Green, fair and safe is the way

I want to see a town that is still recognisably the place where I grew up, but safer, greener and fairer.

We have a lot to be proud of in Cheltenham: strong communities, world-class arts and sports festivals, a beautiful town centre and lovely countryside on our doorstep – all of which we need to protect.

We have a first-class hospital, high quality local services and successful, entrepreneurial businesses. We have giant-beating teams in everything from football to croquet. And our many local charities care and do a lot for the most vulnerable.

But we face challenges too. Not just the recession and the credit crunch which have already pushed unemployment here to more than 3 per cent – low compared to other towns – but every extra percentage point spells misery for individuals and families.

A safer Cheltenham would have more space for pedestrians in the centre, more protected space for cyclists on our roads (not our pavements) and safer routes for both cycling and walking to schools.

I'd also like to see an even bigger community presence for the police outside the town centre, as much to nip trouble in the bud as to clamp down on it after it's got out of hand. And for the kids who might be tempted to get involved in trouble around our parks and shops, more alcohol-free places for older kids to get to and subsidised public transport so they can afford to get to them. A greener Cheltenham would protect our gardens, parks and countryside not just for our health and enjoyment but to protect the wildlife that thrives in them and stop the next floods being even worse. We shouldn't shy away from high quality new buildings on brownfield sites. They should use less water and energy to start with and be heated and powered by renewable energy like ground source heat pumps and solar cells.

Our exciting new art gallery will be a model of green architecture. Let's hope the council's Civic Pride plans create more great green buildings and in the process restore Royal Well to its traditional splendour. We could even get rid of some unlovely buildings. Lose the Quadrangle, anyone?

We'd be driving our low carbon cars less not because we'd been taxed to death but because there were more buses, cheaper, more reliable trains and light rail to Gloucester, Bishop's Cleeve and even Stratford. I'd go for more discreet multi-storey car parks to make it easier to get out of your car and walk.

Greener too because I hope councils, businesses and governments would have reduced waste to virtually zero. So we'd have less plastic packaging and know everything we still had to put in our bins would be composted, reused, recycled and otherwise put to good use.

But Cheltenham needs to be fairer as well. Apart from abolishing unfair taxes like the council tax that take more from poor people, we need to break down some other barriers too.

There's no magic solution but we need to find a way to protect the excellence of our best schools without putting the others under unfair pressure. As a governor at Kingsmead School, I've seen the Herculean effort needed by teachers and kids to raise standards there. They're succeeding, but surely we can invest enough in education and blur boundaries between schools so that no one needs to panic about exactly how many inches their house is from the front gate of Balcarras.

Especially now, we need to step up the support we give to vulnerable families. In my vision of Cheltenham, we'd have strong local services for people trapped by debt or drugs or other nightmares. And we'd have a night shelter for the few who would otherwise sleep rough, linked to support that would help them without judging them.

And after all that, in an ideal future, we'll watch the Robins beat Chelsea again…