What kind of father sacrifices his children in order, he thinks, to win an election

there
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Visgir1

My nearest City put into place a LEZ. Recently reported since its been applied they have lost over £200k in cost as its not generating enough income.
Council now considering removing it.

Exactly - interestingly my market town DESPERATELY needs a bypass, which they could have done easily many years ago by using the defunct railway track, however, a well known college and a supermarket, put paid to that idea (apparently the supermarket had a say because of just that, a loss of revenue. We now have huge traffic problems - if there is just one set of roadworks, or an accident, the whole town gridlocks - sometimes for weeks on end! It is a main north - south route and a main east to west route, and its utterly ridiculous! Not only is it an absolute nightmare for residents, businesses and visitors, who are trying to get through, the pollution must be awful! As for the state of the lovely Tudor, Elizabethan and Georgian houses, on The Green, you can literally feel the houses shake when huge artics come literally rumbling down the road - the main north/south route isn't even 2 lanes in one place! 2 cars can get through, but a car and a lorry can't, so the traffic has to stop in order to let them through. These are main routes, but were built for horses and carts! It's disgusting that the college and one supermarket can have such an impact on our town (not that you can stop and ark easily to go to said supermarket, but planners must be in the pockets of these big institutions, although why having a bypass would have an effect on the college is beyond me? Yes it would take away some of our countryside, but the town itself wold benefit hugely in my opinion ....

Summary

Air pollution is one of the world’s leading risk factors for death, attributed to millions of deaths each year.
Air pollution is attributed to 11.65% of deaths globally.
It is also one of the leading risk factors for disease burden.
Death rates from air pollution are highest in low-to-middle income countries, with more than 100-fold differences in rates across the world.
Globally, death rates from air pollution have been falling. This has mainly been the result of progress on tackling indoor pollution.

^ The above is from ourworldindata.org

Loads more info if you care to look, most of which suggests that the air in modern cities such as we have in the UK is not such a big deal anyway: ourworldindata.org/air-pollution

Glorianny

Lathyrus

I’m all in favour of walking to school if you can get a place at a school within walking distance. So many people can’t and even have to ferry their children to different schools.

This is what I mean by a scheme that addresses the reality if the lives that people live, often by no choice of their own.

We all know the traffic generated by the school run. One enormous step forward would be to go back to schools taking from their immediate catchment area.

Tackle the problem of traffic at its roots not with a sticking plaster.

The fact that a school is oversubscribed is no reason to stop measures which would enable the children already attending to walk there.
But if a council introduces LTNs arguing that a school is not within walking distance might help appeals.

LTNs won’t help school appeals because there is no joined up thinking in services.

What would help is children within walking distance of a school being allocated first choice for placement.

Like it used to be…….

LTNs wind a lot of people up. The Tories are realising that these things are vote losers. Politicians follow the vote.😚

The object may be that "^Through traffic is designated as passing from A to B without stopping. Some of these ways are what used to be called "rat runs" a short cut through a residential area. The aim is to stop that happening."^ but traffic passing from A to B without stopping is not usually going through residential areas in the middle of their journey. They go from their starting position - usually their home, their work or the supermarket - to the motorway or main road by as quick and straightforward a route as possible, stay on that as long as they can, then take the shortest and most straightforward route to their destination. If the final routes from the main road to their home or job, for instance, are sufficient to take the volume of traffic that actually live or work there, they will take those.

They take a 'rat run' through someone else's residential streets when the main routes are too clogged and slow to allow traffic through reasonably quickly - that is, when the main routes need a significant amount of money and design time spent on them. Instead of improving that, local authorities take the cheaper option of tinkering with natural traffic flow in the residential streets.

Where I live the housing estates agreed by the Tory council are miles from the already over-subscribed schools, causing two main problems for the residents - the first being that many children don't get places in the schools their parents paid over the odds to get into, and the second being that even if they do, they are a drive away, and the primary and secondaries are often in opposite directions (obviously depending on your starting point).

It makes no sense to allow family housing where there are no schools, and to cut the buses that used to run to what where then considered outlying parts of town (the new builds are much further out), but it brings in money, so they do. There is no NHS dentist, and it takes ages to get a GP appointment because of the increased population, but anyone pointing that out is accused of NIMBYism. Adding costs or time to the school run just makes life even more difficult, causes more resentment towards 'incomers' and won't alter the number of cars in the town, as they are a necessary evil.

