Cabinet

Tuesday evening's monthly Cabinet meeting returned to its usual lacklustre self after the relative excitement of the budget period. Stepping in at the last minute for our leader, I collected a massive stack of papers several inches thick from my over-burdened pigeon hole. No way could I get through that lot, so I picked out a couple of papers from my areas of interest.

The first was on Climate Change, where a plan, full of good intentions but woefully short of real meat, has been produced and will be discussed with stakeholders across the Borough before feeding into the sub-regional strategy. I urged Cabinet to go beyond the Government's targets of a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, especially in the light of the recent Tyndall Centre report that, even if this target were to be achieved, global temperatures would rise by some 4 to 5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, against a target of 2 degrees. I pointed out that Hilary Benn has asked his Climate Change review group to investigate whether Government should be toughening up its target to an 80% reduction.

Veronica Copeland said she would be working hard to ensure the achievement of current targets and would see if there was any way these targets could be bettered. I'm afraid good intentions just don't cut the mustard. Hard, scientifically-based proposals which will require tough decision making is what's needed. One thing's for certain, if the Cabinet are brave enough to take the decisions which are needed, we'll support them. Thus far, I see little evidence that the political will is there.

Also somewhat off-putting was the vigorous headshaking from the Conservative member, who does not, it appears, accept that climate change is anything more than a natural cyclical re-adjustment in the earth's temperature.

My other contribution, which, as usual, was greeted by much heavenward eye-rolling from Labour members, was on the transport report in which I noticed that, although as a town we are making good progress on reducing car usage and increasing both walking and cycling - statistics to which I personally contribute as a born-again cyclist - our strategy is being undermined by an increase in the number of cars entering the borough from outside.

I asked what action could be taken to reduce the flow of traffic from outside, especially since, if the new shopping centre is built, we can expect even more cars from outside the borough. I didn't get an answer in the meeting, though the officer responsible was kind enough to talk to me about his ideas afterwards.

I must say, it is rather worrying that every time I hop on my super Marin I am apparently in mortal danger of being mown down by a 4x4 from North Yorkshire. Something needs to be done about this. Man the barricades, I say.