Monthly Archives: April 2015

The Parties Respond to Our Questions! Q3 – Local Food

29 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by in Food, Politics

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Here’s the third blog in our series of High Peak General Election candidate responses to our questions. The full, unedited responses for this question are available in this document: Candidates Responses-Q3.

What initiatives would you introduce that would support local food producers and farmers to sell their produce in an environment dominated by a small number of large food retailers?

Caitlin Bisknell (Labour)

As Leader of High Peak Borough Council Caitlin has championed schemes such as the Serpentine Farm in Buxton which aims to renovate the former council nursery to grow food and offer training, and Totally Locally Glossop which brings together local independent businesses. Caitlin also tries to use local shops as much as possible for all her shopping.

Caitlin would also work to improve access to public sector supply chains for local food producers and farms by encouraging the division of contracts into smaller lots they are able to bid for, such as through Derbyshire County Council’s Source Derbyshire and Trusted Trader schemes.

Labour would give local communities the tools they need to protect and improve nature and supports changes to the Common Agriculture Policy to do more to protect the environment.

Stephen Worrall (Liberal Democrats)

Farming support from the government should be focussed on ‘sustainable farming’, such as support for local food producers and farmers selling their produce locally. Stephen thinks there is a societal change happening, in which people care more where there food comes from and are willing to pay more for locally-produced and well-produced food. Central government should help accelerate this trend with information campaigns; local government could provide more support for farmers’ markets and similar food events.

UKIP

UKIP’s policies on agriculture and fishing include: leaving the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy and instituting a British Single Farm Payment for farms; letting the British parliament vote on GM foods; leaving the Common Fisheries Policy and reinstating British territorial waters; making foreign trawlers apply for fishing permits to fish British waters when fish stocks have returned to sustainable levels; labelling food to include country of origin, method of production, method of slaughter, hormones and genetic additives; and abolition of the export of live animals for slaughter.

Andrew Bingham (Conservative)

Andrew says that there is becoming a more prevalent attitude to food provenance with people looking towards locally produced foods and ‘artisan’ ranges and, when given the chance, preferring to buy locally High Peak produced goods. Farm shops and farmers’ markets allow farmers to sell food and other produce direct to the general public. This benefits both farmer and consumer as it increases profit margins while offering locally produced fresh foods.

All the products on sale at farmers’ markets should have been grown, reared, caught, brewed, pickled, baked, smoked or processed by the stallholder. Such markets help cut out the middleman and improve financial returns; help producers receive direct customer feedback; reduce the costs of transport and packaging; have a regular market outlet, which is important for new producers, producers in organic conversion and small scale producers.

Charlotte Farrell (Green)

Charlotte says that the Greens will require local authorities and communities to draw up local food plans to safeguard and encourage local processing, distribution and retailing of produce; encourage non-commercial food production and community involvement in food growing, such as allotments, urban food growing, community orchards, and school gardens. In the long term, we will enable all communities to have access to and control of land that can be used for growing basic needs.

The Greens would also limit the power of supermarkets and global corporations, and use planning regulations to favour local markets. The Greens would also encourage local authorities to favour local suppliers in their procurement of food, such as schools using local produce.

The Parties Respond to Our Questions! Q2 – Unending Economic Growth

28 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in Economy, Politics

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Here’s the second blog in our series of High Peak General Election candidate responses to our questions. The full, unedited responses for this question are available in this document: Candidates Responses-Q2.

Get involved in the discussion!

Can the economy keep growing for ever? If so, where will resources come from; if not, what is the alternative?

Charlotte Farrell (Green)

Charlotte says that clearly the economy cannot keep growing forever in the way that the other parties seem to envisage, expecting infinite growth from a finite world. She says that we are already reaching the point where the pursuit of economic growth is costing more in terms of total damage to health, society and environment than the value returned by it.

Instead the Greens would begin to shift the economy from the simple pursuit of profit to the fulfilling of needs. External costs would be factored in to economic decision making, so that economic activity accounts for its total impact. For economic activity to be sustainable it has to address human and environmental impacts and needs and begin to work for the general good of all.

