed from 1996 - 2004 (Department for Communities and Local Government, 2007). No wonder that Britain’s wildlife is in such a bad state.

Furthermore, the ecological footprint from that urban area is an unsustainable one. The Sustainable London Trust has, for example, estimated that London requires land 125 (sic) times its actual physical size to supply the resources it consumes and dispose of its wastes. The development lobby’s argument that urban land use only takes up a small percentage of the country’s total land surface ignores that critical issue (as well as the limited carrying capacity of many non-urban areas such as the uplands)

2

Threat from withinHowever the ecological health of the land is also threatened by forces from within the countryside, not just urban sprawl. Again the loyal opposition do not loudly and clearly challenge the intensification and chemicalisation of rural land uses like farming and forestry nor the relentless tide of open cast mining, gravel extraction, wetland drainage, waterway channelisation, ‘sports’ monocultures like grouse moors, ski and other leisure developments, power plant construction…

To be sure they will often fight a particular threat, though they often seem content if their patch is left alone. Seldom do they recognise that most of what passes for countryside is badly polluted and degraded. So groups like the Ramblers Association campaign to maintain the ‘open’ spaces of the uplands, even though, ecologically, such areas are in effect man-made ‘wet deserts’, regardless of whether, subjectively some people may like their current appearance.

Nor is there much questioning of the consumption patterns, lifestyle preferences and population levels, that, together, generate the excessive pressures on both rural and urban land in Britain and indeed around the world. A look at the adverts and promotions inside, say, the National Trust’s magazine will reveal just how snugly such groups blend into the world of unsustainable excess.

A coherent campaign to fight the development juggernaut must be prepared to pose these issues. It must link that struggle to greener land uses such as organic farming and ‘ecoforestry’ as well recognise that large parts of the existing Green Belt are not very green and need general ecological rehabilitation.

For the moment, however, existing land use designations need to be kept, if only as a holding operation. But in the longer term we need a new system, one which start from the very nature of the land (see Ian McHarg’s seminal Design with Nature). It would include a whole series of wedges, corridors and nodes where wildlife would come first, plus generous ‘low intensity’ buffer zones around them, rather than somewhat arbitrary circular belts.

WindfallsActually the likely battles over the green belt pose further questions about not just planning but land ownership and freedom of information about who owns what. It is not immediately obvious, for example, that businesses like builders and supermarkets own big chunks of land on the urban fringe and are just biding their time for making a grab to develop it.

Furthermore, it has to be recognised that the current Green Belt works in a way that enriches those like the Duke of Westminster who holds lots of land within the various Green Belts and which is consequently inflated in price under the current economic system. The losers are ordinary citizens, not least those just trying to get onto the first rung of the property ladder. Only green policies for site value taxation can begin to create the conditions for a more equitable system and one that gives those most in need the priority they deserve.

Developers will of course claim that they are bringing jobs and houses. In reality, much of the new employment is in the form of short-term, low paid contract work, while, as can be seen in Newcastle Great Park, the homes thrown up are ‘executive housing’, way beyond the means of first time buyers. But it remains a potent argument.

So opposition to the developers must also argue that there are other ways of supplying homes for those in need. For possible alternatives, see, for example: http://www.greenparty.org.uk/policies/housing_2010/housing_

detail.htmlhttp://www.greenparty.org.uk/policies/jobs_2010/jobs_detail.htmlhttp://www.emptyhomes.com/

Facing the limitsFurthermore the pursuit of development, be it for housing or whatever, is a self-feeding process. Just as new roads generate new traffic, thereby bringing back the very problem of congestion they were allegedly built to solve, the green belt grab will trigger more demands for more facilities and thereby more demands in the future for new housing to bring in new council taxers to pay for the costs of building those facilities and…

The development lobby never asks, let alone answers, that fundamental question: what next? The answer is, of course: nowhere since there is only so much land and so many resources. At some time, a halt must be called and that time is now. It is a point that news about the threat from climate change and other ecological perils reinforces just about every day. However what has been called above the ‘loyal opposition’ fails to question the whole growth treadmill. It is down to bodies like the Green Party to pose the ‘steady-state’ alternative to growthmania.

We should beware, however, the siren song of ‘planning gain’. There might be instances where such trade-offs have delivered something worthwhile. Yet, often in such compromises, be it a new housing estate, retail park or coniferous plantation, the developers, who previously had ‘nothing’, get, say, 50% of what they wanted while the conservationists, who had ‘everything’, lose 50% of what they wanted to conserve… and thus another bit bites the dust.

Local grabNewcastle and Gateshead Councils are proposing the construction of 36,000 new homes built over the next 20 years. Just over 25% are targeted for green belt land along the urban fringe, mainly to the north and west. 4,500 homes are planned for villages currently counted as green belt in Newcastle, with a further 5,200 in Gateshead spread across 21 sites, The latter plan apparently includes a distribution centre to be built at Follingsby.

Around Newcastle, the Walbottle, Callerton and Woolsington area will bear the brunt of the onslaught, though a particularly significantly threat is posed to the Gosforth Nature Reserve by a development backed by Newcastle council on one side and another, at Whitehouse Farm, backed by North Tyneside council on the other (see article later).

If we work together, we can stand up for a balanced, sensitive approach to deciding what to build and where to build it. We can protect local communities’ right to have their say, make sure social housing is built where it’s needed as well as protect wildlife and beautiful, tranquil places. Fortunately, there are good examples in Newcastle and elsewhere of buildings being reclaimed for housing (it should also include the many vacant retail outlets now scarring the urban landscape) as well as well-executed in-fill development, not least down behind the Quayside.

Locally there have been success stories in fighting such threats. Opponents stopped a proposed business park from being built on green belt land in South Tyneside in 2006. The size of the response to the government’s attempted sell-off of the national forest estate (see Greening Newcastle 7) was met with such protest that, at least for now, the plan has been withdrawn. That is the key: the mobilisation of massive opposition and decisive defeats of would-be developers. Otherwise they will be back all too soon, seeking to turn more of England into an even greyer and more unpleasant land.

For what is envisaged locally, see: http://www.gateshead.gov.uk/DocumentLibrary/Building/PlanningPolicy/Evidence/SLR/

3

Rotten to the coreIn popular culture, ‘retro’ movements are very common. Many rock bands have tried to revisit the ‘60s’, for example. It is seldom harmful and sometimes worthwhile. In the field of public policy, and none more so that in land use planning and economic strategy, it is usually downright harmful to look backwards. Instead any valid planning should have its eyes firmly fixed on likely future scenarios, albeit informed by whatever can be learned from past successes and especially mistakes.

The draft Core Strategy put out by Newcastle and Gateshead Councils fails to do just that. Like the Bourbon kings of old, its authors have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Instead they seek to revive what is now likely never to return – even if we wanted it – and repeats some of the errors their predecessors made in fields like housing, transport and job creation. Indeed the papers, One Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan (see http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/planning-and-buildings/planning/consultation-newcastle-gateshead-core-strategy-and-urban-core-area-a) are quite shoddy jobs.

For instance the environmental impact assessment is noticeably light on hard data and scientific rigour. Instead there is a long list of targets but little about their compatibility nor much about how they will actually be delivered in practice, especially environmental protection. As with all the related strategy papers, there are plenty of glossy diagrams and statements of intent but beneath it lies a vision that is myopic indeed.

