It Never Rains But It Pours

Seven weeks ago today, after 7 of the previous 8 months having well below average rainfall and reservoirs being over half empty, I wrote here about Sussex being on the verge of a new drought.

Since that date over one third of a year's average rainfall has fallen. This included our wettest ever November which broke the November rainfall record of 2000, when we had severe flooding in parts of Crawley, especially in Furnace Green and Maidenbower.

The pictures which I took on Monday afternoon are of the swollen River Arun just south of Pulborough. The first one is where the river actually is, and the second one is of the floodplain which has filled up creating a huge lake. It serves as a timely reminder about the risks of flooding.

On Monday evening at the CBC Development Control Committee, I spoke in support of, and voted for the planning application for the new and much larger dam at Tilgate Lake in Tilgate Park. This is a major project to reduce the flood risk in Crawley which will store huge amounts of excess water during exceptionally high rainfall events. Not only will Furnace Green and Tilgate benefit from this, but other areas such as Maidenbower will as those tributaries will be able to flow swiftly downstream without being held up by exceptionally high water levels further downstream.

This project is part of a larger project being led by the Environment Agency to reduce the flood risk of the River Mole. Crawley Borough Council are making a significant contribution to the work in Tilgate, and as a Cabinet Member at CBC, I have helped to enable this to happen. We can never say never, but as a Council we are doing everything possible to stop the misery of flooding in Crawley from ever happening again.

2012 Olympics: West Sussex Ahead Of The Game

One of the meetings I went to last week was West Sussex Ahead Of The Game which is a partnership led by WSCC, which is aiming to make the most of the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics for the residents and businesses of West Sussex.

http://www.westsussex-aheadofthegame.com/

It is chaired by my colleague, County Councillor Deborah Urqhart, who is the Cabinet Member for Environment and Economy at WSCC. My role is as a policy advisor and to assist and support Deborah in this field of work. Do take a look at the website as there is much we are trying to achieve in seeking to maximise the benefits of London 2012 for West Sussex. I have also listed the site in my links section on the right hand side of the page.

One area is using the 2012 Games to improve the numbers of people who take part in sporting activity and exercise, the benefits of which are enormous. I am conscious that here in Crawley, we have some of the lowest participation rates in West Sussex, despite arguably having the best leisure facilities in the whole of the County. This is nothing new but the health and well being, as well as ultimately the financial benefits are so great that we must do everything we can to encourage and motivate more people to realise the benefits of sport and exercise.

Olympic Athletes and especially Paralympic Athletes are excellent for inspiring people (including of course our young people) to get more involved in sport. We are hoping to have an Olympic team or two based in West Sussex and the latest signs are encouraging. It would be great for local youngsters to be able to see Olympic Athletes training at K2 in Tilgate, as well as some of the other top facilities we have across West Sussex, and I know that Crawley would be very welcoming to Athletes staying here from other Countries.

Three weeks ago, I stood in for Deborah at the 2009 Sussex Sports Awards and presented the West Sussex Ahead Of The Game award for the Disabled Sports Personality of the Year to Sascha Kindred, who is an incredibly successful swimmer who has lived in Crawley. Unfortunately Sascha was competing elsewhere so he wasn't able to collect the award himself, but he did send a video link in thanks for the award which was shown on the big screen.

The picture at the top, which I took at the event, is of Paralympian Richard Schabel from East Grinstead with Carolyn Carr who is a lead Officer from WSCC for West Sussex Ahead Of The Game. Richard was one of the two other nominees for the Disabled Sports Personality of the Year and you can just see his certificate at the bottom of the picture. I was on the same table as Richard at the event and was able to learn something about his career and events. Discuss and javelin are his main events if my memory serves me correctly, and he has held a pentathlon world record for many years, which is a very impressive achievement. He didn't as well as he had hoped for at the Paralympics in 2008, but hopefully home advantage in 2012 will give him an edge.

It will soon be 2010 and London 2012 will not look so distant, so hopefully the momentum, interest and enthusiasm will really take off in the UK, and we can help ensure that West Sussex makes the most of this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Deer Right In The Centre Of Crawley

Last Tuesday evening at about 10.30pm, I was leaving the Town Hall after a meeting and was very surprised to see a Muntjac Deer right outside the carpark.

It trotted across Exchange Road and disappeared in the bushes on the roundabout that adjoins Exchange Road, Northgate Avenue, The Boulevard and College Road. A couple of minutes later it emerged and trotted up the pavement on College Road up towards the Memorial Gardens.

