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Making stations safer and more secure
COUNTRY Living
Magazine has joined forces with Business in the Community (BITC),
Britain’s leading organisation to promote responsible business
practice, to launch the Country Living, Country Working campaign.
Both organisations will be working with the UK’s biggest companies
to reduce ‘work miles’, the futile distance travelled and wasted
time spent in the daily commute between home and work. Today 1.7
million more people live in the countryside than 20 years ago. 4
times as many people move from town to country as from north to
south. But many still work in towns and cities.
Outside of London, more than 7 out of 10 of us drive to work. Our
commuting times are the longest in Europe. The average worker in the
UK commutes 2,906 miles a year by car. Commuting passenger miles in
the UK account for 78.5 billion miles of car travel a year.
The website at:- www.workmiles.co.uk and October’s issue of Country
Living explain the campaign more fully and a fact sheet outlines
some practical proposals for individuals, employers and councils to
adopt.
One of the nation’s largest employers, BT,has been a pioneer of
flexible and home working, encouraging its staff to adopt customised
working weeks, cut down on travel and reduce stress or, as BT’s
director of people networks, Caroline Waters, puts it, to see work
as “something you do, not somewhere you go.” About
10,000 BT staff, managers, secretaries, sales and clerical staff ,
work from home. The company is happy with the results: greater
productivity, less time off through ill-health, savings on office
costs and an environmental payback. Waters says:- “Flexible
policies for BT staff have meant a saving of 12 million litres of
car fuel – the equivalent of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by
54,000 tonnes a year.”
The Government wants more out-of-town house-building. In the
south-east outside London, nearly 500,000 new homes need to be built
by 2021 and strategic planners admit that they are very concerned
about the un-sustainability of long commutes.
Charlotte Proudlove and Sue Sheard from Somerford, Cheshire,
renovated a quadrangle of derelict barns into handsome and
profitable rented office space. Businesses have re-located here from
Manchester, Stafford and Stoke-on-Trent to take advantage of
Somerford’s good links and high quality work space.
Lisa Sykes, Country Living’s features editor, says:- “From
such ideas, you can glimpse the social transformation that could
emerge from our need to cut work miles: for the environment, for
business and, best of all, for personal health and
happiness.”
Business in the Community Rural Action Director, Graham Russell,
said:- “Work-miles is an escalating problem and the pressure
on commuting routes increases, we need to look at new alternatives
and solutions to deliver benefits for businesses and
employees.”
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CASH BOOST TO HELP MORE DYSLEXIC SUFFERERS
LIVERPOOL based
charity; Adult Dyslexia Access (ADA) is celebrating a major funding
boost from leading grant-making trust, the Lloyds TSB Foundation for
England and Wales. The grant of £10,000 will help cover the salary
of a Dyslexia Community Worker for 1 year.
People with dyslexia can often find themselves excluded from the
communities that they live in due to poor literacy skills and
face many barriers when it comes to education and employment. To
encourage equality learning and employment for adults with dyslexia
ADA was established and works to provide support, advice and
guidance to sufferers and their families across Merseyside.
To help tack the serve lack of information and guidance being
readily available for adults with dyslexia, ADA community workers
look to provide a grass-roots service that reaches sufferers in a
supportive and informative way.
The new grass-roots worker funded by the recent grant will operate
throughout the Bootle area to provide residents with dyslexia
information and advice as well as access to grants in order to help
them engage with education, employment and community life. Steven
O’Brien, Chief Executive of Dyslexia Centre, commented:-
“Through our work we look to open up a whole new world to people
with dyslexia and enable them to make a difference to their future.
This generous
grant from the Foundation will
ensure that we are able to extend our services to the Bootle
community which we have identified to have a high concentration of
dyslexia adults.”
David Kay, North West Manager, Lloyds TSB Foundation said:-
“Social cohesion is a priority area for the Foundation in the North
West and we awarded this grant as this project will work to offer
adults with dyslexia the opportunity to reach their full potential
through completing their education and improving their
employability.”
In 2005 the independent Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales
has £22.5 million to distribute to registered charities throughout
the UK, including over £2.7 million for charities in the North West.
BE
HEARD...SHOUT!
YOUNG people are
being urged to log on and shout out their views on Liverpool's
culture. To make sure that youngsters are not left behind in the
planning of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture year in 2008, a
special survey, called Be Heard, is being conducted to get their
views on how they want to contribute.
It has been set up as part of the Liverpool Culture Company's newly
redesigned website, the survey asks where young people want to take
part in cultural activities, how they would like to be told about
them and whether they want to be involved in the planning of
exciting events in the run up to 2008. The questionnaire was
designed by children from the Young Culture Action Group (YCAG) who
were set up to represent under 18s in the city.
Imani Thompson, 12, is one of the committee members. Imani said:-
"I don't want to be ignored when everyone is organising all these
things for 2008, so we've got together to make our voices heard. Now
we're asking all our friends around the city to join in because
everyone should have an opinion when it will affect them so much in
2008."
If young people want to let the Liverpool Culture Company know what
they think they should log on to www.liverpool08.com and click on
the Be Heard box on the front page.
Liverpool City Council's executive member for culture, Councillor
Warren Bradley, said:- "It's an outdated concept that young
people have no views until they turn 18, or that children should be
seen and not heard. We are warmly welcoming new ideas and I'm
looking forward to finding out what the young people of Liverpool
want for themselves and the city."
Young people are available for interview about the questionnaire and
the concept of young democracy.
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