West Hertfordshire Liberal Democrats

The internationally important beech woods in Ashridge have been placed on a critical risk warning following a report. Wildlife, plants and trees are all suffering.

The woods are a popular place for dog walkers and people wanting to get out of the town for a healthy walk in the countryside. However the report implies they are now too popular. This together with climate change affecting the fauna and flora are suffering as a consequence.

WHAT GAME HAVE THE RUSSIANS BEEN PLAYING WITH UK POLITICS ?
(Hint: it wasn't football)

We call for a Public Enquiry into Russian Interference in British Politics!

Don't be afraid to be seen as being critical of Russia.

Please sign this petition if you haven't yet done so.

Or is it that you're afraid to find out what it is they might have been up to?

In the light of proposals to expand Luton Airport, Hertfordshire County Council, after discussions and debate, unanimously agreed an appropriate motion to limit CO2 emissions originally proposed by Liberal Democrat Cllr John Hale, and seconded by his colleague, Cllr Steve Jarvis.

The motion read as follows:-

"That the Council notes that:-

1. On 24 September, 2019, the Chair of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), Lord Deben, wrote to the Secretaryof State for Transport about net-zero and the approach to International Aviation & Shipping (IAS) emissions. The letter responded to the Government's request on how to bring IAS emissions formally within the UK's net-zero target, setting out the rationale and the implications for the UK's climate strategy.
2. In that letter the CCC stated that, "Aviation emissions could be reduced by around 20% from today to 2050 through improvement to fuel efficiency, some use of sustainable biofuels, and by limiting demand growth to at most 25% above current levels. This is likely to be cost-saving. There is potential to reduce emissions further with lower levels of demand."
3. That the Council has already expressed its serious concernsabout the environmental impacts of the proposed expansion of London Luton Airport from 18 million passengers per year (mppa) to 32 mppa.
4. As per Appendix E paragraph 5.3 of the Executive Report to the County Council, a full draft response to the proposal to expand London Luton Airportwill be considered by theGrowth, Infrastructure, Planning and Economy Cabinet on 4th December.

Given the CCC's call for demand growth to be limited to at most 25% above current levels it is proposed that in responding to the current consultation for the expansion of London Luton Airport, that the Council:-

5. Objects to the proposed expansion plans on that the grounds that expansion of London Luton Airport capacity to 32 mppa would result in unacceptable harm to the environment; and
6. That given the letter from the CCC, any plans to expand the airport should be deferred until the Government's response to the CCC's letter is published."

During the debate, Cllr Nick Hollinghurst, former County Councillor for Tring, pointed out that no-one was asking for the public to give up certain activities forever, but although he might fly again one day, he had made a conscious effort to avoid flying and it was now 19 years since he had been in a plane. "Call it a gesture if you like," he said, "but if everyone made just one or two similar 'gestures' to reduce CO2 emission we will get through our climate problems."

"But," he concluded, "we must all take the Climate Emergency seriously!"

"The Child is Father to the Man", expressed by Wordsworth in 1802 must have been a commonplace thought even earlier than that, despite "breeding" having long been almost universally held as the dominant factor in the development of young people and in fixing patterns of behaviour throughout their subsequent years. But Wordsworth certainly popularised this thought, which speaks so uccinctly to the importance of early experience in setting trends for adolescent and post-adolescent development and behaviour.

it is difficult, controversial and posssibly futile to prescribe an optimal development path for every child's journey from child to adulthood, but it is somewhat easier to recognise negative treatments, adverse circumstances and cognitive or psychological disadvantages that can hinder their social, emotional or intellectual development.

However, there are lots of situations where society can recognise problems that, through timely diagnosis, treatment, counselling and advice, can be mitigated. Poor emotional wellbeing and mental health in children, for example, can often be improved by timely intervention. Distressed and bewildered young persons and their families can benefit from sympathetic explanations, diagnoses and coping strategies. Even more importantly, they can often be helped to recognise talents and benefits sometimes hidden within the person's personality by superficial behavioural and motivational difficulties.

Early interventions like this can usually reduce much distress, frustration, unhappiness and the sheer misery which can so often blight a young person's family and damage their own personal future.

As former or present county councillors many of us feel that the kindest way we can describe Hertfordshire's perfomance in caring for children and young people is that it has spent many decades in barely producing an average performance within a country notorious for its lack of interest in, and provision of specialist help for, cognitive and mental health problems in the young.

