Headline news and some not so prominent news

Stop Norwich Urbanisation along with five other local community organisations is calling for the Joint Core Strategy to be withdrawn and yesterday's EDP headlined that demand. Broadland District Council's assertion that the majority of local people support their plans for growth is looking more and more ridiculous.

Their recent attendance at the Rackheath Fun Day seemed a rather desolate affair in spite of their PR cries of success - in fact at times when wondering into the almost empty tent you were lucky if any  BDC staff even bothered to acknowledge your presence let alone ask if you wanted help.


Subsequent desperate attempts to hastily organise their  mobile information service to help "local residents have their say on proposed changes to a document that will affect planning decisions across Broadland, Norwich and South Norfolk"  were made even worse by the fact that when the local press mentioned  the events they missed out the dates and times! BDC's response was to publish the news release on their own website but by that stage some of the dates had passed (note it is dated 24 August) - is this what they call public consultation?

4 comments:

  1. Well done to all six organisations. I did comment on the Statement of Focussed Changes (Joint Core Strategy, and have duly received the timetable of further consultation etc. I meant to put the same comment on all Sections, but in the end only got around to doing Section 1:

    On FC1 Housing Delivery and supporting text:
    "It will not be possible any longer to provide any housing that will be "affordable" at any price, due to A) the local, national and global economy being in crisis for the foreseeable future and B) the carbon dioxide and other pollution targets already set by the UK Government and the EU.
    Housing is no longer affordable whether you are the Builder, the Investor, the Buyer, or the Vendor of an overpriced house. It is especially no longer affordable to the environment - the cost to clean air, plentiful water, wild flora and fauna, is far too great."
    ON SUGGESTED CHANGE TO PLAN:
    "Withdraw entire Document, with apologies, stating that it has been realised that in order to comply with EU and UK law on carbon emissions alone, let alone the Wildlife and Habitat Statutes and Conventions of the EC and the
    UK, no further LARGE SCALE construction or infrastructure activity can be undertaken for the foreseeable future - or until such time as population and resources in Great Britain return to a sustainable level."

    I was a bit nervous about my forceful language, and am relieved to see that whole organisations seem to have reached a broadly similar conclusion.

    But also, since commenting, I have found the UN World Charter for Nature 1982 and now I am really on the warpath. This is an extraordinary document, only 3 pages long, and surely the most dramatic call to arms on behalf of the natural world that has ever existed. Every time I read it, I find more ways in which it drives straight home into all our daily lives, and holds US (as well as our governments) responsible for preventing the damage that is now occurring everywhere on a far worse scale than in 1982 - but those who worked on the 1982 Charter had the foresight to see the end result of the route humanity had taken in its suspensions of all reasonable Limits To Growth.

    111 countries voted for the Charter in the UN General Assembly, 1 voted against (the USA), 18 Third World nations abstained - presumably because they could not contemplate placing any limits on their growth due to their abject poverty. There wasn't any such excuse available to the other 112 in 1982, and there is still less excuse now. Probably even the 18 objectors have now reached a point where they wish they had taken a different road from the start.

    The Lisbon Treaty incorporates a couple of UN Charters, but not the World Charter for Nature 1982. Why not? If you read it, you can probably see why not. There is no getting away from it. So it has been buried. Those fighting for the biosphere need to take a copy with them everywhere they go – i.e., we need to resurrect it.
    http://www.un-documents.net/a37r7.htm
    http://www.un-documents.net/a37r7.htm

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  2. Well done to all six organisations. I did comment along these lines on the GNDP site, though in more forceful language, and am relieved to know that others have broadly similar views.

    But also, since commenting, I have found the UN World Charter for Nature 1982 and now I am really on the warpath. This is an extraordinary document, only 3 pages long, and surely the most dramatic call to arms on behalf of the natural world that has ever existed. Every time I read it, I find more ways in which it drives straight home into all our daily lives, and holds US (as well as our governments) responsible for preventing the damage that is now occurring everywhere on a far worse scale than in 1982 - but those who worked on the 1982 Charter had the foresight to see the end result of the route humanity had taken in its suspensions of all reasonable Limits To Growth.

    111 countries voted for the Charter in the UN General Assembly, 1 voted against (the USA), 18 Third World nations abstained - presumably because they could not contemplate placing any limits on their growth due to their abject poverty. There wasn't any such excuse available to the other 112 in 1982, and there is still less excuse now. Probably even the 18 objectors have now reached a point where they wish they had taken a different road from the start.

    The Lisbon Treaty incorporates a couple of UN Charters, but not the World Charter for Nature 1982. Why not? If you read it, you can probably see why not. There is no getting away from it. So it has been buried. Those fighting for the biosphere need to take a copy with them everywhere they go – i.e., we need to resurrect it.

    http://www.un-documents.net/a37r7.htm

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  3. To Edith Crowther - I looked up the UN website address you gave, but this is the declaration on human rights, not the UN charter for Nature.

    Any chance you could please give the correct site address as it seems very interesting. Thanks.

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  4. Hallo John Allaway - delighted you want to read the Charter. I tried copying and pasting the link given in my post, and it seems to work all right - it is UN document No. 37 you see. If you left off the last bit, you may have only found the magnificent Declaration on Human Rights 1948, which funnily enough does not conflict with the later realisation that Human Rights should be used responsibly if other species are to survive.

    Anyway, another way to do it is just to enter "world charter for nature" into google or another search engine - but the link I gave gives a really nice LOOKING print of the Charter! Some of the other prints are not very pleasant to read in the visual sense.

    I would like to add, that if you just enter "world charter for nature" into google, you will see on the page an organisation that bases its DIRECT action as a private organisation on that Charter - the anti-whaling outfit Sea Shepherd. So the Charter does authorise direct action by individuals if their governments fail to honour it. If you read it carefully, you will see at once that it does - presumably because those top-flight brains at the UN in 1982 knew damn well, that governments and their authorities were going to ignore the Charter and international law in general.

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