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June / July 2000
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Real Food Week 17 -25 June

Friends of the Earth local groups country-wide will all be taking action together in a week of campaigning on food from 17 to 25 June

Real Food Challenge

From 11am on Saturday 17th June in the Abbey Churchyard, Bath Friends of the Earth will be issuing real food challenge forms and asking supermarket users to hand them in to supermarkets that they use regularly. The challenge asks if the supermarket can provide: On display will be FoE's Supermarket League Table showing which supermarkets are providing the best real food deal.

Friends of The Earth's
Supermarket League Table

Rank Supermarket GM-free food
Provision of
GM-free meat
and dairy
score out of 4		 Pesticides
Removal of
dangerous
pesticides
score out of 4		 Organic
Promotion of
organic food
score out of 4		 Total
Score
score out
of 12
1st Waitrose
2
3
 3 8
2nd Asda
3
2
 1 6
Iceland
3
2
 1 6
4th Marks & Spencer
3
 0 2 5
5th Co-op
1
 2 1 4
Sainsbury's
2
 0 2 4
7th Safeway
2
 0 1 3
8th Morrisons
1
 0 1 2
Somerfield
1
 0 1 2
Tesco
1
 0 1 2
11th Aldi
1
 0 0 1
12th Netto
0
 0 0 0

Pesticide residues

Most fruit and vegetables are sprayed with pesticides and these dangerous chemicals often remain on food as residues. Supermarkets regularly test for residues but do not publish their findings. Supermarkets should be asking the farmers who supply them to stop using dangerous pesticides. Points in the Supermarket League Table are awarded for having policies to remove four particularly dangerous pesticides:- lindane, carbendazim, vinclozolin and aldicarb - one point for each pesticide.

Organic food

Organic food is produced using no artificial pesticides and no GM ingredients. Supermarket League Table points are awarded for the total amount of food sold. One point for some organic, another if over 3% of the total food sold is organic. A third point if over 10% is organic. (no supermarket achieves this yet). A bonus point is given for supporting new laws to promote organic farming.

GM food

All of the UK's biggest supermarkets have said they intend to make their own-brand products GM free. The Supermarket League Table awards points for efforts to remove products that come from animals fed on GM feed. One point if they have a policy on this. Another for offering some GM-free meat or dairy alternatives. A third if they have target dates to remove GM feed. A fourth if all meat and dairy products are GM-free. (no supermarket achieves this yet)

Organic Food and Farming Targets Bill

On 3rd March. the Organic Targets Bill, which would require 30% of land and 20% of food to be organic by 2010, failed to gain Parliamentary time for its Second Reading. No debate was held because preceding Bills took up all available time. The Bill could still have had a Second Reading without a debate but this was blocked by a Government spokesperson. On 5th May it it failed again to get a Second Reading due to lack of time. It comes up again for Second Reading on 21st July.

Demand for organic food is growing at 40% each year, but around 70% of organic food is imported. So UK farmers are losing out on a great opportunity to grow and sell organic food.
 
AIM FOR ORGANICTargets will spur Government action to encourage the increased organic production needed to reduce imports. The targets are realistic and achievable. They were calculated looking at the current growth in demand for organic food and and by studying the progress of other European countries such as Sweden and Denmark, which set organic targets during the 1990s.

The campaign for organic targets is growing. In Parliament 217 MP.s (including Don Foster, Bath's MP) have signed Early Day Motion 51, the Parliamentary petition that supports the Bill. The number of supporting bodies has grown to 69.

Please write (again) to Nick Brown, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and Tony Blair PM at the House of Commons, asking them to support the Bill and and asking them why the Bill was blocked at its Second Reading.

Terry

Bus Gate

A decision on the bus gate will be made by B&NES Council on 15th June. We hope that they will show firm leadership and give the trial the go-ahead.

Tony's letter, which was sent to all Councillors,on 9th May is reproduced below.

Dear Councillor

Re: Northgate Street Priority Access Point

Bath Friends of the Earth urges you to give your support to the installation of the bus gate/priority access point at the forthcoming Planning, Transport and Environment Committee meeting.

An effective campaign organised by various businesses has been waged against the bus gate. The basis of their campaign is that business may suffer as a result of more difficult access to their shops by private cars and that customers will abandon Bath for other centres such as Bristol and Cribbs Causeway. These unqualified assumptions have naturally caused alarm amongst many members of the public and may have increased the pressure on some members of the council to consider voting against the bus gate.