Going for DemolitionA particularly bad example of this myopia can be found in the sections on housing. Just like council policy on Tyneside in the 60s (e.g. bulldozing of many west end terraces), the strategy advocates the demolition of what are basically sound houses (some 4500 in West Gateshead). The lesson could and should have been learned that such action does more social damage and creates more environmental cost than retrofitting and rehabilitation.

The policy seems to be a repetition of the discredited Pathfinder programme and Newcastle’s own Going for Growth. Anna Minton’s Ground Control documented the folly of such strategies. More recently the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee reported that the Pathfinder programme had put an enormous amount of money into the pockets of speculators for little or no public gain.

Instead and again in the manner of past policy that led to the urban sprawl west and north of the city, the Core Strategy seeks to grab green belt land for new housing estates. It seems to assume that such construction can kick-start the local economy. Yet average house prices seem set to fall significantly. This is, of course, good news for first time buyers but it underlines the foolishness of thinking that a durable economy can be built upon speculative housing developments.

Again lessons are not being learned from the 2008 ‘credit crunch and the way a property--based bubble simply and predictably went pop. It was a crisis resulting from overgrowth of financial assets (mortgaged property) relative to real wealth (energy, minerals, foodstuffs, timber etc.). Indeed a lot of the Core Strategy seems to draw on data from before 2008. It is no wonder that it advocates the construction of castles on sand (and none more so than in the NE where dependence on public sector jobs in a period of cutbacks adds its own insecurities.

So it is somewhat fantastic that the Core Strategy calls for

36,000 homes over the planning period. This is actually twice the rate of completions over the boom years! In any case, given the kind of houses that have been thrown up in areas like Kingston Park, Brunton Village and along the Quayside in recent years and which the Strategy would appear to want to replicate, poorer people would still find waiting on the housing lists.

In any case, the housing expansion envisaged still seems to be modelled on the quasi-gated cul-de-sac developments replete with detached properties, sterile lawns, and twin car ports. Nothing see,s to have been learned about really sustainable architecture, a good basis for which, in these parts, is a reworking of the ‘old-fashioned’ terrace.

Back to business-as-usualThe strategy looks back in other ways. It does sprinkle about bits of green gloss about sustainable development and makes the odd remark about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Yet such matters are treated as somehow separate. Yes they are nasty spectres but, it seems, fine words will dispel while the return to good old-fashioned economic growth is pursued (more buildings, more turnover, more of this, more of that…)

Yet any forward thinking would see that we are entering a different world. It can be tasted in the titles of studies that chart where we are heading: Powerdown (Richard Heinberg), The Long Emergency (James Kunstler) Full House (Lester Brown and Hal Kane), Crash Course (Chris Martenson), The Long Descent (John Greer), Prosperity Without Growth (Tim Jackson), The Great Disruption (Paul Gilding), The Collapse of Globalism (John Ralston Saul)… There is abundant hard evidence that tomorrow’s world is going to be more and more constrained to that of today, a time to think ‘shrink’, not chase the will o’ the wisp of expansion in the manner of the Core Strategy.

Indeed some of its elements are decidedly putrid. In its desire to expand retail activity (when so many shops are standing empty), it seems to think that we could and should shop until we… well not drop but have a break at some leisure centre before returning to the shopping frenzy. Yet shops, like any other part of the service sector, can but rest on real productive activity which in turn depends on the real wealth of nations, ecology.

Similarly the Core Strategy looks to salvation through tourism and the ‘cultural industry’. Whatever their merits (and there is a lot to be said for places like the Sage and the Baltic), they are still parasitic. They do not create but merely circulate monies based on the primary and secondary sectors of the economy. As the studies noted above demonstrate, it is pure fantasy to think that we can keep importing raw materials and manufactured goods from the other side of the world while we build more malls and museums. The Core Strategy economic vision would appear to be largely the equivalent of everyone taking in everyone else’s washing.

Of course there is a strong case for more research and development facilities, not least strong universities. But that begs the question of what scientific and technological studies should be publicly underwritten. Simply proclaiming a place to be “Science City” is meaningless. We have to make choices, not least between different energy paths. We cannot research and develop everything. But the Core Strategy seems to view technology as one undifferentiated whole, not distinguishing what is ecologically and socially appropriate from what is not.

4

Jobs for keepNow the authors of Core Strategy will; be quick to claim that at least they care about people looking for work. But here again no attempt is made to differentiate between part-time and full-time employment, work on short-term contract and permanent work between reasonably well remunerated jobs and those paid a pittance. So a big growth in the number of night club bouncers, shop security staff, burger flippers, agency cleaners is treated as employment growth as much as, say, a growth in the number of people on proper apprenticeships leading to secure and skilled jobs

The Core Strategy seeks to identify certain core areas as likely sources of job opportunities. A lot would appear to be predicated on commuting something that would seem destined to contract. It is also assumed that private businesses are going to take on lots of new workers. Yet many are still shedding staff; any success in triggering a short bout of increased economic activity is likely to be based on ‘squeezing the assets’ i.e. getting more from the same or lower number of workers. Again the Core Strategy authors have their heads in the clouds unlike, say, those behind the Green New Deal project (Colin Hines et al) who chart how sustainable jobs can be created).

There is little vision for example, about energy micro-generation, local food production, massively expanded repair and recycling, and so forth. Instead we get meaningless abstractions or it is assumed that present trends will continue (or be resumed) in the future. So the continuation of mass motoring and large-scale aviation are taken as a fact of future life, against every sign that their days are likely to be numbered.

New issuesTo be fair the Core Strategy does recognise some new features about today’s Tyneside. One is the explosive growth in student numbers since the 60s. Yet this too is something that might well be reversed. Indeed the Observer recently reported that more and more young people are - for obvious reasons - having second thoughts about going to university.

It might also be the case that all those foreign students from the Far East might also dry up (especially when institutions there start to replicate locally what they have been able to take from Britain). So there is every reason to be wary of any expansion plan based on the HE sector.

There has also been a big growth in the number of migrant workers and refugees. The net number of international migrants arriving in Newcastle has exceeded the net loss to the rest of England. Yet again one has to be cautious about responses to this situation. A number of Poles, for example, now seem to be returning home or moving to Germany. The pressures they have put on local housing, school places and other facilities may decline.

The refugee matter is even more complex. Kind hearts dictate that we should do what we can to hep people in dire need. Hard heads tell us that we can only act according to the wherewithal we have to hand (and, as argued above, this may well be set to decline). Even some the dire predictions made in the literature cited above were to come true (see, for example, Dobkowski and Wallimann’s Coming Age of Scarcity) the tidal wave of refugees would be such that no strategy could cope and chaos would ensure. Hopefully action to resolve global conflicts (some of which – the Congo etc. – are caused by the lifestyles endorsed by the Core Strategy) as well as international aid to rehabilitate degraded environments may prevent this but who really know.

But these are real world considerations. Councillors and their officers in Gateshead and Newcastle, however, would appear to be time travellers from a period when the world was abundant in resources. So it is not surprising that they have little offer by way of preparing for the challenges of tomorrow.

Alternative Visions

5

Newcastle City Council is proposing to build 8,000 houses on Green Belt land. The worst plan is for a development of 600 new houses on Gosforth’s Green Belt, jammed up against the Gosforth Nature Reserve (GNR) and surrounding woodlands. This will destroy vital buffer zones and block off the wildlife corridor to Jesmond Dene. A similar threat is posed by another proposed development at White House Farm, to the north east of reserve, this time backed by North Tyneside Council.

