CORE Transport Activists Rountable 16 November 2005
Rod Eddington was due to appear at this meeting but was unable to attend. Instead, a delegation of CORE TAR members will meet him at the Department for Transport on 23 November 2005 but because the numbers were limited, Norman Bradbury had given Stephen Joseph suggestions in writing on rail issues for discussion.
Whitehall Update and discussion papers were circulated for comment.
David Davis and David Cameron are both in favour of road user charging but both think revenues should be used for more road building.
T2000 have commissioned Jim Steer to report on “What would be the effect of High Speed Rail on the proposed Third Runway at Heathrow”.
The Rail Passengers Council is still expressing interest in attending CORE TAR meetings as is the Alliance Against 4x4s but the latter is reluctant to pay anything for membership. WWF have also shown interest in CORE TAR meetings.
The Road Safety Bill has passed its Lords Committee stage and should be at its final stage by new year. On a point of interest, it was noted that the rule that a victim of a road accident who dies from their injuries after 30 days from the date of the accident, will still not be considered as a road accident fatality.
It is clear that Local Transport Plans still lack many issues due to lack of competence and knowledge of Councillors and many Council Officers.
It now seems unlikely that many current road schemes will go ahead due to rising costs. This news was welcomed by those present.
All Party Parliamentary Climate Change meeting 15 November 2005
The members present were shocked into the future by BBC Weather Forecaster Alex Deakin reading a forecast for a day in May 2080.
The experts present were agreed that climate change up to 2040 is now inevitable but what we do now could influence changes after that.
In brief, we will have warmer, drier summers with acute water shortages, higher winds in autumn and wetter winters. Average rainfall would be 20% higher than now with more frequent extreme conditions leading to infrastructure damage and disruption to utilities and all forms of transport.
This would entail variable insurance rates but mostly upwards and building designs would have to change and low energy cooling and heating will be essential. It is likely that parts of Europe could become drought ridden and up to 50 million people displaced.
Norman Bradbury 20 November 2005
Core Transport Activists Roundtable 17 May 2005
General Election debriefing: Details of new transport ministers are shown on the enclosed Whitehall update. However, it was noted the Conservative and Lib Dem transport spokesmen are now Alan Duncan and Tom Brake respectively.
Alastair Darling has indicated he is looking for assistance from campaign groups to help promote acceptance of Road User Charging.
Social Exclusion: David Lilybrand is Secretary of State for Communities and
Social Inclusion. It was suggested CORE TAR should seek an interview with
Mr Lilybrand and with Simon Hughes (Lib Dem).
It was noted the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister currently does not work with DEFRA on social exclusion issues and the relationship between Sustainable Communities and social inclusion needs to be emphasised.
Spending Review: We need to focus on transport issues and the poor value for money and environmental issues of road spending and the benefits of other alternatives. There was much discussion on how best to do this and it was suggested another look at the SACTRA reports would help highlight the futility of road building. It was noted the CPRE publication “Roads to Regeneration?” examines these issues.
The CORE TAR meeting on 12 July will discuss ways to take this campaign forward — ideas to be sent to Denise Carlo , deadline to be advised.
Denise also mentioned the need to highlight transport related climate change issues in the spending review. Demand management would be a more cost effective way to relieve congestion than road building while providing significant environmental benefits.
CfIT: In the absence of Ross Scot, Stephen Joseph reported CfIT has been doing work on the benefits of bus lanes, including local economic benefits.
They have also been looking at parking and retail related C02 emissions and integrated transport. Stephen mentioned that he will cease to be involved with CfIT this year.
Climate Change & Green Peace: Mark Strutt And Jason Torrance gave a short presentation on their work on transport and transport in the Hydrogen economy. Mark Strutt is working on international transport issues, particularly roads, aviation and fuel efficiency. Their recent demonstration at Land Rover was intended to highlight the energy problems related to large 4x4 vehicles.
George Bush sees 90Z of hydrogen for fuel being generated from fossil fuels with 1OZ from renewables. The point was made that since it takes 8kw of energy to procure 1kw worth of hydrogen from water, this would cause even more damage to the environment than burning fossil fuels directly.
Greenpeace will campaign for more efficient vehicles and the need to reduce the need to travel and will attend future TAR meetings.
Finally, it was suggested they might like to consider how to deal with the likely fuel duty protests in September following the scheduled increase due that month.
