In case you wondered what the Leeds City Region Local Economic Partnership was for...

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I received an "on the day" briefing (how I love these snappily trendy titles PR folk use) from Bradford's Department of Regeneration about this:

Government policy is aimed at achieving a rapid transition to a low carbon economy in the UK. To assist with this the Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has recommended the creation of a Green Economy Panel, a new advisory body tasked with working across the city region partnership to support the development of a low carbon economy.

My heart skipped with joy. I could see the planet's temperature easing at this momentous decision. The organisation charged with driving (how the public sector and quangocracy love that word) forward the "City Region's" economic development has set up a panel. That's right folks - a whole panel:

The Panel will work closely with the LEP to embed low carbon activity within the LEP’s activity and will be responsible for delivering the low carbon priorities identified within the LEP plan and the city region’s Green Infrastructure Strategy. It will also provide the LEP, other city region panels and partners with information and advice on how best to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

This is all wonderful news. We all know - those who have studied and suffered at the coalface of regeneration - that the best way to drive economic growth, indeed "green" economic growth, is to set up a Panel!

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A road safety strategy should be about reducing road casuaties? Not according to some!

Cullingworth will soon be further adorned by Vehicle Activated Signs (VAS) telling us to slow down as we enter the village - initially from Bingley & Keighley. Leaving aside that one of these signs - at Cow House - is in perhaps the daftest location one could imagine (plonking something that intermittently flashes on and off just six feet from someones bedroom window is not really appropriate), I have been thinking about the way in which we approach road safety. And crucially whether, in responding to the calls from local people, we spend money in places where there are few if any injury accidents.

Steve Thornton, Chair of the West Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership recently criticised the Government's proposed approach to road safety as concentrating too much on reducing road injuries. Now far be it for me to criticise Mr Thornton - who is after all an expert - but isn't a road safety strategy absolutely about reducing road injuries? There is no "wider context" - the object is to reduce the death and injury toll on our roads and anything else is just cant.


And (no surprises here) the West Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership is one of those obscure, unaccountable bodies which doesn't meet in public, doesn't say when it meets and doesn't publish any minutes, budgets or other operational information. Yet its "Chair" - an unelected official - gets a very public platform to criticise the very sensible suggestion that road safety is about...er?...safety on the roads!