This part of the city is now a hugely popular recreational area, yet there are many sightings of heron, woodpeckers, reed bunting, grey partridge, otters, badger, deer, and barn owls, even outside the confines of GNR itself. This area is also one of the last havens for the red squirrel in England.

In 1999, local councils agreed the “Gosforth Park–Cramlington Wildlife Corridor Biodiversity Action Plan”, a document underlining the importance of maintaining links north and south of GNR. A more recent government statement, Natural Environment White Paper (June 2011), which drew on the Lawton Report, stressed again the importance of such corridors. Thus it argued that “past environmental action in England has often taken place on too small a scale to achieve overall success and has overlooked crucial links, such as between wildlife sites and the wider countryside, or between rural and urban areas. Policies and practices have too often been conceived and implemented in isolation from each other.”

All these careful considerations will be thrown away by the proposed land grab. North Tyneside Council had itself claimed in its own draft core strategy that “a network of green corridors, parks, recreational areas and greenspaces will be preserved and enhanced including strategic wildlife corridors along the River Tyne, A19 corridor and the Coast.” Newcastle Council has, of course, been boasting about receiving the ‘greenest city’ award from Forum for the Future. Now it plans to ‘degreen’ large parts of its land. (For a critique of the award, see Greening Newcastle 3)

The proposed developments really will be disastrous for local wildlife. The local farmland set to disappear provides absolutely critical foraging space for wildlife from the reserve. The replacement suburban gardens, created by the new housing would, however, provide ideal breeding conditions for the grey squirrel, the red squirrel’s deadly foe. The grey squirrel is immune to but carries the pox virus that is lethal to red squirrel communities. Encouraging grey squirrels to breed next to GNR would sign the death warrant for local red squirrels.

Already much damage has been done by actual or agreed developments in Wide Open (Bellways) and Gosforth Great Park (oh how it hurts to type that absurd name!). Now ruination would follow unless the developers are stopped.

Developers’ Field DayThe sites marked for development are already owned by the would-be developers, Persimmon homes (Salter’s Lane) and Bellway. So the respective councils are basically facilitating what the developers want: a nice greenfield site where it is comparatively easy to throw up new build, unlike those messy conversion jobs which small-scale builders might do better. Indeed, in the former case, the local farmer is allegedly gagged by his tenancy agreement from speaking out against the threat to his very livelihood.

Developers of course present their proposals in ways that put themselves in the best light. So there was talk of creating a wildlife corridor of 4.47ha. in the White Farm development, concealing the fact that this would be a 86% reduction from what exists now.

Another tactic, one also being used by the government to ‘sell’ its assault on development controls, is to prefix the adjective ‘sustainable’. Yet no definition of sustainability can justify urban sprawl and the destruction of wildlife habitat. Even North Tyneside council has gone on the record that anything meriting the description ‘sustainable development’ must embrace the conservation of wild species and their habitat.

Thus its Strategy for Sustainable Development (2007) claims that it is working to create “a place where plants, animals and habitats are

One of the worst proposed developments in the city is in north Gosforth on vital wildlife habitat.

Fight Gosforth land grab

6

protected and enhanced, both for their own sake and as an integral part of the quality of life in North Tyneside. To achieve this we need to see: • Retention of the green wildlife corridors between green spaces; • Prevention of further habitat loss; • The creation of new habitats.” In other words, North Tyneside Council, like Newcastle and the government down in London, is encouraging developments that threaten the very things they claim to be wanting.

One more tactic to sell a development is to promise some sort of mitigation. Normally these are but sops, designed to mask the real loss. It is a bit like the ‘beauty strips’ that in countries like Canada are left along roadways to camouflage the devastation wreaked by the clear-cutting behind them. Close perusal of the two developments threatening GNR suggests that the only mitigation is to leave the land around it alone.

If all else fails, opponents can be labelled middle-class ‘nimbyists’, trying to stop, for purely selfish reasons like preserving, say, a nice the view from their bedroom window, a project that will deliver jobs and housing for those really in need. Yet plenty of ordinary working class people from areas like Longbenton who regularly use the footpaths around GNR. So too do mothers and children at nearby schools. All will lose out.

Money… moneyWhatever the motivation of opponents, the developers are proposing their projects simply to make money: they are not in the business of solving society’s problems. If local environments suffer, so be it… as long as long as the profits roll in.

But what is good for one business is far from necessarily good for other people and other species. If that were true, we might as well let Nissan sell narcotics, not cars, since they might make more money that way. So the enormous profits made by the banks have dramatically done both the economy and the ecology massive harm, as demonstrated from the 2008 financial downturn onwards.

In practice, firms like Bellway and Persimmon would cover the countryside in ‘MacMansions’ if they could, since there are still enough rich people who could afford them. Meanwhile those in serous need would still be left out in the cold. Neither ecological sustainability nor social well-being can be left to the market.

Local councils too have their eyes on money, if only extra council tax from new residents. Yet conventional economic development has created so many negative side-effects that a lot of tax, local and national, is needed just to try and ameliorate some of that damage, not least health and other social ills as well as fund (usually futile)attempts at pollution abatement.

They tend, however, to dress up their schemes as the route to progress. By this they really mean economic growth, in other words the very thing that has got us into the current global predicament in the first place. Now it seems that new housing is being seen as the engine for expansion. But the story of sub-prime mortgages and the bursting of the property bubble before the 2008 downturn shows how unwise that is. One has only to look at the Irish economy to see where it leads.

Information gap Other questions arise about the conduct of Newcastle City Council’s planning department. Why were the plans announced without any prior consultation with Natural England? The first it heard about the attack on Gosforth’s Green Belt and the threat to Gosforth Nature Reserve was when a member of the public e-mailed the plans to them.

It is no excuse to say “Oh, we put it on our website”. If the plans were not publicised, how would people know where to look in the first place? In any case, the web-site is a frustrating morass of information. The website argument is rather like the Central

Library’s claiming that since it holds so much information, that the people of Newcastle would automatically know when new important documents were added. But at least the Library has a decent catalogue.

The main concern, however, should centre on the actual mind-set of Newcastle’s planners, which appears too fixed in the twentieth century to deal with twenty-first century problems. Any proposals for Newcastle within the next twenty years should be seen within a more comprehensive framework, which so far has been totally ignored. If indeed there are going to be 20,000 new jobs in Newcastle, as predicted by the planners to justify more housing, then surely this would have to reflect a revived economy, one making even greater demands on already peaking resources of energy, raw materials and capital. The planners also seem to be think that neat lines ought to define what will remain of the Green Belt, instead of being guided by the ecological value of particular sites like GNR which their plans now threaten.

Even now, there are serious local constraints. For example, the developments would increase road traffic but the nearby Haddricks Mill roundabout in South Gosforth is already at full capacity and substantial investment would be needed in the area to avoid traffic chaos – although such investment is extremely unlikely. The lack of vision is alarming. In 20 years’ time, electricity prices will probably have trebled, and high oil prices will greatly increase dependence on public transport, not car ownership.

What is to be done? Speedy protest against the threats to Green Belt is urgent. The deadline is less than six weeks away – November, 18th 2011. Certainly a wider perspective is necessary if Newcastle is to address its future health and environmental needs. Of course we must beware the possibility of a victory which will be used by both the Council and developers to ‘justify’ urban sprawl in other parts of the city.

To help with the campaign

• Write a letter of protest to Harvey Emms, Director of Planning, Newcastle City Council, Civic Centre, NE1 8PD or e-mail Planning&HousingStrategy@newcastle.gov.uk “Policy CS3 1a Salter’s Lane Nbhd Growth Area.”