Friends of the Earth wishes to add these brief comments to the debate:

Whilst the anti gates argument has focussed on bus gates as the main threats to business, we would suggest that other factors are more important such as the strength of the pound, interest rates, business rates, and their overall efficiency and competitiveness. One aspect of their competitiveness is their accessibility to the public. But this is likely to improve, as the majority of shoppers do not arrive by car and they are likely to find that access has improved. Pedestrians, bus users and cyclists will benefit from a safer more pleasant environment and this is likely to attract more shoppers from surrounding commercial centres as well as proving more attractive to tourists. Moreover, businesses should find reassurance from the fact that car access to the city is not being prevented. It is only the access routes that are being changed. Their may be an initial period of "bedding in" as drivers get used to finding new routes to their destination, but the experience of other cities that have changed traffic priorities that there is no long term negative impact on business.

Whilst we understand traders' anxiety at the prospect of any change, reducing through traffic in cities has been tried and tested in towns across Britain and Europe with a high degree of success. There is no reason why Bath should be a special case and prove an exception to the general rule that well managed car restraint leads to a more pleasant city as well as ensuring commercial vibrancy. There is no real evidence that the public perceives Cribbs Causeway as a shopping alternative to Bath or that the driving public will respond to bus gates by driving even further for a journey of between 45 minutes and an hour to Cribbs Causeway. For those people who find that bus gates provide a disincentive to drive into town, Friends of the Earth believes that there is already an adequate bus system in place in the daytime to allow them to make their journey by public transport, though it is important that more publicity should be provided on bus and train routes, fares, special deals and park and ride.

Although the debate has caused much disagreement, there is a general consensus that "something must be done" about the the traffic. Whatever is done is bound to change some people's journey patterns and is therefore certain to cause some people anxiety until they establish new patterns of travel. However their anxiety must not be allowed to disrail Bath's best hope in years of markedly improving the environment of the city centre. The questions that must be asked are "will the majority benefit?" and "will anyone suffer?" Undoubtedly the majority will benefit and in the light of the Oscar Faber report it seems unlikely that anyone will suffer. However, there is a last ditch guarantee that can be offered to the traders. In the unlikely event that the bus gate proves to be unsuccessful at the end of its trial period it can be withdrawn. However, on the evidence of the Pulteney Bridge bus gate this would seem an unlikely outcome. It is hard to imagine what Pulteney Bridge was like when it was choked with traffic and none would wish those days back.

We urge you to vote for the bus gate.

Yours sincerely

Tony Ambrose

Cancer In Somerset

The campaigning organisation STOP HINKLEY EXPANSION (SHE) was set up in 1989 to fight the proposal to build a PWR Nuclear station at Hinkley Point on the coast of North Somerset.

Thankfully there now seems negligible danger of nuclear expansion in Britain, especially after the recent fiasco about the forgery of export documents by British Nuclear Fuels at Sellafield in Cumbria. So the campaign needed a new direction and after some debate has decided to drop the last word from the title and become simply STOP HINKLEY, with the initial aim of closing down the Hinkley `A' station, the old Magnox reactor built in 1965 with a design life of 25 years, now way past its sell-by date!

For many years now, surveys have proved that there is an increased risk of cancer near to nuclear facilities, such as Sellafield, Dounray, Aldermaston, La Hague and Hinkley. The last survey in Somerset was produced for the Hinkley Public Inquiry by the county's Chief Medical Office, Dr Bowie and established a clear risk. Incredibly, the establishment scientists refuse to connect these risks with increased radioactivity near to nuclear plants but fabricate an hypothetical unknown virus to be responsible!

The catastrophe in everyones' minds during the 1989 Inquiry was, of course, the explosion at Chernobyl in Russia in 1986 of a nuclear reactor, which spread radiation all across the northern hemisphere, producing hot-spots in Somerset and North Wales, where still some sheep are too radioactive to sell. The date of the explosion was 26 April and this has now become an established day for commemoration. So it was appropriate that STOP HINKLEY's latest event should be held on that day, in the town hall at Bridgewater, the nearest town to the reactors.

The speakers were Paul Dorfman from the University of the West of England, co-author of the new cancer survey; Karalina Matskevitch, who was living near Chernobyl at the time of the explosion; Humphrey Temperly of Somerset County Council, one of the prime movers of the 1989 Inquiry and Jim Duffey, the new co-ordinator for SH, who is married to Karelina.