Although I have seen Fallow Deer in the woods in Tilgate and Furnace Green, I have never seen the much smaller Muntjac before. Like Fallow Deer, this critter is an introduced species from Asia which has spread throughout England. It originates from China and it's population is said to have exploded in recent years. If they are reaching our town centres, then this must certainly be the case. The next morning I saw a dead one on the Balcombe Road just south of Maidenbower. Given the distance, it was unlikely to be the same one but it was strange to see a live one, then another dead one elsewhere within 12 hours, having never seen one before.

Whatever the merits or otherwise of introduced species, it was certainly a pleasent surprise to see such a creature trotting along the pavement of our town centre of an evening.

Look Who's Back

It is my belief that there are two things that drive Gordon Brown. One is the pursuit of absolute power and control for himself at any cost (but not allowing the people to have their say and avoiding elections), and the other is trying to damage the Conservative party.

The second one of those is likely to be his motivation for his lobbying to foist Tony Blair on us as the first (UNELECTED!!) President of the European Union. There is a certain irony in this, given that Brown spent over a decade sulking because the more able Tony Blair kept him out of the top job. However, such is Brown's motivation to leave the next Conservative government a poison chalice, that as well as leaving the Country effectively bankrupt and manipulating his own recession so that the worst will come after May next year, he is also prepared to lobby for Blair in order to leave a European thorn in the side for his democratically elected successor.

Where do I start with the hypocrisy?

How about Tony Blair at the last General Election promising us a referendum on the European Constitution? (now called Lisbon Treaty) which is what is generating this Presidential role in the first place. We never had a vote on this although Ireland had TWO referendums because they didn't vote for the 'right' result first time around. Incredibly, that was the SECOND time the Irish voted twice in a European referendum having voted for the 'wrong' result first time around.

How about at the same time Tony Blair saying he would serve a full third term? which meant we wouldn't have had the unelected Gordon Brown foisted upon us. A dangerous precedent has been set there which the prospect of 'President Blair' confirms. Remember Brown didn't even face a challenge from within his own party for the top job, such was the intense pressure that he had applied to possible other contenders.

How about this all being done by the two people whose Labour party polled less votes at the last General Election in England than the Conservative party did? Blair had little moral mandate in England for government at the 2005 election, and Gordon Brown none whatsoever. Despite this, they have conspired again and again to force their will upon us and impose the other one on our Country with no democratic mandate.

This all leaves a very bitter taste in the mouth, where politicians can lie and mislead and seek to impose their will on the people without any democratically elected mandate whatsoever. Thankfully it is very likely the people will elect David Cameron as our Prime Minister next year and this awful cronyism will stop. We must however resist a 'President Blair' at every opportunity. If he were to be gifted that role, we must not recognise it until we the people have had a vote of the Lisbon Treaty and if we agree to that, a vote of the President and all the Commissioners.

The Worst Ever Recession Brought To You By The Worst Ever Prime Minister

Do you remember Gordon Brown saying...

"No more boom and bust"

"Only borrow to invest"

"Stability"

"Prudence"

"Britain is best placed to weather the Global economic crisis"

"Debt is low"

"The recession will be over by June"

"Saved the World"

Regarded by many as being the most cynically dishonest politician of modern times, Gordon Brown will be hoping that you will have forgotten all this.

Last night it was being touted that today's quarterly GDP figures would show a return to economic growth. I can picture it now, Gordon Brown would have been eagerly getting his speech ready for the media in order to tell us all how he had returned the Country to growth. As it happened, the figures showed the recession continuing and therefore in true Brown style whenever there is any bad news, the Prime Minister was nowhere to be seen.

The fact that France and Germany returned to economic growth some six months ago, makes the global recession argument that Gordon Brown has been using throughout, even less credible than it was before. We went in first and will come out last. Labour's recession will be felt for decades as they have bankrupted the Public Finances. It is only because the international markets are expecting a Conservative victory at the next general election, that has allowed Labour not to have to go cap-in-hand to the IMF to bail out the Country. If the markets thought Labour might win, then the credit will dry up and we become a basket case overnight.

Typically of Labour, it will be left to the next Conservative government to get Britain back on it's feet. This will involve very tough choices but we must never lose sight that tough choices are necessary because of what Gordon Brown and Labour have done. Amazingly here in Crawley, when we make the tough choices needed to serve our town as best as possible, it is the local Labour party who complain in the media, despite it being their party that causes the financial problems in the first place!

Make no mistake, this recession is the Gordon Brown recession and it is longer and deeper than any other British recession in modern history. That is his legacy from his ten years as Chancellor when he took us down a path of boom and bust, despite spending years telling us that he was ending exactly that. He has also indebted our children with over £1 trillion of debt to pay back through their lifetimes, and that will be Labour's lasting legacy of 13 years in power which will continue to hurt us all long after they are removed from office.