• Visit action desk at the junction of Heathery Lane and Bridle Path, on Saturday / Sunday, Oct 22nd / 23rd.

• Meet at Gosforth Nature Reserve 11.00 a.m. Sunday Oct 30th (by site 2), and then join the walkabout.

• Lobby councillors at 17.30 p.m., Wednesday. Nov 2nd and attend City Council Chamber meeting.

• Quiz the planners 19.00 p.m., Tuesday 15th Nov Gosforth Civic Hall (next to Gosforth Library, NE3 3HD).

For further information tel. 0191 213 6063 and visithttp://www.nhsn.ncl.ac.uk/news/cms/save-gosforth-wildlife/

7

The above map shows how the Councils have identified a series of sites (numbered) which they have then graded in terms of development priorities

The Sprawl Machine

Another breaking of the Trades Description Act, this time ‘Callerton Park, west of the city

CallertonSalter’s Lane

In pale red, ‘White House farm’ (North Tyneside Council plan)

8

Nukes still not the answer

Energy matters:Good general background material can be found here:

http://populationmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/D6Energy.pdf

http://www.albartlett.org/articles/art_forgotten_fundamentals_overview.html

Specifically on nuclear energy:

Barnaby, F. & J. Kemp (2007). Secure Energy? Civil Nuclear Power, Security & Global Warming. Oxford Research Group. Posted @ http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/pdf/secureenergy.pdf .Busby, J (2005). Why nuclear power is not the answer to global warming. Posted @ http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3039 .Caldicott, H. (2007). Nuclear Power is Not the Answer. The New Pr.Fleming, D. (2008). The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy. Lean Economy Foundation. Posted @ http://www.theleaneconomyconnection.net/downloads.html#Nuclear .Hughes (2006). The Nuclear Dossier. The Ecologist, June, 2006.Lawson R. (2005) Is Nuclear Power the answer to Global Warming? Posted @ http://www.greenhealth.org.uk/Nuclear.htmvan Leeuwen, J.W.S. A Nuclear Power Primer. Posted @http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-climate_change_debate/2587.jsp.van Leeuwen, J.W.S. & P. Smith. Nuclear Power: The Energy Balance. Posted @ http://www.stormsmith.nl/ .Mortimer, N. (1991). ‘Nuclear Power & Carbon Dioxide: The Fallacy of the Nuclear Industry’s New Propaganda’. The Ecologist, 21(3); 129-132.Smith, B. (2007). Insurmountable Risks: The Dangers of Using Nuclear Power to Combat Global Climate Change. RDR Books.

Good collections of material can be found @:

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/scienergy.php

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E08-04_ForgetNuclear

http://www.mng.org.uk/gh/no_nukes.htm

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/20/africa/nuke.php

Fears abut ‘peak oil’, pollution from coal-burning plants and the limitations of many so-called ‘renewable’ energy sources have

helped to revive the pro-nuclear lobby, long in the doldrums post-Chernobyl. But a switch from fossil fuels to nuclear energy would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. There can be few technologies with so many sound arguments against it as nuclear energy.

Comparison of them with those of alternative energy sources must include consideration of whole fuel cycles, not just power plants, including the energy costs of generating and delivering energy (i.e. net energy yield). It must also include comparison of the energy supplied to the actual forms of energy in short supply. The ‘rate and magnitude’ issue – how many plants could be constructed in what time frame – must never be forgotten either, especially in the case of industries like the nuclear sector where many facilities are beginning to wear out. Their replacement would immensely delay the construction of extra capacity.

Last but not least, it is quite foolish to take current patterns of energy demand as some sort of ‘given’, to be matched by alternatives means of supply. Various constraints, not least in the future supply of several key non-renewable mineral resources like copper and depletion of water supply, are going to force a general contraction, whatever energy options might be chosen.

The drawbacks of the nuclear fuel cycle include:• future shortages of cheap and reliable sources of high-grade

uranium;• routine low-level radioactive pollution from many parts of the

cycle from uranium mine to waste fuel dump;• unavoidable risk of catastrophic accident;• high levels of thermal pollution around the actual power plant;• vulnerability to terrorism;• decommissioning problems;• unsolved and perhaps insoluble problems of waste disposal;• huge economic costs partially disguised by many hidden

subsidies and unmet costs such as absent insurance cover;• poor job creation per pound spent;• lack of versatility, including thermodynamic unsuitability for

many end uses, especially space heating and hot water;• higher risk of vulnerability to rising sea levels due to siting

9

requirements;• aid to (and cloak for) nuclear weapon proliferation;• lack of access to centralised electricity grids amongst many

poorer peoples across the world;• threats to civil liberties from extra strict operating and guarding

requirements… some nuclear options like the so-called ‘fast breeder’ reactor

would intensify some of these problems and bring new ones.It must be remembered that many of the problems associated

with the nuclear industry stem from what, in global terms, is still a comparatively small source of energy. That figure is often distorted by only counting electricity and/or only commercial energy use (for example, only payments for electricity used to power a spin dryer as opposed to the ‘free’ drying by the sun of washing out on the line, the so-called ‘clothesline’ paradox).

In some cases, there are deep moral issues at stake. Thus no responsible person could support the dumping of unsolved problems like radioactive waste disposal onto the shoulders of generations to come. They will scarcely thank us for such a bequest!

Carbon consHowever some new issues have come to the fore, not least the claim that nuclear power is the way to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Aside from the venting of carbon dioxide cooling gas during shutdown and refuelling, nuclear reactors of themselves do not emit greenhouse gases. That does not mean that, otherwise, it is ‘carbon free’ and, therefore, that the expansion of nuclear power is vital if we are to combat adverse climate change.

From the very beginning, nuclear power – taken a whole fuel cycle, not just reactors – has been built on the backs of the fossil fuel industry: any inventory of greenhouse gas emissions must take that into account. Moreover, if nuclear power expands worldwide, the industry will have to resort to poorer and poorer grades of uranium. In time, and clearly depending on the size of the nuclear programme, the expenditure of fossil-fuel energy on extracting the fissile isotope uranium-235, on transporting of material between parts of the cycle, on plant construction and on managing spent fuel, even without reprocessing, will surpass the actual energy yielded by nuclear power plants.

All that pre-construction and fuel preparation creates a great volume of greenhouse gas emissions, even with good grade uranium ore. For example, in 1999 France generated 375 TWh from its nuclear stations. Accordingly, EdF (Electricité de France) estimates that the cost in CO2 emissions of operating its nuclear

plants amounts to 6 g CO2 per kWh. In its estimate EdF includes plant construction, removal of the spent fuel, reprocessing and the storage of wastes. On that basis the total CO2 emissions per year from the operation of its nuclear plants amounts to 2.25 million tonnes. That estimate does not include the mining and preparation of the fuel and hence is not dependent on the quality of the ore.

The Öko-Institute of Germany, taking full fuel cycle costs into account, comes up with an average figure that is nearly 6 times higher — 35 g/kWh — compared with EdF’s, in which case the total CO2 emissions would amount to 13.125 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. In 1990 France emitted 144 million tonnes of carbon (CO2 equivalent). Therefore, nuclear power’s contribution to the total emissions amounted to 1.6 per cent on EdF’s estimates and 9.1 per cent, according to the Öko-Institute, both numbers being significant and far from trivial.

