Cllr. Gavin Ayling

I would really like to have given a few more updates this week, but I really don’t have enough time!

So just a quick note: I am going into town later to do some shopping. I am literally a two minute walk from the railway station and, for all my differences of opinion with left-wing environmentalists, I do care about the ability of this planet to support humanity. I therefore decided to get the train in.

But then I was reminded that I have to go over to Ditchling tonight — I may have time to come back but I may not. Once again the lack of a genuinely available public transport system has caused me to burn unnecessary carbon. It is the responsibility of all of us to do what we can to protect the environment, but some of “all” of us have more capabilities to do that. Central government needs to make strong, clear policy announcements on public transport, and especially the railways, in the South East generally, and in the countryside specifically.

There are clearly not enough tracks between Brighton and London (fast trains must go sufficiently after a so-called slow-train that it does not catch the other train up — how pointless is that?) and there are absolutely no tracks (or buses in most cases) between rural towns and villages in Sussex.

Like most people I try to avoid public transport wherever possible. Not only is a car normally, cheaper, but it’s more comfortable and quicker too.

But to be fair to the services available, I had not yet tried the journey from my new home to my old work. My new home is only a two minute walk from the railway station and Legal & General in Hove is a pacy fifteen minutes walk. So the combined journey time, with the fifteen minutes on the train itself, is about half an hour. This compares very favourably with the rush hour journey time by car (because, of course, of the lack of public investment in viable roads from Shoreham past Chichester).

So, in future, if it weren’t for the frankly bizarre prohibitive cost, I would be more than keen on using this alternative. Actually, I’ll have to again tomorrow as my car remains at the garage.

On the cost, I still need to have it explained to me. How can it possibly cost more to transport many passengers than to transport one? And if you can share your car not only is the cost halved instantly, but it also becomes even more competitive. The do-gooder socialist environmentalists wish to correct this imbalance by charging car drivers more for the privilege of moving about their own country by private means (where do-gooder socialist environmentalists could, without too much squinting, be replaced with the single word “facists”).

As a short exercise, here is a comparison of the costs:

1. Private car: 13 pence per mile (if through town) or 10 pence per mile (if using the A27 trunk road which I do). This is a total of £1.20 for the 9.2 mile journey.
2. Train: £3.10 in each direction (ignoring spurious discounts if you choose to use the train every day)

Even if we add the 48 pence per day of road tax (which presumably exceeds expenditure on roads these days) the car remains a cheaper option. And if we removed the imbalance caused by fuel duty the car would be nearly a half cheaper again.

But why? How do economies of scale not come into play here? The train was full and the train in front of it was full too (I had to watch it pass as it does not stop here in Lancing) so the passengers on the train were not subsidising empty seats. The train uses electricity which everyone knows is created relatively efficiently (much more efficiently than burning a small amount of petroleum under the bonnet of several hundred vehicles) and, to cap it all, the train companies are largely subsidised by Her Majesty’s wealth-suppressor (sorry, the tax man).

So, someone, tell me why!

Gah! Anyone watching BBC Breakfast this morning cannot help to have been annoyed by the bend-over-backwards-until-your-country-is-overrun-with-murderers lefty do-gooders on the sofa… I only saw five minutes to be fair, before I left for work, but why on Earth are we subjected to so much “the status quo is perfectly acceptable” or “we should be more left-wing” nonsense, and no “we should be more right-wing”? When I say right-wing, of course, I mean the right-wing I espouse on this site: more freedom from taxes, more freedom from oppressive laws, more freedom from the State and more freedom.

And now a new Socialism is rearing its head. So far there have been three: Socialism, Communism and Environmentalist-Socialism. Now there is a fourth: International-Anti-trade-Environmentalist-Socialism! I’ve never really believed that post-Victorian socialists had the interests of the poor or the ‘worker’ at heart but this must be the final, unequivocal evidence?

During a week where wild fires have spread across Greece, literally unprecedented rain has affected England and killed four and where Italy and the surrounding area have experienced unusual heat, it is difficult to avoid the suggestion that climate change is having an effect. I still have a nagging doubt, but it’s meaningless to debate anyway in my opinion.

Interestingly, though, June’s Scientific American magazine has a passage which I think presents the barrier to solution quite clearly:

To accomodate the economic aspirations of the more than five billion people in the developing countries, the size of the world economy should increase by a factor of four to six by 2050; at the same time, global emissions of greenhouse gases will have to remain steady or decline to prevent dangerous changes to the climate. After 2050, emissions will have to drop further, nearly to zero, for greenhouse gas concentrations to stabilize.