Jim had to speak for Rachel Weston, a national campaigner for FoE, who was suddenly stricken with flu. He outlined the history of Hinkley A and the dangers it now poses; such as confessions by some of the engineers who built the station, who have admitted that some of the welding was bodged. Karalina had some horrifying tales of the attempted cover-up by the authorities in Belarus, who initially refused to admit any danger and encouraged people to remain living near the reactor. Weeks later, when people had been relocated elsewhere, they were still allowed to come back to work on the land in 4 hour shifts growing vegetables and tending cattle, which were then sold as food to the public; the only precaution being that the meat was priced very high so that people would therefore eat only a small amount at a time!!

Paul Dorfman outlined the new study of Breast Cancer Mortality in West Somerset, which showed a clear increase in areas close to Hinkley, especially in low lying areas where particles can be blown inland on sea-spray from the mud-flats. The worst affected area was the town of Burnham North, which had double the expected rate of cancer-mortality. A copy of the full study will be presented to the library of envolve in Bath.

How many more such surveys will have to be done before the authorities will admit that the current theories of how radiation causes cancer are inadequate and do not take account of the difference between natural background radiation and man-made substances which did not exist before nuclear fission was initiated in 1943.

Richard Carder

Coincidentally, this month, the Environment Agency (EA) is holding Public Consultations on BNFL's bid to take over the operation of the eight Magnox Electric power stations in the UK. The EA has to decide whether BNFL should be granted authorisation to dispose of radioactive waste, and, if so, what limits to set. Consultation surgeries & public meetings at the power stations are being held and a summary of the issues is available. Consultation ends on 31 August. For more info:-

Phone: 0845 601 2428. Email bnfl.magnox@environment-agency.gov.uk

Website www.environment-agency.gov.uk/consultations

Incinerator plans to be recycled?

While the threat of an incinerator at Keynsham has receded for the time being it may well raise its ugly head again in the future.

The Government's new Waste Strategy (which is meant to guide waste management in this country for the next 20 years) was announced in May. Environment Minister Michael Meacher was very keen to show that Labour still considered green issues should be high on the agenda. Here is a quote from the beginning of the press release sent out by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) setting out their aspirations:

"Tough statutory targets for recycling; developing new markets for recycled waste; turning public sector purchasing green; giving more producers responsibility for recycling of used products; and enlisting householders in the drive to recycle and compost more waste."

All this, of course, should be welcomed but, unfortunately, they then assert that some incinerators will need to be built.

And the new Waste Strategy, which may at first appear to be very pro sustainable and non-polluting waste management contains within its small print a loop-hole which will enable Local Authorities to boost their recycling targets by increasing the amount of waste they incinerate.

Local Authorities are being encouraged by the government to submit the figures for the tonnages used of the by-product of incineration - dioxin containing bottom ash - in their recycling totals instead of in their recovery totals (which include energy from waste).

This creative accounting means that Councils with incinerators but low kerbside collection totals could still be able to meet their new higher statutory recycling targets.

However the Government and many local authorities appear to be oblivious of the danger from this byproduct.

Bottom ash has already been used by some Local Authorities on pathways and a few weeks ago residents in Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne were warned that vegetables grown on their allotments were contaminated due to this poisoned ash being used on their pathways.

B&NES Conservative and Labour Councillors are all currently in favour of keeping the incinerator option open for B&NES waste.

Hopefully, the Conservative Councillors will be reviewing their position following the Conservative Environment Spokesman, Damian Green's recent statement that

"We will introduce a moratorium on new incinerators until independent British scientific evidence proves they are safe"

If your local councillor is a conservative ask him/her to support the local Liberal Democrats who are against the provision of a `Waste to Energy' incineration plant anywhere in the B&NES Area.

Andy Nelmes, Local Industry and Pollution Campaigner. 

Newspaper & Magazine Recycling Bill

The Recycled Content of Newsprint Bill (also known as the Newspaper and Magazine Recycling Bill) made its way through to the Committee Stage.

However, the evening before the Committee Stage was due to commence, the Government and the newspaper industry reached a voluntary agreement that newspapers should increase their recycled content to 70% by 2006.

Further legislative progress to produce regulations to ensure these targets are met is now unlikely. The voluntary agreement will need a watchful eye.

Terry

Anti-Globalisation

The UK Government and the European Commission are once again pushing extremely hard for a new Round, in which they hope to include all those issues rejected by developing country governments and environmental activists last December.