RelevanceAnother drawback is end-use cost. Electricity, be it coal-fired, gas-fired or nuclear, is an inefficient way to deliver energy since as much as two-thirds of the heat being ejected into the environment. Not surprisingly most consumers therefore choose to use natural gas boilers, both for hot water and space-heating. Indeed, consumer benefit enormously from use of electricity and heating from a single co-generation system; the efficiency returns can amount to as much as 90 per cent of the original energy and, therefore, some three to four times better than if nuclear generated electricity were to be the sole source of energy in the home.

Centrally generated nuclear electricity will do little to help society cope with decreasing supplies of cheap and reliably sourced oil and gas, 86% of which is used for proposed other than electricity generation. Indeed the nuclear option is not a good way of dealing with the problem of blackouts since they function at a steady rate, unable to quickly provide ‘peaking power’ (unlike, say, gas turbines)

The relevance of any power source also depends on the ease and speed with which it can be put into everyday operation. Nuclear power plant construction takes time, a minimum of 7 to 8 years and sometimes, as with Dungeness B in the UK, more than twice as long. The a large-scale expansion (anything else would just be pointless) would faces probably insurmountable barriers. According the USA Keystone Centre Report (2007), one supported by the nuclear industry, 7-8 new plants will have to be constructed every year for the next 50 years simply to replace those that have come to the end of their working lives. 11-22 additional enrichment plants would also have to be built as well as 18 additional fuel fabrication plants.

These are not the only bottlenecks. There is very limited capacity at the few manufacturers like Japan Steel Works who can now make steel forgings needed for the pressure vessels. Some parts of the nuclear cycle are also difficult to scale up. It has proved hard to find suitable waste depositories yet many more would be needed to cope with the residues from a big nuclear programme. So, all other drawbacks apart, nuclear energy just does not seem a viable starter.

Sore point Uranium ore exploited today, may have 1% usable uranium. Once those ores are consumed and we pass to ore grades of 0.1 per cent or less at least 10 times more energy has to be used in the mining, milling and extraction of uranium, quite aside from leaving an ever-mounting pile of radioactive tailings. Indeed most of the radioactivity in natural uranium prior to use in a reactor, stays with the tailings, thus contaminating ground water and the atmosphere.

So current rates, economically recoverable reserves of uranium probably will last less than 100 years. A worldwide nuclear programme of some 1000 nuclear reactors would consume the uranium within 50 years, and if all the world’s electricity was

10

generated by nuclear reactors the uranium would last four years. Indeed the United Kingdom Atomic Energy journal Atom stated that “for a nuclear contribution that expands continuously to about 50 per cent of demand, uranium resources are only adequate for about 45 years.”

There is plenty of very low grade ore but it has little effective energy content as measured by the amount of electricity per unit mass of mined ore. Poor grade uranium will result in a net deficit of energy.

Hence a massive worldwide nuclear programme, based on the use of poor grade uranium ores, will add cumulatively to energy demands, rather than resolving them. Leaving aside the relative paucity of good uranium ores a simultaneous worldwide programme to replace all coal-fired with nuclear power plants, that would require one gigawatt-sized (electrical) nuclear reactor to be built every two and a half days for 38 years, at an annual cost approaching one million million US dollars. Just where the world would find all that money, without exploiting the earth’s last reserves of natural resources is hard to fathom.

Feasible technologyFor decades the nuclear industry has been arguing that new reactor designs, indeed whole new systems (notably thorium and even nuclear fusion) lie just around the corner, ones that will ‘solve the drawbacks of existing ones. So the (in)famous claim by the US nuclear head Lewis Strauss back in 1954 that nuclear electricity would become “too cheap to meter” probably referred to the dream of nuclear fusion reactors. Claims about better alternatives have been spurred on again by the Fukushima disaster in Japan. That said, existing varieties all seem to have their own peculiar flaws like graphite rod corrosion in Britain’s AGRs.

New designs are of course untried designs and ones that may well fail when deployed on a regular commercial basis. Thus the ‘third generation’ reactor at Olkliuoto in Finland has suffered massive delays and cost overruns. It does not seem a feasible alternative. Meanwhile THTR, the company running a now closed thorium reactor in Germany went bankrupt because of costs. Policy must be based on reality, not dreams. Part of the case for solar electricity is that there are big and demonstrable steps forward now being made in photovoltaics.

Part of emerging reality is, of course, climate change. Any proposed energy programme must be suitable to the likely new environment ahead. Nuclear power will, however, be badly hit. It is very water-dependent which is why most reactors are sited on the coast or big rivers. Likely rises in sea levels coupled to more weather extremes of drought and deluge could, by themselves, cripple the nuclear industry more than any other.

It might be remembered here that uranium mining also consumes vast quantities of water. Thus the proposed Kalahari mines would, it has been estimated, consume more than 75% of the water currently supplied by the Namibian state water company (Observer, 08/11/09). This barrier comes on top of the massive radioactive tailings created by mining, let alone the energy and economic costs of water transfers to mine sites.

Safety PointersThe case against nuclear power stands regardless of the validity of fears about its safety and the possible risk of catastrophic accident. Currently the two greatest specific ecological calamities on Earth are the Albertan tar sands extraction in Canada and coal-mining mountaintop removal in the USA. Hydro-electricity has done more direct ecological harm – so far – than nuclear power.

But the potential for a nuclear disaster remains. Britain itself had a ‘near miss’ at Hinkley in 1988 during a serious storm and sea

surge (the kind of thing that will become common under global warming). Incoming power was lost and for 20 minutes it was impossible to get diesel back up generators on line. Fortunately it proved possible to ‘scram’ the reactors or else much of SW Britain would have been lost!

It is easy to sneer at poor construction standards and operating procedures in Russia and other countries. Yet according to a Guardian report, there were 1,767 safety breaches at Britain’s nuclear plants between 2001 and 2008. 50% of them were considered by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate to have had “the potential challenge a nuclear safety system”.

Indeed it could be argued that the flimsy containment wall at Chernobyl, mocked in comparison to the much stronger ones at UK reactors, turned out to be a mercy since it limited the force of the 1986 explosion there. It might also be remembered that, before it happened, Fukushima was considered wholly improbable. So the safety argument has not gone away

No nukesSo the nuclear option seems a dead end. Already countries like Germany and Italy are set to abandon the technology. It ought to be stressed that there are not the resources to explore both nuclear and alternatives like wind and wave energy. In an increasingly constrained economy, it is one or the other: it is time to focus on the more feasible renewables, albeit with realism about their limitations. The ‘variability’ problem in particular is one that should sober up those who dream that present human numbers and lifestyles could be ‘sun-powered’.

It is ironic, of course, that some of the most pro-market governments are backing the nuclear option given that the industry is utterly dependent on massive public subsidy The U.S. nuclear industry’s liability cap of 10 billion dollars, for example, amounts to “an indirect subsidy of about 33 million dollars per plant per year over the lifetime of a nuclear plant,” according to a study published in Energy Policy. The actual economics are even murkier since the civil-military plutonium link allows covert subsidy as well. Other costs like decommissioning and waste storage are not properly accounted for so again the industry can pretend to be cheaper than it really is.

It has been clear for several decades that energy abatement strategies are far more effective in reducing energy costs than is the construction of power stations. This is where we need action with a vigour that matches a wartime emergency

11

On your bus?The drastic cuts to bus services that rural areas have suffered are

coming to a town near you very soon. We are talking about the same scale of cuts as we have seen in Northumberland and County Durham, which have left some communities with no evening or Sunday services. These cuts are the result of local authorities passing on the cut in funding that was imposed on them by the ConDem. coalition government. The councils have cut their subsidy to bus companies to provide supported bus services on unprofitable routes. Already Hartlepool council has actually cut the entire subsidy.

