iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 3h

A really productive evening spent at the Active Travel Forum discussing active travel across Newcastle. Some really insightful points raised including learnings from World Car Free Day last month, the need for wrap around soft skills development, active travel routes - especially to & from schools

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 9h

Sat at my desk working. Heard a strange noise from the kitchen. Then Crumble came walking down the hallway with a strange hobble and was trying not to put her front paw down on the ground. I went to investigate and found she had some sellotape stuck to her front paw 😆

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Tom Gordon MP @tomgordonld.bsky.social · 12h

I listened to Ed Davey on the Today programme this morning, and frankly, I think he missed the point. The idea that we're keeping the triple lock to help millennials is at best for the birds, and at worst downright insulting. I say that as a millennial.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Give me oil in my lamp keep me burning (with a never ending dislike of Reform and the far-right). 🎶🎵

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Just witnessed a guy trying to drive up the cycle lane on Pilgrim St. i stood in front of him and told him this was not his space to drive on. It was a cycle path. Not a road. So after getting an earful of abuse from him, he gave up and drove off. Hacks me off no end.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It's been difficult to keep this properly under wraps but I can now finally talk about this! Today Dott bikes have launched a new cycle hire scheme in Newcastle - providing residents a proper alternative to car use within the City. We have taken learnings from previous schemes (eNeuron and Mobike)

A photograph of a teal and red Dott bike positioned under the Father Tyne sculpture.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I am pleased to see Burnham commit to having s commission on PR and having it in the next Labour manifesto. Likewise, Nigel Farage has gone on for years about the need for PR. So I’ll also look forward to it being in the next Reform UK manifesto too. youtu.be/mc7UqIxM84M?...

youtu.be

Farage on Proportional representation: 'Westminster is out of touch with the people'

YouTube video by GBNews

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Dr Gary Fuller @drgaryfuller.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Last year’s air pollution conference at the RSC was a sell-out, so we are running it again in collaboration with DEFRA’s Air Quality Expert Group, with presentations and discussion focused on the group’s work on airports, amines and carbon capture and wildfires. www.rsc.org/events/find-...

rsc.org

Air Quality in the 21st Century

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road.cc @roadcc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Heidi Alexander also did not mention walking, cycling or wheeling when introducing her junior ministers, despite pledging new funding commitments last week. road.cc/news/cycling...

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I’m quite happy with this reverse seared porchetta. 🤤🤤🤤

A rolled porchetta sat on a wooden board

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Heather Paterson @heatherpaterson.co.uk · 27/09/2026

How the anti-gender movement spread across Europe The Hate Review reveals how the anti-gender movement has taken root and evolved in Europe over the last 25 years, it traces how far the anti-gender movement has spread through society and how deeply it has reached into laws and institutions.

forbidden-colours.com

The Hate Review

How the anti-gender movement spread across Europe

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

www.theguardian.com/environment/... Ugh. Why are we pushing these things? It’ll be annoying getting to the motorway charging bays and finding somebody topping up their PHEV. Meanwhile the EV driver is stuck unable to proceed on their journey until the PHEV departs.

theguardian.com

Three-quarters of UK’s popular plug-in hybrid cars unable to use rapid chargers

Only 26% of PHEVs sold across top 20 models can use chargers with power of 50kW or more, analysis finds

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This is what we are up against. It’s why I’ve always said the under 16 social media ban doesn’t go far enough. We shouldn’t be banning it for children, we should be properly regulating it for everyone. This is scary. How do we fight this?

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Plant-rich diets are the food system's electrification. Petrol cars only see 18-25% of their fuel energy get to the wheels; EVs 87-91%. Heat pumps are 2 or 3 times more efficient. Food has its own combustion engine: a chicken turns about 13% of its feed calories into food, worse than a petrol car.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I wanted to just hit the repost button, but that would be telling these skilled operatives how to do their job 🤣😅

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Last night I made the most addictive dip ever - the North African dish matbucha. Takes a good two and a half hours to make. But by god it’s worth the wait. Slowly cooked peppers and tomatoes with garlic and chilli, evaporating off the water. Then you add olive oil and confit for another hour. 🤤🤤🤤

A pot of matbucha (a pepper and tomato dip, slow cooked with garlic and chilli) then confit in olive oil.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

We have the laws. We should be using them. The far-right racist maybe should have thought twice about attempted murder at seas.

