BIG NEWS: I’m now the Chair for the Warsash Residents’ Association

November 21, 2014 — Leave a comment

I’m extremely pleased to announce that I am the new Chair of the Warsash Residents’ Association. I’d like to start by thanking the members of the association for making me feel so welcome and the members of the committee for giving me the opportunity to help out in my home community. I feel it is also important to thank the former chair, Chris Bridges, for all his hard work as Chair for the last year.

I’m very happy to be in a position where I can give back to the community I’ve grown up in. Warsash is my home – it’s where my heart lies. I hope to raise the profile of the Residents’ Association and engage the whole of the Warsash community into what is happening in our local area, to keep everyone in the know and not just a few.

Not only am I the youngest Chairperson in the Association’s 82 year history, but at 19 years old I may very well be the youngest chairperson in the entire country!

I’m getting very hopeful for the future.

Thanks for reading,

Miles

Parking Restrictions Eased in Lower Spinney

November 8, 2014 — Leave a comment

I’d like to commend the residents of Lower Spinney who petitioned the council to ease counter-productive parking restrictions along one side of their road. Local people worked very hard to agree to a petition with councillors and I am very glad that they called on me to help their cause.

Because of the hard work of local people and their co-operation with myself, we managed to help ease the headache across Warsash that is Yellow Lines. I’d like to thank the residents who invited to come help them by making a deputation at the Council on the 6th of November.

Here is my speech in full:

“Yellow Lines have been used by the council as a short term solution to tackle a long term problem. Yellow lines in Warsash are just being used to kettle students away because of the failure of the Maritime Academy to provide adequate parking, there has clearly been a failure to work with them in resolving this situation. This has subsequently created a dangerous situation for children to walk to Hook.

Earlier in the year, I spoke to residents in Queens Road who said that until recently they hadn’t had to worry about their kids crossing the roads, but because of the dangerously parked cars moved their by those yellow lines – they’re worried sick and they’re organising safety groups that they didn’t think they’d ever have to organise.

Parking permits are a much more reasonable solution as a whole across Warsash in certain zones.

The consultation to this has been lazy and has been used as a show off around election times. This “Democratic” consultation has been an utter sham and is an insult to the electorate who earlier this year placed their trust in you once more to represent them.”

After other residents made their cases for and against the measure to ease the restrictions (3, including myself, for the motion and one against) – the yellow line is to be removed.

Thanks for reading.

Miles

Fareham needs an alternative

October 22, 2014 — Leave a comment

As the Welborne hearings continue, it is becoming more and more clearer that it is completely undemocratic. As our own Prime Minister, David Cameron, said “it is up to the people of Fareham to decide” – seems to be I’ve never been asked if I wanted it! It also appears to me that the people of Funtley and the surrounding communities have never really been consulted properly.

This time last week, I attended a demonstration organised by Jason Mudge – who is a local hero as far as I am concerned. For the first time I (or my family who’ve lived in the borough for nearly 60 years) can recall, there has never been such fierce public opposition to anything directly affecting our town.

Some of our councillors seem to be adamant in building Welborne, they say that it isn’t in their hands and that there is “nothing we can do” – but the last time I checked, we live in a democracy don’t we? Not some absolutist totalitarian regime that is hell bent on clogging up our roads, packing up our schools, our surgeries and destroying vital farmland. Fareham was named the most car dependent town in the entire UK, and the M27 was labelled as “the worst for traffic incidents” – what good will this monstrosity serve if we just keel over and allow these people, who are supposed to represent us, to go ahead with this?

Already we have heard of councillors in the North Fareham ward breaking their silence and saying that they are opposed to this development, and they have my respect for that – they had been effectively gagged up until this point and it’s a brave thing to do, but in my opinion – if David Harrison had been elected in May he wouldn’t have been dormant and actually spoke out about this as early as he could.

Fareham needs an alternative, this universally complacent attitude has been going on too long, the people of our town need a brighter, Greener alternative that when chosen by the people will work for them tirelessly.