Why not bring back subsidised buses and free up the car parks for visitors? IMO it's probably because the Tory councillors have never used a bus since they were at school, and can't imagine wanting (or needing) to do so.

It happens regardless of the colour of the council Doodledog. Estates are built further and further away from schools, shops, surgeries etc because they are in the areas already built up. A very large development often carries a requirement to provide business premises, one or more schools and a doctor’s surgery, the cost of which will be taken into account in the land price, but most developments are far too small for that. They may carry a requirement to contribute to a fund for provision of such facilities and a transport scheme but those won’t be built for years. The pressure for houses is such that they are built years ahead of provision of the necessary infrastructure and local authorities have a statutory duty to provide plans for housing provision for the next five years; failure in that regard has enabled developers to build on viable agricultural land. Unless development is restricted to very large sites which can support schools and the like, which will usually involve eating into yet more agricultural land, such piecemeal development devoid of infrastructure will continue. A change which Gove has tried to introduce in Cambridge although a new settlement was built nearby some years ago and whilst practising I was involved in plans for two others. Some brownfield land was involved but mainly vast tracts of arable land - can we afford to continue to lose the land which feeds us in order to build more housing?

A lot of the issues are caused by the upsizing of schools, GP surgeries, supermarkets etc too. The expectation is that people will travel under their own steam to get to more remote, ‘better’ facilities.

One of my posts seem to have gone astray.

The reason I wrote this post was not to suggest a JSO response, I am well aware that we need to phase out hydrocarbons, and that will involve opening up new oil and gas fields, and if this announcement has been part of a rational scheme leading to the reduction of in the use of hydrocarbons I would have made no comment.

But the fact is that the only reason the PM has announced these measures is because he thinks they will attract votes and help him win the next election. It is the sheer contemptible cynicism of such a move that puts political gain before the future of all those on this planet, including his children that so shocked me.

How do you know it’s the only reason he has announced these measures? Are you a member of the Cabinet?
Seems to me he’s being practical. It will be a long time before we can stop using fossil fuels, and we need to be as self sufficient as possible. Thank goodness he understands that, and that the gains of the few in LTNs are the losses of many others.

He is hardly sacrificing his children, this action banning everything is too harsh, people need to work. I think it was rushed into too quickly.

M0nica what causes you to say such a thing? Are in his pocket? I see no political gain, rather cautious re-thinking to a way forward.

But the fact is that the only reason the PM has announced these measures is because he thinks they will attract votes and help him win the next election. It is the sheer contemptible cynicism of such a move that puts political gain before the future of all those on this planet, including his children that so shocked me.

I mentioned a Tory council (although I'm sure you're right, GSM that housing developments are on the outskirts across the piece - where else can they go?) because it is the Tories who have brought in the 'green' schemes, and the Tories who are now seeing that they are unpopular and are turning against them, leaving Labour councillors to pick up the pieces.

Andy Burnham was forced to introduce ULEZ in Manchester because the government insisted on it, and a cynic might think that the fact that this would make him unpopular could have been a factor in Manchester being chosen. Newcastle has one too, and also has a Labour mayor, as does London.

Germanshepherdsmum

Absolutely Doodledog. Realistically it will take years to provide everyone with any, yet alone good, public transport. People who live on a frequent bus route have little idea how difficult life can be for those of us in rural areas, wholly dependent on our cars and on deliveries.

Surely the ULEZ zones have been/will be introduced into the cities for the forseeable. I doubt that people in rural areas are going to be affected by this for some, possible years.

Having lived in rural Suffolk for a number of years I am fully aware of he lack of public transport which means that people must use their cars to go anywhere. However, there are plenty of park and ride surrounding most major rural towns and cities - eg Ipswich and Norwich which I used to use regularly.

Most of the time there are now dozens of vehicles stationery in town/city centres belching out fumes which can cause childhood asthma. This is on the increase.

Having just come back from the USA I’d say that we’re all going to burn in hell anyway. The smoke blowing down from the Canadian wildfires has been terrible . They’re way behind us environmentally too. Try telling them that they must have LTN’s/ULEZ/Electric cars (we didn’t see one car charging point)! And these things are only part of the problem- how many pro-ULEZ people are vegans?? If you truly want a healthier planet then stop cherry picking and make all the changes because it’s all part of the problem!

cc

I absolutely appreciate the problems associated with asthma and pollution, but having brought up four children next to a very busy London Road I am still not sure how much can be directly attributed to the pollution? Asthma was certainly very unusual at our London primary school, far less common that hayfever from which two of my children and myself have suffered.
My grandmother lived in the country in a very clean-air area and suffered very badly from ashthma brought on my pollen.

