A joint letter is being prepared by transport activists about issues of concern related to the Barker and Eddington reviews and proposals for a Planning Commission.

According to Rebecca Lush of Road Block, there is a lot of worrying details in the Eddington review.

An electronic petition containing 90,000 signatures in opposition to road pricing has gone to the PM. There is concern that the public have been misinformed by the media about road pricing and the potential benefits. Transport activists believe it is best not to launch a pro-road pricing campaign at this stage but to build up a case for it over time. Transport 2000 will be addressing this through the regional Growing the Railways campaign meetings.

A bank that has closed in Leicestershire has been calculated to have caused some 1.4million extra car miles per year. In Surrey people are signing a petition objecting to proposed closures of accident and emergency wards at a number major hospitals in the county. More motoring miles will result from the closures

Caroline Watson of the Environment Agency knows all about the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation which starts in April 2008. This will require 2% by volume of fuel to be sourced from biofuel and will rise to 5% by 2010/11.

However, there is concern that at present there is no standard related to the quality or source of such fuel. The Environment Agency is working on guidance for biofuel quality standards. Sugar Beat, for example, offers almost no carbon savings at all.

Under current rules, only the large oil producers like Shell and BP will be incentivised to use biofuels but small companies like Fina will be under no obligation at all. The process of refining biofuels from crops, whether or not natural gas has been used in the process, determines the level of carbon savings, as does the transportation of it. The UK is the first country to implement use of biofuels in this way which is only a first stage.

There is concern that carbon trading would provide few benefits. It can be seen as nothing more than a diversion that would do little more than shift emissions from one source to another. Friends of the Earth are doing some work on this.

Transport activists will be meeting the Department for Transport to discuss the Rail White Paper.

Norman Bradbury 20/01/07