Bernard Little

I am on holiday in Wiltshire and visted Chippenham's Emery Gated multi-storey car park. I paid to park for two hours at a ticket machine and on my return (with ten minutes remaing) found that I had a parking fine for £60. Apparantly I was parking in an area where a parking permit is needed. However this was far from clear and I thought that a parking ticket was a permit.

The parking fine was in the same colour as that used by the District Council as were the signs telling you that a permit was required. It seemed odd to find that the District Council has no power to locally regulate the parking company Parkforce.

Speech given by Cllr Bernard Little 3rd February 2007. “Living the Cool Life. Imagining a Greener Sheffield.” at St Mary's Community Centre, Bramhall Lane, Sheffield.

“Good morning.

I want to talk about what Sheffield as a city needs to do about climate change.
Where do we start? What should we be doing? and Can we actually do it?

Sheffield as one of the group of eight largest Core cities in England has been chosen to take the lead on climate change. I suspect this is why Al Gore is speaking here on Wednesday.

Taking this lead is a huge and onerous responsibility.....with huge implications....

Building a City Unfit for Purpose.

[Opionion Piece sent to Sheffield Star 5th October 2006.]

Sheffield is in the process of preparing a Master Plan for the city
centre. What we plan will be with us well into, and hopefully beyond,
this century. So we need to get it right.

Sheffield First (which is a partnership between the City Council and the
business community) has employed a team of consultants to take the City
Centre Master Plan forward. As a councillor elected to represent the
views of people who live and work in the city centre I was both
fascinated and disturbed by their recent high powered presentation.

Dear Editor,

The British are now the most obese in Europe according to new government figures. Two thirds of men and almost 60% of women are unhealthily heavy. If nothing changes nearly a third of boys and girls under 11 will be overweight or obese by 2010. We have been warned that ours could be the first generation where our children die from avoidable diseases like diabetes before their parents.

Tackling the underlying causes of ill-health is meant to be a priority and Sheffield Hospitals have come out on top. They are celebrating a “Good” rating for their performance by the Healthcare Commission. So why is it that amid the cork popping the city's public health programmes have been slashed to pay for the NHS funding crisis? Amid this chaos the City Council has given permission for an event to promote a well known “sports” drink in a yellow plastic bottle laden with sugar. Whatever next? Vending machines and junk food shops in our hospitals? It's already happened!

PRESS RELEASE.
GREENS SUPPORT A GREEN ECONOMY TO SECURE THE FUTURE

October 4th 2006

Cllr Bernard Little at Council during a debate at Sheffield City Council Meeting on 4th October said:

“Sheffield continues to see the environment as a marketing tool to attract business. The claim that the city is “the greenest City in England” is untrue. A fortuitous location next to a National Park and the foresight of people with vision in the past to plant trees and parkland is a profound misunderstanding of what makes a truly green city.

Air pollution in Sheffield each year costs £47million in terms of ill health and early deaths. Our roads are congested and public transport a mess. Emissions of Greenhouse gases continue to rise and we are burning rather than conserving natural resources in the incinerator. Plans for the city centre, a super-casino, the continuing loss of local community facilities and support for road and airport expansion will make our environment even worse.

Prepared speech to Sheffield City Council on Incapacity Benefits.
October 4th 2006.

South Yorkshire is piloting an employer-led Work and Skills Boards in response to the Government's Welfare Reform Bill. Disability groups like Sheffield Welfare Action Network, have been researching and lobbying hard both nationally and locally to get their concerns heard.

The Welfare Reform Bill set a target to get 1 million people of the present 2.7 million people on Incapacity Benefit (and related benefits) into work over the next 10 years. It is important to note that these targets have been drawn up without any detailed research into the breakdown of people claiming Incapacity Benefit, or the severity of these conditions.

THE ENERGY CRISIS....BRITAIN'S WAY FORWARD.
Speech given by Cllr Bernard Little on 9th October 2006 in debate with Steve Norris, General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers.

Our energy policy is in crisis. We have just a few years to act to avert the chaos by using what remains of our democratic system in a forceful but intelligent way.

POSITION
There are two major and inter-linked issues that are forcing this debate.

1.Since the start of the industrial revolution the world's use of energy has increased a massive 30 fold. That increase has risen very steeply since 1950....... and there is no sign that energy use is slowing. Now ......at least 1 billion people are living in a culture dependent on cheap and abundant oil and gas.

April 28th 2006.

Dear Editor,

The Lib Dems (Cllr Baker, 25th April The Star) misrepresent our views on the local economy.

All parties agree that job insecurity in the local economy is a bad idea. We are pleased that at a national level there is cross party support to address the issue of the loss of local shops, post offices and essential local community facilities through the Sustainable Communities Bill. It is supported by Vincent Cable the Lib Dem economic spokesman, local MP Nick Clegg and many others. [8 of the 23 M.P.s who originally proposed this Bill were Lib Dems.] We want to be able to work with other Parties on the local council to make this a practical reality in Sheffield.

April 16th 2006.

Lib Dem leader Cllr. Scrivens says (“Green Party policies would harm the city in long term” Sheffield Star April 13th 2006) says a Sheffield with a Green administration would loose jobs as we would make it “a no go area for national and international companies”. It would be worthwhile for him and his Party to adopt the recommendations in the New Economics Foundation's “Interdependence report: How the world sustains the nation's lifestyles and the price it pays” produced on April 14th,

Unable to support ourselves from our own resources we are consuming the resources of others and future generations at an dangerous rate. The hidden natural resource debt that this city relies on seriously undermines the stability and well-being of our economy, society and the environment. This instability will get worse unless the city adopts the Green Party's economic policies that would ensure we borrow rather than consume resources. It is at the point where we start to live within our means and cause no lasting harm that we can truly say that the long term health of the city its people and communities can be guaranteed.

Dear Editor,

David Cameron's “Vote Blue go Green” and Gordon Brown's proposals to tackle climate change are not serious. One of the reasons they dare not suggest truly effective measures is that the media rarely reports the many social and economic benefits a green culture can produce.

In Sheffield, cutting down on carbon emissions from transport would require a properly planned city where shops, schools, community services and workplaces were within easy walking distance for young and old and making them more friendly for people with disabilities. This would encourage more physical exercise and make local communities safer and more vibrant places to live. Surprising as it seems, saving local shops and post offices is all part of preventing climate change!