As planned negotiations on agriculture, services and intellectual property rights get underway in Geneva, UK and European officials need to know that their critics are not only following their every move, but working together to identify ways in which a new fair and sustainable approach to trade might be brought about. To do this please write letters outlining the points below to one or all of the following:

M Pascal Lamy, Trade Commissioner, Trade Directorate -General, European Commission, 200 rue de la Loi/Wetstraat 200. B-1049 Brussels, Belgium

Stephen Byers, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Department of Trade and Industry. 1 Victoria St, London SW1H OET

Michael Meacher MP, Environment Minister, DETR, Ashdown House, 123 Victoria Street, London SW1E 6DE

Dr Caroline Jackson MEP, Euro Office, 14 Bath Road, Swindon SN1 4BA

In your letter make clear:

  1. You support the views expressed in the Boston Statement on `WTO; Shrink or Sink! The Turn Around Agenda' (www.tradewatch.org), which has so far been signed by 319 different organisations from 50 different countries around the world. In order to develop a fair and sustainable economy a key first step is to roll back the power and authority of the WTO, by removing certain social values and basic needs from its remit (such as health, education and access to food and water); and by dismantling some of its most damaging agreements - particularly on investment (Trade Related Investment Measures, or the TRIMS Agreement) and intellectual property rights (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or the TRIPS Agreement).
  2. You are aware that the EU is still calling for a new round, but you oppose the introduction of new issues such as investment, competition and government procurement, on the basis that they are expected to have serious negative impacts on environment and development, particularly in developing countries.
  3. There are already several complex and extremely controversial issues on the table - including negotiations and discussions on agriculture and service sectors such as energy, water, public health and education. These negotiations alone are likely to take many years.
  4. You are not happy about the current proposal to extend the mandate of the European Commission enabling it to negotiate on behalf of EU member states on investment, services and intellectual property as well as goods. When put to the test in Seattle, the EC came down firmly on the side of clinching a deal to get a new round (by giving in to US demands for a WTO biotechnology working group), in spite of the furious opposition of European ministers.
Terry

Southgate Update

Plans for the redevelopment of the Southgate Shopping Centre have hit more snags. Last year, the developer had to make some major changes after signs of important archaeology were found under the site. Bath FoE have made a number of criticisms about the plans as they have evolved over the past three years. Now, the developers have run into further trouble.

The developers were proposing to demolish a small section of the old, unused vaults which are part of the railway station, to make way for a new,enlarged bus station. Bath FoE thought this was quite a reasonable thing to do. But English Heritage did not agree.

The developers hadn't been back at the drawing board long when Kingsmead Motors put in a planning application for a multi-screen cinema on the site of their car showrooms on James Street West (near Kingsmead Square). The Southgate developers threw up their hands in horror. They've always argued that the inclusion of a multi-screen cinema in the new Southgate redevelopment was essential to its success. But the Council said they did not agree, and gave the go ahead to Kingsmead Motors' cinema. Even so, the Council have re-affirmed their commitment to the redevelopment of Southgate.

The redevelopment plans were expected to be put before Councillors for consideration in June. But that's off now, while the developers decide how to deal with the blows they've been dealt. So, it'll be September at the earliest before it can be considered now. Just think - in March 1999 when the plans were last put before Councillors, the developers were saying that all the significant issues had been sorted out. They were pressing the Councillors to make a decision within three months! It just goes to show that big schemes take a long time.

David Beasley

B&NES Local Plan

Bath FoE and ENVOLVE have responded jointly with comments on the B&NES sustainable development appraisal of the Local Plan Issue Report. Contact me if you would like a copy.

Terry

Conference 2000

This years Local Groups conference will be held at Aston University, Birmingham from 8-10 September. Put the date in your diary and come along to the next local group meeting on 22 June to discuss who should attend. Reservations close on 14 August.

Terry

Warm Homes

On 9th June the Warm Homes Bill was in the process of being talked out at its Report Stage by two maverick Conservative MPs - Eric Forth and David Maclean - when the Bill's sponsor, Conservative MP David Ames, invoked a parliamentary procedure which enabled the Bill to be deferred to a new date. The Bill's report Stage will now be taken on 3rd July.

Don Foster, Bath's MP, has confirmed his support for the Bill and has been working with the FoE "Turn Up and Shut up" campaign in order to maximise the number of MPs who turn up to vote.

Terry

Bath FoE on the Web

Bath FoE now has its very own website: www.bath-foe.org.uk At the moment the site is very simple: it is aimed at people who know nothing about Bath FoE at all, and want an introduction.

This is just the beginning, and we plan to add a lot more to the site, including newsletters, information about events, and links to other useful/relevant websites.

If you've got any suggestions or ideas about what should go on our website, do get in touch.

David Beasley david.beasley@iee.org

Action Summary

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This page last updated: 8-October-2000