Portsea Island Post
Portsea Island, Hampshire
LeaderThe outcomes of poor planning decisions are becoming more evident as Portsmouth struggles under a regime of inappropriate impositions of unrealistic dwelling densities and an associated failure to provide adequate management of parking and road congestion to the general inconvenience of the local population and business.
The much-vaunted public private partnership (PPP) on roads in Portsmouth seems to be demonstrating that this was a poor decision for an Island City because it concentrates on factors which will not relieve Portsmouth of the serious traffic issues arising for unfortunate planning decisions. There is a lack of vision within local "leadership" with respect to making use of such available resources to invest in initiatives for a more productive and eventually pleasant Portsea Island. For example, rather than a cosmetic maintenance job, Isambard Brunel would no doubt have spent the substantial sums involved in the PPP in an investment project combining vision with a practical solution to Portsmouth's problems. This edition of PIP reviews some of these issues.
It is unlikely that much will be done in such areas of general concern because of the undemocratic nature of local governance with its willing subservience to central government mandate. The recent talk about "participatory democracy" and "community involvement" in decision-making does not pass for more than cynical demagoguey when few of the local representatives, so-called, enjoy around 25% of the electorate vote and yet they feel empowered enough to impose their decisions of the remaining 75% of the electorate. They, in turn, operate under mandates imposed by a central government coalition made up of two factional minorities willing to force their factional dogma on the remaining majority of the electorate. This inversion of the "majority priciple" of democracy sees our affairs managed by small factions called political parties who impose their dogmas on the majority; the tactics employed are to uphold a strategy of "political parties at all costs".
This raises the important questions of the value and role of political parties and whether or not they have outrun their purpose as constructive forces within local governments. After all many councillors keep reminding us that they put the constituents first and not their party! Certainly the introduction of cabinet governance to local government and the associated secrecy surrounding decisions was always a bad move in eliminating the previous more open, transparent and participatory committee system. With the decline in support of politcal parties, who in total do not have more than 1% of the electorate as members, and an overall joint minority of electorate support (only 44% of the electorate vote for one of the main parties), the cabinet system is as unacceptable as when this system was introduced. The concept of unrepresentative factions deciding on the use of voter's resources through means whereby voters do not participate, let alone be informed as to the nature of dicussions and justifications for decisions, is an odious principle and at odds with any reasonable notion of transparent democractic representative governance. This is a topic on which Charles Dickens' with a famously refined perception as to the motivations of politicians, would have had much to say.
Recently Sir Paul Judge launched the Jury Team concept of "politics without parties", an approach which parallels the philosophy of the Emancipation Movement. The Jury Team has not been successful at elections so far but there is a growing momentum amongst constituents, motivated to an increasing degree by the prevarication of the coalition on taking decisive economic decisions, shifting towards the conclusion that this will be the inevitable outcome. The approach has not been given sufficient in-depth media coverage and, political parties, who have some influence in the media or else are blindly supported by some media, will not entertain serious discussion on the issue of politics without parties; as might be expected. This edition of PIP initiates an ongoing review of some of the key issues including an attempt to provided a clearer articulation of the benefits and drawbacks of this approach for British democracy.
Editor
Portsea Island Post was established in April 2008 as part of Agence Presse Européenne Media to provide an independent coverage of events of importance to communities living on Portsea Island and surrounding areas.
 |
|
| |
Local government secretary wishes to axe local government propaganda
Eric Pickles, the Local government secretary has expressed a wish to terminate local government news sheets which he considers to be a waste of money. He hopes to reduce competition with independent media so as to strengthen these to hold local government to account. There has been concern that these papers, which also print non-council content such as TV listings and sports reviews, have been pushing local papers out of business. Mr Pickles said: “Councils should spend less time and money on weekly town hall Pravdas that end up in the bin,..."
Mr Pickles said he was planning to make changes to the statutory code that will stop unfair competition, ensure a tougher value for money test, and prevent municipal literature passing itself off as independent journalism. Pickles' move has been welcomed by the Agence Press Européenne Board, whose spokesperson stated, "We warmly welcome Eric Pickles' initiative as a move towards rationality. PIP, the Portsea Island Post, an APE medium, was founded to address exactly these concerns raised by the Local goverment secretary. Mr. Pickles is to be congratulated on this move." Mr. Pickles's initiative has been received well by Lynne Anderson of the Newspaper Society and Bob Satchwell, the director of the Society of Editors. Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "People don't want their council tax to be squandered on patronising official propaganda."
