October 2009

Warning - this is mildly technical!

I've mentioned before that I developed this site using Drupal, which is an open source content management system. I've used Drupal on a number of sites in the last year or so including www.edwarddavey.co.uk and www.stpaulschurchhook.org.uk

Now it seems the White House is following suit, and has ditched its previous system in favour of Drupal, citing its flexibility and reliability.

Some of us have been saying for a long time that government websites should move towards open source software; maybe parts of the UK government will wake up to its strengths?

I was really excited to hear earlier in the year that Kingston has been given £1.1 million to spend on improving play equipment in the borough's parks.

Although the funding will be spread over two years, the plans are moving ahead quickly now. So next week there are a couple of meetings in the parks to look at plans.

Anyone can join in, so go along to Churchfields Recreation Ground Play Area on Monday 26th October between 12pm and 3pm, or to King Edwards Play Area on Wednesday 28th October between11am and 2pm.

Next year they will be looking at improvements for the Woodgate Avenue recreation ground.

In parallel with this, the officers are working up plans for a play area for disabled children at the Moor Lane school site, which is now a Centre for Families with Disabled Children. They will, of course, be discussing those plans with the parents.

You are invited to a series of ward meetings in South of the Borough about the waste management consultation. If you can't attend your ward meeting then you are welcome to attend one of the others. They are:

• Tolworth and Hook Rise, Thursday 22nd October, 7pm at Corinthinan Casuals (King Georges Recreation Ground)
• Chessington North and Hook, Wednesday 28th October, 7pm at Castle Hill Primary (Buckland Road)
• Chessington South, Thursday 29th October, 7pm at Chessington Community College

About 50% of the rubbish collected from homes in Kingston is sent for recycling. But what about the rest? At present it goes to landfill sites, which produce methane gas, one of the most potent greenhouse gases.

In future we need to find other ways of disposing of non-recyclable materials. And that is exactly what the SW London Waste Partnership (Kingston, Merton, Sutton and Croydon) is looking at. They have been consulting on some possible sites across the four boroughs for 'waste management facilities'.

Some of the potential sites are in our Neighbourhood - one at the the corner of Jubilee Way, a group of possible sites on the Chessington industrial estate, and one near Chessington South Station - hence the local meetings.

Nowadays waste can be treated in quiet hi-tech plants that do not emit smoke or fumes, but understandably people have visions of air-polluting incinerators. The fact is that whilst these plants do generate heat, in the same way that compost heaps warm up, they are not incinerators in the traditional sense.

In fact, there are several possibly clean technologies that could be used, and the final choice will depend on the successful tenders for the massive contract next year. The most efficient systems generate electricity which can then be used to power nearby homes.

My main concern is about the traffic these plants could generate. In my ward there is a real problem with lorries driving through residential streets, instead of using the correct access to the industrial estate via Jubilee Way. In another piece of work I am very hopeful that at last we will be getting physical gates across the road opposite the Maverick, which will stop lorries from straying. But Mount Road and Roebuck Road are not so well protected from errant heavy goods vehicles.

I've been told that only 25% of the proposed sites across the whole four boroughs will actually be used in the end. Villiers Road is already used as a waste transfer site, so it would make sense to feed the waste directly into a plant on the spot rather than transport it elsewhere. I can't see any need for any further plants in the borough.

One thousand new people joined Hook and Chessington Library between April 2008 and March 2009! That is pretty impressive and far exceeds the other libraries in the borough.

The librarians believe that this is because the Hook Centre itself attracts many people who might not otherwise go into a library.

And that figure is even more remarkable when you realise that it builds on the huge jump in membership during the previous year, after the Hook Centre opened in January 2007.

At South of the Borough Neighbourhood Committee this week we were presented with a review of the library service, paying particular attention to our local branch. Here are some more facts from that review:

• Across the Borough 3000 children enrolled on the Summer Reading Challenge, at least 500 of them through Hook.
• Bookstart packs have been distributed to 100% of 1 to 3 year olds in the borough.
• 33% of borough residents regularly use a local library.
• Kingston University, Kingston College and the Library Service have got together so they can make resources available to each other and jointly promote what they offer to local residents.
• Visits to the website have increased by 9%.
• There were an astonishing 11,548 attendances at Baby Rhymetime sessions which introduce the very youngest to the fundamentals of language that underpin successful reading. These are particularly successful at Hook.
• Hook Library had 45 class visits from the five local primary schools.
• There were 118 computer classes at Hook, covering everything from inroductions to computers to digital photography.

