Blog to what extent your ward/SOA resembles a 'sustainable community' and what extent you don't think it does. Give some evidence from your observations (or your memories) of this judgment.

From looking at the statistics that the Office of National Statistics shows that 10,215 of the 11,038 people that live in Wolverton have good health or fairly good health, I believe that this shows that the health department of the community is working well and had sustained a high amount of peoples health at a good level. Of the 5,830 people that travel to work 3,946 of those people drive a car or van to work and 358 people are passenger on a van or car. This shows that Wolverton does not have many people that car share, from 358 people this could even mean that they receive a lift to work and not even car-share. This is very unsustainable.  Only 201 use a bus or coach to travel to work, this a very low amount compared to the 3,946 that work. This could lead to more pollution and making the environment around Wolverton unsustainable.

I couldn't really find much that was sustainable, apart from Wolverton has a lot of green spaces, which could be good for the environment and good for people who need space to take exercise, for example walking. Also Wolverton has many facilities such as schools, supermarkets, a swimming pool, opticians, health centre, dentist and a Library to name a few. According to the Defra website this counts towards being a sustainable community as it is well connected and so sustainable.  

http://www.defra.gov.uk/sustainable/government/index.htm

http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/NeighbourhoodSummary.do?a=7&c=MK12+5AT&g=410211&i=1001x1012x1013&j=301204&m=1&p=-1&q=1&r=0&s=1268856186312&enc=1&tab=1&inWales=false

What is your attitude concerning people who are not planning to vote in the general election? What concerns do you have that may influence your vote?

The vote is there for you to use but doesn't mean that you have to use it. Many people do and many people don't. Unless you vote I don't think you have the right to moan about the current political party. This is because you hadn't made the effort to find out about the political parties and so have not voted for the one you would agree with.

The main concern is how the political party will effect students. Being a student I would either like the system to stay as it is or abolish tuition fees all together.

It also concerns me that the decision is going to be hard to make between the parties as it seem that none of the main parties get good press so this confuses me. I only get my information from news papers and TV news, so depending on who they want to make look good might have a power over who I vote for.

So...what are your views? Is there really a transport problem? Do the benefits of motorized transport outweigh the costs? Are there any minor (or perhaps major) changes you personally feel could make our present transport system more sustainable?

Transport is becoming a problem, we have heavily relied on motorized transport for too long and now we don't seem to be able to cut down on the usage.  This is true for personal use and industrial (transporting goods).

For companies the benefits do outweigh the cost, lorries can be transported with goods across the world. Using lorries is much cheaper than other forms of transport such as using trains. The goods could be transported to the train station but would probably need some sort of transportation to the place the goods needed to be. As this country deals in imports and exports on a big scale there is no way to avoid transporting. 

I know of many people that use their car just for themselves and aren't involved in any car sharing schemes. I think the choice of using a car would be first for many people which isn't very green. I don't drive and compared to the majority of my friends I am the odd one out. People like convenience, for people to stop using transport, their job, children's school, shopping facilities and health centre would all have to be walking or cycling distance. This doesn't seem to be possible so many use motorized transport to get to these places . Also the safety aspect needs to be considered. Walking and cycling in the dark are not always safe which is another reason motorized transport is favored.

All transport apart from walking and cycling are unsustainable but there are some ways that the transport systems we use could be more sustainable. If public transport was made more desirable then maybe more people would use it. Buses have a bad reputation that they don't run on time and aren't clean. If the buses image was changes maybe people would be encouraged to use it and so be more sustainable than using their car. Bus stations are always dark and dirty looking places (especially at Northampton) if it was made more lighter and a nice place to wait for your bus it would be more desirable to use. 

        Also safer bike routes for cyclists. Some Redways (such as in Milton Keynes) are not very well lit and even thought you have a light on your bike it does not seem safe. Many cyclists choose to use the road which can be dangerous too, more cycle paths need to be made on the side of roads. Also education to children in schools, college and university students of the highway code so better understanding of how to use a bike safely on the roads. 

 

A useful website of bus timetables. 

http://www.traveline.org.uk/index.htm 

What do you think? Is Christmas sustainable? How would it all work in a changed world?

Christmas is not a sustainable time of the year. With all the waste of electricity, extra food cooked, waste from wrapping presents and all the wrong gifts that have been consumed that will provably be thrown away.  


Christmas is a special time of year and everyone seems to put in the extra effort to make it extra special as it only comes round once a year. I believe that we would be able to have a time of year when you don't have to think of waste and the environment if we had started to look after it earlier, but as we are slow on the uptake on how to look after the environment then I think we should still have to take into account ways to be sustainable over the christmas period. 


We could take in consideration not traveling so far in a car to see others at christmas and look into more environmentally friendly ways of doing this. Maybe travel the day before and stay a few days as traveling by public transport would be more kinder to the environment. Recycling wrapping paper would be good, also not having lights as decorations and using the same decorations each year. Another way would be to give more money instead of consuming more presents a person might not like and never use.


I think its a shame that Christmas cannot be left out of having to worry about the environment but the environment can not stop changing just because its Christmas. 


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2007/dec/12/toptipsforagreenchristmas