RBC Labour to Bring More Cycle Routes and Wild Flowers to Rushcliffe!

At Full Council on the 16th of July – two motions were put forward by the Labour Group, one on cycling by Cllr J Walker and another on wild flowers by Cllr P Gowland.

The aim of the Labour group is to listen, engage and actively support our community. These motions are based on issues and comments that are made more and more in our ward surgeries and on social media.

The cycling motion put forward by Cllr J Walker was;

We call on this Council to actively support alternative forms of transport into Nottingham, in particular cycling, and ask that a detailed piece of work is undertaken by Scrutiny and reported back to Cabinet on improvements that could be made to the cycling network and infrastructure in Rushcliffe using the newly available funds from Central Government.

This motion was amended by the Conservative group and which we felt watered down the motion. To have RBC ‘strive to work with Nottinghamshire County Council…’ The RBC Labour group opposed the amendment, believing we needed to focus on our own report and formulate a strategy in the Borough. The amendment was passed by the majority group, and we supported the resulting watered down motion to move forward with at least a strengthened and renewed commitment. This will give us some direction, and with your support (as we push and lobby), we’ll bring more cycle routes to Rushcliffe!

The second motion was on Wild Flowers by Cllr P Gowland;

We have all probably seen photographs of the flowery, bee- friendly waysides that have been planted in Rotherham and have no doubt we have all been asked by residents to achieve the same for our own wards. Rushcliffe Borough Council resolves: To ask Scrutiny to review the feasibility of sowing native wild flower seeds along the road verges that it manages and put forwards recommendations to the Cabinet.

Whilst there was a lot of discussion on this, around the terminology used – which was changed to ‘grass areas’ as opposed to road verges – the essence of the motion was to review the feasibility of sowing native wild flowers. It would appear all areas designated as “road verges” are looked after by the county council, whereas many other grass areas – next to and near to roads – across the borough are run by the Borough Council.

This was unanimously passed! We hope that we can follow what other cities and towns are doing – and bring wild flowers to Rushcliffe!

The whole meeting was recorded and is available on Rushcliffe Borough Council’s YouTube Channel.

Please continue to support your Rushcliffe Borough Labour Councillors – and if you ever have any questions, comments – please feel free to email us individually, contact us on social media – or reply back to this blog post.

Thank you,