In Tyne and Wear the five councils, via the Integrated Transport Authority (ITA), made a 10% cut to the Nexus budget last year and 5% this year. However, Nexus say they have been able to make back office savings and other efficiencies. So far, then,there have not yet been cuts to the supported bus routes. Now Nexus are waiting to hear what will happen next financial year. They are aiming to make no cuts to supported services, but will only receive the final settlement from the councils once they have set their own budgets for 2012/13, which will be this coming January.

From April next year however, the situation becomes much bleaker because the Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) from central government is being cut by 20%. This is paid direct to the bus companies and consequently the companies will have to make severe service cuts as they save money by making drivers redundant. In Tyne and Wear, only 10% of bus services are subsidised by Nexus, so the majority of our bus services have to make a profit for the companies or they simply won’t run them. The ITA simply cannot subsidise any more holes in service to restore these cuts.

So watch out for the bus companies starting to consult on service cuts as they will have to do this soon. The bus companies of course argue that their public subsidy shouldn’t be cut and that they should be able to continue making profits in a deregulated market while

receiving about half of their income from the tax payer.The ITA is supposed to be our democratic influence

over the service, being made up of councillors from the five boroughs. It has asked Nexus to draw up a report on possible ways to increase control and regulation of services. There are powers under the Transport Act 2000 and 2009 (which have not yet been removed by the Coalition!) for councils to implement regulation. They can go for a Quality Contract, a franchise model, between Nexus (on behalf of the councils) and the

companies, rather like they have done with the operation of the Metro, which would give Nexus control over timetables, routes and pricing. A less interventionist option is a Quality Partnership between Nexus and the companies, which would at least jointly agree the bus network structure.

We have an opportunity now to lobby our councillors on the ITA to get them to impose the more interventionist Quality Contract as a matter of urgency, so that there is at least some democratic control over what will inevitably be a reduction in bus services next year. This model would allow for more sensible designing of routes to integrate better with other transport like metro, rail and ferry, and better timetabling to stop competing companies running their services close to one another, ensuring more regularly spaced buses.

Several Greens are already involved in the Tyne and Wear Public Transport Users Group, which will be coordinating lobbying through their borough representatives. This group brings together individuals and representatives from organisations including Friends of the Earth, Living Streets, N E Pensioners, Woodcraft Folk, the Elders Council, Light Rail Transit Association and Newcastle Cycling Campaign.

The next meeting of the group is Monday 14th November at 17.30 p.m. at Gateshead Civic Centre.

The BBC is cutting around 2000 jobs in a programme laughably entitled ‘Delivering Quality First’. Inside Out, its regional

current affairs investigative programme is facing a cut of 40%. It means regional editions of Inside Out will be merged into much larger super-regions. On BBC North East & Cumbria, viewers in, say Berwick will end up watching a film about Crewe.

The BBC bosses also claim that a regional current affairs presence will be kept in every regional centre. Retaining a few current affairs journalists in Newcastle will not stop the inevitable reduction in regionally relevant programmes being made. The programme’s catchphrase was “Surprising stories from familiar places” – It may yet become” surprising stories from surprising places!

As licence fee payers, we should demand the BBC provides programmes made in and for our region. We must surely defend the continued provision of programmes that investigate, challenge, hold those in authority to account and also reflect the rich culture and heritage of where we live.

The BBC is a public service broadcaster: it is there to provide programmes that the market doesn’t and won’t. ITV has long since pulled out of making any documentary programmes specifically for a regional audience. If the cuts go ahead our regional identity on TV beyond daily news reports and weekly politics will be lost.

Weather presenters (Trai Anfield, Hannah Bayman, & Paul Mooney) will be cut to one. That poor unfortunate will work permanent late shifts so they can provide a live weather forecast for the late bulletin. The weather forecasts for TV and Radio in the morning and at lunchtime will come from a hub in Leeds – so they will no longer be live or prepared locally. Apart from the fact that this is very bad news for our weather presenters, it means a much poorer service for our viewers and listeners.

Local Radio will be expected to share programming across the North East and Cumbria (i.e. Radios Cumbria, Newcastle & Tees) in the afternoon and early evening and around 10 jobs will go per station. Again a big cut in service. It is important to spare a few minutes to take part in the consultation and tell the BBC Trust what you think. Here’s a link to the Trust website:http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consult/delivering_quality_first.shtml. If you want to go straight to the consultation, the link is:http://consultations.external.bbc.co.uk/bbc/dqf/consultation. The relevant section about the above cuts is Section Four, Nations and Regions. But if you haven’t got time for that then please just send a quick email to the trust @ dqf.consultation@bbc.co.uk.

12

Sad casesGiven that the council seems to think that economic growth

and job creation are everything, it will presumably welcome a current raft of applications for lap dancing clubs. 7 applications have been made in the last fortnight for sexual entertainment licences. These are: For Your Eyes Only in Carliol Square; Pussy Galore on Mosely Street, Cosy Joes in the Groat Market, Idols inside Newgate Shopping Centre, Beyond Bar and Grill Unit at the Gate, Sinners in Newgate Street and City Vaults in the Bigg Market. [See: http://gis.newcastle.gov.uk/Licensing/home]

Newcastle Council currently licenses 5 ‘destination’ lap-dancing clubs. It also licenses between 10-15 pubs and clubs to provide ‘sexual entertainment’ on certain days and times only. These are nearly all held when United are playing at home: “strippers and exotic dancers on match days”. These events happen between 10-30 times a year. It also licenses 2 sex shops and a sex cinema.

The Green Party opposes the degradation of people as it does environmental despoliation. The argument that businesses like the above create jobs and that people are prepared to take them could be used to justify the payment of pittance wages or indeed the revival of child labour. Greens want jobs for those seeking employment but we want what Fritz Schumacher once called ‘good work’.

The present pattern of sexual entertainment licensing, let alone new venues, should be opposed. For a start, it goes against the positioning of Newcastle as a welcoming city for all: many residents and visitors find lap-dancing sleazy and offensive. The locations are quite close to the City Library and Laing Art Gallery. Both of these cultural destinations hope to attract children and young people. Overall they degrade the character of the area in which they are sited.

To its credit, the Coalition Government has made a commitment to tackle the sexualisation and commercialisation of childhood so it is not appropriate to have a lap-dancing club that is open in the morning near a number of premises that wish to attract children and young people

At the very least, the locations are highly inappropriate for an SEV given the nature of nearby premises, which also include a church and NHS treatment centres. Also the location of important amenities in the immediate vicinity of the applicant’s premises directly exposes residents and commuters to the harms and disturbance associated with the sex industry (especially verbal, physical and sexual assaults).

Opponents of such developments are calling an overhaul of current policy. For instance, Newcastle City Council could: • Formally designate gender equality as a specific licensing objective of that local authority;• Place mandatory conditions on all establishments granted an SEV licence such as a ban on private booths, restrictions on advertising, security and facility requirements, and a ‘no touching’ rule; • Set a maximum number of SEV licences that will be granted in a particular area. That maximum number could, of course, be zero.

The lap dancing problem is actually only one aspect of a city centre that is far from welcoming, especially at night. The dominance of deafeningly loud ‘vertical drinking’ bars, selling ice-cold imported lager or high alcohol ‘shots’, for example, excludes the large majority of people who would prefer good conversation and a decent pint of local beer.

