For a conspiracy theorist there is only one way to take this

2 August 2012 15:56

Dear Kazek

The period for the 11/12 accounts was Wednesday 4^th July to Tuesday 31st July 2012, excepting 7th, 8th, 14th, 15th, 21st, 22nd, 28th and 29th July 2012.

This was advertised in the Wokingham Times under statutory notices and on our website from Wednesday 20^th June 2012 for 2 weeks in line with statutory requirements, a copy of the advert is attached.  In addition we have published the draft financial statements and details of all expenditure over £500 (on a monthly basis) on our website.  The link is http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/council/transparency/

If you have any further information you require about the council’s accounts other than what has been published on our website, then as the public consultation period has ended now, I would suggest submitting a freedom of information request.

Thanks

Claire

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Sent: 24 July 2012 16:18
To: Procurement;
Subject: FW: Finance and contracts

Dear Colleague,

Please see the email below that has been sent into Wokingham Direct.

The query is regarding something that I believe you will be able to answer. Please can you either reply directly to the customer and bcc Wokingham Direct in or send us your reply directly and we will be happy to go back to the customer.

Please be aware the customer is expecting a response within 10 working days.
  
Kind regards

Laurence ---


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24 July 2012

Dear Sir / Madam.

Financial and procurement and contract regulations 12.1.4.16 state For 20 days each year the Chief financial officer will make all accounts receipts available to the public

When is this?

Regards

Kazek Lokuciewski

Is the Wokingham Borough Councils Environmental Policy just PR?

There is a certain level of air pollution when when reached the public should be advised to act in a certain way. For example not to to strenuous activity outside. Here is the chart.

Band	Index	Ozone		Nitrogen Dioxide		Sulphur Dioxide		Carbon Monoxide		PM10Particles
		8 hourly or hourly mean*		hourly mean		15 minute mean		8 hour mean		24 hour mean
		µg m-3	ppb	µg m-3	ppb	µg m-3	ppb	mgm-3	ppm	µg m-3
Low
	1	0-32	0-16	0-95	0-49	0-88	0-32	0-3.8	0.0-3.2	0-16
	2	33-66	17-32	96-190	50-99	89-176	33-66	3.9-7.6	3.3-6.6	17-32
	3	67-99	33-49	191-286	100-149	177-265	67-99	7.7-11.5	6.7-9.9	33-49
Moderate
	4	100-126	50-62	287-381	150-199	266-354	100-132	11.6-13.4	10.0-11.5	50-57
	5	127-152	63-76	382-476	200-249	355-442	133-166	13.5-15.4	11.6-13.2	58-66
	6	153-179	77-89	478-572	250-299	443-531	167-199	15.5-17.3	13.3-14.9	67-74
High
	7	180-239	90-119	573-635	300-332	532-708	200-266	17.4-19.2	15.0-16.5	75-82
	8	240-299	120-149	363-700	333-366	709-886	267-332	19.3-21.2	16.6-18.2	83-91
	9	300-359	150-179	701-763	367-399	887-1063	333-399	21.3-23.1	18.3-19.9	92-99
Very High
	10	360 or more	180 or more	764 or more	400 or more	1064 or more	400 or more	23.2 or more	20 or more	100 or more

1-3 ('Low')	Effects are unlikely to be noticed, even by people who know they are sensitive to air pollution.
4-6 ('Moderate')	Mild effects are unlikely to require action, but may be noticed by sensitive people.
7-9 ('High')	Sensitive people may notice significant effects, and may have to take action to reduce or avoid them (for example, by reducing time spend outdoors). Asthmatics will find that their 'reliever' inhaler is likely to reverse the effects of pollution on their lungs.
10 ('Very High')	The effects on sensitive people, described for 'high' levels of pollution, may worsen.

I was delighted to find that Reading Council have four permanent Air Quality monitoring stations and that they provide online access including historical data so anyone can pull up the stats. Good and bad. And there are plenty of bad. The Ozone monitoring is not in a roadside location. Which would give a fairer indication of what walking and cycling commuters are being exposed to. But at least it's sort of honest.
You can find it here. Does not look that great. Not a lot of waffle, just what is air quality and honest statistics. 
http://airquality.reading.gov.uk/reading/bulletin.asp
I was able to see that NO2, Ozone and PM10 Particles freequently enter the medium risk area. It would seem only fair that these alerts are at least broadcast on local the radio and tweeted as @cleanairlondon are doing.
Now for the Wokingham version.
http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/safety/pollution/air-quality-monitoring/
Looks professional. Well written waffle. Absolutely no information or transparency.
If you open the PDF's you can see that in 2004 we gave up actually trying to reduce our local community emissions and we have chosen not to look at scope 3 which covers things like actual air quality as a result of commuting etc.
The Wokingham Borough Councils environmental policy can be found here
http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/council/plans/key-strategies/environmental-policy/
It includes a heart warming paragraph.
"Enhancement of the Rural and Urban Environment - as the majority of our population live in urban areas, we will continue to improve and enhance their environment, whilst protecting the rural environment wherever possible."
Can we put that on a poster in the council offices please!
It also tells us that In November 2007, we signed the Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change and have a strategy. But the links go no where useful.
Luckily we have a plan. It expired in 2009 but its in here
http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/council/plans/key-strategies/environmental-policy/environmental-action-plan/
The web page talks the good talk 'the importance of air quality and education on it (don't worry @wokinghambc I'll do that for you. No charge) but if you go into the pdf plan it is all related to what the council does like using a green tarrif for electricity. i.e. its offices etc. Nothing to do with the main pollutant which is commuters and congestion and how we will reduce it.
I'm loosing hair here.
Well they know why. In 2004 they realized that they can't get pollution down to where they want it to be without having less people travel back and forth through the center of Wokingham. How would that tie in with the property developer conservative donors keep applying since the profit margins here are allowed to remain so high. 
Indeed the 'Wokingham Regeneration' which is widely regarded as "Not what we thought you mean't when you mentioned the idea a few years back" in particular is aimed at bringing in many more commuters and residents whilst increasing the distance for many school commutes.
Residents who grew up in a Market town are left with the option to get out of become a towny and, just an inhaler on your person at all times.
I have asked wbc today about our actual air quality.
I will let you know what kind of information I get back.