It is time we stand up for our town and take the “Green Plunge”.

Thank you for reading,

Miles

September Viewpoints

September 21, 2014 — Leave a comment

Well this week has been rather hectic, I think my highlight must have been when I was sat in World Development and my teacher asked me what my thoughts on Scottish Independence were and the whole class froze to listen – that was nice! However much has happened locally that needs to be talked about.

On Wednesday I attended another Warsash Residents’ Association meeting. One thing I feel I must point out is that when Cllr Keith Evans gave his report he spoke about “the top five foreign languages spoken in Hampshire” – I felt rather uncomfortable, because that part of the report just seemed pointless for a WRA meeting and just seemed to be some kind of rhetoric, I don’t know – it was just seem to just be placed there… I reckon it’s to “woo over” potential “kippers”. At the end of the meeting we were given a very interesting talk about “dowsing” (I’ll be frank, I never even heard of it till that day).

At the meeting the current Chair, Chris Bridges announced he will be stepping down in November – I wonder who will replace him?

On Thursday was the day of the Scottish Independence referendum and I had at least 30 people come up to me and ask me my views, it was rather nice of people to ask me. However there were reports of flash flooding in Fareham, and the one alarm bell that rang in my head and I instantly worried about the potential devastation that Welborne will have. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if you build 6000+ homes you’re taking away potential areas of land that will absorb the rain water. The weakest drizzle could end up having the most devastating of impacts and just think about how much more that could cost local authorities, especially Fareham, in flood defence expenditure!

At my college we have had a fantastic response to our new strategy for this year. So far many people have taken a keen interest in our new committee structure and I’m very grateful for Gregory Smith (the current chair) for his support in setting this up. Our members seem much greater than they ever were last year, we better make sure we don’t let them down by getting lazy and complacent, our work is certainly cut out for us this year – it is indeed a challenge that we shall win. We are getting ever closer to joining the NUS. As my previous blog post about my visit to South Downs suggest – they have been hugely influential for how this year has begun.

And finally the local party earlier on this month began their selection process for candidates for the general election, I’m not saying anything but the thought of standing for Fareham is something that I have pondered since the last election when someone put it forward as an idea!

Thank you for reading.

Miles

Go Green folks, every time.

Autumn Conference 2014

September 11, 2014 — Leave a comment

Well I came back Sunday, so I feel this to be a bit late. I’ve spent last weekend up in Birmingham for the Green Party’s Autumn Conference, it was held at Aston University – the hotel was lovely and so were the staff there, a truly welcoming atmosphere. I met some lovely people as well and got some very important business done!

This was “my spot” at the conference, right at the back in the middle.

Others from South East Hampshire joined me up there, which was quite nice! When I arrived on Friday I sat through one of the best speeches I have ever heard, from Natalie Bennett – an absolutely fantastic speech was given, I could tell I was right in choosing the Green Party to support. We then followed a rather unnecessarily heated plenary about the Standing Order’s report, however it did pass.

In the evening I spent some time in the bar chatting to a few friends of mine from other parties, got chatting to a few Young Greens – it was very nice! Then the welcoming event by the World Animal Protection group, of which Natalie was there so I kinda had to take…

a selfie!

So then the next day, as I was having my breakfast – Natalie then joined me for breakfast, we had a lovely chat about all the things I was doing and what was going on in general, it was rather nice and it was a truly humble experience. I did have to kind of call my mum and let her know what had just happened, her reply? “NO way! That’s so cool!”. Amazing.

Caroline Lucas about to give a speech on Saturday 6th Sep

Saturday had the Plenary from hell, I kid – it was quite fun and well done, so a brilliant congrats to the chair of that. We had a good and healthy debate about Nuclear Energy, a couple of Young Greens voted for it but the majority (including myself) voted against it and in the brief pause between absorbing what just happened and getting on with the plenary I just went “HA!” at the back of the hall.

