Of course, homes that are decent places to live in are needed. But the number of empty homes how standing empty in England stands at nearly a million. Were we not so city obsessed, we could all have a home and garden. There is in excess of 50m acres of cultivatable land in the UK – that’s approximately enough for 2 acres or so for each family/home.

The green spaces, commons, woods and parks are what make Greenwich a lovely to place to live in. These spaces – especially the Commons – have been preserved largely because of pressure from generations of working people throughout the Borough and sometimes even elsewhere. The Plumstead Common Act was pivotal in ensuring the continuance of Common Land and the rights of people to enjoy them.

So many Local Authorities have made the mistake of allowing development on green spaces, playing fields and other areas of natural interest and they and their communities are now paying the price. Perhaps we should vigorously oppose encroachment onto Common Land and be aware of the upcoming plans for building on what open spaces are left around us.

i can’t imagine anyone who’s not on the payroll actually reading the thing, and from what I can tell, as propaganda it’s completely counter-productive. And, as mentioned earlier, that £298k is nothing like the total of the costs it incurs.

If I’m going to be portrayed as an uncritical defender of GT, I’ll play the role. This week’s paper contains two and a half pages of planning notices, a bit over a page worth of traffic and licensing notices and a page worth of council job adverts, all of which would have to be paid to be published somewhere else at some cost. Then there’s five page of council house listings, which do need to be available weekly, so would need to be printed anyway. There are three private sector adverts, and some of the money for the PCT’s supplement on busting MMR myths will have come from outside the borough, although obviously it will be public money from somewhere else. I’d have thought that lot would go at least a little way towards covering the cost of publication, especially at today’s advertising rates rather than 2003′s. Am now switching off uncritical support for GT mode – thanks for the bung, Cllr Roberts.

I’ll admit to only having read Hammersmith and Tower Hamlet’s comparable publications, but I’m afraid I’d disagree that they are any less Pravda-esque than GT. A paper published by a council’s executive (of whatever colour) simply isn’t going to carry critical news, hence my suggestion for cross-party, backbench editorial overview. I’m pretty new to Greenwich, so if you say GT used to be better then I’ll take your word for it. If it has the potential to be a genuine local newspaper, then that is definitely a point in its favour: maybe it can one day regain that potential.

Anyway, time to curl up with GT for a proper read. You might be interested to know that, coincidentally, your name came up in my uni lecture tonight, discussing the Osmotherly Rules. I felt positively star struck.

The central point is that unlike Greenwich Time I believe in the full declaration of relevant interests. Greenwich Time presents itself as a factual chronicler of the doings of the council, while in reality it is operated, at public expense, in the interests of the ruling party. It should declare that interest. You are a member of that party, so when you are writing about GT you should declare your interest, too.

I’ve seen the newspapers of other councils, Labour and Tory-controlled, and they are both less frequent and far less overtly propagandistic than Greenwich Time.

GT, which has been in existence for at least six years, started out like that as well. But it has since been bumped up, first from monthly to fortnightly and now to weekly, and has taken on a distinctly more propagandist tone. The need to publish official notices cannot explain this. The only explanation I can think of is that Labour has for some time been doing rather badly in the polls – and there are local elections coming up next year.

You claim that I ‘feel Greenwich Time is such a good idea’ – except if you read my posts, you’ll find I don’t: the principle is probably defensible on a financial and public information grounds, but Greenwich’s execution is poor – too overtly partisan and propagandist.

Basically, we’re two bald men squabbling over a comb: neither of us has the full set of figures. We don’t know what Greenwich was paying the Mercury for public notice advertising before GT started, we don’t know how much of existing publicity budgets has now been rolled into the GT budget and would have been spent anyway, likewise with the GT staff (would they be employed anyway?). As you’ll notice, I never claimed GT necessarily saved the council money, I simply sought to point out that for many councils the public notices issue is one of the key drivers in setting up their own publications.

Low blow perhaps Andrew? I have no time for Greenwich Time but Political Animal seems to make some interesting points that can be debated on their merits as actually you have done above, without the cheap shots.

Enjoying the discussion…