Rail 2: Greater Bristol Metro campaign

Surprise, surprise! Steve Webb has hitched his wagon (please excuse the pun) to the Greater Bristol Metro campaign by cosying-up in a cross-party alliance with 19 MPs from around the South West, including Filton and Bradley Stoke MP Jack Lopresti and Kingswood MP Chris Skidmore. The Gazette trumpets his support for a new hourly service from Severn Beach to Bath Spa and from Portishead to Severn Beach and Temple Meads from 2013. Apparently he welcomes calls on the Department for Transport to increase services for commuters in Yate and Severn Beach, including half-hourly connections for Yate by extending Weston-super-Mare to Bristol Parkway services with a new turn-back facility.

Nothing for Thornbury then; not even as part of some longer-term vision for rail transport in the region? Not unless a carefully worded afterthought is intended to offer us hope:-

"I will continue to press the Department for Transport to look hard at upgrading the whole rail system around the Bristol and South Gloucestershire area."

Dream on Thornbury!

I'm beginning to wonder whether strategic thinking is somehow incompatible with the Lib-Dem mentality!

Teen's Activity Centre

It's good to hear the views of Thornbury's young people. Some positives: the parks, Leisure Centre, safe environment and schools. Some areas to improve: nothing/not enough for young people to do, 'naff' shops, unattractiveness of High Street to under-18s, and lacking big retail names, 'trendy' independent stores, and places for young people to hang out. And some suggestions: climbing wall, basketball hoops, bowling alley, building a cinema and putting on regular music concerts and festivals aimed at young people.
Thornbury is a rather small town with a population about half that of Yate/Chipping Sodbury or Bradley Stoke. Whether we like it or not, our size means that we are much less attractive to big retail names who would struggle to make a business case for investing in us. And we should remember that even the youngsters of Yate, Chipping Sodbury and Bradley Stoke have to travel to Cribbs or into Bristol for cinema and tenpin bowling. Since significant growth seems to be off the agenda, we will all have to live with that fact.
So what's to be done to turn the aspirations into action? Perhaps start with better use of the facilities we already have? I don't know all the answers but I can illustrate the sort of possibility I have in mind:

1. Start by asking not what Thornbury can do for young people but rather what young people can do to make Thornbury a better place for themselves and the teenagers of tomorrow.
2. Start with something simple like the climbing wall. There is one at Thornbury Leisure Centre but it doesn't meet current health and safety standards. Meet with someone from Circadian Trust and ask how much it would cost to bring it up to a satisfactory standard. And check how much it would cost to provide qualified instruction/supervision. Circadian should also be able to comment on provision of basketball hoops.
3. Choose the first project and start raising money for it. For example, we don't have a cinema but we do have several halls and films are shown regularly. So why not organise a showing of the type of film that young people want to see? Or put on a concert?

Is it beginning to sound like killing two birds with one stone? Films and concerts raising money to subsidise sports facilities!

Energy 3: Power from Thornbury

By hosting Oldbury Power Station for the last 40 years, Thornbury made an excellent contribution to sharing the burden for all the energy that it consumed. Now that Oldbury has ceased generation, what contribution can and should Thornbury make to carrying the burden of its future energy needs?

The Sunday Times recently reported the details of a now not to be published KPMG report on electricity generation - 'Rethinking the Unaffordable'.

The precise mix is subject to a hot debate. Whatever the outcome, the certainties are:

• The UK has made a firm undertaking to meet CO₂ emissions reduction targets of 34 percent by 2020 (against a 1990 baseline), ensuring security of supply and aiming to eliminate fuel poverty.
• Substantial contributions will be required from each of gas, renewables and nuclear.

Within a few miles of Thornbury it is possible to host wind turbines, a Severn Barrage, redevelopment of nuclear at Oldbury and possibly even shale gas production. So which of these are viable, would bring benefits to the area and how much of a burden would we and the next generations have to shoulder?

I will consider each of these in turn but first let's ask who suffers if global emissions of CO₂ are not curbed.