Norman Bradbury
Transport Activists Roundtable meeting 15 March 2005
Chair: Roger Geffen (CTC):
SOCIAL INCLUSION: The meeting began with lengthy discussion on a social exclusion paper by Sarah Williams of the Ramblers Association. The Government sees the bus as the solution to social exclusion problems and largely ignores the potential for walking, cycling and other soft measures. However, the National Audit Office is conducting a study on quality of life issues including social exclusion.
The Government’s social inclusion unit also regards the bus as the solution to accessibility problems created by development of out of town retail and health services, ignoring the fact that the consequential loss of local shops and services causes inconvenience and an add-on cost that would not be necessary if these facilities had remained within walking distance.
There is a need to get wider media awareness of these issues but at least the office of the deputy prime minister seems to have acknowledged these problems in the latest Planning Policy Statement entitled Delivering Sustainable Development. See Sustrans Briefing note on PPS later.
We need more information and to seek examples of locations where exclusion has occurred and to make contact with organisations like Age Concern and the Womens Institute.
Railfuture could help this campaign by publicising the health benefits of rail travel as it involves a certain amount of walking and cycling to and from stations and by pressing for more cycle carriage on trains. Planning issues and the need to locate new developments around railway stations could also be highlighted.
CLIMATE CHANGE UPDATE: There is growing acknowledgement that technology has a more limited potential for improvements than previously thought and it has been suggested the “hydrogen economy” is up to 50 years away.
Whitehall update I
Most policy-making is now on hold pending election. The Department for Transport is “incredibly short of money” and claims that the railways are taking it all. The cycling initiative however seems to have been torpedoed by Secretary of State Alistair Darling rather than by money problems. It is affecting Local Transport Plan spending and there is also a shortage of funding for the sustainable travel fund.
The election will not feature transport if the two main parties can help it.
There is also a lot of work going on in the Strategy Unit and at No 10 about local/regional government. More joint authorities, more joint working between authorities and options such as mayors for the conurbations are all up for discussion.
Climate change
The Department for Transport is still reportedly difficult in cross-departmental meetings.
Railways
Lib Dems, with support from Tories and some Labour dissidents, are holding out for some concessions in the Railways Bill around closures, strategies/duties and passenger transport executive powers. The Government is desperate to get the bill through. In the Government’s haste to get the Railways Bill through before the next election, a number of amendments tabled by Bill Bradshaw and others may be approved.
Roads
We may hear about the M6 Expressway consultation results before the election. There is also a rumour that the A47 Acle decision may be announced before the election, which is probably bad news. The roads transport activists roundtable heard an interesting presentation from the Department for Transport’s roads strategy director Steve Gooding on road charging. It also agreed to pursue with him the roads that have disappeared from recent announcements, like the A419 in the Cotswolds, the A303 dualling, the A27 and others.
Planning Policy Statement 1
Delivering Sustainable Development
Sustrans briefing
1) What is it?
Pubflshed in February 2005, this is a new Planning Policy Statement from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
2) Why is it Important?
This is the bedrock of English land-use planning, and also sets out the Government’s view on sustainable development.
3) Any particular quotes?
‘16. Development plan policies should address accessibility (both in terms of location and physical access) for all members of the community to jobs, health, housing, education, shops, leisure and community facilities.’
‘27 (v). Planning authorities should ensure new development Is located where evewone can access services or facilities on foot, bicycle or public transport rather than having to rely on access by car. While recognising that this may be more difficult In rural areas.’
4) Any other issues arising?
Yes. There are strong statements on social inclusion, good design, community involvement, spatial planning, and the need to integrate sustainable development plans with other key policies.
6) What Is the context of all this?
The Government has four aims for sustainable development. These are:
Social progress which recognises the needs of everyone
Effective protection of the environment
Prudent use of natural resources
Maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employment.
The first draft of PPS1 was very much a ‘developers charter’, so the criticisms we and others made have to some extent been accepted. There is much more about sustainability and much less about the gains development brings.
6) What are the implications for Sustrans?
This document gives backing to the policy and practice of much of our work and references from it will be useful. Here are three more key quotes.
Pars 16 ‘Plan policies should:
Take into account the needs of all the community, Including particular requirements relating to age, sex, ethnic background, religion, disability or income
Deliver safe, healthy and attractive places to live
Support the provision of health and well-being by making provision for healthy activity.’
Lastly, PPSI supercedes Circular 5/94 on ‘Planning Out Crime’, which caused us many problems with its needless emphasis about closing cycle and pedestrian paths to stop them allegedly being used by criminals.
7) Read on
PPS1 can be read on www.odpm.gov.uk. Follow ‘Planning’ and ‘Planning Policy’.
