Here’s a quick summary of news, events and casework for October 2006
October
30th – Gov't launch Stern Report showing need to act on climate change and how such action should be integral to economic growth; Gov't also commit to pass a Climate Change Bill; attend local gov't seminars with HM Treasury;
29th – Diwali festival at the Theatre Royal;
28th – Eid celebration at the Council House;
25th – Lord David Puttnam opens GameCity - annual interactive entertainment festival - http://www.gamecity.org/ (ran to 29th)
25th – brief John Harman, Chair of Environment Agency, on Nottingham's work on climate change; also brief Channel 4 News; John Harman had come to the Meadows to see a presentation on the Meadows O-zone lottery bid;
25th – Gov't announce that they are prepared to back the expansion of Nottingham's tram by 2 more lines and with £437m of Gov't money; trams will run on the new lines in 2013, if everything goes to plan;
24th – meet Minister Yvette Cooper at Leicester for the "Growth Points" announcements which means the Nottingham conurbation will get extra support to provide the housing needed to make houses affordable, especially for young families; present Nottingham's drive to provide more family housing in the city;
23rd – meet managers from Adults Services to hear of the progress they're making;
20th – Broadway cinema re-opens, with new facilities and screens, including Screen 4 which showed "Who Killed the Electric Car?"; I introduced the second showing of the movie;
20th – present proposals on climate change to Core Cities in Sheffield; Tony Blair expresses a renewed concern on climate change;
19th – 3 Cities and 3 Counties meet to talk about potential for further investment in more housing, better transport and more job opportunities; also hear a presentation highlighting the large amounts of investment in art buildings, such as the refurbished Broadway centre, the new arts exchange in Hyson Green and the Centre for Contemporary Art;
18th – the Institute of Civil Engineers says Nottingham’s tram system is the best in the UK; their report states how well-planned local transport systems can make a real difference to citizens’ quality of life; ”Nowhere is this truer than in Nottingham, where the new tram system linking the railway station with the city centre and the north of the conurbation has profoundly affected life in the area with improved accessibility, reduced local congestion as well as acting as a catalyst for development and regeneration.”
18th – local awards for Nottingham in Bloom, including Frank and Carol Kavanagh of Ball Street for their front garden;
18th – 75 people turn up to hear ideas from draft Management Plan for the Mapperley Park and Alexandra Park Conservation Area; this plan builds on the Local plan, the "Building Balanced Communities" plan; as well as being supported by the neighbourhoods streetscape design manual adopted at Executive Board;
18th – Local Democracy week – hear 4 secondary schools bid to spend £5,000 on a community project;
17th – Local Democracy week – Councillors’ café – at Hillview community centre, Ransom Road;
17th – Executive Board; - agree a new school to be built for children that need a special education, on the campus of the Harvey Hadden school;
17th – Elliott Durham's value-added results for Year 11 in August shows the school in the top 27% in the country;
15th – Apple Day at St.Ann's Community orchard; also report street scene issues from Ransom Road estate and Heaton Close;
14th – attend the memorial service for Mapperley Labour Party member, Ron Bell;
14th – Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett spoke at the GMB offices (in Mapperley) on Britain in Europe; she also answered wider questions on climate change; the meeting was convened to hear the report of Glenis Willmott MEP who has started her term of office strongly with work on reducing mobile phone charges, fireworks and medical research;
12th – House of Commons debates climate change; Joan Whalley MP cites Nottingham's work;
10th – Evening Post editorial celebrates Climate Change conference and challenges developers to build to new environmental standards;
9th – Full Council focussed on climate change, with a conference at which 158 people attended to review the resolution and reports agreed; I moved the resolution;
A covering report, with a resolution adopting a new climate change strategy was passed;
The climate change strategy was agreed;
A list of high level actions from the strategy and the response to scrutiny for explicit adoption was agreed;
My portfolio holder response to the scrutiny exercise for agreement was agreed;
A list of all the events from recent months that the Council’s been involved in and the ideas from those events, was noted, as well as feedback from a conference in the morning;
There is a new City Council “Respect for the Climate” web-site;
5th – Goose Fair opening;
3rd – visit Leicester to discuss best practice in street lighting;
2nd – Team Nottingham conference of City Council's senior managers;
Al Gore's movie on climate change, "An Inconvenient Truth", shown at the Broadway & at the Corner House for 14 days;
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