With this in mind, in early 2020, the Herts County Councillors Ron Tindall and Nigel Quinton proposed and seconded a motion to Hertfordshire County Council commenting on the early responses to an improvement plan and committing the authority to further improvement to its own service delivery and to working through the Local Government Association to raise the government's awareness of the importance emotional wellbeing and mental health services for children and young people.

This motion, which was carried, read as follows:

" 1. This Council notes:

(i) The CAMHS Provision Update report was considered by the Children, Young People & families Cabinet Panel on 12th November, 2019;
(ii) That the CAMHS Transformation Plan programme has been in place since 2015 and in some performance areas has had difficulty in meeting its targets;
(iii) That in 2018/19, CAMHS Specialist Services accepted only 4147 out of 9365 referrals and the current wait for assessment is 7 weeks compared to a target of 4 weeks. Ratios for other children's mental health services, Step 2 and PALMS, were equally challenged. In 2017/18 and 2018/19, Hertfordshire met the NHS targets for access to all NHS funded provision, 30% and 32% respectively;
(iv) That NHS targets remain low so that only 34% of children who would benefit from help will get access, and that Hertfordshire will meet this, but will not exceed it. The NHS Long Term Plan sets out to provide support to 100% of those who need it:
(v) That schools are increasingly concerned about the strain that the poor mental health of students is plcing on their resources;
(vi) That the delivery of emotional wellbeing and mental health services for children and young people in Hertdfirdshire is undertaken by several NHS bodies, the County Council itself and third sector providers; and
(vii) That the emotional wellbeing and mental health services follows a Thrive Model, looking across the whole system from Early intervention and prevention to the top tier of CAMHS sevice bprovided by the Herts Partnership Foundation Trust (HPFT).

2. This Council is concerned that children and young people with mental health needs are currently having to wait many weeks for treatment and, in many cases, often not receiving any treatment at all.

3. Therefore this Council
(i) Calls for the Health Scrutiny Committee to include in its Work Programme an examination of how mental health services are commissioned and organised. This scrutiny could include consideration of approaches used by other council and NHS clinical commissioning group areas, for example the Lambeth Living Well collaborative and the cornwall Children's Services' HeadStart Kernow Partnership;
(ii) Acknowledges that Hertfordshire schools are under increasing financial and workload pressures and calls for greater NHS support to schools in respect of CAMHS;
(iii) Recognises that the challenges of addressing children's, young people's and family emotional wellbeing and mental health services, including Early Intervention and prevention, requires appropriate resourcing; and
(iv) Will continue to work with the Local Government Association to ensure that the importance of the wellbeing of children and young people is recognised by the incoming government."

Background
1. 10% of children and young people (aged 5-16 years) have a clinically diagnosable mental problem (ONS 2004)
2. 20% of adolescents may experience a mental health problem in any given year. (WHO 2015)
3. 50% of mental health problems are established by age 14 (USA research, 2005)
4. 75% of mental health problems are established by age 24 (USA research, 2005)
5. 70% of children and adolescents who experience mental health problems have not had appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age (Children's Soc., 2008)

This is Guidance that Defra issue to Landowners regarding Public Rights of Way across their Land. This is part of what they should and should not do to keep Public Rights of Way across their land unobstructed and easily usable.

Keep Public Rights of Way clear of obstructions

As the owner or occupier of land with a public right of way across it, you must

Liberal Democrats and Labour have always valued public education to a greater degree than Conservatives, if only because the generally more wealthy Conservative mostly have access to an alternative system.

This system has greater resources per pupil, ready access to the professions and is over-represented in the intake to our better and more prestigious universities. Whilst not necessarily equiping the young people with the modern knowledge or with the practical or professional skills that the country needs to weather the present difficulties, it is rather more successful in endowing what it blatantly regards as the next generation of the ruling class, with immense confidence untroubled by conscience or sound judgement, and a strong sense of entitlement.

Thus it has been and thus they strive to ensure it will continue to be. Just look at the present cabinet!

And so when the remarkable spectacle of a protest by 7,000 headteachers arose in March 2019, two Liberal Democrat County Councillors made a public demonstration of their party's support.

Wishing everyone as good a Christmas as present circumstances permit!

And a happy New Year!