Doesn’t it feel great when you know your actions have changed things for the better?
VentnorBlog is today proud to report a campaigning success which should put money in the pockets of large numbers of Islanders.
It’s a story which we’ve had to ourselves for nearly a year, with one of our contributors beavering away behind the scenes. We think it’s a reminder of what assertive local journalism can achieve.
No cold weather payments in the South
Readers may recall that last Christmas Eve, we ran an article under the General Synopsis byline, with the heading: “South Wight Shortchanged on Cold Weather Payments?” The gist of it was that PO38 (Ventnor and Niton), along with Newport and the West Wight, were losing out on the £25 a week paid out in very cold weather to those on certain benefits.
This was happening because the weather station at St Catherine’s lighthouse was being used to estimate the temperature in all those areas. The result was that not a single cold weather payment was made in 2010-11, because the lighthouse never registered seven consecutive days of sub-zero temperatures.
North and East Wight were luckier. Their payments were linked to readings at Thorney Island, near Portsmouth. Three payments, totalling £75, were made for last year’s cold snap before Christmas.
Alternative weather station needed
General Synopsis is something of a weather buff, as you’d have to be to take your nom de plume from a bit of the shipping forecast.
He understood that St Catherine’s was an unsuitable choice of weather station because of its exposed coastal position. At this point it all gets a bit dry and technical, but basically, the lighthouse can be almost guaranteed to be the warmest place on the whole Island in cold winter weather, because of the influence of the sea.
Thorney Island, although further from, say, Ventnor than is St Catherine’s, is nevertheless likely to be a much more reliable yardstick for the whole Island.
VB story passed to Department for Work and Pensions
Following VB’s story, General Synopsis did some digging and discovered that the ‘ allocation of postcodes to weather stations is determined by a Statutory Instrument laid before Parliament each autumn.
MP Andrew Turner (a former geography teacher, of course) was contacted, and agreed to pass the file, including the VB story, on to Steve Webb, the responsible minister in the DWP.
In turn it reached the desk of someone at the Met Office whose job it is to advise the Government on such things.
Island postcodes allocated to new weather station
This is, of course, the point at which even the most worthy of local campaigns is likely to encounter a black hole, especially where extra public spending is implied. But wait.
The 2011 Statutory Instrument, laid before Parliament on 10th October and taking effect on 1st November, includes the following:
“…St Catherine’s Point (along with two others)… are no longer specified as primary weather stations…”
A postcode search of the table shows all Island postcodes, PO30 to PO41, allocated to Thorney Island.
A wrong righted
So there we have it. A wrong righted. A victory for common sense, with VB and its contributor on the side of common sense. And while no one can guarantee these payments in the future because no one, not even General Synopsis, knows what the weather’s going to be like, we can now say that folks will get what they’re entitled to.
The smoke and the mirrors have gone.
Image: TaxBrackets.org under CC BY 2.0
