Oh dear! - the Comet has got it completely wrong. It states that the Council has 'passed a motion in support of the controversial Greenwich Judgement'.

No!!! Quite the opposite, in fact.

The Greenwich Judgement is the legal ruling made in 1989 which said that school admissions policies were not allowed to favour children who lived in the borough. This has resulted in today's situation where three quarters of the pupils in the two Tiffin Schools come from outside the Royal Borough.

In Kingston, all the political parties have opposed this. When Ian was Chair of Education in the 90s he attended meetings with ministers to explain the impact of the Judgement and to plea for a change in legislation.

At Council on Wednesday we discussed a very badly worded motion from the Conservatives, which asked a question rather than proposed action. Liberal Democrats put forward an amendment and after some negotiation we found ourselves in the happy position of agreeing the final version with the Conservatives. (Happy, because it shortened the meeting considerably)

Earlier in the year Kingston put forward our proposals for changes under the Sustainable Communities Act, and top of the list was a call to reverse the Greenwich Judgement. So the Council still clearly opposes the ruling.

All that the motion on Wednesday did was to affirm the fact that we should not rely on possible changes to the Greenwich Judgement to sort out the current pressure on school places. The Borough will push ahead with building new school places 'before any modification of the Greenwich Judgement is implemented'. This is sensible since it is impossible to gauge the exact impact of a reversal of the ruling - it would affect Kingston children who attend out-borough schools as well as those who come in to Kingston from other boroughs. And in any case, legislation, were it to happen, would take ages.

What annoys me most about this story in the Comet is that it undermines all the work done under the Sustainable Communities Act. Residents and local organisations gave priority to changing the Judgement and the Council supported them. They wanted to do this because local children cannot get into the two grammar schools, and this is seen as unfair. 'Local schools for local people' has been a rallying cry ever since 1989.

Now this badly written report implies that the Council has overridden the local view. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Oppose the Greenwich Judgement!

Virgin Media abandoned Chessington and Hook for nearly 24 hours. No TV, no cable broadband, although the phone was still working.

I’m actually writing this on Word, with the hope that I can copy it to my blog once it’s back. It feels as though I am writing in the dark.

It’s a shame because I wanted to share with you yesterday the Lib Dem policy paper called ‘Real Women’. Instead of a text-heavy report we have been sent a lively and colourful magazine. It has already been commented on by the press, although they have mainly been salivating over airbrushing.

Real Women actually makes some very pertinent points about body image. Anorexia and body-hating depression are far too common, but it has been pretty difficult to start an informed and sensible debate about this. Sadly, the press just see it as another excuse to bring out a glamour pic. And, of course, it is the media which have helped to create the unattainable ideal that girls and young women want.

Back in 1917 the ‘perfect’ woman was 5ft 4in and nearly 10stone. 100 years later, and girls aspire to be very tall and very, very thin.

All fashion features and cosmetic adverts use airbrushing – a technique that creates impossibly smooth and featureless skin. Actually you can achieve even more today with PhotoShop – bums can be reduced, boobs can be enlarged and necks can be lengthened to order, skin colour can be changed, backgrounds removed or faked.

This is not a trivial issue. Children, especially girls, are growing up with aspirations that could seriously damage their health, and models abuse their bodies to make it to the catwalk.

So Jo Swinson MP and her team that developed the policy are proposing that children should be protected by outlawing digitally altered images on adverts aimed at under 16s, and that all other ads should indicate if they have been retouched. Sounds sensible to me.

