Castle Park

It feels like I have neglected this blog - so to make up for it there is a double post today!

Most locals will know that someone set the Pavillion in Castle Park on fire and that it was razed to the ground.  The council have put a temporary building there to allow the Bowling Club and the cafe to function in the short term.

I think that from this heinous event, there is the possibility to bring the Park back to some of its former glory.  Behind the pavillion, there was a paddling pool.  Everyone I have spoken to has fond memories of it; adults remember taking children there and going there as children themselves.  I personally do.  I remember it being a busy, fun place where we could play while our parents looked on.  I remember taking my own children there too.  Maybe this could be fixed at the same time as the pavillion?

There is a movement bubbling away that is trying to do just this.  There are events being organised over the next few months to try to raise money to make a splash pool in the place where the paddling pool lies unused; jets of water could shoot from the ground and children could once again play in the park.  

What an idyllic suggestion!

What are the events?  There is to be a Car Boot Sale on 27 May at the Rugby Club.  There is a midnight sponsored walk on 1st June and there is a Fun Day, in Castle Park on 10th June.

Can you help?  Eden is an amazing community, which rises to challenges in its path - so lets do it!

Pride

My name is Dawn Stobbart and I am a Councillor on Eden District Council – but please, don’t hold that against me!  I was elected onto the Council last May for the area in which I live, Penrith West; I grew up spending a lot of time here and have lived here for the past 8 years as an adult, so I can honestly say I am intimately familiar with the area. 

                Penrith, and the Eden Valley, I think is one of the most beautiful places in Britain and its beauty is quite breathtaking; sitting on the shore of Ullswater looking towards the Lakeland Fells is unparalleled for its tranquillity and beauty and Penrith, with its history and setting is a jewel in the Crown of the Lake District.

Living in Penrith, I have noticed a change over the last few years in the way that we are living and interacting with our environment and each other.  I grew up in a town where there was a sense of community; where people smiled at each other and said hello to total strangers and events were held that fostered this sense of community.  I remember that Castletown had its own Pageant and we all went to the ‘Rec’ for the day; the older people went on organised trips and there was always help if a person needed it and it saddens me that this is disappearing from the town, little by little. 

                So, one of the first things I did when I was elected onto the council was to send out a leaflet saying that I wanted to start up a Neighbourhood Forum, for the residents of my ward to try to do something for the immediate locality– I did not any response to this; not one person of the thousand or so that I am responsible showed an interest in being part of a community, despite being contacted frequently about problems in the area. 

                One of the side effects of this is a general decline in the pride of the area; walking round Penrith, there is dropped litter everywhere, despite the presence of litter bins.  Similarly, the presence of dog mess on the streets and along public footpaths is an increasing problem, with this being one of the biggest complaints I hear about my local ‘patch’.  I recently went for a walk around the newly finished nature reserve at Thacka Beck, where both the presence of litter and dog mess made me wonder what has happened that this is accepted behaviour anywhere.  This malaise is evident in town too – litter is dropped on the pavement, bottles and other detritus flies out of car windows, chewing gum and cigarette ends are a constant companion when walking round the town.  It’s hard to feel pride in an environment that is used as a dustbin everyday and this turns into a vicious circle.  People drop litter and so people stop caring and drop litter and people stop caring…. Then people don’t do anything when something really important happens, because they stopped caring about what goes on around them; until someone comes along and gets them wound up about things.              

                This is just what happened last year with our local cinema; it was being closed down to make way for another business, allegedly a large pub chain.  I and a few other people got upset and made a fuss – and we managed to keep our cinema – and for a while, there was a sense of pride and community as thousands of people in the Eden Valley worked together for the same purpose; this is why I became a councillor, because I realised that there is still a community and pride in the area, it’s just gone into hiding under a pile of litter!

BUT, I have a plan.  There are a number of people out there who are willing to do something to try to create pride in Penrith and these people are trying to do something about the general malaise in Penrith, including myself.  People like the group PACT (Penrith Action for Community Transition) are trying to encourage people to have a pride in the place they live, and this, while not bringing back the community spirit I grew up with, will most definitely make Penrith a nicer place to live, for all of us.  Therefore, I am going to keep on suggesting things like litter picking at local places and keep complaining about dog mess and grass verges being ruined by wagons.  I am a councillor for Eden District Council, one of the most beautiful places in Britain, and it is my job.

So, has the pride disappeared from Penrith?  Do you take your litter away with you, or do you think that it doesn’t matter if you make a mess?  What would it take for YOU to get out into your street or neighbourhood and keep it clean and tidy?  Let me know what you think – and what it will take to change things.

Don't agree with Gay Marriage? Don't get one then!

I try not to get involved in many arguments.  Really, some things are just beneath me and generally, I choose to ignore some of the homophobic things that come from the Church.  However, listening to some of the things this week, it seems that we have gone backwards in time. The newspapers and television have been carrying the story of Cardinal O'Brien using words whcih seem to liken Gay marriage to slavery and saying that it is grotesque among other things.

Now, I fully support this individuals right to his opinion, just as I am entitled to my right to think that he has an invisible friend.  But, this sort of behaviour belongs in the last century where it belongs, not in 21st Century Britain. I am in a civil partnership; I have been for a number of years now.  In my mind and to all practical purposes I am married.  I class myself as married and I have the same legal rights as someone who is married, I am to all intents and purposes, married and I am glad I live in a place where I have never encountered opposition to my sexuality and am accepted as the slightly odd individual with pink hair.

Cardinal O'Brien has the ability to have his opinion listened to.  He is a representative of an institution with millions of members and his words, if they were referencing another class of people would be considered a hate crime.  Can you imagine if he had said that women going out to work was 'dismantling a fundamental human right', or coloured people. There would be a huge outcry about this.

