Lynne Featherstone visited an animal rescue shelter today, and handled a kitteh, before dashing its hopes and not taking it home with her.

moar funny pictures

Bit surprised to read this on the Guardian website saying that a survey of gay people found most considered themselves discriminated against.  There was a bit of a ray of sunshine when it proved that people thought the Lib Dems less likely to be homophobic than the other main parties, but still nearly half of those surveyed thought that their homosexuality would be a barrier to standing for parliament, for example.  That’s definitely not the case in the Lib Dems.

One paragraph stuck out from the report:

One in four think they will be treated less fairly by police if they become a victim of hate crime, while one in five expect to find it harder than a heterosexual person to get social housing, and nine in 10 expect barriers to becoming a foster parent.

This should not be the case in Nottingham.  I have experience with friends who have been a victim of violent crime and received first rate treatment from the local police – although the perps were never caught. Being gay should make no difference to applying for a council  house (although single people of any sexuality almost never get houses, which are reserved for families, so are most likely to be offered flats).  And Nottingham City is desperate for more people to become foster parents.  We have a terrible shortage at the moment, and money is being invested in recruiting many more volunteers.  On the question-and-answer page it specifically says:

Is fostering only for married couples?

Definitely not.  It does not matter whether you are married, in a partnership, single, separated, or in a same sex relationship.  However, we do ask that any couples have lived together for at least 2 years and have a stable, caring relationship

 There certainly are barriers to becoming foster parents and to getting social housing.  There are quite simply not enough council houses for everyone to have one or for everyone to have their first preference of accommodation.  Becoming a foster parent is not easy, with lengthy training and assessment to complete first.  But being gay should make no difference.

Since I joined Nottingham’s planning committee nearly three years ago, I have made sustainability a big part of all the comments I make. It’s much more cost effective to include sustainable measures in buildings during construction than to retrofit them to a building after it is completed.

Since I started asking the question “how green is this building?” details of sustainability now normally get a specific paragraph in every report. And during my time on the committee, the Council took advantage of new Government powers to include a “Merton rule” in our planning policy that says that new buildings over a certain size or covering a certain amount of land now have to find 10% of their energy requirements from sustainable sources.

My next battle is about getting a wider recognition that 10% is a minimum, not a target. The helpful tool “Building for Life” has as one of its 20 questions, “Does the building out-perform statutory minima?”

This week’s planning committee on Wednesday was one of the shortest I have ever been at, with only three planning applications. The first of these was for a new FE college on Carlton Road, and had an excellent sustainability statement that covered many of the things I talk about every month. You can read the full report on the Council’s Committee Online page (opens a Word Doc) but here is the sustainability section:

Sustainable design has been key to the design of the building and it has been confirmed that a Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) ‘Excellent’ rating will be achieved. In order to achieve energy efficiency the building will incorporate a wood-fuel boiler plant; heat recovery; exposed thermal mass; positioning of building to maximise daylight; natural ventilation; minimisation of heat loss; rainwater collection and the efficiency of plant and systems will be maximised through the use of a digital Building Energy Management System. It has also been clarified that an intranet connection will be available to allow teachers and students to view the energy that the building is utilising as a teaching resource for energy efficiency.

In addition to that, we heard that the college are considering bat and bird boxes on the trees and open spaces on the site, which helps tick a few more biodiversity boxes.

We also had three “issues reports” where people who are going to be asking for planning permission in the near future and get the chance to test the waters at committee. This is usually only for very big applications, and this week we discussed a potential private hospital in the new University Boulevard Science Park (unlikely to pass – Science Parks are not good places for hospitals); new student housing on Alfreton Road (fairly good scheme, could be improved) and a stunning scheme for a new dual use church-cum-conference centre.

There’s something a little strange about political dynasties in a democracy.  Two Bushes in the Whitehouse. The Benn family. The attempts of Prescott fils to get onto the green benches.

But nothing quite as strange as Matthew Taylor’s discovery. He was adopted, and didn’t discover his birth parents’ history until late in life.  Taylor was elected to parliament at the young age – long before he discovered his great-grandfather had also been an MP.  It’s a fairly exclusive club, so quite a co-incidence to discover a relative you didn’t know you had was also a member.