![Messing about on the River]()
by Paul Scully | Jun 9, 2006 | News |
Well in it, actually. As I sit in my relatively comfortable office, it is difficult not to have a pang of guilt when thinking of my fellow ward councillor, Eric Howell (centre, standing) getting his hands dirty whilst cleaning up the River Wandle that runs through our ward. This was one of the events in Sutton’s “Take Part, Take Pride” series. We’ve spent the last few months telling everyone how we wanted to look after the place and so it is good to spend a couple of hours (oh yes, not just a photocall,) keeping it clean.
LibDems in Sutton, as they do across the country, speak as though they have cornered the market in green issues. Although some wrote of David Cameron’s “Vote Blue, Go Green” message as touchy-feely spin, the facts do bear out this message. Sutton is feted as a good Council for recycling. They are 36th in the country. Out of the 35 that recycle more than Sutton, 23 are Conservative controlled.
To my mind, one of the most fundamental differences between the Conservatives and the other two parties is that where Labour and LibDem legislate for a world that they would like to see, Conservatives deal with the world as it is, bringing real-world solutions to real-world problems rather than hoping that everyone will fall into their way of thinking and making assumptions in the meantime that rely on everyone falling into line. Tax is an obvious example but we are talking here about the environment so I shall keep off that other thorny subject.
Most of us have an understanding of the need to protect our environment, recycle more and pollute less. Sutton Council have adopted every prototype and pet project that has passed their desk. They ordered several gas-powered refuse trucks at £400k eack. They sat idle as they didn’t work. They started a Car share pool called “Urbigo”. This ended up as Urbi-won’t go as only 14 people or so signed up to the scheme within the first few years. The list is endless. The Council Tax payer is entitled to worry about where his or her money is going when they hear about such waste. Our waste management contract costs around £2m per year more than it should. This equates to the total Council Tax bill for the 1500 houses in the polling district centred on Carshalton Village. Each and every year.
Our spokesman, John Kennedy and his team are always looking at ways that we would use basic commonsense management to reduce this cost substantially. Renegotiating the contract would be a start. Any money saved could be used to cut Council Tax and/or improve our services such as rolling out doorstep glass collection.
Anyway, the Wandle’s looking nice. (photo: Sutton Guardian)
by Paul Scully | Jun 7, 2006 | News |
My father was born in Burma and came to England when he was 18. My grandparents, uncles and aunts came some years later. Though I have never been, I am immensely proud of my heritage and family history and would dearly love to travel to Rangoon to see the docks where my grandfather worked for the Port Commissioners, the Strand Hotel where my gran collared various government dignitaries whilst working on the reception to persuade them to let my father take a little money with him on his journey to England and the surrounding streets that I have heard so much about. Unfortunately this just cannot happen whilst it is in the grip of one of the most closed, oppressive dictatorships in the world.
For the past few decades Burma has been controlled by military dictatorship. It has sunk from one of the most educated nations in South East Asia to one of the least with its wealth of natural resources being plundered. The last democratically elected leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has spent the last 3 years under house arrest. Minority Ethnic groups are being killed and displaced from their homes.
What is being done? Well, Burma is not as strategic to western nations as it was when Alec Guinness was busy saving the day. The Middle East occupies the minds and the column inches of the West. China have no great desire to involve themselves and ASEAN, the South East Asian group of countries stand by watching. There is an ineffectual Common European Policy which will never have any teeth as long as TOTAL Oil are pumping their £400m investment into the country to pump their oil out. (The French, you might remember, were fuelling the spin that the Iraq invasion was all about American oil interests. Easy to say whilst you are benefitting from child labour, and a dictatorship that pays many of its manual workers in heroin.) The British having left in haste take the view that it is not worth raising the issue as they will not get agreement at the UN Security Council. This is an interesting take on the situation. If that argument was extended to this country, the Conservatives and LibDems would not raise any issue for fear of losing and the Burmese would not be the only ones with a dictatorship. Whilst being demonised elsewhere, it is the US that are the heroes of this piece. They brought the issue of Burma to the Security Council for the first time in years primarily on the basis of a report written by Jared Genser.
Working in the House of Commons, I get the opportunity to go to some very interesting meetings (and many dull ones), none more so than the All Party Parliamentary Group for Burma, chaired by John Bercow MP. At one such meeting last year, we heard from Jared who showed us his report written as part of probono work carried out by Jared and his law firm on behalf of Vaclav Havel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He examined all past Security Council resolutions and found that there were five precedents for action. They are the overthrow of a democratically-elected goverment, conflict between central government and ethnic factions, widespread internal humanitarian/human rights violations, outflow of refugees and other factors including the spread of HIV/AIDS and drug trafficking. It was shown that out of all of the world’s hotspots including Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Rwanda, only Burma satisfied all of these conditions.
