Northampton has an Air Quality problem.

Northampton has an Air Quality problem. 

There are 7 Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) in the town, where the levels of Nitrogen Dioxide is above the legal level. The Borough Council, in conjunction with partner organisations across the County has published a Draft Low Emission Strategy, detailing how they are going to try and reduce the levels of pollution. 

This strategy is going out to a public consultation, which will run from 8-12 weeks across the Summer. 

The Northamptonshire Green Party, over the last couple of months, has been starting to run a targeted campaign to look at the air quality ourselves - both inside and outside of the AQMAs, so that we can get a better idea as to how this is affecting health across the town. 

We want to step this up during the period of the public consultation - let's take this opportunity to start a debate about the air quality in the town, and to back it up with solid data that is open to everybody as soon as the lab returns the results.

We place a small measuring device called a diffusion tube on a lamppost next to the road. Over a period of 4 weeks, this measures the amount of Nitrogen Dioxide in the air. The tube is then sent off to a lab for testing and the figures are sent back to us around ten days later. 

The more tubes we can place, the more complete our data will be. And that's where you can help. 

Can you pledge enough money to our campaign to help us place more tubes?

Every donation will help us to measure in more locations and we have set reward levels where we will place the tube in an area of your choice. 

You can see our figures so far at our interactive google map

This really is a big deal. Mortality rates due to respiratory illness in Northampton are above the national average, and they are higher than anywhere else in the County. It's affecting the health of our citizens, and its affecting the life outcomes of our children. 

Let's start trying to fix this. 

**Please ensure you are on the electoral register - this is a requirement of donating to a political party. And you'll need to be on it to vote next year - register here if you're not.***If you pledge £500 or over, you must be willing to provide your contact details and address.*

How do we break this cycle of death?

Save the Cobblers

#IWTW (I Wish This Was)

Land of Promise John mills 1946

NBC meeting 8/6/15 Shopmobility

EU Reform, the answer on the ballot paper will be Yes or No, but what exactly is the question?

David Cameron began his much publicised European tour of capitals and leaders this week in a vain attempt to prove to both his own party and the nation at large that he is serious about EU reform and that he is willing to take the UK out of Europe if his marginal majority government do not get their own way over a yet to be published set of reforms probably centered around immigration control, and a loser union. Meanwhile the Queen in her address to both Houses confirmed that the referendum within the UK will take place before the end of 2017.

Despite the lack of detail, despite the uncertainty surrounding how he will be received firstly on his 36 hour mini hand shake tour and then in the coming months, it is staggering to discover at such an early stage in the negotiations that we therefore actually have an agreed and published question! “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?” YES or NO. But is that yes or no depending on the substance of the reform? Is that a yes or no depending on whether there is any guarantee that any discussed reform will ever be ratified? Is that a yes or no subject to the other 27 states or territories also saying yes or no in subsequent referendums? Will our yes or no be subject to treaty change? If so how long will that take after the referendum?  I guess to some degree any NO vote despite it being disastrous for the UK is the easier outcome for the government to deal with, as we just withdraw. But how will a yes vote ever hold any true validity if set against such a sea of uncertainty and visible only through such a misty cloud of confusion.

I am now personally so confused that I am forced into thinking the unthinkable, and saying that I actually agree for once with Nigel Farage, not on where we both individually stand on our preferred outcome of the referendum, but on the premise that the whole EU referendum is now little more than a fudge, a trick of smoke and mirrors, a sleight of hand, the referendum is a dead referendum, it is deceased, bereft of life, shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir.

It is an Ex referendum where your X won’t be worth the lead in your polling station pencil.

But don’t expect the mainstream UK media to take such a dismissive attitude to the bill, don’t expect

out MP’s and Lords in the chamber to worry themselves about the niceties of meaningful reform over manifesto delivery of the mechanism for a referendum, and prepare yourself for a poll fest of opinion and counter opinion linking that yes or no question to every conceivable variation of the subject matter imaginable. The Sun will no doubt run a “Would you vote Yes or No if the new EU deal bans page 3 Girls?” The Mail and Express will ask the nation “Should Benefit claimants get the vote?” and The Observer and IoS will no doubt sell endless Pre Referendum EU city tours.

But the real poll, the actual vote, in my humble opinion will be a complete non event, no opportunity for real reform which wrestles control away from the EU corporate giants or gives power back to the people of Europe, no challenge to TTIP, the EU Ministers would never let us have a say, let alone a vote on anything as important as signing away our rights as a democracy to place nation state law over the commercial interests of world capitalism. 

My own party, The Green Party have a simple YES, YES, YES policy on Europe, YES to Reform, YES to a referendum and YES to Europe. But this already discredited new Tory government have their own less attractive option on offer for UK voters. NO meaningful reform, NO voice on the decisions that really matter and NO limit to the spin and political posturing to be deployed in convincing us all that Dave won the day for the Union, all of course in Churchillian fashion!

A #ProgressiveAlliance & A #PeacefulRevolution

Fracking

Mental Health