A screenshot of the Piracy Act 1837, chapter 88

2 Punishment of piracy when murder is attempted.

Whosoever, with intent to commit or at the time of or immediately before or immediately after committing the crime of piracy in respect of any ship or vessel, shall assault, with intent to murder, any person being on board of or belonging to such ship or vessel, or shall stab, cut, or wound any such person, or unlawfully do any act by which the life of such person may be endangered, shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof shall be liable to imprisonment for life.

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road.cc @roadcc.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

“It’s not about pitting one mode of travel against another. No one is declaring war on this or that. And you definitely won’t find me leading a charge of the Lycra brigade. I simply want to give people greater choice in their lives,” transport secretary Heidi Alexander said today

road.cc

“The equivalent of upgrading a single A-road junction”: National Cycle Network set for £104m investment as transport secretary promises to go “hell for leather on active travel” – but campaigners are ...

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander has pledged to go “hell for leather on active travel”, as the government announced that it will invest £104 million in the National Cycle Network (NCN) over the nex...

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Real Gaz on a proper bike: gazza_d@toot.bike @gazza-d.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"Work is also underway to establish England’s first walking, wheeling, and cycling wayfinding system, complete with standardised signage, route marking" Now this could be more transformative than the numerous incremental upgrades from WWWT.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is grim. Why are we letting this continue? He should be prosecuted for willingly endangering lives at sea or attempted murder.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Today is #WorldCarFreeDay and instead of taking the bus into the Civic as I would normally do, I have instead walked from our home in West Fenham to the City centre. 45 minutes door to door. The weather today is beautiful. I had the pleasure of speaking to a few people walking along the way.

A photo of a man with a rucksack on, he is wearing a yellow lanyard and green glasses.

A man stood outside Newcastle Civic Centre, he is wearing a rucksack, yellow lanyard and green glasses

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I have asked highways to write to all contractors working on our roads and remind them of their responsibility as well as our expectations of them to provide safe alternatives for pedestrians and other non-car users when repairs and other maintainence are being conducted across the city pavements.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

A severe crash has just occurred in our ward. Thankfully nobody was hurt. The young driver has managed to crash a 7 seater through a bollard on a ped refuge, into a wall, into a parked car, mounted the pavement, destroyed a Sheffield stand & come to rest against a bollard outside a school ped xing.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Auto glass repair, auto glass replace?

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Tonight at Cabinet. Me: be confident, be professional. Also me: Knocks water off the table with a laptop in front of an entire room of press, public, other councillors and officers 🙈

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space4gosforth.bsky.social @space4gosforth.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

If you missed our showing of the National People’s Emergency Briefing, then there’s one at the @peoplestheatre.bsky.social in Heaton on the 4th October. Please retweet if you are a Newcastle feed so people can find out about it.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I’m sorry, but I’m going to put my neck on the line & say this is entirely the wrong policy position. We need to be incentivising people to use less fuel - 17.28bn litres of fuel per year currently. Imagine what £1.7bn per year could do to active & public transport. Not discount dinosaur juice

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

A glorious afternoon out delivering the next batch of @libdems.org.uk Focus for our ward. Had some lovely conversations and picked up a few bits of casework. 👍

A man in a yellow jumper with a rucksack on. He is holding a Lib Dem Focus leaflet

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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

READ THIS: How Amsterdam became the bicycle capital of the world. In the 1960s, Dutch cities saw cars as the transport of the future. It took the intolerable toll of child traffic deaths —and fierce activism— to turn #Amsterdam into the urban biking nirvana of today. It took vision and leadership.

theguardian.com

How Amsterdam became the bicycle capital of the world

In the 1960s, Dutch cities were increasingly in thrall to motorists, with the car seen as the transport of the future. It took the intolerable toll of child traffic deaths – and fierce activism – to t...

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... I’m sorry. But what?!?! No. If your car is too big to drive down a road. Then park up somewhere safe (not on the pavement) and walk. Or buy a smaller car. The pavement is NOT for vehicles.

bbc.co.uk

Guernsey pavement driving limit of 5mph 'unenforceable'

A committee says many routes are constrained by historic buildings and limited space.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The abuse that has been unleashed through the likes of Farage, Lowe and others is vile. The normalisation of hate has to stop and people have to start calling it out. You just need to look at Facebook comments to see people who don’t even hide who they are, they just hurl abuse at others.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

First TV interview of the year this week. In one of my favourite places in Newcastle - Grainger Market. The Everyday Histories exhibition tells the stories of the people who have traded here over the past 200 years and made the market what it is today. www.bbc.com/news/article...