This is only the first step in a very long journey. Only yesterday I met a refugee from the Karen who live in the jungle in the East of Burma. She fled the country 10 years ago. At the same time, the British were attending a trade fair in Rangoon. 16,000 of the Karen have been slaughtered or displaced with rape used systematically as a weapon by the military. I can go on, I should go on, but I am late for work and there are others who are more knowledgeable that can tell you more. Please if you do nothing else, get out a map and find out where Burma is. Tell others and collar any decision maker that you come across. Let us shame France and others if need be but we must act and we must act now.
by Paul Scully | Jun 1, 2006 | Carshalton Central, News |
Not sure why the photo has purple writing. It didn’t when it left my PC. Maybe it’s the away logo. Anyway, Eric and I had a meeting last night with the board of directors of Carshalton Athletic and we were both impressed by the positive message that we were given. Relations between the club and its neighbours have been strained to say the least over the last few years. This boiled over when the last chairman submitted plans for a £12m redevelopment of the ground driving a road through a park next to a girls’ school, opening out onto a dangerous road and covering allotments with astroturf for floodlit pitches. Suffice to say, the Conservatives sided with the residents. The development never happened and the chairman at the time threatened to liquidate the club’s assets. Shortly after this, a new board was formed made up primarily of genuine local Robins fans. I went to the meeting when it was announced that the last chairman was off and I was optimistic about what I heard from the supporters and their intentions to bring the club back to being a local team rather than a rich man’s plaything. Their actions since have borne out this optimism. Regular meetings with residents have kept them in the loop and dealt with any complaints and misgivings quickly. There will always be a divergence of opinions between what is good for residents living on the club’s doorstep and the club itself but it is a matter of give and take. As the club has been on this ground since 1926, there can’t be too many residents that didn’t know that it was there. On the other hand, the residents should be able to enjoy the peace and tranquility of the Poet’s Estate and expect the club and supporters to respect this. It seems that this difficult balance has now been reached and long may it remain. Eric will be in regular contact with the club as Conservative Spokesman for Sport as well as ward councillor and we are often in touch with the residents in Brookfield Avenue, Mead Crescent and Shirley Avenue. Do let us know if any problems arise or if you have any questions. The chairman, Harry Driver, has offered to meet residents at anytime to tackle issues as they arise.
by Paul Scully | May 31, 2006 | Carshalton Central, News |
I used the slightly cheesy slogan “Making Carshalton Central” in my election campaign. I never said I was a Saatchi. It was actually a hand-me-down from Andrew Pelling MP, my boss. He is the MP for Croydon Central – slogan “Putting Croydon First”. He had rejected the idea of Making Croydon Central so in this enlightened age of recycling, I pinched it.
Having ridiculed my own slogan, it does sum up nicely what I want to acheive. Carshalton has been my home for 17 years. It is the only place that my children have called home and I still enjoy living there.
The village seems to be unique in South London still retaining a village atmosphere despite the volume of traffic rolling between Croydon and Sutton. I’m sure that I’ll come back to this in a future post as it is a perennial problem exacerbated by the narrow parts of the road by the church and the Greyhound pub both overlooking the ponds.
The ward takes in the conservation area of the village, where the idea of the Derby was conceived over a bet at the Greyhound between the Earl of Derby and Lord Bunbury. I’m not sure that the Epsom Bunbury race would have had such a lasting legacy. Carshalton Park hosts a popular summer carnival and one of the largest firework displays in London each year. Stretching over to the west, it takes in a large residential area including the Poets’ Estate, a peaceful, pleasant corner of Sutton that has fought off many attempts by developers to change its nature. Long may that last.
![Messing about on the River]()
by Paul Scully | May 29, 2006 | News |
Well, no actually. I’m not here to clutter up the web with an ego trip and any old ranting but who knows what’ll happen when I stare at the screen for too long and start believing that millions of people worldwide have a rapacious appetite for Carshalton and Scully news.
A blog seems as good a place as any to let people know what I’m up to as Councillor for Carshalton Central. I’ve been in my role as councillor for a mere 3 weeks. So the more I do for the ward, the more prolific this blog will become. On the other hand, I’ll be chuntering on about other things too, so I’ll see how it goes. Whether you live in Carshalton, Timbuktu or even Sidcup, let me know what you think.
Well in it, actually. As I sit in my relatively comfortable office, it is difficult not to have a pang of guilt when thinking of my fellow ward councillor, Eric Howell (centre, standing) getting his hands dirty whilst cleaning up the River Wandle that runs through our ward. This was one of the events in Sutton’s “Take Part, Take Pride” series. We’ve spent the last few months telling everyone how we wanted to look after the place and so it is good to spend a couple of hours (oh yes, not just a photocall,) keeping it clean.