 The words of this person intimate that a section of the population have less right to live a happy and fulfilling life than other people.  Because I, and millions of others, find happiness with someone who happens to have the same genitalia, then We are not to be accorded the same protection as those who prefer a partner with different genitals. I do not want to be a member of an establishment who thinks that ANY other person has less right than I have to do anything.

This man is purely and simply homophobic and if his church is too, then I refuse to acknowledge it.   However, I do think that this has brought a level of homophobic behaviour to the fore that I, luckily, have not experienced and I am stunned that it is such an acceptable form of behaviour in Britain and highlights the work that still needs to be done to create a truly equal society, starting with the Church!

Pride in Penrith

This morning, I joined PACT at the Castletown side of the Thacka Beck Nature Reserve collecting rubbish along the side of the beck.  Over 20 people gave up their time and energy to pick up a variety of litter between 10 and 12.

Some of the volunteers at Thacka Beck - with a sample of the litter.

In the 2 hours we were collecting, we collected about 75 - that is SEVENTY FIVE - bags of rubbish, and a variety of strange items, within less than a square mile, which included a television and a footstool!!  There were also a LOT of undesirable things left in this potentially beautiful area; dozens and dozens of bottles of what we suspected was urine, bags of HUMAN faeces as well as the hundreds of bags of dog dirt that seem to litter any places that people walk dogs.

A TV and footstool, honestly?

It was really wonderful that all these people got together for no other reason than to try to make things better.  It was a shame that the local businesses did not get involved, with the exception of Darren Latimer at Tarmac Ltd, who cleaned all the borders of their business - and sent me a lovely email afterwards saying

It was a pleasure to be part of something that has resulted in a major transformation of what was looking like the local dump. It was good to see so many volunteers...

It is a shame that this had to be done at all.  I cannot understand what happened to our society that it has become acceptable to leave bottles of urine lying around - or bags full of poo.  Some of the rubbish, I can just about understand; the wind blows a lot in this area, so some rubbish will blow to the area.  But some of the things we found, must have been brought there deliberately; why not just carry on to the tip if you have gone to the effort of putting it in a vehicle and taking it to the Beck!

While we were cleaning on the side of the beck, Cumbria Wildlife Trust were out doing the same on the Thacka Beck Nature Reserve.  They have regular events which includes a monthly clean up at Thacka.  We discussed the dog mess problem and the fact that they can provide bins for dog owners to put the mess in, but cannot get it collected, which needs the agreement of Eden District Council.  PACT have also offered bins, but EDC seem reticent to allow these bins to be collected.

The need to hold cleaning events shows that there is something fundamentally changed in society.  It is OK to leave bags of poo (animal and human, can you tell its something that has disturbed me?) and bottles of wee lying around.  Its fine to drop litter behind you and even to bring large items and dump them.  What happened to the pride people used to have in their neighbourhoods?  What happened to common courtesy when you visited someone else's neighbourhood?  Living in Penrith, I have noticed a change over the last few years in the way that we are living and interacting with our environment and each other.  I grew up in a town where there was a sense of community; where people smiled at each other and said hello to total strangers and events were held that fostered this sense of community.  I remember that Castletown had its own Pageant and we all went to the ‘Rec’ for the day; the older people went on organised trips and there was always help if a person needed it and it saddens me that this is disappearing from the town, little by little. 


BUT, I have a plan.  There are a number of people out there who are willing to do something to try to create pride in Penrith and these people are trying to do something about the general malaise in Penrith, including myself.  People like the group PACT and the CWT are trying to encourage people to have a pride in the place they live, and this, while not bringing back the community spirit I grew up with, will most definitely make Penrith a nicer place to live, for all of us.  Therefore, I am going to keep on joining in things like litter picking at local places and keep complaining about dog mess and grass verges being ruined by wagons.  I live in one of the most beautiful places in Britain, and I want to rebuild the Pride in Penrith - one street at a time, if that's what it takes.

21st Century...Girls

There was a council meeting last night and another Councillor, Councillor Debbie Wicks (@Debbiewicks) and I (@dchs) simultaneously decided to use the power of Twitter to tweet salient pieces of information.  Well, if the Government is allowed to Tweet from the Houses of Parliament, then I (and Debbie) surely can from Eden District Council Chamber!!
                                                    

Now, I understand that there might be some reticence to the use of technology in the Council Chamber; after all, change can be hard - especially if things have been done a certain way for a long time.  I also understand that people might have concerns about the content that is being tweeted; for example, confidential matters or unkind things about other Councillors. However, I think - no, I am certain - that the ways in which a large percentage of the population are changing.  Twitter, as a platform is becoming more and more popular as the following statistics show.

• In 2007 the average was 5,000 tweets per day.
• In 2008 that had grown to 300,000.
• In 2009 tweets per day averaged 2.5 million.
• In 2010 that number was 35 million tweets per day.

In the month of March 2011 alone, 140 million tweets are being sent on average per day.

Update: As of June 2011, users on Twitter are now averaging 200 million Tweets per day.

(Taken from  http://www.marketinggum.com/twitter-statistics-2011-updated-stats/)

We live in a world where information is available instantly.  We have 24 hour news, Google has changed the speed and access of any piece of information that we might need and mobile technology such as smart phones and iPads have made this even more available.  So, it is no longer enough to have the local press at a meeting to put a piece in the local paper days later; people expect information NOW - so we should be giving it to them, while at the same time having the more traditional methods of communication, because, not everyone wants to use electronic means of communication.

So, I hope that this fledgling method of communication will not be shot down; I am fully aware that there are issues and would hope that these can be turned into protocols for safe electronic communication, which will allow me (and @Debbiewick) and any other Eden Councillor to tell anyone with a Twitter stream what we are doing in the Council Chamber!