There is good information on how to object to applications like the above @ http://www.object.org.uk/toolkit-3

(Sally Young provided most of the above information)

Pass the ammo..We are often told that we cannot ‘afford’ to take action to

save the environment if it hurts the economy. Mainstream politicians, for example, are prone to come out with clichés like “It’s the economy, stupid” as if that ends the argument. Well, of course, it’s actually the ecology since you cannot have a healthy economy in a deteriorating environment.

Environmental systems not only provide ‘means of production’, in other words the biophysical resources the economy needs to create specific goods and services. Ecosystems also provide the conditions for production. Imagine trying to open a factory, office, store or school on the surface of the Moon. No breathable air, no potable water, no stable climate, no global warming (to a point it is vital!), no shelter, no fertile soil, no pollination, no checks and balances to contain disease and infestation, no breaking down of waste matter and recycling of nutrients… no economy.

Such life-support services are provided free. No wonder many tribal peoples thought in terms of a Mother Earth that, if undamaged, would provide for them. But economists in particular seem only to know the price of everything, never its value. So it might be helpful to cite some figures. They don’t capture every cost nor do they portray how some (a few) might temporarily gain while others (normally the many) foot the bill. [See Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine] Even the allocation of ‘shadow prices’ (i.e. ones that markets fail to capture) will not tell the full story.

Yet it is possible to cite some numbers that refute the idiocy that environmental protection is some sort of optional choice, a luxury valued only by a few zealots. The sums refer to the USA and damage caused by events of the kind that adverse climate change will make more common.

The American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cites 10 massive weather disasters in the USA this year, each exceeding a billion dollars. The nine months of unprecedented weather extremes include these estimates of death and damage:

• Hurricane Irene: 50 deaths and $7 billion;

• Upper Midwest flooding along the Missouri River: $2 billion;

• Mississippi River flooding in spring and summer: $4 billion;

• Drought and heat waves in Texas and Oklahoma: $5 billion;

• Tornadoes in the Midwest and Southeast in May: 177 deaths and $7 billion;

• Tornadoes in the Ohio Valley and Southeast in April: 32 deaths and $9 billion;

• Tornadoes in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania in April: $2 billion;

• Tornadoes in the Northeast and Midwest April 8-11: $2.2 billion;

• Tornadoes in central and southern states April 4-5: $2.3 billion;

• Blizzard in January from Chicago to the Northeast: 36 deaths and $2 billion.

Of course it cannot be absolutely proven that the above were caused by human activity but most reasonable people will see worrying pattern and one that will wreck the economy if it is not changed.

Source; Centre for the Advancement of the Steady-State Economy

13

It’s no angel… it’s him! Whatever Anthony Gormley’s limitations as an artist – and they are many – there is no doubt his genius for PR. Gormley makes a point of involving the public in his works from an early stage either directly in their construction, or indirectly by relating their ‘meaning’ or, as he says, ‘function’ to people, locally or at large.

Thus, he tells us, the Angel of the North “has three functions – firstly a historic one to remind us that below this site coal miners worked in the dark for two hundred years, secondly to grasp hold of the future expressing our transition from the industrial to the information age, and lastly to be a focus for our hopes and fears.” Or or anything you care to think up for yourself for that matter, as none of these functions is detectable from the figure itself. As a bonus, the construction was carried out relatively locally. In this way, Gormley encourages people to feel they have a stake in a project. Even when giving a lecture in Chicago, he starts by saying “... I need your help”.

The underlying mantra of much contemporary art is ‘if you can’t be good, be big’ and the Angel is of Guinness Book of Records proportions. It has imposed itself on the region by its size, is visible for miles around and, when you pass it, you know you are entering Tyneside. If it were three metres high and stuck on a roundabout, you would probably dismiss it – if you noticed it at all – as another of those scrap-metal constructions which are so fashionable on continental road junctions. Size matters!

So, what about the Angel as a work of art? It is clearly a substantial piece of engineering construction, not quite in the same league as an oil rig or an aircraft carrier, but impressive nevertheless. However, as art, it hardly sets sail. If we forget what we are told it represents, forget its size and look at it as an object, it comes across as crude and lifeless. The figure, scaled up and crudely simplified from a plaster cast of Gormley’s own body, looks as if it has stepped out of The Night of the Living Dead. The wings are little more than rectangles, extended straight out from the upper body (top right).

There are a couple of predecessors: one, Icarus, created by a notable German sculptor Peter Breuer stands in Berlin’s Raeke Park, the other, presumably destroyed at the end of WW2, was erected by Albert Speer in 1935 to celebrate the formation of the Nazi Luftwaffe’s crack Richthofen squadron. Both show a more imaginative approach in the shape of their wings. But for sheer brio and size it is difficult to match the huge Tashkent statue in praise of the family captured in Denis Thorpe’s wonderful photo – no angel, but so what?

Tyneside already had, and still has, an ‘angel’ in the figure of Victory which stands atop the war memorial in the Haymarket. Setting aside questions of historical accuracy and justification, this figure has two genuine ‘functions’: it commemorates those who gave their lives in the Boer War and their part in defeating an enemy. Visually it is an infinitely stronger, more dynamic image than Gormley’s crudely-cast self-portrait, but much smaller and less

prominently sited, now overshadowed by the ghastly new - and pointless - development over the Haymarket Metro station.

So, next time you’re in the Haymarket, pause to look at Victory, a piece of beautifully-crafted, but much restored, sculpture well worth a few minutes of your time.

Artist Anthony Gormley is widely praised. Local Ecology Party founder Alec Ponton begs to differ.

Left, Icarus byPeter Breuer.

Below left, the Tashkent statue and, to its right, the Haymarket statue

Above, Speer’s statue

14

The autumn season of INSIGHTS public lectures has been published and there are four that may particularly interest you. They take place at the Curtis Auditorium, Herschel Building, Newcastle University, at 17.30 p.m, with no charge for entry.

Tuesday 18th October Wynne-Jones Memorial Lecture

The challenge of sustainabilityRichard Zare,Professor in Natural Science, Stanford University, California. The first challenge in exploring this topic is to define what sustainability is. Prof Zare takes a chemist’s viewpoint, emphasising the need to generate more energy in the coming decades without compromising future generations’ ability to do so. This is pie in the proverbial sky but needs to be challenged. Our message must be” think shrink!

Tuesday 1st November: Society of Biology Lecture

The bountiful sea: prospects for sustainable use of marine bioresources Peter Olive,Emeritus Professor School of Marine Science & Technology, Newcastle University.Our seas and oceans contain huge resources, but an increasing human population threatens their biodiversity. This talk examines the pattern of change in use of the marine environment to better exploit its resources. It asks how much the marine environment adds to our total food supply, which species play an important role, and what the hidden environmental costs are.

Tuesday 8th November: Jack Jeffery Environment & Sustainability Lecture

Where is the new economy?Prosperity, work, and sustainability ‘after the crisisTim Jackson,Professor of Sustainable Development, University of Surrey In this talk, Professor Jackson raises urgent questions about the relationship between the current economy & sustainability, drawing on his research as a leading authority in this field.

Tuesday 29th November

Sustainable consumption: oxymoron or opportunity Dr Peter White,Director of Global Sustainability, Procter and Gamble By 2050 there will be an estimated nine billion people in the world. With almost a million people currently without access to safe drinking water and other essentials, some argue that we are already using more resources than the Earth can sustain. How, therefore, can nine billion people live well within the limits of our planet?

Join the debates!

