SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

My super output area is Milton Keynes 032c Lower Layer, I am not sure whether this name is suggesting something but from what I have found out I think it is (lower). AS far as sustainable community is concerned I don't think my area gives a good picture or resembles anything to do with sustainable except for one single thing, living environment.



The more red it is the more deprived it is, but if we compare this to education in the area, I am simply horrified that I actually take my daughter to a school in this area.


The overall absence in all schools in my area is given as 9.01% as compared to 5.78% for the whole of Milton Keynes and 6.23 for England. The persistent absentees in all schools in the area is given as 7.5% as compared to 2.8% for Milton Keynes and 3.6% for England (http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/leadTableView.do;jsessionid=).
If education is so low in my area what chances do the children have of becoming active citizens I ask? I think it goes with the territory, if education is low the children do not have the capacity to play an effective role in the society, they are not well informed, they are not thoughtful, not responsible citizens and are not aware of their rights and not conscious of their duties either. I think what you learn from an early age has a ripple effect wherever you go and it is very important to get the education right because it is your future and will have an effect on the people around you. Thank you Greg I now know why my area is so rough, they don't get the education!!. Most of them are not politically, socially or economically literate hence not informed on anything other than what they get on the streets.

Looking at fire and rescue services, fires attended to were 9, Milton Keynes was 674 and England was 131,258 and a total casualties of 3 in my area out of 52 in Milton Keynes.

One of the definitions given on active citizenship is ensuring there are opportunities and mechanisms for all to participate in public life and decision-making, regardless of age, ability, culture, lifestyle or location, I think that definition basically stinks, because if children don't get equal opportunities in education how is this definition achievable? If I compare my previous address with current as far as education is concerned it just tells that the above definition should be replaced with something like where you live has an effect on what kind of citizen you become.


This is education deprivation for Epsom in Surrey.

If we have a look at crime in my area, it is quite high but then again it is not a surprise given the level of education deprivation. In my view education is the key to young people's better future. Most families in the area have about three failed generations from grandparents to parents and their children. None of them knows better than the other one since none of them received the education they deserve and hence have no chance of becoming responsible citizens.



I don't think we can ever achieve sustainable communities in such areas unless we have ways and means of breaking these generation failures in families and communities. As it has been said before, one of the central themes underpinning sustainable development is equality and fairness, from the information available in my super output area, it just shows how far away we are from achieving equality and fairness towards sustainable development. The only thing that is looking up in my area is living environment and barriers to housing and services, and I am guessing it is because not many people want to live there.



Income deprivation is high in the area so I am guessing not many people work as probably not many of them have any skills or are even willing to work.



However, there has been an improvement of local public services especially the collection tipped rubbish so the area is getting cleaner by the day, and there is also an improvement in tackling anti-social behaviour and extremism as there is always the presence of the police in the area even on their bikes. So despite all the failures, something is looking up but more needs to be done if sustainable community is to be achieved in the area.

WHY VOTE?

My constituency is Milton Keynes South West and the local MP is Dr Phyllis Starkey a Labour party MP.Dr Starkey has been an MP for Milton Keynes since 1997 during which time, her website says, Milton Keynes has thrived under her care, there has been a new treatment centre in Milton Keynes hospital, countless new schools and the arrival of MK Dons stadium. Dr Starkey has been elected chair of the communities and local government select committee, covering housing and planning, local and regional government, the fire service and the equalities agenda (www.phyllisstarkey.co.uk).


My local council is Milton Keynes council which is dominated by the Liberal Democrat with 21 seats, followed by the Conservatives with 20 seats and Labour comes third with 10 seats (http://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/mkcouncil/)



The council elections have been set for the 6th of May 2010 and there is a general mood around that a lot of people will not come out to vote since they don't know who to vote for that will meet their expectations. This is a pretty bad conclusion to come to because someone will be voted in so I think you might as well use your vote and exercise your right. I think we are very good at sitting back and mourning about something or someone but when it comes to doing something about it we leave it to others even though we have the right and can make a change. We may not get the change we want but a bit of it is better than nothing. I know most politicians have no one else's interest at heart other than theirs, but if we know this and don't vote to get them out, then we are no better than them. We all need to vote in order to leave a better legacy for our kids than we have, surely this should be a driving force if nothing else matters.

I have always voted Labour because I think they represent the common man, and my view on that has not changed. The party has done a lot since coming to power in 1997 especially in regard to social security and child poverty. We now have lone parents deals, tax credits and so on and they have also committed to eradicating child poverty by 2020 and halving it by 2010. Although they have now abandoned the 2010 pledge when the realisation that they are nowhere near meeting the pledge came to light, and have outlined a new poverty bill (http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk). But one of Labour's biggest failure is the Iraq war which they will be remembered for in years to come. My grandmother used to say that if you don,t make mistakes then who is your teacher?. This was a costly mistake that we are still paying for and still losing lives over it but we can't go back and undo what has happened, the best thing we can do is learn from it.