February 2005
Rod Eddington was due to appear at this meeting but was unable to attend. Instead, a delegation of CORE TAR members will meet him at the Department for Transport on 23 November 2005 but because the numbers were limited, Norman Bradbury had given Stephen Joseph suggestions in writing on rail issues for discussion.
Whitehall Update and discussion papers were circulated for comment.
David Davis and David Cameron are both in favour of road user charging but both think revenues should be used for more road building.
T2000 have commissioned Jim Steer to report on “What would be the effect of High Speed Rail on the proposed Third Runway at Heathrow”.
The Rail Passengers Council is still expressing interest in attending CORE TAR meetings as is the Alliance Against 4x4s but the latter is reluctant to pay anything for membership. WWF have also shown interest in CORE TAR meetings.
The Road Safety Bill has passed its Lords Committee stage and should be at its final stage by new year. On a point of interest, it was noted that the rule that a victim of a road accident who dies from their injuries after 30 days from the date of the accident, will still not be considered as a road accident fatality.
It is clear that Local Transport Plans still lack many issues due to lack of competence and knowledge of Councillors and many Council Officers.
It now seems unlikely that many current road schemes will go ahead due to rising costs. This news was welcomed by those present.
All Party Parliamentary Climate Change meeting 15 November 2005
The members present were shocked into the future by BBC Weather Forecaster Alex Deakin reading a forecast for a day in May 2080.
The experts present were agreed that climate change up to 2040 is now inevitable but what we do now could influence changes after that.
In brief, we will have warmer, drier summers with acute water shortages, higher winds in autumn and wetter winters. Average rainfall would be 20% higher than now with more frequent extreme conditions leading to infrastructure damage and disruption to utilities and all forms of transport.
This would entail variable insurance rates but mostly upwards and building designs would have to change and low energy cooling and heating will be essential. It is likely that parts of Europe could become drought ridden and up to 50 million people displaced.
Norman Bradbury 20 November 2005
Core Transport Activists Roundtable 17 May 2005
General Election debriefing: Details of new transport ministers are shown on the enclosed Whitehall update. However, it was noted the Conservative and Lib Dem transport spokesmen are now Alan Duncan and Tom Brake respectively.
Alastair Darling has indicated he is looking for assistance from campaign groups to help promote acceptance of Road User Charging.
Social Exclusion: David Lilybrand is Secretary of State for Communities and
Social Inclusion. It was suggested CORE TAR should seek an interview with
Mr Lilybrand and with Simon Hughes (Lib Dem).
It was noted the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister currently does not work with DEFRA on social exclusion issues and the relationship between Sustainable Communities and social inclusion needs to be emphasised.
Spending Review: We need to focus on transport issues and the poor value for money and environmental issues of road spending and the benefits of other alternatives. There was much discussion on how best to do this and it was suggested another look at the SACTRA reports would help highlight the futility of road building. It was noted the CPRE publication “Roads to Regeneration?” examines these issues.
The CORE TAR meeting on 12 July will discuss ways to take this campaign forward — ideas to be sent to Denise Carlo , deadline to be advised.
Denise also mentioned the need to highlight transport related climate change issues in the spending review. Demand management would be a more cost effective way to relieve congestion than road building while providing significant environmental benefits.
CfIT: In the absence of Ross Scot, Stephen Joseph reported CfIT has been doing work on the benefits of bus lanes, including local economic benefits.
They have also been looking at parking and retail related C02 emissions and integrated transport. Stephen mentioned that he will cease to be involved with CfIT this year.
Climate Change & Green Peace: Mark Strutt And Jason Torrance gave a short presentation on their work on transport and transport in the Hydrogen economy. Mark Strutt is working on international transport issues, particularly roads, aviation and fuel efficiency. Their recent demonstration at Land Rover was intended to highlight the energy problems related to large 4x4 vehicles.
George Bush sees 90Z of hydrogen for fuel being generated from fossil fuels with 1OZ from renewables. The point was made that since it takes 8kw of energy to procure 1kw worth of hydrogen from water, this would cause even more damage to the environment than burning fossil fuels directly.
Greenpeace will campaign for more efficient vehicles and the need to reduce the need to travel and will attend future TAR meetings.
Finally, it was suggested they might like to consider how to deal with the likely fuel duty protests in September following the scheduled increase due that month.