Residents of Portsea Island were questioned about this subject and it is seen as a good move but many people expressed more concern with the quality of the propaganda news sheets circulated by the main political parties. These are generally considered to be patronising. Others consider them to be written as if for a target readership of semi-illiterates. Some have complained at the embarrassing levels to which councillors descend in scraping the barrel to identify "evidence" of how they are "helping" the people of Portsea Island.
A need to improve Portsmouth's planning system
Portsea Island resident parking & traffic movement enters state of crisis |
As a community largely living in an island city, Portsmouth has a unique marine-urban environment when compared with other cities in the United Kingdom. The over-riding aspects of this uniqueness are that Portsea Island has a finite area of land, fairly well-defined residential areas (in terms of land use) and a given road infrastructure.
Planning in Portsmouth does not seem to recognise the significance of Portsmouth's unique circumstances and so we find inappropriate standards for new dwelling densities being applied to Portsmouth combined with unrealistic provisions, or no provisions, for the growing requirement for residential parking created by higher dwelling densities. This trend has been accompanied by a cavalier disregard of the views of residents.
There is a massive flow of public funds into a public-private partnership (PPP) initiative on roads. This does not address the most significant damage arising from inappropriate planning decisions that continue to exacerbate declining amenity and worsening state of residential parking. This has knock on effects contributing to increasingly congested roads, longer delays and a general decline in quality of life. This is also having negative impacts on the local economy and business.
Read more ...The causes & consequences of high density housing in Portsea Island
Read more ...Dog whistle tactics - representation at its worst
Read more ...Portsmouth's bad deal on roads - a need to rationalise
Read more ...Portsea Island, an Island Community?
The Coniston Avenue Petition (CAP) - a case study in poor practice in planning decisions
To find out more about this example of poor practice in planning overseen by the representatives of the constituencies and wards of the City of Portsmouth, see our special section The Coniston Avenue Petition.
Catalonia bans bullfighting
The Bullfighting Arena in Barcelona, the monumental Plaza de Toros was built between 1913 and 1915 by Ignasi Mas.
|
Catalonia is the first mainland province of Spain to ban bullfighting, the open air slaughter house where cruelty to animals has been a money-spinning public spectacle for many years |
Catalonia's regional parliament voted on 28th July, 2010 to ban bullfighting. As from 1st January 2012, the fighting bull will receive protection under Catalonia's animal rights laws. The Catalan citizens' group Prou! (Enough!) lobbied for the ban. Elena Escoda, their representative stated that, "Today five centuries of cruelty have come to an end, from today onward, ethics must be considered a valid reason to question our traditions."
In December 2009 Prou! received support from the British actor Ricky Gervais, famous for shows like "Extras" and "The Office", who joined many personalities from different walks of life to support the Popular Legislative Initiative for the abolition of bullfighting in Catalonia, he stated, “What is the pleasure in seeing an animal speared to death? Bullfighting needs to stop — it’s so cruel.” He added, “It is brilliant that the animal rights advocates of Catalonia are involved in this campaign and I give it my full support." Gervais provided support by producing and publishing a video in support of the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) encouraging citizens around the world to give their support to the Legislative Initiative launched by the Platform Prou!. Before the vote, the World Society for the Protection of Animals presented parliamentarians with 140,000 signatures from 120 countries urging Catalonia to "lead the way for other regions and countries to follow so the cruelty of bullfighting can be made history".
As footnote to this decision, the 96-year-old Monumental bullring in Barcelona has already demanded more than €300m (£250m) from the regional government to compensate for losses
Planning regime undermines the quest for better Macroprudential management
Mervyn King
Governor of the Bank of England
©BoE
|
Online media
Find out what they have to say....
Click on the NewsRack image... |
|
|
One of the measures used by the Bank of England (BoE) model to support the Monetary Policy Committee decisions on interest rates and quantitative easing is the likely levels of credit on the part of consumers. Mervyn King has now been advocating the development of appropriate macroprudential management tools to reduce risk arising from loans and credit. An important part of the BoE equations used to determine likely credit and loans levels is household equity of which the main component is property values. However, this model relies upon rational market presumptions in the relative trends in market values.