Assuming the scientific community’s poor understanding of the climate is accurate then it is reassuring that the solution (technology) as proposed by the author (Jeffrey D. Sachs) costs approximately 1 penny per kilowatt hour. That’s on top of a current electricity price of approximately 8.1 pence.

I have long said that environmental-socialism is not the solution and I am heartened to read the technological-solution being espoused.

Anyone who has known me for a long time will know that for all my criticism of the modern, socialist green movement, I have always been one who cares deeply about the environment. Before it was cool I used to chide friends who didn’t visit the recycling point (before doorstep collections) and I have always been amazed that you get free stuff by composting.

So, despite my criticism of the modern, socialist green movement, I bought an Electrisave recently and have enjoyed (perhaps too much) seeing what impact each device has on power consumption.

At the rate of 8.192 pence per kWh (kilowatt hour) a 100W lightbulb uses 0.6 pence per hour. A 20″ LCD TV and two 19″ LCD computer monitors don’t register any cost at all. A kettle uses a comparitively amazing amount (around 20 pence per hour) and an electric shower uses 38 pence per hour.

My PC (which is reasonably specced) uses a little less than a lightbulb and when it is on standby makes no impact on the meter at all. Fascinatingly, though, a 20″ CRT computer monitor registers a little less than a lightbulb on its own. And a 25″ CRT TV uses a little more than a lightbulb.

The most expensive things are kettles, electric showers and vacuum cleaners. But the most surprising thing of all was my Xbox 360. While that is running it costs between 1.8 pence and 2 pence per hour. When two PCs, an LCD TV, two LCD monitors, one CRT monitor, the fridge and double-height freezer, two cordless telephone base stations and two cordless telephone charger points as well as all the household’s standby lights and LCD clocks were running, the Xbox 360 doubled the amount of power being used!

So if you have an Xbox 360, and you care about your bills or wasting fossil fuels (or even CO₂ emissions if you’re an extremist) turn off your Xbox 360 when you’re not using it.

Oh, and in case you’re interested, a Wii doesn’t register even 1/10 of a penny while it is running.

The Electrisave is a sinch to install and works beautifully, I’d strongly recommend them to anyone who asked.

Apparently two-weekly collections of rubbish (that is collections every two weeks, rather than two every week) are now in place in more than half of Councils.

Some commentators are making this about the political colour of the local Council but the truth is many Councils around the country are having to do this and from all parties. For the sake of clarity, Adur will not collect two-weekly.

But the reason for the two-weekly collections in other places is (like the change we are considering: the merger of Adur and Worthing’s Services) because of funding. Despite the fact that council tax is rising at as near to the 5% that central government allows each year, the amount of funding that the councils receives is still reducing. To exacerbate this, the government is increasing regulation and responsibilities for local councils every year without providing the necessary increase in funding that that inevitably causes.

If you are angry about bi-weekly collections, by all means tell your Councillor, but also tell your MP and Gordon Brown. All aspects of British society are drowing in ever increasing numbers of forms and regulations –Councils too, as I say — but there’s no reason this couldn’t be reversed. Don’t blame those locally who are trying to squeeze some service out of their meagre financial rations; instead blame the Labour Party centrally and tell those in power in London that you know who’s to blame.

John Sargeant exacerbated the nanny-state mentality that has been so prevalent in this country as long as I can remember on his programme tonight (Driving Me Crazy on ITV1)… Gah!

The test on screen now is to see whether children can be seen standing behind a 4×4. Some responsibility has to be held by other road users — it is just unreasonable to subject 4×4s to different visibility requirements than vans.

I agree with the point of the programme: it would be better if people didn’t drive 4×4s. But the implication is that banning these cars from particular areas or from roads altogether is the answer to this.

It has been suggested that a Scottish Prime Minister with no mandate from the English people should have no say in Housing policy. Unusually for me, I am going to come to his defence.

First, I know immigration is often blamed for the housing shortage, but do we really want to get to a point where Vodafone cannot employ people they need from abroad where the position cannot be filled domestically? Immigration cannot be blanket-stopped in a First World economy.

Also one should note that the first cause of the housing shortage — the one that makes most difference to house prices and the number needed — is the number of smaller households. Single people and older people are living alone more than was historically the case and the number of divorces is also having an impact.

Finally, the people deciding housing policy in England are currently the unelected Regional Assemblies. Quite honestly I would rather Her Majesty’s Government, with the mandate of all Britain (including a majority of English MPs), was the one to decide where we have the new homes we need than Regional Assemblies.

We have a stark choice between having a European-style system of home ownership where only the rich can afford to buy and the majority rent, a country full of high-rise soul-less buildings or one of a few fewer fields. I know that the answer is no single one of those, but compromise must be sought in my humble opinion.