In the evening I flocked back to the Bar and was joined by the rest of the South East Hampshire lot who had popped up to conference, which meant…

…another selfie!

So that was quite nice, meanwhile I had been trying to get a drink out of Keith Taylor MEP – since he tweeted back in February he’d get me one! I also had a chat with the Bristol Greens, seeing as where Bristol is the uni of choice for a certain friend of mine – Some really nice guys.

I met a lovely couple of people called Sally and “Vip”, very warm and welcoming bunch those two are – good sense of humour too! They were doing a stall about sustainable technology, so plenty of literature to give to mum when she’s talking about Apple!

Overall I had a fantastic time, met some lovely people and I’m feeling really inspired – I wonder what interesting things might happen next year…

Thanks for reading!

Miles

Welborne is not welcome here

August 22, 2014 — Leave a comment

In case you didn’t know already, Welborne is a proposed development to the north of Fareham it is meant to have at least six thousand homes. Already we are seeing quite a lot of development going around the Borough, the rate at which our local green spaces are going is astonishing! I don’t quite know how long we have to wait till our infrastructure bursts and the County/Borough council have to finally take the cotton wool out of their ears and hands off their eyes so they can take some action to meet our needs – but I have a feeling they will have to listen soon.

Our schools are expanding year on year and it’s having an ever increasingly adverse effect on the future of this country, it is saddening to me that the County Council believe bigger is better when it comes to education. They seem to think it’s okay for Pensioners, that struggle to get around, to walk a mile up their road to get to their one bus an hour to a stop fifteen minutes away from where they need to be.

Fareham was already named the most car dependent town in the UK. This says quite a lot about the mentality of the Council, who are so insistent (well one Executive Leader is…) on having this development built. There are roads that are already terribly congested, where the shortest stop can create the longest queue. This development, along with the next-to-nothing public transport, could have a devastating impact on local jobs – who’d want to hire anyone in an area with terrible traffic jams and no way to get to work? The M27 was also named as the worst for delays, could you just imagine the devastation to our standards of living if Welborne is built?

There must be at least 1000-1500 empty properties in the borough that the council could be used to fill this “housing demand” rather than doing the quickest possible method to generate “positive results”.

I just think that all who oppose Welborne should group together as a show of force and remind those who we elect that they work for us. I didn’t vote for this.

Thank you for reading.

Miles

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.

August 1, 2014 — Leave a comment

I’d like to start by apologising for my lack of updates from this site, I’ve been taking some time off from the last election and my exams. I’m just coming off my relaxing period. So here goes!

I’ve just been on the BBC Site and I’ve been listening to Tim Stanley’s take on “Young People” in politics. I can safely say that his anecdote is something that is quite common place within parties like Labour. He said that young people are “immature” and that they are often on the “fringes” of what the party stands for.

While that is true he seems to not pay attention to the fact that, unlike pre-internet generations, we have the capabilities to get information at our fingertips. We can read into the history of organisations, people and such things. So, like the rest of society, us “young people” can make an educated decision based on the positions we support and what parties we align to.

Being involved with The Warsash Residents’ Association, the Police Support Volunteer Executive Committee, the Itchen Student Union and it’s body of Governors – I’ve learned and adapted skills to ensure that when I make a decision or put forward my viewpoint it is well informed and that it considers other people’s point of view/circumstances.

The Green Party have been such a welcoming party to enable us “young people” to flourish and rationalise our passion for change and our ambition to help make society fairer and more equal.

So am I immature? I don’t feel it – my mum says I should have been born 50 years ago!

Do I feel like I have the answers to everything? No, but I’d like to try with a few ideas and see what people think.

So reader you’re about to see the few words strung together I’d thought I’d never use, I’m with Ann Widdecombe on this one, but I go one step further. Young people should be actively involved. If they can teach Religious Education at Primary and Secondary level, why can’t they teach politics or something similar?

It’s sad to see people of a similar age whinge more over the change of the Facebook layout than a hike in tuition fees.

Thanks for reading,

Miles

Another one down, gains made!