Caitlin Bisknell (Labour)

Caitlin says that it’s not so much about whether the economy can keep growing, but about how it evolves to incorporate new technologies. Successful economies are those that adapt to new technologies quickest, build the new industrial base and plan the transition to avoid huge economic shocks.

The next big transition in economic terms is the move from high-carbon power to low-carbon. Therefore, we need to develop plans on grid enhancements, carbon capture and storage pipelines, distributed generation technologies, integrated recycling plants, energy efficiency improvements and electric vehicle charging networks that are the platforms for green growth of the economy as a whole.

Labour believes a million more high skilled, green jobs can be created by 2025, with British manufacturing companies producing the plant, equipment and technology.

Stephen Worrall (Liberal Democrats)

Can the economy keep growing forever? Stephen says, “No I don’t think it can but I’m not an economist!” However, he contends that we are a long way off any ‘tipping point’ that may occur.

Stephen links economic growth to a growing population. If our population became static or started to decrease an economy with no growth would be “more than OK”. In mature societies this appears to begin naturally as people have fewer children but with the world at such varying states of development the point at which global population stops growing is a “long way off”. One way to slow population growth would be to do far more to empower women to take ownership of their own birth control.

Stephen also advocates much better use and recycling of resources. We are still a throwaway society and nowhere near enough is being done at the moment to encourage recycling.

UKIP

There is little mention of the benefits or otherwise of unconstrained economic growth in the UKIP policy document. There are however, sections on ‘increasing prosperity’, ‘repairing the economy’ and ‘reducing debts we leave to our grandchildren’. The focus of the last section is leaving the EU to save £8bn pa in contributions, cutting the foreign aid budget by £9bn pa, scrapping HS2 and abolishing the government departments of Energy & Climate Change, and of Culture, Media & Sport.

Andrew Bingham (Conservative)

Andrew says that the Conservatives are committed to sustainable development in the form of stimulating economic growth and tackling the deficit, maximising wellbeing and protecting our environment, without negatively impacting on the ability of future generations to do the same. He says that these are difficult times and tough decisions need to be made.

Sustainable development recognises that the three pillars of economy, society and the environment are interconnected. The last Government initiated a series of growth reviews to put the UK on a path to strong, sustainable and balanced growth and our long term economic growth relies on protecting and enhancing the environmental resources that underpin it, and paying due regard to social needs. As part of our commitment to enhance wellbeing, we will start measuring our progress as a country, not just by how our economy is growing, but by how our lives are improving; not just by our standard of living, but by our quality of life.

The Parties Respond to Our Questions! Q1 – The Local Economy

26 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by in Economy, Politics

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We asked you to suggest questions for candidates for the 2015 General Election. We cobbled together what we thought were a representative sample of seven and duly sent them on. We received personal responses from all the candidates except UKIP’s Ian Guiver (although we did receive a copy of a UKIP policy document from Ian’s party’s head office, which we’ve used for UKIP’s slant on our questions).

We’d like to thank all the candidates who responded for their thoughtful, considered (and sometimes lengthy!) responses to our questions.

This blog is a summary of their responses for the first of these questions.

Blogs for the subsequent six questions – on issues such as rewilding, economic growth and transport – will be published every few days leading up to the election. Candidate responses are given in alphabetical order (by party name), rotated for each question. The full, unedited responses for this question are available in this document: Candidates Responses-Q1.

Please get involved and tell us what you think. What’s your reaction to what they have to say? Has this made you change your vote? Whatever you think, and however you’re casting your vote, we hope you find these blogs interesting, helpful and informative.

What steps would you take to encourage and promote the growth of local businesses in towns such as New Mills?

Andrew Bingham (Conservative)

As a former small business owner, Andrew feels passionately about this issue. He says, “The centre of New Mills, like many other towns and villages across the High Peak, is vital for the local economy and also the social cohesion of our local community so the [measures proposed by the Conservatives] will provide great help in many ways to the local communities.”