Under the current planning regime, decisions do not take into account the knock on detrminental impacts of current planning policy which proactively ignores amenity, car parking demand and the likely impacts of these two upon property values. As more and more housing units are crammed into lower density housing areas, the effects of planning decisions are increasingly negative and associated with a counter-intuitive relative decline in property values. Because of the lack of quantitative and objective analysis surrounding planning applications and indeed approvals, there is no record of the likely impacts of planning decisions on property values across the country. This is a source of error in the BoE model causing feasible credit to be over-estimated because of an over-estimation in property values. Of concern is the fact that this in turn can contribute to higher interest rates and a more oppressive regime facing residents whose properties are devaluing as a result of poor planning decisions. There are therefore significant market effects resulting from the planning regime that are both arbitrary and unfair to constituents and they undermine efficient macroprudential management.
Read more ... How the planning regime contributes to the development of sub prime property markets
Politics without parties?
| 
In this land, the supremacy of a union can only be safeguarded through the wisdom of a free community conscience. This can never be bettered by unions shaped by political party interests ... |
|
|
One of the important debates in British democracy is the justification for more power being allocated to local governance. But do local politicians represent the interests of the people of the City when they are elected on the platform of a political party?
The main political parties have a total joint membership of less than 1% of the British electorate and are simple tiny, private factions. The last government party only had the support of 19% of the electorate and yet imposed its policies and dogma on the remaining majority of 81% of the electorate who never supported them. The first past the post system provides a minority faction with an overwhelming majority in Parliment making the concept of opposition and Parliamentary debate farcical.
Across the board, local councillors seldom accumulated more than about 12% of electorate support and some hovering around 5%. In spite of trying to sustain an image of "local representation" the critical mass of their support calls into question their legitimacy as "representatives" and their democratic status is even more precarious than the current and increasingly precarious status of MPs. Their actions are very much subservient to party as opposed to resident interests, especially in the context of planning, as several recent cases illustrate. We do not have a governance in the name of the majority, Parliament does not reflect the will of the people and local councillors even less so. Recently, a political organization, Jury Team was organized with the objective of supporting independent candidates for elections, we review the recent efforts to focus the public's attention on the drawbacks of political parties to British democracy.
Read more... Why the party is over ...
Read more... How political parties increase the risk of inappropriate policy decisions
Read more... On political party coalitions & assemblies of independents
Vince Cable
Business
Secretary
|
Regional Development Agencies to be replaced by Local Enterprize Partnerships Portsmouth's Oldest Gym
We invite you to review our reasonably-priced facilities - visit our website by clicking on the image below.
 |
|
|
|
The Government has set out plans for local enterprise partnerships aiming to bring together councils and business on an equal footing with one voice, to replace the current Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). In a joint letter ( click to download) sent to councils and business leaders, Business Secretary Vince Cable and Communities Secretary Eric Pickles have asked them to consider forming new local enterprise partnerships that can provide strategic leadership in their local areas and create the right environment for business success and economic growth.
Community participation matters
The last government seemed to consider the direct participation of local communities to be best limited to wheelie-bin democracy where decisions are limited to unimportant issues whilst the party maintained full control over national policy decisions and large centralised budgets. At the local level, so-called cabinet government continues to be used to keep the public at a distance through the removal of open committees. Rather than fight against this move towards less democractic accountability the main political parties acquiesced and even welcomed this basis for decision-making because it helped the interests of the parties including helping obscure deals between parties. The national membership of the main political parties does not surpass 1% of the electorate and many local councillors are elected gaining less than 10% electorate support, although the last elections distorted this with even some less popular councillors receiving a higher vote although, as always, representing a minority of the electorate. With such little, and indeed, waining public support it is an affront that such people seek to distance the people of the City from the decisions they take. Decisions continue to be taken in an ad hoc manner and in ways which ignore the valid concerns of residents. The justification for decisions is quite often that they are implementing or upholdiong central government statutes even when these affect local residents in a negative fashion. This is a lamentable state of affairs which undermines participatory democracy, reducing dialogue and hiding many better options for the people of Portsmouth. Read more ... Secrecy & corruption masquerading as efficiency ...
|
|
|
|
