Bath’s poor start for the season continues. However there was some real grit from our boys against the table topping Sarries. At least we got a bonus point as some small consolation.

However anyone who walks round the city cannot fail to notice the rapid decline in infrastructure in the two years the Conservatives have been in sole charge. More grafitti more litter more potholes. And more readers writing to the Chronicle on the subject – Read Here

And  what is the Conservative answer – new outfits for the cleaners and a £1M 100 yard stretch of unused bus lane at the Odfd Down P&R!!!!

Pity they turned down our budget amendment to invest more money in street cleaning in the spring.

After a long battle we have finally persuaded our Council to sign up to cyclescheme. This allows employees to buy a bike at a good saving and thus reduce the amount of cars on the road. Several Council employees have been contacting me over the last few months encouraging me as I worked to get our Conservative cabinet to agree to the scheme and get it in place.

Next step is now to get proper facilities in occise so that people who do cycle in have proper storage and cleaning facilities. So qustion to the next cabinet meeting as follows

To Cllr Gerrish from Cllr Crossley

Now that the Council has signed up to the “Cycle to Work” scheme with the Bath company Cyclescheme, will the Cabinet member be looking to sign up to the full “Cycle to Work Guarantee” (http://www.cycletoworkguarantee.org.uk/) to further encourage employees to cycle to work?

In the 2007 elections the Conservatives used a scare tactic in Bath that the Liberal Democrats were planning a fortnightly refuse collection services. This falsehood had the desired effect and was the reason why they won the two Abbey ward seats. Now their colleagues in North Somerset – who are adopting a slash and burn approach to services there – are introducing fortnightly waste collections. Story on the BBC here.

We shall have to keep an eye on them here to make sure they do not try and sneak that service change in here. And all the while the seagulls continue to grow in number because our Conservatives keep delaying the introduction of a separate food waste service.

Crime over the last year has shown a 7% reduction. Well done to all in the police. The PCSO teams have been working well providing an invaluable service in several communities. And one of the local innovations has been a much better reporting back by the police to victims on how their crime is being investigated and followed up. Not surprisingly customer satisfaction has risen.

What a great game of rugby and what a great advert for the premiership. Bath really played well – as did Tigers. The referee also had a good game except for one howler – the spear tackle on Little should have resulted in a yellow card. This error was compounded when a few minutes later Little was sent off for something only the linesman saw.

With Little though we definitely have a good kicker now.

The new layout in the stadium seems to be working well and its increased capacity is already nearly sold out for the games. It will be interesting to see what the attitude of the new Chief Executive is to the long running issue of the new stadium requirements.

The Liberal Democrat Conference in Bournemouth this year was a tremendous success. Good debates, good fringe and good networking.

I spoke once on the conference floor to try and persuade Conference that a Shoots barrage or indeed any barrage should NOT play any part of the renewable energy harvest from the Severn estuary. We should be concentrating on making the various new technologies and ideas work and in the SW become a global expert on tidal energy. Every country in the world already knows how to pour a million tons of concrete and rock into a dam. Did not win the vote but at least the policy says we MAY consider a barrage option. Now get to work on promoting the new technologies so that a barrage option becomes redundant.

Three best fringe events for me were Child Poverty Action ; Arts Alliance and Chinese Embassy

The Arts Alliance was particularly  lively with poetry, music and readings from reformed prisoners, a ukelele spot from Don Foster MP and great compering of the evening by Billy Bragg.

The Chinese Embassy fringe was also very good with a range of speakers and the current ambassador Fu Ying. Ambassador Fu Ying was a very impressive speaker and fielded all questions and challenged us on our thinking and policies as well. I really must put more effort into my mandarin classes.

For many years we have had an active Heritage Open Week to allow people in for free or to open up places that are not usually open. This weekend the Cleveland Pools have been opened up and I did some volunteer stewarding on Sunday afternoon. The Cleveland Pools are the only Georgian lido in the country and an alliance of volunteers, business and charity are working in alliance to restore them. The negotiations to transfer them from the Council to the new trust are nearly completed.

Today talked to several people who had swum in the pools in the 50’s and 60’s. They all remembered the water as very cold!!

First game of the season at home. After a poor display at Glos last week we all trouped along to the new larger capacity Rec full of usual optimism. The first and last 15 were good from Bath with real passion, skill and effort. In between though Wasps controlled the game. Simpson and Varndell were especially effective.

The issue of the future continues to roll on. I am very hopeful that the residents of Combe Down will endorse the land swap idea which provides a good deal for the Firs Field and also allows us to progress with Charity Commission approval to some real investigation into an improved facility at the Rec.