A photograph taken behind a videographer and an interviewer. They are in a glass roofed covered market

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 18/09/2026

I love this slide. I really don't think the geopolitical implications of the clean energy transition have sunk in for most people.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

At what point do we decide that these things should be done at a national, a regional or a local level? We cannot keep devolving more and more powers to mayors before we end up in a similar situation where things don't work for the end user. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

theguardian.com

Don’t back down on pledge to put water firms under public control, Burnham told

Key allies of PM issue warning as details emerge of his plan to give mayors powers to oversee water companies

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Mark Nelson @sphericalsquare.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

To be fair, this is quite a realistic Land Rover ad. What looks like an idyllic view completely obscured because somebody has parked a pointlessly large car in the way.

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Kees van der Leun @sustainable2050.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Glaciologist @matthias-huss.bsky.social shows that the centre of the Great Aletsch glacier in Switzerland (the biggest in the Alps) lost 6 meters(!) of thickness just this summer. "No words...", he adds on LinkedIn.

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Reform Watch @reformwatch.org · 15/09/2026

Three more councillors have left Reform at Durham County Council, pushing the number of departures since the party seized control last year to 16. Allegations of bullying, ignored safeguarding concerns and contempt for mental health now surround the administration.

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Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The Bloomberg Economics forecast on energy bills is a bit terrifying. Forecasting a jump of 25% in bills this coming Jan - average hike of £427 p/a to around £2,150 a year for avg household. I'm sure Govt will be forced to act if it approaches that, but still. Get solar and insulation if you can...

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Phil Brickell MP @philbrickellmp.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

The Telegraph just gave a convicted criminal a two-page spread to explain why he's pumping £4 million into Reform UK. They tucked his criminal record away in the small print. So as a former financial crime specialist I’ll do their job for them👇

telegraph.co.uk

You are seeing this page because our security systems have detected some unusual activity on this connection. To regain access to The Telegraph website please try the following:

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

A fab day out at the Great North Run! Crumble had fun on the beach. Saw the red arrows and then stood cheering everyone on by The Nook.

A black and white dog with red harness on stood on the beach.

A black and white dog with red harness on sat on a concrete path

The red arrows flying in formation just above a hedge. They are flying left to right in an arrow formation trailing red white and blue smoke behind them

Two people stood next to the barriers at a running event. A black and white dog is laid out on the floor

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Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk · 13/09/2026

Trees work harder than you think. They cool our streets, clean our air and provide us with shade. We’re planting 5,000 more where heat risk is highest - growing London’s tree canopy for future generations. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Drought devastation: How to save London's parched trees

Heatwaves and drought make planting native trees and maintaining the existing canopy more and more difficult.

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Brexit Bin 🇪🇺 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 @brexitbin.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Here's a French video (with English subtitles) about what would happen if the far-right racists got their way and all foreigners and people of colour were forced to leave.

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Anand Menon @anandmenon.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Hard to shake the impression that the overriding sentiment in Tories and Labour to the Reform donations was envy rather than concern about our democratic system….

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Richard Corbett CBE @richardcorbett.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

£72 million is more than every UK political party combined accepted in donations and public funds throughout the whole of 2025. It’s more than twice what a party contesting every seat may spend nationally in the year before a general election. This is NOT normal! www.uglypolitix.com/p/two-men-48...

uglypolitix.com

Two men, 48 hours, £72m - What’s the Problem?

Two men gave Reform more in 48 hours than every British party raised in 2025. The Government's answer is a working group with no members, no remit and no timetable.

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli... Don’t just limit that statutory change to London, allow us all to have the ability to enact cleaner air. We should be targetting the rollout of solar, batteries and ASHPs to those in fuel poverty.

independent.co.uk

Sadiq Khan ‘plans to ban wood-burning stoves in parts of London’ in clean air push

The Mayor of London has written to the government asking for more power to ban burning certain fuels

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Cllr Owen Burbidge 🔶 @oburbidge.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Crumble seems to be pretty chilled tonight. She’s dosed up on prednisolone currently as we try to get rid of her aural hematoma 😢

A dog on a sofa. She is laid out horizontally and looks very comfortable.

A laptop is in the foreground

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