SEEFoE Meeting, 8th January 2008
Agenda for SEEFoE Meeting of 8th January 2008, 7:30pm
- Apologies for absence
- Minutes of last meeting
- Press coverage
- Priory Crescent
- Southend Airport
- Planning
- Nuclear Power
- Big Ask March
- Forthcoming Events
- 16/01 6pm - Food and Climate Change
Cecil Sharpe House, 2 Regents Pk Rd, London NW1 7AY
- 19/01 11am - FoE Regional Gathering
Conway Hall, London WC1R 4RL
- Next meeting
- AOB
Minutes
- Apologies for absence:
Michael Downer for being late.
Present:
Peter Walker (PW), Denis Walker (DW), Sarah Fuller (SF), Jon Fuller (JF), Michael Downer (MD), Michael Woolcott (MW), Gabrielle Yeadell (GY)
- Minutes of last meeting:
Apart from missing JF from the present list, it’s fine. Corrected. JF propose, PW second.
- Press coverage:
PW in Yellow Advertiser. The article is now on the website here.
- Priory Crescent:
Ron Price vs. Anna Waite. Ron doesn’t think the proposals are much good and wants them revised. How much money is being wasted on a scheme not going ahead? DW- Local elections are coming up in May. Need to make road an election issue. Shaun Qureshi quit Green peace job and is now full time at the camp. Priory Park News will come out just before elections, to raise the issue again. Point out flaws in council plan. DW to make freedom of information request- how much money have they spent so far, not doing anything.
- Southend Airport:
A meeting is a good excuse for press call. Anyone who wants to go is welcome. JF- the airport knows we’ll be anti, but want to consult with community anyway. DW- if nothing else we get publicity and raise our profile. JF- reminisces about the campaign group called CAAG (church and airport action group), which had a lot of support. Church has since been saved, but extending the runway by 400m will still make visiting the church noisy, and will people be given access to the graveyard? Thought original CAAG people might want to get involved. JF has tried to contact the old group, but has had no response so far. MD asks is it really 400m extra on runway? JF says it is. DW says it doesn’t say that on the leaflet he got. This scheme would close the road for months, divert traffic, chaos- JF. MW asks if we could get the gypsies involved as they have lots of graves in that church. Airport are pushing for this because they want more and larger aircraft using the airport. GY says that it will make areas of town uninhabitable. MW says many people are pro airport. MD explains it saves them driving their cars to Gatwick etc, and that’s why they want it. Jobs- won’t create many. DW- Southend Renaissance want it for the jobs, but it just won’t work that way. DW will try ringing Southend Renaissance again. JF says they’ve been pasted recently. DW says Anna Waite doesn’t like them, merely putting up with them. JF will continue to try and find old members, wants public meeting and will either resurrect the group or run a FoE campaign.
- Planning:
DW wrote to Duddridge following a real food email from FoE mailing list. About conclusions of the Competition Commissions grocery inquiry. This’ll make it easier to build out of town supermarkets. Got a 2 page reply; forwarded DWs letter to Hazel Blears. Clive Betts submitted EDM 550 on 11th Dec, saying inquiry rubbish. DW has asked Duddridge to sign it. Hasn’t signed it yet.
- Nuclear Power:
Today’s news the government approved a new generation. Gordon Brown came out with some inane comment “fundamental precondition of preparing Britain for the new world”. Apparently companies would have to fund decommissioning, but we all know that won’t happen. MW no sign that they’ll ever phase out nuclear power. DW says governments view very blinkered. Can only envisage world where growth continues, more resources are used for ever- not sustainable position, going to have to change and very soon. No politician will say we’re going to have less- no one would vote for that. MD says that this is changing though, people will vote for it. PW this is only a minority and people ignore it. Discussion about politicians and what they do, why they don’t listen to people. Ignore public mood because they can buy people off with promise of more- PW. PW- got power on 23% of the vote. Less than one in 4. PW- no one is currently affected by climate change- so they won’t protest like they did against the poll tax. People should get less cheap flights, cut out flights for one minority at a time- PW. SF, same people are flying more frequently. PW- railways running pretty much at capacity. MW went to Birmingham by train in August, it was busy. Public transport rubbish here. GY saying that after years of being told to get off the road, people finally are, and now they’re being told that the trains are too crammed and they shouldn’t go on it. MW- public is travelling more. PW because they can. Back to nuclear. JF-what should we as a group be doing about it? GY- blow it up. JF- we should be doing something around South Woodham, Tillingham and Bradwell. Southminster, lots of houses build after the station closed, and going to lose lots of money on houses. PW says government are building fewer roads. SF- other than widening the m25 and a12! JF- saddlers farm. PW- lots of plans, but will it actually happen with economic downturn? PW suggests that if we haven’t already hit peak oil, we will by 2012, and will shrink economy. JF- up in Canada, oil from shale, and will become viable after crude hits $100 a barrel consistently. MD says the energy inputs for this process are so huge. MW mentions the new EU directive on average emissions per km for car manufacture, which will really hit high performance cars; so Brussels unpopular in Germany at the moment. JF- 2010 or so, cars have to do average carbon dioxide emissions much lower than currently. DVD “what a way to go” DW will get copies, worth watching though not great. Borrowed from Shaun Qureshi. DW- Green peace will challenge the government on nuclear again.
- Big Ask March:
http://www.thebigask.com loads of videos- we should do a few. Gets sent to MP and goes to website- are going to make a video out of it. DW has already made one. Not pricing carbon correctly for emissions trading scheme. Not working.
- Forthcoming Events:
2 things this month, but not yet received monthly email from network developer.
- 16/01 6pm - Food and Climate Change
Cecil Sharpe House, 2 Regents Pk Rd, London NW1 7AY
- 19/01 11am - FoE Regional Gathering
Conway Hall, London WC1R 4RL
16th at 1.45pm, at avenue Baptist church Milton road, Anna Waite talking about transport. Everyone welcome.
- Next meeting:
5th February, 7:30pm at 62 East Street
- AOB:
DW Marinet update- lots of e-mailing and planning their strategy. Climate change bill should go back to the commons either at the end of the month or beginning of February. SF- the nuclear decision will go through as an energy bill. DW says then the proposed nuclear power stations have to go through planning. JF- the Tory line is they will go for nuclear if necessary. DW mentions how he wants to shake up the meeting format this year. PW proposes that DW runs each meeting uninterrupted; JF amends the motion that he can be interrupted. No seconder so motion fails. SF shows pictures from climate change march in December. Somewhere between 6000 and 8000 people turned up.
