Author Archives: jenny

Reject speculative planning application’s retail impact statement!

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The former Mytholm Works site is too important to be kicked around in a speculative planning application aimed solely at increasing the site owners’ profits by driving up the value of the land.

This is what Incredible Edible Mytholm has said in its objection to Belmont Homes’ retail impact statement (and its revisions) that estimates the effects a supermarket on King Street would have on local businesses.

Except no supermarket wants to open on King Street. The would-be developer’s retail impact statement confesses that no supermarket is associated with the planning application.
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Calderdale Council PFI waste incinerator – financial & business info is exempt from public disclosure

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On March 12th 2013 I sent a Freedom of Information request about the Private Finance Initiative-funded waste incinerator to Ian Hughes, Head of Democratic and Partnership Services at Calderdale Council. As of yesterday, I still hadn’t received a reply.

Public bodies are supposed to reply to Freedom of Information requests within 20 working days.

But since it turns out that, under the 1972 Local Government Act, local authorities are legally entitled to withhold crucial information from the public, what’s the point?

Today, after chasing up the FOI request yesterday with Calderdale Council, I have received the reply, along with an email saying that the Council originally sent it to me on June 4th.

The Council really needn’t have bothered – it turns out that for most of the questions I asked,

“disclosure…could affect the Council’s negotiations with PRR and similarly PRR’s negotiations with other potential lenders.”

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Draft flood risk model for Hebden Bridge

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Participants in PhD student Shaun Maskrey’s second Flood Risk Modelling Workshop in July worked hard to draft networks showing how flood risks work in Hebden Bridge.

John Woods of the Environment Agency helped Shaun to facilitate the workshop and Christina Hooley at Treesponsibility did the catering.

Shaun’s first workshop introduced the idea of using Bayesian networks to cope with uncertainties about how different variables affect flooding. After this bracing start, participants had worked in two groups to identify actions, or “interventions” that could reduce flood risk in Hebden Bridge.

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Anatomy of the NHS carve up – focus on telehealthcare

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Here is how a private company goes about dismantling and profiteering from a much-loved public service, in five easy stages.

Pay for positive spin in a pro-market think tank report 

In 2010 Tunstall Healthcare was one of an assortment of private healthcare companies that funded a report on telehealthcare, ‘Healthcare Without Walls: A framework for delivering telehealth at scale’, written by the pro-privatisation think tank, 2020 Health.
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NHS land grab by private companies slices further into Calderdale

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Calderdale NHS has stumbled further down the stealth privatisation road by awarding a 12 month, £364K contract for telehealth and telecare to Tunstall Healthcare, a company largely owned by vulture fund Charterhouse Capital Partners.

Private equity company Bridgepoint sold Tunstall to Charterhouse in 2008 for more than double the £225m it paid for it in 2005. Bridgepoint, which acquired Care UK  in early 2010 for £423m, retains a minority share in Tunstall.
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Browns Field Plants – Offcumdens or Locals?

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There’s an amazing list of plants native to the HX7 postcode area on the Natural History Museum site.

Why does it matter whether plants are locals or offcumdens? Aren’t they all one big flora family? Well yes, but research shows that indigenous trees support far more insects than imported ones. Maybe it’s the same with other plants too. That would be interesting to find out.

How many of the HX7 native plants can you find on the Browns Field/Mytholm Works site?
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Former DECC secretary Chris Huhne goes from jail to bioenergy company

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In a new spin on the revolving door, former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne has left jail and collected a job worth £100,000 a year with Zilkha Biomass Energy. Zilhka is a US company that ships wood pellets from America to Northern Europe.

Chris Huhne’s new job doesn’t cut much mustard with critics of the bioenergy industry.

Oliver Munnion, Campaigner for Biofuelwatch, said:

“Chris Huhne is being rewarded for his ardent support for the biomass industry during his time as Energy and Climate Change Secretary. He oversaw vast subsidies and other support mechanisms being put in place for bioenergy which have resulted in a rush for biomass that could see the UK’s demand for wood rise to 90 million tonnes a year – nine times the UK’s annual production.
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Shocking Ambulance Staff Survey – Microcosm of NHS Attrition

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This is re-blogged from the excellent Sqwawkbox blog, with thanks.

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I’ve received a copy of an astonishing, eye-opening survey of ambulance staff in an English NHS Trust.  This survey covered the experience and opinions of paramedics in South East Coast NHS ambulance Trust, but its findings could just as easily have come from almost any part of the NHS under this government.
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