May 23, 2014 — Leave a comment

I’d like to thank the people of Warsash for voting for me, all 170 of them. We have made significant progress since last year, where I only received 6% of the vote and only managed to beat the Lib Dems. This year I have recieved 8% of the vote and have not only beaten the Lib Dems, but also Labour too!

The response I’ve had since canvassing in November has been immensely wonderful – the people of my hometown were very welcoming and agreed with The Green Party’s ‘bottom-up’ approach to local politics! Canvassing has also really helped my confidence in public speaking (although some of my friends may argue I’ve always been confident, or just not willing to stop!) and I would like to also thank the Portsmouth News and their team of reporters for giving me an impressive amount of media coverage as of lately.

All I can really say is that this is not the last Warsash, or even Fareham, has seen the last of me! I’ll most definitely be back in 2016 to stand again. Although someone mentioned standing as a parliamentary candidate, a tempting idea to keep me busy over next year indeed…

I’m not going to stop campaigning for local buses, an end to parking issues and also fight for better crossings in Warsash. These issues, although appear small to some, are big to many. I would like to take the time to congratulate Cllr Cartwright for his victory and I’d like to thank him and the other candidates for keeping the campaign clean and also his wife Ruth for her lovely home-baked banana bread she gave me yesterday!

I think I’ll take a week off, perfect timing too – it’s half term, though some revision for my World Development exam will be done as well.

Thanks for reading,

Miles Grindey

Grindey Goes to South Downs

May 17, 2014 — 1 Comment

Yesterday, me and David Harrison of the SE Hants Green Party, went to South Downs college after being invited by the Student Union President Daniel Hughes and had a stall promoting The Green Party as part of their drive to give students a wide picture of other parties to look at.

I was most impressed by the system they use to register visitors, where they have a tablet that you write your name and (if needed) company and then it prints off your badge, and then the receptionist puts together for you! It’s really innovative and I couldn’t stop talking about that for the rest of the day!

The other thing I was very pleased with was that their student union is independent from the college, it has a liaison committee within it so that dialogue can easily flow with students to teachers, without them dominating the union. It is also part of the NUS and also the head of it is elected! Everyone is given a role so that they have something to do, and it’s a great way to engage students with the college – it’s possibly the most student friendly college I’ve encountered so far! I hope that within the next year the ISU gets closer to that level of student representation.

I wish all the best to Daniel, Liz Langley and in general the whole of South Downs. I am very grateful for their hospitality and I hope to engage more with them in future.

Thanks for reading

Go Green

Miles

Getting it done!

April 30, 2014 — Leave a comment

When I started campaigning for the local elections I’d never had thought I’d come as far as I have done. It’s not even the election yet but the mood has never been this encouraging. I’ve had people email me asking me how they could help, I’ve had others saying that they’ve never voted before because they’ve never seen anyone else actually try and help out before.

The bus campaign is going very well, ever since we received some media attention we have had the Green Party South-East MEP – Keith Taylor – sign our petition. That’s some major backing!

We have received almost 200 signatures overall! 76 on Change.org and a further 95 on paper petitions. It’s amazing what a positive response this has received from the people of Warsash. I can only hope that things get even better after May 22nd. I’ve also gone back round to the many people who’ve been affected by these double yellow lines, they too were happy to see that someone was finally speaking up for local people – and that parking permits were a suitable alternative to yellow lines.

It seems to me that the other local parties seem to have this mentality:

From what I can see, The Greens are the only ones who support local people

I’d like to thank everyone who has gone out and leafleted and canvassed with/for me. Without them and the support of The Green Party couldn’t have even come this far without them. It just goes to show that if we come together we can make a difference in our community – it’s this grassroots democracy that binds us together as a society and allows us to gain the things we need to be able to get by.

The amount of people joining and supporting the Greens is snowballing heavily, and it’s an avalanche about to hit the Tories.

Thanks for reading,

Go Green on May 22nd

Miles Grindey

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