But those are only two of the 40 proposals. Here are some that jumped out of the page at me:

• Help women find out if they are being paid less than other people doing a similar job. (In my career, this was never a problem – teaching has public payscales, and jobs are advertised at specific points on the scales. So why can’t other organisations be transparent about the pay scales they are using?)
• Recruit and train thousands more health visitors and midwives. (Especially Kingston Hospital?)
• Tackle the problem of teenage girls dropping out of exercising by encouraging schools to include a greater choice, eg dance, yoga and aerobics. (Ah, if only that had been available to me… I might have developed a very different body image myself)
• Set up 15 new Rape Crisis Centres and 10 Sexual Assault Referral Centres. (Of course)
• Provide all women with access to Violence against Women services, regardless of their immigration status. (Of course, of course)

Unlike Labour and Conservatives, Liberal Democrats decide on their policy at conference, in large public debates. The Party Conference begins on Saturday, so I will make sure I am in the Auditorium on Saturday afternoon to support all the proposals.

I got back from church this morning to find a bundle on my doorstep. It contained a year's supply of biodegradable liners for the brown food waste bin.

If you don't receive yours within the next week or so then phone the Council on 8547 5560.

Actually, I have to admit that I still have a large number of liners left over from the last delivery. But I certainly don't put any food waste or flowers in my wheelie bin, instead the food waste goes down the garden to my Green Cone and flowers go in the compost bin.

A Green Cone is a neat device and I'm surprised more people don't have them. I can put all my food waste in it, including bones, and over time it all rots down. There is a large rat-proof basket at the bottom which is sunk into the earth, and the broken down material eventually seeps into the surrounding soil. The secret is in the shape and double skin of the cone, which trap the warmth from the sun and speed up decomposition.

I do find that the Green Cone doesn't really work during the colder months, so I will be reverting to the brown food waste bin in a month or two.

Back to today's delivery - it also included a leaflet with some useful information about the dates when refuse and recycling will be collected over Christmas. That really is some way ahead, so I'm jotting the dates down in my diary now in case the leaflet itself finds its way into my recycling box before then.

Not as in Watergate, or any other scandalous -gate, but a gate that buses go through.....

Far too many lorries drive along Elm Road, Gosbury Hill, Orchard Road and Orchard Gardens in Hook. Most are taking a short cut to or from the Cox Lane Industrial Estate.

There is, of course, a lorry ban in the residential roads. The Council has tried a number of strategies to stop the unwanted traffic - there are road signs at various places, and the businesses on the industrial estate have been telling drivers to use the approved route via Jubilee Way.

But nothing seems to stop them.

One of the genuine problems seems to lie with the sat navs, which send drivers from the Hook Road through the residential roads rather than the longer but correct route via the A3, Tolworth Roundabout and Jubilee Way. Or indeed, vice versa when leaving the estate.

So a while ago our local highways engineer wrote to all the people who live in those roads, asking them for their comments. He also invited anyone who wished to join a working party that would look at possible solutions in more detail.

Some 16 people responded and turned up to the first meeting before the holidays, with a good spread from all the affected roads. They worked in two groups, looking at how the traffic affected each of the roads. Buses also emerged as a problem, especially the rogue K4 buses that go along Elm Road at the end of their shift.

I was interested to see what would emerge, and it soon became clear to everyone that if something was done in one road it would have a knock-one effect on another road. A one-way scheme through Orchard Gardens and Elm Road was considered, but overall people thought that it would create more problems than it solved.

The one thing that eevryone agreed on was that we needed to have an actual barrier at the Cox Lane/Oakcroft Villa/Sanger Avenue junction (opposite the Maverick). There is a bus only lane in each direction here, alongside the width restricted lane for other traffic. But everyone knows that it is impossible to enforce this so many lorries (and cars, indeed) use the bus lane.

Now if there were two actual gates here, which could only be activated by buses, then it would solve a great many problems. There is one business, The Accessory People, which has its main delivery entrance on the 'wrong' side of the junction, but they could also be given the electronic devices that would open the gate.

So, the working party reported to South of the Borough Neighbourhood on Wednesday. The Committee agreed with the main proposal and agreed that preliminary designs should be drawn up and discussed by the working party, reporting back next month. By then a bid for funding for the complete project will have to be made to Transport for London, who pay for things like this.

Just one final, very irritating note.

