As part of a campaign to make Wirral a cleaner, low carbon borough, the Council is calling on residents and businesses to make a New Year’s resolution to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 10% in 2010.

Cllr Gill Gardiner, who is Cabinet Member for Environment, said: “Making a New Year’s resolution to cut emissions 10% in 2010 is a positive step towards a cleaner low carbon future. The sooner we act on CO2 the more chance we have to avert damaging climate change. Small actions now can make a big difference.”

Wirral Council was the first council in Merseyside to sign up to the UK-wide 10:10 campaign back in September 2009. It has subsequently helped launch ‘CRed Wirral’ – the Community Carbon Reduction Programme for Wirral – an interactive website to help people cut pollution from energy use at home, at work and through travel.

Cllr Gardiner added: “The new CRed Wirral website will help people succeed putting their 10:10 resolutions into practice.”

The first 10 people making pledges at the Wirral CRed website – wirral.cred2.co.uk – during the first 10 days of 2010 will receive a commemorative 10:10 ‘tag’- the emblem of the campaign. These tags are made from a recycled jumbo jet.

• CRed Wirral is backed by Wirral Council, NHS Wirral and the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Trust and forms part of local efforts to combat climate change.   

• Wirral Council has already signed up to achieve a 60% reduction in its own carbon emissions by 2025. The council achieved a 6% reduction in the first year since adopting this target.

• For further information about the UK 10:10 campaign visit:       http://www.1010uk.org/

A report by Councillor Harry Smith:

Some time ago Lowry Homes announced that the area of land between 2^nd and 3^rd Avenues, Beechwood, would not be developed until a more opportune time. However, at the resident consultation meetings, which I attended, they promised to leave the land in a presentable manner. My observations were that it was far from that; there was a roof high mound of soil and detritus and 4ft high uncut grass. As such I’ve constantly been in contact with Lowry Homes asking that they attend to the land as local people were being inundated with mice/rats and windblown weeds etc. It took some effort to get Lowry Homes to keep their promise but, eventually, they have begun to clear the land. Labour’s action team of myself, Cllr Ann McLachlan and Cllr Jim Crabtree, have ensured that Lowry Homes kept their promise.

November 23^rd, marked the start of the annual Road Safety Week led by the charity Brake and supported by road safety professionals up and down the country, but is also a message for every driver, particularly with the Christmas festivities coming up.

The theme for this year’s campaign is ‘Not a drop, not a drag – stay sober, save lives’ which, as the title suggests, reiterates the perennial message about the dangers of drink driving but also emphasises the growing acceptance that there is also a problem with people who take drugs then get behind the wheel.

And the theme resonates particularly at this time of year when enforcement action by the police steps up a gear in the run up to Christmas and New Year celebrations; traditionally a time when more people might be tempted to drink and drive.

The message from Merseyside Police on this issue is clear; it is simply not worth the risk.

If you drive at twice the legal alcohol limit you are at least 30 times more likely to cause a road crash than a driver who hasn’t been drinking. Your reaction times are slower after just one drink. You can’t judge speed or distances accurately, you’re over-confident and you make bad decisions. It’s impossible to calculate exactly how much alcohol is in your system or whether you’re over the drink-drive limit.

And even if you’re lucky enough to not be involved in a collision when over the limit, you still run the risk of being stopped and arrested by the police. Being convicted of a drink-drive offence carries a mandatory, minimum 12-month ban and a substantial fine and gives you a criminal record. You also risk a prison sentence and a £5,000 fine.

Merseyside Police Inspector Kate Cunningham, Head of Wirral’s Roads Policing Unit, said: "Last year, during Wirral’s Christmas Drink-Drive Campaign, nearly 1,000 motorists were stopped and 44 drivers arrested. That’s 44 people too many – no-one should be taking a risk by drink driving, there’s always an alternative.

“This year we will be looking to stop even more motorists to check for drink drive offences and to get the message home that the risk of getting caught drink driving is high. I hope people will behave responsibly over the festive season and enjoy themselves without risking the safety of themselves or others."

Councillor Jean Quinn, Wirral’s Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Transport Services added: “Previous Christmas drink drive campaigns have resulted in a reduction in the number of collisions in Wirral in which drinking was a contributory factor and through this year’s campaign we will be looking to continue to build on this success. But just one collision caused by a drink driver is one that was avoidable.”

These are some details issued by Brake to coincide with Road Safety Week:-

The latest available casualty figures for the whole of the UK show that in 2007 nearly 16,000 people were involved in collisions caused by drink and drug-drivers. A shocking one in six deaths on our roads were caused by drivers over the legal alcohol limit and 478 people were killed by drivers over the drink-drive limit in 2007.

Though women were much less likely than men to cause drink drive crashes nearly a third of the casualties in drink drive crashes were women; often passengers in cars driven by young men.

Driving while under the influence of drugs is something which authorities are also committed to tackling. Though there aren’t any statistics currently available to measure the impact of drug-driving, research carried out by TRL, the transport research agency, suggests that around the same, if not higher, numbers of deaths may be due to illegal drug drivers.

Researchers found 17% of drivers who die in road crashes (almost one in five) have traces of illegal drugs in their system that may have affected their driving. TRL also found that almost 6% of drivers (one in 17 drivers) who die in road crashes have traces of medicinal drugs that may have affected their driving.