Planned Red Bull X Fighters event at Battersea Power Station is illegal

Steven Goldsmith of the Wandsworth Green Party and Battersea Power Station Community Group has formally submitted an objection about the Red Bull X Fighters Event (Application No 2010/0925) to Wandsworth Council on the grounds that it is illegal. The event, a petrolhead’s dream of the best FMX riders in the world and unlikely to be frugal in parading its use of energy resources (see Red Bull’s official artist’s impression below and an article about the event here) , is scheduled to take place in and around the station for the second successive year but its noise and light pollution breaches legislation that that was passed to safeguard the protected species of black redstarts and peregrine falcons which have now colonised the station. The objection has since interestingly been placed as a ‘support comment’ on Wandsworth Council’s planning applications site. This is another example of money spinning private hire of the station following David Cameron’s mainfesto launch here last week (which you can read more about here at Spectacle’s Battersea Power Station blog), and a further contradiction to assertions by owners REO that the chimneys could be unsafe and may need to be pulled down.

The Causes of Poverty

Conservative Party Leader David Cameron has said:

“We have to think about the causes of poverty.  We have to disaggregate the problem – to look at the various types of poverty that exist, and the factors that contribute to them.

Because for most people, material poverty is a consequence of other factors. Family breakdown, drug and alcohol addiction, unemployment, poor education…”

Do you agree with these factors being the key reasons behind poverty?  Have you a personal experience of these factors?