Cuts: time to sow, not prune

The axe is falling, but as I write, it’s still not exactly clear which heads will be lopped off. There are many on the block. Everyone is pleading for the life of their particular project or cause. Local authorities are asking residents where they think the cuts should fall.

But how to distinguish between the value of a nursery, a park, or a museum? A lunch club for older people? Or a service that helps with translation, or gives debt advice? The numbers of people who use them, who they are, what they have to contend with in their day-to-day lives and to what extent these services make things that bit better, have to be factored into the decisions. Judgements must be made about benefits which may be impossible to measure.

Hackney is the second most deprived local authority in the country and the budget cuts currently underway will disproportionately affect people living in the most deprived communities. Hackney Council is having to make millions of pounds’ worth of cuts over the next four years. With housing, health and education in the firing line, environmental considerations could seem an indulgence, belonging to another era.

But the environment cannot be separated out from everything else.   More stress and more aggression on the roads mean fewer people walking or cycling and children playing outside, at a cost to their health. More litter means people taking less pride in neighbourhoods, making less effort to green and beautify outside space, less time spent outdoors, more neglect, fear and crime.  Damp, overcrowded and poorly-insulated homes lead to poor physical and mental health, more pressure on families, poorer school achievement and greater risk of problems such as domestic violence – as the costly heat seeps out and the planet warms.

The environment and the well-being of people are bound up together inextricably and they need investment. This does not necessarily mean money. Food-growing projects, for example, can cost very little – with saved seeds, home-made compost and shared tools – but can yield fruit in terms of health and education as well as reduced CO2 emissions and richer biodiversity. Saving energy saves cash. People can do many of these things for themselves.

But councils need to take a lead. There can be no growing projects if people do not have access to suitable land. Energy-saving on a wide scale needs awareness-raising campaigns. And when it comes to housing, Friends of the Earth argues that money spent on insulating homes is one of the cheapest and quickest ways to make the cuts we really need – in CO2 emissions – and it will save money in the long run, on fuel bills and to the NHS.  Similarly with money spent on making streets more ‘walkable’ and ‘cycleable; the NHS is recognising this as more and more hospitals promote green travel. And all this creates jobs.

Now is the time to sow rather than prune: to invest in ‘green growth’ and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. Friends of the Earth is calling for all councils to commit to reducing CO2 emissions by 40% by 2020. To meet this target, it will have to be embedded into all the vital services that councils provide. A bit like health and safety, which, in a way, it is. The science tells us it is needed. If we don’t pay the up-front costs, what will the price be in the end?

For more information contact Hackney and Tower Hamlets Friends of the Earth