New wind turbine

It's encouraging to see the arrival of the first wind turbine on the new City College site at Granville Road- I believe this is the first wind turbine in Manor Castle ward. It will power the ventilation for the new building, and will be followed by three much larger turbines on the college roof. You can also see the sedum roof on the new nursery, which changes colour with the seasons. It warmly insulates the building and provides a living habitat for birds and insects, and soaks up the rain preventing so much run off to the drains. Hopefully these wind turbines will help to dispel some of the many myths that are regularly used to argue against wind turbines- if you believe the anti wind campaigners the students will need to be issued with earplugs when they come for lectures!

Council Pay Cuts

This has been sent to the local press.

Dear Editor

Andy Shallice (20 March 2009) and the staff from Sharrow School have made
an excellent case against the draconian pay cuts that Sheffield City Council
are trying to impose on some workers. Sheffield Green Party
are very concerned that some of the lowest paid council workers seem set
to lose out. These include lunch time supervisors, school crossing patrols,
council transport and Streetforce workers. We support the principle of equal
pay for women and a unified approach to pay and grading across the council.
The problem comes when "equalising" pushes some employees down rather than up.

In the case of school staff, teachers and non-teaching staff work as a
team, all equally committed to the children's well being and learning. We
support school workers because they do vital and responsible jobs. We
know that head teachers and school governors are trying to
deal with the effects on existing workers- they don't want to
have to manage a demoralised and demotivated staff. Any agreement should
also take into account the position of new staff coming into these jobs. We
urge workers in all departments to seek advice from a Trade Union, even if
they have not been members until now.

As a national party, we see this in the wider context. Nationally Labour
has encouraged a system where people in the private sector, including
bankers and chief execs of formerly publicly owned utilities, earn hundreds
of thousands. Meanwhile most public sector wages, the minimum wage and the
state old age pension remain pitifully low. Inequalities between rich and
poor widened dramatically under Mrs Thatcher's Conservative Government and
have got even worse under New Labour. Inequality harms our society and has
created poverty that people struggle to escape from, resulting in crime, mental illness and ill health. The gap between the best and worst paid council employees should be narrowed, not widened. Nationally the Green Party proposes a Living Wage, where everyone would be guaranteed a minimum income. Such a scheme would narrow the gap between rich and poor and create a better, healthier, happier society for all.

Yours sincerely


Graham Wroe
Sheffield Green Party

Blowing in the wind

Today's announcement from the RSPB that they will not contest windfarm developments that are not in "sensitive" areas is to be warmly welcomed. As the windiest country in Europe we should not be in the relegation zone with one of the lowest contributions to the energy mix from windpower. I am on record as advocating Skye Edge, in my own "backyard" as an excellent site for a windfarm. We have got to start winning the arguments against the Nimby's because climate change isn't just threatening our view, it is threatening the very survival of most of the species on the planet- and among those I include humankind. Included in the nimby's is Hillsborough MP Angela Smith, who has just launched an objection to the Sheephouse Heights windfarm proposal on the Barnsley/ Sheffield border.She reminds me of the woman on the Age of Stupid, who after winning her battle against a wind farm, was asked if she cares about climate change. "Of course I do" she lied, smiling all over her face. So now with the support of the RSPB, perhaps the UK will start to climb out of the relegation zone of wind power electricity production.

The Age of Stupid

The Age of Stupid: final trailer Feb 2009 from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

The Age of Stupid opens in Sheffield at the Showroom this weekend. Don't miss it!

The Age of Stupid: Mark Lynas at Fundraiser from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

New City College Building

I had a very interesting visit round the building site of the new City (formerly Castle) College on Friday. It really will be an impressive building when it's finished. The atrium will be cathedral like in its proportions, and reminds me of Sheffield's other excellent piece of modern architecture, the Winter Gardens. The new nursery is already in action- you may have noticed the new green roofed building near the tram stop, whose roof changes colour with the seasons.Other parts of the new college are due to open very soon. This will allow for some of the current buildings like the canteen, to be demolished, so the new build can progress nearer Granville Road. Green features such as the wind turbines and the sedum roof are going ahead as planned. The toilets will be flushed with rainwater, collected in tanks underneath the building. This system will be connected to a new lake, very near Granville Road. This will be one of the last features to be built, along with the new sports hall.

The new facilities for training in catering look magnificent and should make City College the leading institution in the country for aspiring chefs. What disappoints me is there is no sign yet of an expansion in the curriculum in the vital area of green technology. If this country is to lead the fight against climate change we should be training an army of plumbers,planners, builders etc with the skills the country needs to fit renewable energy like solar panels, ground source heat pumps and wind turbines. Retrofitting our current housing stock with insulation, so that it at least meets current building regulations (which are in themselves far too lax) is a vital job our current builders are not currently trained to do. If you want to find out how to make your house more energy efficient, visit the South Yorkshire Energy Centre at Heeley City Farm where you will find comprehensive information- but if you don't want to "do it yourself" you may have great difficulty in finding a builder who understands how to make a 1900's terrace house with no cavity walls energy efficient. So I hope the Learning and Skills Council will soon realise that we have a massive training gap and encourage the FE Colleges to start to fill it. And I hope the Government will start to splash some of the dosh it seems all too happy to bail out the banks with, in investing in a sustainable future for our country.

More images of the station protest

Thanks to Ange for these photos

Green New Deal Conference

Soundclips from the conference are now available on indymedia
So if you missed this inspirational day, or want to catch up on the workshops you couldn't get to, do have a listen here.

New hope for Park Hill and new hope for Sheffield

Better news today for Park Hill It seems public investment has been brought forward to save the refurbishment of Sheffield's Park Hill complex.

Also good news was the tremendous conference I attended on Saturday. Organised by Sheffield Campaign against Climate Change, the 130 delegates brought together an amazing amount of energy and enthusiasm, all determined to bring about a Green New Deal for Sheffield. The Green New Deal was formulated by the New Economics Foundation, and in a nutshell is about investing money in reducing our carbon footprint, to protect us from the triple whammy of climate change, peak oil and the credit crunch and at the same time providing thousands of new jobs.Unlike other conferences I have sometimes been to, this was not just a talking shop. It was the start of what will undoubtedly be a long process, but the day was geared around working up realistic policies that can be implemented by the City Council, local businesses or communities.
Ideas will be fed into documents like Sheffield's Economic Masterplan, and we can use the powers of the Sustainable Communities Act to make ideas become reality.
One of my favourite ideas were following the Kirklees model for insulating homes and providing solar energy.
It was also very encouraging to hear Professor M Dharmadasa, who has been beavering away at Hallam University, researching into how solar photovoltaics can be made with an extremely thin film of solar cells. His invention should be being widely celebrated in Sheffield and throughout the world- it could be one of the most important inventions of the decade, as it will make pv far more affordable.