The only thing that concerned me was the drop in the numbers using the public computers in the libraries. A couple of years ago the libraries introduced a charge for using a computer after the first hour, which had always been free. I was very sceptical about this, as it was hitting at the very people who were most excluded. My view is that the libraries should be introducing paid-for services (such as access from home to online resources that do charge) aimed at those who can afford it, whilst keeping the provision of basic access free at the libraries.

However, the libraries went ahead with these charges, because they needed to generate some income. But my scepticism was justified and not only has usage dropped but so has the income. So I am hopeful that the charges will be dropped when the library charges are finally agreed for 2010.

I've recently come across an organisation called Edge, who want to raise the status of practical and vocational education.

That is something very close to my heart. I've always hated the academic/vocational divide in education, which is often an oblique restatement of old-fashioned class prejudice. You know the old put-down: "Some people are good with their brains but others are good with their hands".

What is often overlooked is the fact that some of the highest status courses of study, such as medicine, law and engineering, are essentially vocational, in that they are tied to particular professions. On the other hand, everyone, whatever their path in life, needs a basic level of academic education in order to make best use of the job-specific knowledge that they have to learn.

I also hate the idea that jobs are graded (and probably paid) according to some outmoded assessment of status. Society depends on a huge range of tasks being undertaken, and it would be so much better if we valued people's work according to some scale of social usefulness.

What would be your top ten jobs, rated in terms of social usefulness?

Here's my initial thoughts (in no particular order, as they say), but I'll probably come back and think again:

• refuse collector
• builder, especially plumber
• shop assistant
• teacher (of course!)
• musician
• social worker
• medical professional
• hairdresser
• cleaner
• software engineer

Coming back to Edge, one of their current projects, chaired by Sir Stuart Rose, of M&S fame, is called The Big Converstion. It's remit is to improve work experience for school students, by getting business to improve what they offer.

They also drew my attention to a competition for college students that is being run in conjunction with Colleges Week. The challenge is for students in Further Education and Sixth Form colleges tp prodice a short film, showing what they would do if they were 'running the show', where the 'show' can be anything from a football club to the country itself.

Last week I wrote about the case of two police officers who were both job sharing and caring for each other's children. Ofsted had apparently told them that they should register as child minders in order to do that.

I urged you to sign the petition and today I've received a response from No 10:

The Childcare Act 2006 requires anyone providing ‘childcare for reward’ to register with Ofsted, with the aim of ensuring every child in a commercial childcare service is safe and well cared for. Parents would expect no less. However, our intention has always been that friends and families caring for children through informal arrangements should be exempt from having to register and we believed that was what always happened. In the light of this recent case we are talking to Ofsted about how we can make sure there’s a shared understanding with Ofsted, and with parents, of what the law means and how it should interpreted.

Since 1997 we have invested £25bn in childcare and early years services, doubling the number of childcare places available for children under 8 to support working families and providing more support than ever before with childcare costs, with over £3.8 million a day going directly into parents hands to help pay for childcare through tax credits.

In other words, Ofsted was wrong.

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to stand in for the Deputy Mayor who was unable to attend a function. I'm always delighted to do these events - I had such a great time as Mayor and loved meeting all the people who are contributing to the community.

I've now got a photo to share with you from the Library Service, and we have to thank the librarians for another hugely successful project. Over the summer 3000 children in the borough enrolled on the Summer Reading Challenge, which this year was titled 'Quest Seekers'. They were encouraged, with sticker books and posters as incentives, to borrow books from the libraries. The challenge was to read six books over the summer holiday and around 1000 children managed this.

That is pretty impressive - I'm pleased if I manage three books when I'm away on holiday, so six books is quite a lot.

All the children who completed the challenge were given a certificate, and some lucky winners were invited to the Rose to receive prizes. The youngest age group was 0-3 years!