By Cllr Sheena Matthews
Usually, a sunny day is cause for feeling good and seeing most people smile. But the onset of a drought is altogether different.
On a recent guided tour around Highwood’s ancient woodland and reclaimed heathland councillors from Earley Town Council (ETC), Woodley Town Council (WTC) and Wokingham Borough Council (WBC) witnessed trees shedding their leaves early, Bulmershe pond was dry and Southlake level was so low the swans were walking on the bottom.
The countryside ranger told us the insect population was very much reduced, which has worrying repercussions.
Earley Town Council’s Green Fair returned on Saturday, August 6, after a necessary break during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A sunny day was welcome and lots of visitors who reported on social media how glad they were to see the fair back.
Of course, a strong underlying theme of the Fair was the threat to our climate.
ETC Councillors, for the first time, had their own stand at the Green Fair to promote the Council’s climate emergency plan and our Green infrastructure plan.
And the ETC officials promoted the work on their ‘26 for Cop 26’ initiative. Reading Friends of the Earth (FoE) were pressing for better home insulation as an immediate priority.
Local awareness of the climate threat, for example by the University of Reading’s ‘climate stripes’, now features on Reading FC’s away football strip.
An official drought was announced on Friday, August 12.
The climate emergency is predicted to bring more frequent and severe weather.
Tackling it demands a long-term plan, investment in sustainable infrastructure for both energy and water supply and changes to housing and related developments.
UN Special rapporteur on extreme poverty Philip Alston said “ideological” cuts to public services since 2010 have led to “tragic consequences”.
“Statistics alone cannot capture the full picture of poverty in the United Kingdom, much of it the direct result of government policies, it is obvious to anyone who opens their eyes.
There has been a shocking increase in the number of food banks and major increases in homelessness and rough sleeping.” This wasn’t written this week but in 2018.
The “tragic consequences” are all too real for far too many, including in an area as wealthy as Wokingham Borough.
The cost of living crisis is predicted to spiral out of control for many before the autumn and well into the winter.
Climate change and cost of living emergency isn’t an ‘either / or’ challenge for government. It has to be both. It has to be soon.
The government has delayed sustainable investment and genuine levelling up for far too long.
Many are now facing a terrifying prospect worse than the choice between ‘heating or eating’ of how to survive not being able to afford either while costs of food and fuel continue to spiral.
This is a social and mental health crisis in the making.
We must make our voices heard – if not us who; if not now when?
On Monday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer proposed that energy bills be frozen at the current price cap level, an extra and backdated windfall tax on excess oil and gas company profits and further measures for the medium and long term, such as home insulation, to bring heating costs down.
In the meantime, amid a leadership vacuum, while others are distracted by a party leader election in which neither candidate appears to have a clue about how to fix either the climate or cost of living emergency, I offer the following thoughts in a poem by Roger McGough.
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I’m the leader
OK what shall we do?
Cllr Sheena Matthews is the Labour ward member for Whitegates at Earley Town Council
