Housing, transport, quality of life...
John Whitelegg, Lancaster City Council
The real excitement of green politics is the sure knowledge that we have the policies to deal with the big issues of the day.
There
has never been a better time to vote green. Climate
change, transport, peace and social justice, are in the
news every day and require the kind of leadership and
clarity that only Greens can supply.
Transport is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions and within transport lorries and aircraft are particularly problematic. Greens have led the way in showing that local sourcing of food, goods and services has a huge contribution to make in solving the growth of lorry numbers on our roads. Similarly greens have led the way on aviation and repeatedly highlighted the need for fair, efficient and transparent taxes linked to the amount of damage to the atmosphere caused by aircraft.
The growth of car traffic, especially on quiet rural roads and on residential streets, is both a climate change and a local quality of life problem. Greens have long argued for traffic reduction strategies to deal with this. Most grey politicians will go to any lengths to avoid asserting the importance of walking and cycling and will only pay lip service to these modes of transport whilst still widening roads and building bypasses. They take no effective action to implement the “road user hierarchy” which asserts the importance of walking and cycling and that low priority that should be given to the “single occupancy vehicle”.
Reducing traffic (Note 1) and reducing traffic speeds (Note 2) can have a huge impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Enforcing speed limits on motorways and trunk roads and reducing speed limits can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Introducing a blanket, city-wide 20mph speed limit can reduce greenhouse gases by bringing about a large scale shift from the car to walking, cycling or using the bus.
One of the best pieces of advice for any local authority trying to deal with climate change is “when in a hole stop digging”. In Lancaster we have a bypass proposal for 4 miles of new road, the bypass proposal is Lancashire County Council’s top transport scheme. This will cause massive environmental damage, cost £137 million and generate 25,000 tonnes of additional CO2 each year. This will more than cancel out all our new low energy light bulb and energy efficiency projects. Lancaster’s Green councillors have fought this bypass every step of the way while the three grey parties support it. Similarly Lancaster City Council has a “green travel plan” that gives all staff and councillors £200 pa subsidy for an annual car parking permit and gives nothing to those who walk, cycle or use the bus. We have fought this one as well but once again the shared ideology of the three greys ensures that this most unsustainable policies remains intact.
The real excitement of green politics though is the sure knowledge that we have the policies to deal with the big issues of the day and as a quick check-list I offer the following “top ten” (see panel right).
Transport is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions and within transport lorries and aircraft are particularly problematic. Greens have led the way in showing that local sourcing of food, goods and services has a huge contribution to make in solving the growth of lorry numbers on our roads. Similarly greens have led the way on aviation and repeatedly highlighted the need for fair, efficient and transparent taxes linked to the amount of damage to the atmosphere caused by aircraft.
The growth of car traffic, especially on quiet rural roads and on residential streets, is both a climate change and a local quality of life problem. Greens have long argued for traffic reduction strategies to deal with this. Most grey politicians will go to any lengths to avoid asserting the importance of walking and cycling and will only pay lip service to these modes of transport whilst still widening roads and building bypasses. They take no effective action to implement the “road user hierarchy” which asserts the importance of walking and cycling and that low priority that should be given to the “single occupancy vehicle”.
Reducing traffic (Note 1) and reducing traffic speeds (Note 2) can have a huge impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Enforcing speed limits on motorways and trunk roads and reducing speed limits can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Introducing a blanket, city-wide 20mph speed limit can reduce greenhouse gases by bringing about a large scale shift from the car to walking, cycling or using the bus.
One of the best pieces of advice for any local authority trying to deal with climate change is “when in a hole stop digging”. In Lancaster we have a bypass proposal for 4 miles of new road, the bypass proposal is Lancashire County Council’s top transport scheme. This will cause massive environmental damage, cost £137 million and generate 25,000 tonnes of additional CO2 each year. This will more than cancel out all our new low energy light bulb and energy efficiency projects. Lancaster’s Green councillors have fought this bypass every step of the way while the three grey parties support it. Similarly Lancaster City Council has a “green travel plan” that gives all staff and councillors £200 pa subsidy for an annual car parking permit and gives nothing to those who walk, cycle or use the bus. We have fought this one as well but once again the shared ideology of the three greys ensures that this most unsustainable policies remains intact.
The real excitement of green politics though is the sure knowledge that we have the policies to deal with the big issues of the day and as a quick check-list I offer the following “top ten” (see panel right).
OUR 'TOP TEN' POLICIES
1. Make all council buildings carbon neutral by 2012
2. Implement traffic reduction strategies
3. Go for 20mph speed limits because this addresses both road safety and modal shift concerns (i.e. more and safer walking and cycling)
4. Go for green procurement, i.e. make sure that all the £75 billion that councils spend each year is directly linked to carbon reduction, renewable energy, local food, local sourcing and robustly green standards
5. If in a hole stop digging (big holes include supporting airport expansion, greenfield housing, bypass schemes and big edge of town and out of town retailing developments)
6. Do a “Kirklees” on housing, energy, insulation and renewables
7. Massive effort on renewables on all school, hospital and council owned lettable property
8. Campaigning and intervention to bring about European mainland standards of public transport (frequency, integrated ticketing, discounted fares, safety, policing, cleanliness)
9. Zero-waste strategies linked to campaigning on packaging, packaging waste and plastics
10. Reduce car parking provision in cities in line with modal shift to walk/cycle and public transport and reallocate car parks to mixed use, car-free housing/affordable housing and local shops
Note 1: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/19980112000102.html and http://www.eco-logica.co.uk/RTRA.pdf
Note 2: http://www.slower-speeds.org.uk/
GET INVOLVED
All seven Green councillors are defending seats and Lancaster Green Party is targeting six more. With 54,000 leaflets to deliver and 16,000 doors to knock,
they need all the help they can get. Volunteers should contact:
Chris Coates, 01524 840530 / chris@utopia-britannica.org.uk
