Congratulations to Liftshare for winning a 2008 Queen’s Award for Enterprise in its Innovation category.

Sustainable innovation is something we should shout about!

Congratulations and good luck for National Liftshare Day on 9th June. 

It is with sadness that I note the felling of an enormous tree at the rear of my house today. The tree had to go - it was too near our planned house extension. Thanks to Ben and his guys at treelogic for getting it right - the tree falling the other way would have taken out the house.

The timber will keep my and our neighbour’s wood burning stoves going for some years.

Now we need to plan to replant some trees!

Congratulations to Stephen Robertson of North-east comedy trio “Scotland the What?” on his election as Rector of the University of Aberdeen.

Stephen won the election by 928 votes to my fellow councillor Martin Ford’s 852 in an election with a much higher turnout than is usual. I know Martin enjoyed throughly the campaign and was very delighted with the many many students who supported him - and I know he loved some of the spontaneous posters that appeared.

A summary of the recent English Election results show that the Liberal Democrats have now moved to being the second party of England.  Congratulations to councillor colleagues who held their seats - and a warm welcome to new councillor colleagues up and down the country.

There have been 1783 visits to this Blog in its first full month of operation.

Thank you all for reading my posts … and don’t forget you are welcome to comment on most of my postings.

I received a letter today from constituent pointing out inconsiderate and potentially dangerous behaviour when parents stop to drop their children off at school. I’ve seen parents stop on double yellow lines, stop near corners and stop in the spaces reserved for school buses.

Please think. Please be considerate.

I am disappointed that TIGLS has questioned the right of Martin, Paul, Alastair and myself to appear at the Inquiry. It’s clearly doomed to fail - and indeed I understand the Reporter has ruled in our favour.

We are just four people busy putting forward a case without the usual support that councillors would have from legal representatives and planners.

But what do TIGLS fear?

I’ve had a few calls from people planning to visit Scotland asking about the fuel situation. A two day strike shouldn’t throw us into such a tizz!

But perhaps it’s a good time to think about reducing car use and saving cash - www.liftshare.org can help match people up to share journeys - and the more people registered, the better the chance of finding a suitable lift buddy.

Formartine Area Committee nearly set a new record for its length today — 9.45 am to 4.30pm with 30 minutes for lunch.   29 planning applications - and for 3 we decided to visit the site, so we are not finished with them yet.

We had a good discussion on the Draft Structure Plan with a high degree of concensus including the need to align the development of employment and housing in parallel.  Nonetheless, we still approved building housing on two site allocated for employment - and unless not just “talk the talk” but “walk the walk”, we will continue to lose employment land and make it harder for small businesses to setup and expand: not everyone wants ot needs to be in industrial sites.

I did my first Freecycle today.  I advertised my old ladies road bike (basically good but in need of TLC) at lunchtime, got an email at teatime and have just dropped the bike off to its new owner.  She is delighted.  I’m happy my bike is going to be used rather than cluttering up my garage.  Try it for all those bits and bobs that lurk in your garages and attics.