Three Green candidates to stand.

Green councillors would adopt an agenda to reflect their concern for the quality of the environment; the needs of local people for useful and suitable work and a better quality of life; with an emphasis on protection of the poor; on education that fits them for life; and an economy that is rooted in local enterprises, offering chances for everyone.

To this end they would support policies to:

• Encourage the development of local trades and industries; promote the formation of cooperatives; extend apprenticeship schemes , and therefore create opportunities for further employment in the area, whilst supporting the unemployed through the benefits and credits system(cont)

An exhibition for the proposals for a wind-energy project at Darrington Quarries was attended by Brian E., Miriam H. and Rennie S.

"The Council's Local Development Framework (LDF) is now open for final consultation, and an analysis shows just how much (we would say "too much") of it is devoted to housing allocations.

Among many of the proposals is one to build over 160 houses in Thornes Park, Wakefield, on the enclosed site of Wakefield College, Thornes Park Campus. This would provide an enclave in the middle of the Park, which would remove leisure and amenity facilities, and provide a legacy of demand to keep taking more green space from the Park in order to sustain those housing needs.

The effects on trees,plants, animal and bird life, and the atmosphere, can only be guessed at, but they will not be beneficial. There are many reasons to object to this development, and Wakefield Green Party have submitted one such, to express concern about such proposals.

We have only until 29th September 2010 to bring about a re-designation from "housing development" to "culture and leisure use" so every objection will assist us. The text of the objection is as follows:(cont)

The main focus of the regeneration of Pontefract envisaged in the local development framework is the old Prince of Wales colliery site, the north, and east of the town. The town's future is conceived, mainly on the basis of its position on the road network, as being in new housing, commercial offices, light industry, warehousing, wholesale and distribution.

In addition to the plans for a mix of new housing and offices in the special policy area opposite the racecourse, more land has been earmarked for new housing on the other side of the railway, between Knottingley Road and Ferrybridge Road, and east of Cobblers Lane. All that is greenfield, and the Monkhill triangle site (HS N1F) is Green Belt.

Elsewhere, the car park to the east of Jubilee Way, and the car park by Baghill station have been proposed as possible suitable sites for re-development + new housing, as have the area between Horsefair and Northgate down from the bus station, the Stringers garage site, and the part of the site of Pontefract General Infirmary south of Friarwood Lane.(cont)

It is time to organise a broad movement of active resistance to the Con-Dem government's budget intentions. They plan the most savage spending cuts since the 1930s, which will wreck the lives of millions by devastating our jobs, pay, pensions, NHS, education, transport, postal and other services.

The government claims the cuts are unavoidable because the welfare state has been too generous. This is nonsense. Ordinary people are being forced to pay for the bankers' profligacy.

The £11bn welfare cuts, rise in VAT to 20%, and 25% reductions across government departments target the most vulnerable - disabled people, single parents, those on housing benefit, black and other ethnic minority communities, students, migrant workers, LGBT people and pensioners.

Women are expected to bear 75% of the burden. The poorest will be hit six times harder than the richest. Internal Treasury documents estimate 1.3 million job losses in public and private sectors.(cont)

Looking at the scale of the back of an envelope public sector job cuts package the ConDems are putting forward, and their similarly half-baked ideologically driven proposals for a graduate tax, parents in more comfortable districts than ours, even if they're not contemplating leaving the country themselves yet, must be wondering if the best advice they can give their children is to get out of Britain and get an education and a life somewhere else in the world.

Add in historical disadvantages - a recent Work Foundation report found Wakefield district has one of the lowest percentages of people (18 per cent) with university degrees in the land - and realistically things are not going to get better round here anytime soon even if the overall picture improves slightly. Whilst it is possible capitalism may evince a sudden renewed interest in places like Pontefract, we would be unwise to hold our breath waiting for it to do so.

Some of us are still going to be here, however, and what with the public sector being deliberately dismantled, and the private sector unable to take its place, the intellectual and practical task of imagining and making a better world is up to us.(cont)