I am not into David Cameron at all and I can't tell you why either because I really don't know. A study done in Bangor University seems to tell us that his body language suggests that he is a better leader than Gordon Brown actually giving him on leadership a 4.34 score over a 3.97 to Gordon. On attractiveness, he got a 4.16 to Gordon's 3.16, anxiety 2.26 to Gordon's 3.84 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/newstopics/politics/7385195/David-Camerrons-body-lang). But seriously I know body language is important, but is this what decides who is a better leader, not going through the manifesto and looking at the policies that affects you and your neighbourhood? What does Cameron's attractiveness have to do with what is happening in my neighbourhood, nothing is the answer and neither is Gordon's non-attractiveness. In my view the politicians have a lot in common and most of them don't know the real issues affecting the people that they represent, but I think this is where we come in, we have to make them listen and we can't do that without voting for sure. My main concern is who of them represents me, Conservatives have been known to connect with the rich, they are anti-immigration and not very good on social security. I was leaning more to the Liberal Democrats because of the abolition of the tuition fees but have now been postponed due to the economic crisis but will wait to see what happens.

So lets all go and vote the best decision you will make in years!!!!.

SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL

There is always a cost to everything that we do be it negative or positive, this will depend on your actions. So I guess the big question is, do the benefits of motorised transport outweigh the cost of it?. I am sure the environmentalists will give you a straight answer NO with capital letters. But on the other hand if you put the same question to developers and others, they will give you a yes answer, and probably go ahead to tell you how far back the world would be without unlimited travel. And rightly so because if you look at the movement of goods and services for example, it has brought tremendous benefits economically and socially to the whole wide world really through creation of jobs etc. For instance fresh vegetables can be gathered from a farm somewhere in Africa and be in a Tesco store in 24 hours time while it is still fresh, brilliant isn't?. There is a whole chain of people that are working within this time frame to make this possible and of course was it not for the advance technology in transport this would not be possible.But if we flip the coin on the other side, there is air and road travel involved here, it is said that CO2 emitted high up in the atmosphere does more damage to the environment, and not forgetting all those tracks on the road to deliver the goods to the stores.

I think public transport can give a lot of answers to a lot of problems with transport but it also has some drawbacks which I think should be addressed to make it more effective and desirable. First of all it is only economically feasible in areas with relatively large populations, as the number of people per square mile decreases, the efficiency of public transport also decreases. This means that the system have to be prepared to run at a loss. In such areas private transport is inevitably more desirable.
Public transport systems are also very expensive to build and to operate which means that consumers have to pay a higher cost to use public transport. Public transport is sometimes also very crowded, uncomfortable, dirty and unreliable and no public transport can provide the convenience of using your own car. And may be this is where we get the link to general lack of fitness in the population at large, we become too comfortable with using our own transport we forget about the side effects and also the unwillingness to change.I also think we live in a motorised culture especially in the UK, because if you look at countries like Holland they have a totally different approach to transport. Their whole transport system is built with green matters in mind for example, they have bicycle lanes and parkings, walk paths etc and sustainable travel is promoted and encouraged actively even their MP's go to work on bikes (www.bbc.co.uk)



Public transport though has it is own advantages especially when it comes to the environment.It is more environmentally friendly in the sense that, for example, a single coach filled with say a hundred people uses only slightly more fuel than does a single private car hence the amount of air pollution per passenger is much less. In addition, it is a more efficient way of transporting people because an underground system operating on two tracks say 36ft wide can transport around 80,000 passengers per hour, whereas an 8-lane motorway around 125ft wide, can only transport20,000 passengers per hour.Public transport is also socially beneficial as it creates jobs, be it the people behind the wheels or the guys maintaining the road works, and it is also a good way of interacting with others (http://science.jrank.org/pages/4169/mass-transportation-)






I think the present transport system needs an overhaul if it is to persuade us to leave our cars behind. First of all, reliability needs to be sorted out, I also think we need to invest more in the system which would improve the number of services operating at one single time. This would mean better road works, better railways etc and probably even better pay for the employees which would help with staff retention. We need to have more bicycle lanes which would encourage people to go on bikes and obviously designated parking areas for the bikes. We also need to encourage car sharing more which might mean that we will need car sharing lanes on motorways and dual carriageways. The government might also want to think about investing in teaching people how to use the bikes at discounted prices to interest people. But I think our biggest problem is the fact that our road works are built with one thing in mind which is vehicles which I think contributes a lot to the motorised culture. The leading figures as well needs to lead from the front rather than the back eg the MP's, they need to dump their big cars and get on the bikes like their counterparts in Holland. There is a transport problem mainly because there is not enough done to combat the problem and there is no way that the benefits can outweigh the costs.

There is a need to invest more on green transport for example the electric cars and things like renewable sources of energy. But I think more emphasis needs to be put on encouraging healthier lifestyles, walking, cycling and probably car sharing and use of public transport to reduce the over reliance on single car use.