If you are under 40 like myself, you will probably have only remembered four Prime Ministers throughout your lifetime. They have been getting steadily worse with each one that passes. However, this one, James Gordon Brown, is by far the worst one we have suffered from and the long-term damage he is doing to our Country is bordering on the criminal.

A New Drought In Sussex?

I have a tendency to highlight issues here, before they become more widely publicised. This is potentially another issue which may start to gather momentum, if we don't have a sustained period of heavy rainfall soon. It has just started to rain outside, but whether this is the start of a prolonged wet spell, or just a night of rain, remains to be seen.

The graph is taken from Southern Water who publish rainfall figures and the reservoir levels of the ones that they manage. Currently the Bewl Water reservoir in Kent, which is the largest expanse of fresh water in South-East Engand, is only 48% full as of the 15th of October. There has been no real rain in the five days since. The environment section on their website is very informative.

http://www.southernwater.co.uk/

As you can see from the graph, six out of the last seven months have seen significantly below average rainfall. Only July has seen above average rainfall, but that is the month that sees the most evaporation and fast surface run-off from thunderstorms, so it is the least useful month for above average rainfall as far as managing water resources is concerned.

With 10 days to go in October, we have had less than half the average rainfall, and almost all of that fell in one day's very heavy rain, meaning that surface run-off would have been less beneficial for groundwater levels than say had it fallen over a wet three days.

There is often talk of flooding in the media but I believe we are on the verge of a drought unless we have a wetter than average winter. 70% of the water we use comes from groundwater and it is winter rainfall that the water companies depend on to replenish groundwater supplies.

At WSCC, we are very keen on conserving water resources (whether there is a drought on or not) and I remember us looking at this subject in a meeting of the Strategic Environmental Services Select Committee, some four years ago when we last had a drought. What pleases me is that WSCC is committed to being water wise, as well as other environmental issues such as seeking to reduce our CO2 emissions that contribution towards Climate Change. We are looking at WSCC and Climate Change (Our own emissions and leading and influencing others to limit theirs) in the morning at the SESS Committee. Given that we never seem to be too far away from droughts or floods locally, it is highly topical.

Crawley Liberal Democrats Surpass Labour

The picture is of the soundtrack to a very funny film which I have seen. Something else which has made me laugh is the election leaflets being put out by other parties here in Crawley.

A recent Labour leaflet in the Northgate Borough Council by-election has provided mild amusement with it's errors which I have already featured, but the Crawley Liberal Democrats have proven that what Labour can do well, the Lib Dems can do even better!

The following paragraph is an absolute beauty from the latest Liberal Democrat leaflet in Northgate, which is basically a cut and pasted rehashment of their first leaflet folded a different way (full of assertion and wild claims, but with no evidence or explanation).

"It's going to be a close fight between the Lib Dems in Northgate. Labour supporters are switching to the back Darren to keep the Tories out."

The first sentence is a classic Freudian slip given the reasons why this by-election is being held in the first place. The second sentence is particularly amusing as it is essentially a much larger error saying the exact opposite to what Labour said, where they originally made an error.

"Lib Dems are switching to Labour to keep the Tories Out"

Only the capital letter in the last word of that sentence is wrong, apart from the actual claim itself of course. However, Labour did have a much better effort in their same leaflet. Who can forget:

"In fact, the Northgate by-election is a really two horse race between Labour and Conservatives."

Despite this, Labour have been totally outshone by the Lib Dems. There is some hope for Labour as disappointingly from the Lib Dems, they do get the following paragraph grammatically correct in their leaflet, apart from the actual claim itself of course.

"Gordon Brown's Labour are out of the race in Northgate. Their supporters are switching to the Lib Dems"

With the Lib Dems getting a paragraph correct, Labour still have a fighting chance to win this comedy of errors contest. This is definitely a two horse race between Labour and the Lib Dems, and unless the Conservatives can write something that looks like Latin backwards, we will come a distant third.

On a slightly more serious note, this is what the three parties are saying locally in the Northgate by-election as to who it is between. Both Conservatives and Labour have used recent accurate evidence to support their claims, while the Liberal Democrats have used nothing but assertion.

Con say: Between Conservative and Labour

Lab say: Between Conservative and Labour

Lib say : Between Conservative and Lib Dem

When you look at it how I have laid it out, it becomes a little more obvious as to which parties it is likely to be between, and who the joker in the pack really is.