The unresolved saga of Care UK’s Walk In Health Centres in Park Ward, Halifax and Todmorden seems like another example of the mess that happens when the government tries to privatise the NHS.
I have put in a Freedom of Information request to West Yorkshire Commissioning Support Services, to find out what’s going on.
Tim Radford, writing for Climate News Network, reports that scientists are mulling Arctic’s slow CO2 loss.
The Arctic permafrost thaws each year, but – to the surprise of scientists from Denmark – in some areas it is not releasing the carbon dioxide it contains nearly as fast as they had expected.
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Playing with a way of mapping biodiversity on Browns Field, using the open source Grab a Grid reference tool.
Any people out there who know about permaculture observation, please tell us if this method (outlined below) is likely to be useful for members of the public to observe and record what grows and lives on the field over the next year or so? You can use the reply box or contact form.
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The excellent False Economy website shows that in 2013, as part of its Efficiency Review of Services, Calderdale Council has cut the following Health and Social Care services. Mainly the cuts are scores of staff redundancies, as the Council is outsourcing the services to private providers.
So how does that work out? If private providers are cheaper than NHS/Council facilities, you can bet that means they’re paying staff lower wages. I will try and find out.
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Shaun Maskrey’s 2nd Flood Modelling Workshop (which unfortunately I couldn’t attend) was about organising the variables that affect flooding in the Hebden Water catchment area into a cause and effect structure.
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Paul Brown of Climate News Network reports on a new study of “atmospheric rivers” – bands of enhanced water vapour in the earth’s atmosphere. The study shows they are becoming bigger and holding more water vapour as the earth’s atmosphere warms.
“Atmospheric rivers”, airborne corridors of concentrated moisture which carry huge volumes of water, are set to get wider and longer, causing more frequent and catastrophic floods as the atmosphere warms.
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Hebden Bridge & Todmorden Community Self Build Housing Community Interest Company held a well-attended public consultation today on affordable self build housing.
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The developer’s long-delayed retail impact statement for a proposed supermarket on the Mytholm Works site comes clean about a fact that Incredible Edible Mytholm has all along strongly suspected – that no supermarket is associated with the planning application.
The site owner has had to reveal this, because to carry out the retail impact assessment, they have to say how much trading the proposed supermarket will carry out. But they don’t know, because there is no proposed supermarket.
So, without a supermarket lined up, the developers’ consultants have had to create two scenarios, one for a “Top 5” supermarket, and the other for a “discount” supermarket.
The Belmont Homes retail impact statement went up on the Calderdale Council planning website on Friday 12th July. Predictably, the statement claims that the proposed supermarket would not damage the vitality and viability of Hebden Bridge, or the areas of Halifax and Todmorden where the proposed supermarket would draw trade from.
No supermarket intends to set up on the site
Because so far no supermarket wants to be involved in the development, the retail impact statement is based on 2 different scenarios. One is for the impact of a “Top 5” supermarket on Hebden Bridge town centre shops, and the other for a discount supermarket, like Aldi or Lidl. Continue reading
If the science is right, here’s some good news on the climate change front. A downloadable open source scientific paper concludes that permafrost melting in arctic places will not increase methane (CH4) emissions enough to add to further global warming.
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