Green perspectives on Stockwood and Bristol. Mostly.

Saturday 22 January 2011

The Big Save Our Parks Petition

.....does what it says on the web page - http://epetitions.bristol.gov.uk/epetition_core/community/petition/1403

If it reaches 3,500 valid signatures, anyway.

6 comments:

Paul Bemmt Down said...

Hi Pete. Have passed the word around. Onwards towards the 3,500.

Anonymous said...

Whilst I am in support of your intentions, what benefit will the petition bring ?

If you do collect 3,500 signatures and if you do force a council debate, why should this be any different from the last council debate or the call-in debate ?

I suspect that the labour and tory councillors currently supporting you, are doing so for appearence sake only. They don't want to stop the sell-off. Only to appear that they are. Labour created the plan when in power and the Tory's supported it both under labour and lib administrations. A petition is perfect for them - all appearence and no action.

The only way to stop the sell-off is to make Town Green applications in respect of every threatened space. That is the purpose of the Town Green legislation - to stop recreational space being sold off to developers. That is why both labour and torys are opposing Town Green applications - because they actually achieve what they set out to do.

arry

Stockwood Pete said...

'i 'arry

Fair comment. You'd have to be pretty naive not to see an electoral motive in this petition. The real test will be in the party manifestos. Will they make any firm promises?

Even so, a council debate on this particular proposal - to delegate the 'sell-off' decisions to Neighbourhood Partnerships - could be helpful. It could put on the pressure within the LibDems to adopt some kind of compromise that will reduce the electoral threat to some of their seats. Remember that LibDem councillors don't all agree with the Cabinet; those of them on the Scrutiny Commissions agreed that it was premature to take the 'disposal' decision in December.

I'm curious about how the Lab/Con proposal (to leave disposals to the Neighbourhood Partnerships) would work in practice. Would the NPs start with a blank sheet, or would they be expected to contribute to some city-wide quota? I think we should be told

Anonymous said...

Strictly speaking, of course, Tory councillors could put in a motion for a debarte anyway. The point of the petition is that it shows it has public backing

Anonymous said...

Hi Pete

You say the test will be manifesto promises.

How about this from the Lib Dems 2007 "Six to Fix" manifasto when they sought to replace labout in power in Bristol ...

"No. 2 - Fight labour's green belt grab and preserve our green spaces"

As much use as a pledge not to raise tuition fees.


arry

Stockwood Pete said...

Good point.

There's a moral there somewhere - involving LibDems and trust.