He points to a range of measures that the government has introduced to help businesses, such as capping rates and providing reliefs for smaller businesses. There is a commitment to implement a £1bn package to reduce the cost of business rates in 2015-16, with particular support for the smallest businesses and the high street, and a National Insurance cut for small businesses which will allow businesses to hire extra staff more cheaply.

Rate discounts have been introduced to encourage people to re-occupy shops that have been empty for a long period of time and Andrew says he is “confident this will help decrease the number of vacant shops and encourage thriving and diverse town centres”. Additionally, Andrew is keen that parking charges should not undermine the vitality of town centres and points out that the previous administration’s policy, which pressured councils to “hike” car parking charges, has been scrapped as have restrictions on the provision of off-street parking spaces.

Charlotte Farrell (Green)

Charlotte says that the Green Party wants to encourage small businesses which are responsive to their local area and founded within that local area. This would be achieved through:

  • The staged abolition of employers’ national insurance which would help smaller employers taking on staff and in paying the living wage, paid for by increasing corporation tax to that of the EU average.
  • Community banks which would recycle money within the local economy, lending money at preferential rates to local business rather than forcing them to go to the big banks.
  • Encouragement of new co-operatives through a development fund which would provide start-up capital on a match-funded basis.
  • Legislation making all invoices payable within 30 days which would help smaller more income-reliant businesses.
  • Recognition of the importance of self-employment, through support via the Citizens Income.
  • Clear support from local government for small businesses and local retail, such as advice and specialist training.
  • Robust action to support local markets and prevent the domination of big supermarkets.
  • A requirement on local government to favour local suppliers and traders.

Caitlin Bisknell (Labour)

Caitlin says that Labour will cut business rates for 1.5 million small business properties and then freeze them the following year. It would also establish a British Investment Bank to boost lending to small firms. This would benefit seventeen times as many businesses as opposed to the further Conservative-planned cut in corporation tax for large firms.

Labour also plans to strengthen the Green Investment Bank, which will help and promote local businesses and press for faster roll out of broadband, still an issue in rural areas.

Caitlin also notes that under her leadership High Peak Borough Council has set up its own Growth Fund specifically to help establish and expand local micro and small businesses.

Stephen Worrall (Liberal Democrats)

Stephen says the Liberal Democrats would use the Regional Growth Fund to particularly target local businesses; devolve economic decision-making away from central government to local government, enabling local government to identify better what is needed by local business; and review business rates which fall disproportionately on small local businesses and move towards taxes based on Site Value Rating in the short term and a Land Value Tax in the long term.

UKIP

UKIP says that businesses should be able to discriminate in favour of young British workers; that it would encourage councils to provide more free parking for the high street; simplify planning regulations and licences for empty commercial properties that are vacant for over a year; and extend the right of appeal for micro businesses against HMRC action.

Balsam Bashing Cash Boost!

19 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by in Biodiversity, Funding, Plants

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I’m delighted to be able to tell you that Transition New Mills has been given a £500 Greenwatch Action Grant from Derbyshire County Council for the Tackling Invaders project to help us step up our efforts to deal with Himalayan Balsam this year.

This will enable us to:

  • purchase protective equipment such as gauntlets
  • publicise the project better
  • run more events for the public by providing insurance cover

This is great news and a testament to the support of those who made the project a success last year. I hope we will be able to involve many more people this year and raise awareness to a wider audience.

If you can help out with organising the project, or if you have contacts in local groups who may be interested in participating (eg. landowners, scout groups, conservation groups, anglers, or anyone else) then we would love to hear from you.
The latest Project Plan can be seen here: Tackling Invaders Project Plan 2015. It’s likely that the first events will be held from June. If you’d like to be kept in touch more closely we have a separate email contact list for the Tackling Invaders project; let us know at transition.newmills@gmail.com if you would like to be added to it.