Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

Anti Social Behaviour threatens to become the defining issue of our generation unless we can find ways of stemming and then reversing the tide. I went on patrol with the police Friday two weeks ago and was impressed with the common sense coppering of our neighbourhood beat officers. As it started raining heavily at 8.30pm we did not see too much action, because most of the youngsters went home!

But this Friday I happened to be up on Plympton Ridgeway and was truly appalled at the levels of noise and yobbish behaviour demonstrated by a large group of local youngsters, ranging in age from 13 to 18. Local shopkeepers were at their wits end. It looked as though a fight was about to break out. The police were called, some action taken and the horde gradually dispersed. As we all know, this pattern has been repeated for many months throughout Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge.

Even if they are behaving well, when a crowd of young people gathers there is a problem. Foul language, lack of respect and spitting on the pavement are commonplace and this is likely to intimidate anyone from a different generation. It is a clash of cultures. The current generation, heavily influenced by modern TV and computer games, play to a different set of rules.

But sometimes, when alcohol has done its job, this background hum of inconvenience grows into a totally unacceptable assault on our values of social behaviour.

So what is to be done? Our community officers are doing their best. But we need more of them, and we have to remove some of the paperwork off their shoulders. It can take an entire eight-hour shift to process one crime – not the best use of a trained professional. We need more police and they need less red tape. The policemen and woman I meet are impressive. The system behind them is too often bureaucratic and ponderous. We can do much better than that.

Second, we have to connect with the parents of the small minority of local youngsters who are causing trouble on the streets. The police do take youngsters home, but it is clearly not working. Slicker systems that require parents to turn up in court on the following Monday to answer for their children’s behaviour might quench a few fires.

This problem is likely to get worse.

posted by Nigel on Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

PLANKTON

Plankton can tell us an awful lot about our planet. On Friday I had a briefing at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth. In collaboration with an internationally respected charity, they have been studying these microscopic creatures for seventy years, and are world leaders.

Nobody doubts that sea and air temperatures are rising. The key issue is: is this just one of those cyclical changes that happens from time to time, or is it the way we are treating the planet that is causing it?

The scientists who study these things have little doubt. It is us. It is the combined impact of the additional carbon we are releasing into the earth’s atmosphere ever since the Industrial Revolution kicked off. Yes, there are some scientists who still dispute that, but they are a shrinking minority. Some people still challenge the link between smoking and lung cancer, even though the evidence is compelling.

The North Atlantic is rising in temperature at a steady rate, which is where our tiny friends the plankton come in. For the first forty years of the locally based study, the picture was fairly stable: plankton just hung around doing whatever plankton do. Now they are on the move. They are drifting north at a rate of twenty-five kilometres per annum to escape the warming seas. In 40 years they have shifted about 800 miles north, roughly the length of the United Kingdom.

This tells us two things – one, it is concrete evidence of the sea temperature rising, and second that these climate changes have consequences. Plankton are the bottom of the food chain, the fish that live on them have either got to move with them, or they will die out. That is apparently one reason why cod stocks are dwindling – their dinner is heading north.

So what else will happen as a result of global warming? If the ice caps around Greenland melt, sea levels will rise by several metres. Goodbye London. Hot countries will get hotter and people, like the plankton, will migrate to find food.

Nobody knows when any of this may happen and the far off dates we sometimes read bring false comfort. Any child born this year, our children and grandchildren, should expect to live until 2080, and the next generation will certainly suffer the consequences if we do not act.

Even though the cure has a lifestyle price tag, is not time we politicians took this more seriously?

posted by Nigel on Thursday, February 17, 2005

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

SHERFORD

It is the biggest thing by far in this constituency and is likely to stay that way for the rest of my working lifetime: 4000 new homes to be built in the Sherford valley over the next fifteen years. It will impact our transport systems, our schools, our medical services and our way of life.

In the beginning, most of us were dead against it. If there was to be development in this area, let it be in Plymouth city centre, we all screamed, not on our delightful green fields. We campaigned hard for a rethink, but the government decided differently. South Hams Council had no choice but to include it in their plans and the die was cast.

Although it pains me to say it, this development looks like it is going to happen. Because we can do nothing to stop it I, together with most residents groups and councillors, have decided to engage with the decision makers to try and make sure that, if it does happen, it is as attractive as possible, and impacts our existing communities as little as possible.

The Council and the potential developers are to be congratulated on engaging the independent Princes Foundation to lead a process of discussions that have currently produced proposals that enjoy widespread support.

The process has not been perfect (Plympton was seriously underrepresented to start with) and there is still much work to be done, but it is not all doom and gloom. The emerging plan provides that there will be a green lung to the east of Sherford, to prevent further expansion of Plymouth, a buffer zone between the new town and Elburton, and the proposed building around Brixton has been axed. There is provision for a school and other amenities and many of the homes will be affordable homes for local people – the greatest need we face in this region.

Challenges remain. The main anxiety for most of us is traffic. The new town will put additional strain on the A379; will require a serious upgrade of the Deep Lane Junction and the traffic flows to Langage will increase significantly. I am desperately concerned about a possible rat run through picturesque Plympton St Maurice, something that simply cannot be allowed to happen.
There will be many more meetings and discussions to come. At the moment the developers are listening. It is important that we all have our say.

posted by Nigel on Monday, February 07, 2005

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

ELECTIONS CAN CHANGE THINGS

There will be a general election this year, almost certainly on 5th May. Already I can feel the apathy rising within you! Last time, 4 in 10 people did not bother to vote in the process that decides who will govern the country for the next 5 years.

But consider this.
2 weeks ago the elections in Palestine brought to power Mahmoud Abbas a man who could make all the difference in bringing peace – at last – to the Middle East. If that were to happen one of the festering sores that is the catalyst of so much global terrorism could be slowly eradicated. An election made all the difference.
This weekend there will be elections in Iraq. If (as happened last year in Afghanistan) the vast majority of Iraqis vote, despite the awful intimidation that is designed to keep them at home, and if the result is to put in place a broadly representative assembly from which a strong Iraqi government can be formed, and if that government can then gradually, with western help, turn the screw on the terrorists and insurgents that are trying to destroy the whole process, then Iraq can slowly emerge from the ashes and become stable, using its oil revenues to become prosperous. Such an outcome would have long-term consequences for all of us, and our troops would then be able to come home.

There were at least three “ifs” in all of that, and they are big “ifs”, but there is a sporting chance it will happen and the election will be the turning point.

Look what happened in Ukraine recently, another faraway land. The people voted, the incumbent politicians cheated, the people refused to accept it and demanded a re-vote, and they won, ushering in a new dawn for a strategic country that has been buried by communism and dictatorship for a hundred years.
The people of Zimbabwe right now would give anything to have a free and fair election to get rid of a tyrant who is ruining them. What would the 23 million people do in North Korea if they had a chance to vote for a benign government that would put food in their starving bellies?

Elections can change things. Democracy is still the least worst system of government ever devised.

But it will not survive unless we keep it alive. Use it or lose it! On 5th May, or whenever it comes, please vote.

posted by Nigel on Thursday, February 03, 2005