Do you want to have to ‘top-up’ your health care, or pay for expensive health insurance like they do in the US? Do you want multi-national private companies to make huge profits off your ill health?Unfortunately these are not nightmares: they are a very real possibility following the House of Parliament acceptance of the Health and Social Care Bill. For a good critique of the current situation by Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee, see:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/07/nhs-bill-no-mandate-lordsFor general background, see:Mandelstam, M. (2006). Betraying the NHS: Health Abandoned. Jessica Kingsley PublishersPlayer, S. (2011). Plot Against the NHS. Merlin.Pollock, A. (2004). NHS Plc: The Privatisation of Our Health Care. Verso

“They do say that humans enjoy the thrill of the chase”

15

Next Labourism?A forthcoming meeting offers a chance for Greens to question the claims that the Labour Party can be reformed post-Blair and post-Brown and become a truly progressive party. Pigs will fly! Ever since its creations, various groups have been trying to attempt such an overhaul and all have failed (the lead article in issue 10, still available on request, of Greening Newcastle outlined some of the evidence).

However, the same siren song is still being sung today, the advent of Ed Miliband as leader being seen as a new opportunity. All that the reformers like the so-called ‘Blue Labour’ grouping offer is a mix of nostalgia for working class communities, largely of their own romantic imagination, plus a reheated Keynesianism to pursue more economic growth at a time where its very unsustainability is becoming clearer almost by the day.

Yet such reformers are a serious lobby whose ideas merit proper debate. The very concept of community is, for example, a critical one, though sometimes one that masks inherent social conflicts therein as well as omits the wider ecological community of non-human nature.

So a good turnout from local Green Party members at the meeting below would be very useful.

Beyond Blue Labour:What’s next for community-based politics?Wednesday 16 November, 17.00. p.m – 19.00 p.mIPPR North offices, Collingwood Street,NewcastleMetro: Central Station or Monument

Marc Stears launches ‘Ideas on the Third Floor’ with a presentation on the future of community politics and the future of democratic practice in the UK. Marc is one of Ed Miliband’s most trusted advisers and Professor of Politics at University College, Oxford as well as a visiting fellow at IPPR. He is the author and editor of several books, including Demanding Democracy: American Radicals in Search of a New Politics.

All are welcome but it is essential to book your place at this event as we anticipate demand will be high. To book, please email:north@ippr.org<mailto:north@ippr.org.

More DebateThe Great Debate series of meeting has two weekend events coming up which should be of interest.

Visions for the Future of the CityWhat should Newcastle upon Tyne look like in 2050?Come along and join in the discussion!With Special Guest: Chi Onwurah, MP for Newcastle Central.

12:30 - 16:30 p.m.,Saturday 22 October 2011Devonshire Building,Newcastle University

See http://thegreatdebate.org.uk/IngenSusCity.html for full details

Facing the Future Saturday 5th November 2011Devonshire Building,Newcastle University A day of active debate and documentary-making sponsored by Economic and Social Research Council and Newcastle Institute for Research on Sustainability Film-making workshops are open to anyone under 25 years of ageDebate sessions are open to all.Registration for the film-making workshop is at 09:15 a.m.

Debate 1: Too Many People?with Roger Martin and Brendan O’Neill, starting at 11.00 a.m.

Debate 2: Engineering the Futurewith Ian Abley and Barry K. Gills starting at 13.00 p.m

Feel free to come and join us for either or both of the debates – they are open to all. Full details at http://thegreatdebate.org.uk/FTF11.html. Please note, both of these events are free, but places are limited so please reserve your place.To book a place, please contact:Caspar Hewettthegreatdebate@live.co.uk or tel/text 07790 470846

Since the last issue of Greening Newcastle, the human population has raced past 7 billion. Weekly, some 1.6 million extra people are being added to the planet - roughly another 3 Sheffields each week. Nearly 10,000 arrive each hour.

The cartoon to the left is by Tim Newcomb

16

Current officers and their contact details are listed below. If you know of any opportunities that the local Party might take up or want to raise any other matters, get in touch with John or one of the other officers. To reduce the number of emails in circulation, please use this magazine to draw attention to any papers you want to put forward for discussion. Just send your name, email address and the title of the topic and we’ll try to give it due publicity. John Pearson, Secretary, Contact and Treasurer:john.pearson@unn.ac.ukSandy Irvine, Chairperson & Newsletter editor:sandyirvine@blueyonder.co.ukFrances Hinton, Membership secretary:frances_hinton@yahoo.comTony Waterston, Media monitor.A.J.R.Waterston@newcastle.ac.ukAndrew Gray, Election Agent & Lead candidateandrewgray123@virginmedia.comTim Dowson, Election supporttim.dowson@blueyonder.co.uk

Branch officers

This is the issue 14 of a regular publication.Send material for the next one directly to Sandy Irvine(Tel: 0191 2844367 or Email: sandyirvine@blueyonder.co.uk)

Please pass Greening Newcastle to any person or organisation you like, and they can in turn pass it on themselves, provided it is transmitted at all times in its entirety as a PDF file and unchanged. Anyone may quote from our magazine, provided this is done in context and Newcastle Green Party is acknowledged as the source of the material.

As always several people helped with this issue. But particular thanks must be expressed to John Urquhart and James Littlewood for material about the threat to Gosforth Nature Reserve. Peter Bunyard provided invaluable help regarding the nuclear energy debate. All his books are worth digging out. He is, for example, an expert on Amazonia, threats to it and what can be done to protect this critical region. Shirley Ford of South Tyneside Green Party also reported on the threat to local bus services.Sorry for omitted material: next time!

Forthcoming eventsDate & venue Event Organiser19.00, Wednesday, October 19th, Brown Room, The ‘Central’, Gateshead

Branch discussion meeting: all welcome

Newcastle Green Party

10.30, Saturday 22 October, Bigg Market for march then rally at 11.30 at the Monument

Protest against cuts to disability alowances & services

Disability campaigners with support from PSA

12:30 - 16:30, Saturday 22 October Devonshire Building, Newcastle University

Future of our city - Visions discussion meeting

The Great Debate (see previous page)

18.30 (?), 28th October Hoult’s Yard (behind Central Station), Newcastle

Any Questions recording

BBC (10 tickets reserved for Greens)

All day, Saturday 5th November Devonshire Building, Newcastle University

Facing the Future discussion meeting

The Great Debate (see previous pag7)

17.30 p.m – 19.00 p.m, Wednesday 16 November, IPPR North offices, Collingwood Street, Newcastle

Beyond Blue Labour discussion meeting

IPPR ‘Ideas’ programme

The next Newcastle Green Party branch meeting will discuss the

Newcastle-GatesheadCore Strategy

not least the great Green Belt grab. It will be held jointly with

Gateshead Green Party so a different venue is being used

Coming Q&APlease send more questions and, of course, answers to the editor. 1. How can the Green Party address the mentality of consumerism

which prevails in all of us to a greater or lesser extent... Greens included!

2. Should nuclear power play any part in the energy needs of the UK?

3. What is the citizen’s income? The current government are going to introduce a benefit called universal credit, which will amalgamate several means tested benefits. Is this the same as citizens income? Won’t it just encourage scroungers?

It’s your future?http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/core.nsf/a/

onecorestrategy2030

The campaign to protect Gosforth Nature Reserve is planning several events. One will be a strong turnout at Gosforth Public Library to confront local planners at their ‘consultation’ at 13.45 on Tuesday, November 15th. The time scarcely suits full-time workers but please do your best attend if you are free. For more details, contact: james.littlewood@newcastle.ac.uk