Norman Bradbury
Transport Activists Roundtable meeting 15 March 2005
Chair: Roger Geffen (CTC):
SOCIAL INCLUSION: The meeting began with lengthy discussion on a social exclusion paper by Sarah Williams of the Ramblers Association. The Government sees the bus as the solution to social exclusion problems and largely ignores the potential for walking, cycling and other soft measures. However, the National Audit Office is conducting a study on quality of life issues including social exclusion.
The Government’s social inclusion unit also regards the bus as the solution to accessibility problems created by development of out of town retail and health services, ignoring the fact that the consequential loss of local shops and services causes inconvenience and an add-on cost that would not be necessary if these facilities had remained within walking distance.
There is a need to get wider media awareness of these issues but at least the office of the deputy prime minister seems to have acknowledged these problems in the latest Planning Policy Statement entitled Delivering Sustainable Development. See Sustrans Briefing note on PPS later.
We need more information and to seek examples of locations where exclusion has occurred and to make contact with organisations like Age Concern and the Womens Institute.
Railfuture could help this campaign by publicising the health benefits of rail travel as it involves a certain amount of walking and cycling to and from stations and by pressing for more cycle carriage on trains. Planning issues and the need to locate new developments around railway stations could also be highlighted.
CLIMATE CHANGE UPDATE: There is growing acknowledgement that technology has a more limited potential for improvements than previously thought and it has been suggested the “hydrogen economy” is up to 50 years away.
Whitehall update I
Most policy-making is now on hold pending election. The Department for Transport is “incredibly short of money” and claims that the railways are taking it all. The cycling initiative however seems to have been torpedoed by Secretary of State Alistair Darling rather than by money problems. It is affecting Local Transport Plan spending and there is also a shortage of funding for the sustainable travel fund.
The election will not feature transport if the two main parties can help it.
There is also a lot of work going on in the Strategy Unit and at No 10 about local/regional government. More joint authorities, more joint working between authorities and options such as mayors for the conurbations are all up for discussion.
Climate change
The Department for Transport is still reportedly difficult in cross-departmental meetings.
Railways
Lib Dems, with support from Tories and some Labour dissidents, are holding out for some concessions in the Railways Bill around closures, strategies/duties and passenger transport executive powers. The Government is desperate to get the bill through. In the Government’s haste to get the Railways Bill through before the next election, a number of amendments tabled by Bill Bradshaw and others may be approved.
Roads
We may hear about the M6 Expressway consultation results before the election. There is also a rumour that the A47 Acle decision may be announced before the election, which is probably bad news. The roads transport activists roundtable heard an interesting presentation from the Department for Transport’s roads strategy director Steve Gooding on road charging. It also agreed to pursue with him the roads that have disappeared from recent announcements, like the A419 in the Cotswolds, the A303 dualling, the A27 and others.
Planning Policy Statement 1
Delivering Sustainable Development
Sustrans briefing
1) What is it?
Pubflshed in February 2005, this is a new Planning Policy Statement from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
2) Why is it Important?
This is the bedrock of English land-use planning, and also sets out the Government’s view on sustainable development.
3) Any particular quotes?
‘16. Development plan policies should address accessibility (both in terms of location and physical access) for all members of the community to jobs, health, housing, education, shops, leisure and community facilities.’
‘27 (v). Planning authorities should ensure new development Is located where evewone can access services or facilities on foot, bicycle or public transport rather than having to rely on access by car. While recognising that this may be more difficult In rural areas.’
4) Any other issues arising?
Yes. There are strong statements on social inclusion, good design, community involvement, spatial planning, and the need to integrate sustainable development plans with other key policies.
6) What Is the context of all this?
The Government has four aims for sustainable development. These are:
Social progress which recognises the needs of everyone
Effective protection of the environment
Prudent use of natural resources
Maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employment.
The first draft of PPS1 was very much a ‘developers charter’, so the criticisms we and others made have to some extent been accepted. There is much more about sustainability and much less about the gains development brings.
6) What are the implications for Sustrans?
This document gives backing to the policy and practice of much of our work and references from it will be useful. Here are three more key quotes.
Pars 16 ‘Plan policies should:
Take into account the needs of all the community, Including particular requirements relating to age, sex, ethnic background, religion, disability or income
Deliver safe, healthy and attractive places to live
Support the provision of health and well-being by making provision for healthy activity.’
Lastly, PPSI supercedes Circular 5/94 on ‘Planning Out Crime’, which caused us many problems with its needless emphasis about closing cycle and pedestrian paths to stop them allegedly being used by criminals.
7) Read on
PPS1 can be read on www.odpm.gov.uk. Follow ‘Planning’ and ‘Planning Policy’.
February 2005