THIS government, and our local authority, are always banging on about being green, environmentally friendly and trying to get us out of our cars and on to public transport.>

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How green is my council?

THIS government, and our local authority, are always banging on about being green, environmentally friendly and trying to get us out of our cars and on to public transport.

Well that's the biggest laugh I've had in a long time.

Apparently What Car? magazine asked an independent company to examine 84 petrol cars and discovered that Tiny Blur's choice of family car has been named as the worst polluter out of all the vehicles examined.

Apparently, The Blurs ditched a super-clean, gas powered, people-carrying vehicle in favour of a 3.3-litre V6 something or other.

That's typical. There's one rule for the peasants and another for those who dish-out the orders.

I also believe that it is a load of nonsense to blame the huge increase in the number of children suffering from asthma on pollution caused by motorists. I blame it on central heating and all these weedy kids living in homes that are constantly being disinfected and barraged with antibacterial washes, scrubs and sprays.

Well, I have a car which can be driven on unleaded fuel, but I will happily admit to putting leaded in it because, if car pollution causes global warming, then I can't wait for Britain to have the sort of guaranteed weather that Spain has. I love the greenhouse effect.

And apart from that, when I was given a spanking new company car in the Eighties when unleaded first came into my life, a mechanic told me to fill it with leaded every fourth fill-up because green engines go out of tune more often than unleaded ones. I don't know if that's true but I've stuck to leaded ever since.

Well, my next challenge is to find out what sort of cars our own councillors drive, and I'm willing to bet there's a few old bangers and gas guzzlers among those very people encouraging, or forcing, us to get on the buses. (Of course, if you live in a village, or want to travel after a certain hour, or on a Sunday, you may have difficulty getting on a bus)

Come on councillors, come clean if you're not green.

House about this?

OVER the last few months I have been ranting on about the plan to build thousands of homes in the Wycombe district.

Although some of the controversial green sites have been saved from development, space for homes still has to be found because the council claims the need for new homes exists due to the large numbers of single people needing places to live.

I have always said that if the council does grant planning permission, developers seem to build these huge, horrible mock Tudor properties in the £120,000 price range. Very affordable for single people.

I can illustrate my point by the fact that some lovely new luxury flats have appeared on the London Road in High Wycombe. Much to my disappointment they are on the market for around £90,000, which I can assure those who grant planning permission is well out of reach of the majority of single people.

I would like the council to tell us exactly how much it believes the average single person earns.

I certainly don't blame the developers for getting as much cash as they can when they buy and build on a plot, but come on councillors, move into the real world.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.