Sell off some of the silver for good of the council
SHOULD Kirklees Council’s civic silver collection of nearly 400 items valued at £1.6m be pruned?
Nearly £1m worth of the items were gifts – but £700,000 worth were purchases and thus have no restrictions on their sale.
Kirklees’ collection is bigger than Leeds’ (£1.2m) – and Calderdale’s (£0.2m).
Kirklees Council has been selling more than £1m worth of properties annually for years, some of which were gifts - such as Field Head House on Lidget Street in Lindley (the former home of Acre Mill owner James Nield Sykes, who also built the local Clock Tower now owned by Kirklees Council) which recently became the privatelyowned Manor Hotel.
If rare architectural heritage can be sold, why not some of the hundreds of mostly unseen silver items – and re-invest the capital receipts (not simply spend them) in other priorities – for which
readers may have some suggestions ? party – but if they do they will find that it fails to meet climate emergency obligations in two key areas: housing and transport.
Indeed, so poor is it that it clearly opens itself up to legal challenge following the ruling on the third Heathrow runway.
It openly states that where traffic congestion is concerned the aim is ‘increased traffic flow,’ ‘increased capacity’ and the ‘redistribution of traffic on the network.’
Its science on ‘idling’ cars is flawed. Research is clear that increased traffic flow increases the number of cars, increases speed and therefore petrol consumption leading to more emissions than idling.
One is appalled to learn that the Council will protect young schoolchildren by putting up screens ‘to block diffusion of pollutants from the ring road.’
Its policy on cycling is nonsense since the Council admits it has no information as to the number of cyclists.
The Council has a touching, and certainly misplaced faith, in electric cars to save its plan.
On housing it aims to build 10,000 houses in the next five years. Each house built will be the equivalent carbon emission of that of the lifetime emission of one of the owners of the house. These will mostly be built on green land without the basic of solar panels and heat pumps. They will almost certainly be owned by commuters with an increased number of cars.
Those engaged in Climate Change and Extinction Rebellion campaigns should, I suggest, oppose this plan wherever possible and look at the legal case for stopping it.
Impossible time scale set by Boris
BORIS Johnson’s policy of making us buy new battery electric vehicles (BEVs) from 2035 misses the essential point – without fuel any car or van is useless.
Yet the Government does not seem to have thought about increased electricity generation capacity, and the necessary extra Grid and street cabling work. It’s as though Boris thinks BEVs run on magic dust.
It is true that BEVs are more efficient than petrol or diesel – but less than is usually touted, due to Grid losses, battery charge/discharge losses, battery deterioration, and winter driving conditions.
Spare night time capacity is less than a 10th of what is needed.
To cope, we will need to double UK electrical energy production. That is about 12 new Hinckley C Nuclear power stations. Plus replacements for existing fossil fuel generators. Plus spare capacity. Plus doubling Grid capacity. And recabling the streets. All in 15 years.
Can anyone take seriously a Government that proposes to trash almost all the existing road transport and energy sectors – without putting in place the alternative?
Yet even when it dawns on Boris, the timescale of 15 years makes implementation effectively impossible.