The working party posed a number of questions to Transport for London, including why buses still use Elm Road to get back to the Tolworth depot, even though they know this is not the approved route.

And this was the reponse from TfL...

K3/K4 buses do not use this route to go to the garage. ... Regular checks are made by London United Inspectors to ensure that Elm Road is not used.

In other words, everyone who claims to have seen a bus taking this 'illegal' shortcut is either deluded or lying!!! We know that isn't true, so please send me details of any sightings of naughty buses, preferably with their vehicle registration.

I got home at 11.30pm from the South of the Borough Neighbourhood meeting on Wednesday evening. It had been a very full agenda with 10 planning applications to consider.

I was wondering whether the large number of planning applications was an indicator of the end of the recession - but when I looked more carefully I realised that I had asked for at least five of them to be placed on the agenda myself!

Normally, 90% of planning applications are decided by planning officers. Most of these are simple home extensions and the Council tries to reduce the bureaucracy on these to a minimum. On the other hand, the Committee is always asked to decide on larger applications.

The application that caused us most concern was for 21 flats on the The Harrow pub site. This was the last of a series of applications, which had started with 30 flats, each one successively reducing that number. Two were withdrawn, following advice from planning officers, and our Committee refused one (for 26 flats) which then went to appeal. Unfortunately, at the appeal the Inspector undermined all our reasons for refusal, including the significant loss of a public house. In fact the inspector liked everything about it except the fact that it did not include enough social housing.

This latest application is for 100% social housing, so we were left without a leg to stand on.

I thought it was an unimaginative design. I was also very unhappy about housing large families in 4 bedroom flats without gardens. Fewer units on the site could have provided decent family homes with gardens.

None of us wanted to grant permission and we quizzed the planning officers about possible grounds for refusal, but couldn't find any that had not already been swept away by the Appeal Inspector. So, protesting very loudly, we had to approve.

It's yet another case of government interference in local decision-making. As I've said before, there does have to be an appeals process to protect applicants from perverse decisions, but these days the Appeal Inspectors are causing great damage to local communities by overriding genuine local concerns and aspirations.

We were also asked for our opinions on a new hotel for the petrol station site on Kingston Road just south of Tolworth Station. We liked the design, which has very large glazed panels on two sides, and passed our opinions on to the central Development Control Committee which deals with larger and strategic applications. That Committee met last night, and I'm pleased to hear that they approved it.

Development Control also - unanimously - agreed to the new Lidl store in Leatherhead Road. When we talked about it at Neighbourhood back in July we had mixed views about it, and realised that there were strong feelings both for and against (I was against, but other councillors supported it). At least the new design is a huge improvement on the first application from Lidl for this site.

While I was away I got an excited email from Sue Frett, who organises the Surrey Special Olympics team. (For this purpose, Surrey includes Kingston).

13 Golds, 12 Silver, 8 Bronze!

That was the result obtained by the Surrey ten pin bowling team at the Special Olympics Great Britain National Summer Games 2009 in Leicester.

Wow! Congratulations to everyone.

I was particularly pleased because my charity, Young Kingston, had sponsored some of the younger, Kingston based competitors, and some of these won medals.

Last February, Kingston's Jonathan Frett came fifth in skiing in the Special Olympics Winter Games, and this summer he added a gold in bowling the National Games.

The Special Olympics cater for athletes with autistic and learning difficulties.

The full results for the Surrey team is here.

My blog took a rest over August while I was on holiday and catching up with members of my family from around the world.

So here it is again, and with a completely new look.

I hope you like the background picture. It cheers me up as soon as I land on the page. I took the photo in Jamaica - the colours are just wonderful, and it takes me right back there, enjoying the bright sun, the pale sand and the clear cool water.

My old blog is still over at BloginaBox/ReadMyDay and you're welcome to explore it.

For the techies, I've been using Drupal for site construction for some while now, and this was developed as a Zen sub-theme.