Here's a link to a report by the BMJ from 2019 - don't have time to look for more up to date reports, of which there are many.

www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l1767

When we moved to Suffolk from London we thought we were moving to an environment with cleaner air. Unfortunately it's not that clean. London cause a doughnut effect which means that air pollution rises up, spreads out and then falls anywhere within any 80 mile radius of London. We also suffered from air pollution coming from northern Germany. There is an air quality monitoring station at Sibton in Suffolk which one year appeared in a list of the top 10 worst polluted areas. Difficult to believe I know.

Once you have asthma the number of things that can trigger an attack will grow.

Where I live in France the air quality is very good, as testified by the amount of lichen growing everywhere but this year I have been suffering badly from asthma because of the pollen.

Dinahmo

Germanshepherdsmum

Absolutely Doodledog. Realistically it will take years to provide everyone with any, yet alone good, public transport. People who live on a frequent bus route have little idea how difficult life can be for those of us in rural areas, wholly dependent on our cars and on deliveries.

Surely the ULEZ zones have been/will be introduced into the cities for the forseeable. I doubt that people in rural areas are going to be affected by this for some, possible years.

Having lived in rural Suffolk for a number of years I am fully aware of he lack of public transport which means that people must use their cars to go anywhere. However, there are plenty of park and ride surrounding most major rural towns and cities - eg Ipswich and Norwich which I used to use regularly.

Most of the time there are now dozens of vehicles stationery in town/city centres belching out fumes which can cause childhood asthma. This is on the increase.

It may be that the zones are in the cities, but even we bumpkins have to go there at times . If there is no bus from outlying areas people have to take cars.

Really, there is just no excuse for not having the very basic foresight to set up a decent public transport network before bringing in car-discouragement measures.

Slight digression but a relevant one. From Susie Dent (@susie_dent): "Word of the day is ‘snollygoster’ (19th century): one who abandons their principles for short-term gain or power."

Chuckle.

Germanshepherdsmum

How do you know it’s the only reason he has announced these measures? Are you a member of the Cabinet?
Seems to me he’s being practical. It will be a long time before we can stop using fossil fuels, and we need to be as self sufficient as possible. Thank goodness he understands that, and that the gains of the few in LTNs are the losses of many others.

Well, 80% of it will be exported so imo it’s all about money for the government. And, if the government hadn’t’ve got rid of our oil storage facilities the price for consumers wouldn’t have gone up in the way it did.

How do you know 80% will be exported? And how are any exports ‘all about money for the government’? Cynical or what?

They were discussing it on Ch4 News tonight. I did ask DH if that was what was said and he confirmed it.

Germanshepherdsmum

How do you know 80% will be exported? And how are any exports ‘all about money for the government’? Cynical or what?

What do you think about the government getting rid of our oil storage facilities by the way?

I’ve already said, how long are you going to go on about it?

The Labour MP Stephanie Peacock accused the government of leaving the UK “vulnerable” to crisis and called on Kwarteng to admit that the closure of the country’s main gas storage site off the east coast four years ago was “a mistake”.

The Rough storage facility, owned by Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, provided 70% of the UK gas storage capacity for more than 30 years before it shut in 2017 following a government decision not to subsidise the costly maintenance and upgrades needed to keep the site going.

For decades the UK had been able to avoid investment in costly storage in favour of tapping its domestic North Sea reserves for gas on demand. So why did the UK believe it could continue to do without even as those reserves declined?

In 2013, the then energy minister Michael Fallon said the decision to allow Rough to close would save the UK £750m over 10 years. Instead, a diverse range of energy sources would ensure the public received “reliable supplies of electricity and gas at minimum cost”.

The global market for shipping ocean tankers filled with super-chilled liquid gas around the world was taking off. A UK shale industry appeared within reach. Cross-border trading with European neighbours had never been more liquid. In short: there were plenty of options.

But critics warned that the shutdown of the North Sea site would leave the UK exposed to the volatility of the global gas market, and forced to compete with other nations to attract imports with sky-high prices.

Charles Hendry, then a Tory MP, warned before the Rough shutdown that the UK should be paying to build more gas storage facilities after coming within hours of running out of gas, and said the country was relying “on luck” to avoid the gas grid running dry.

It was a matter of months after the closure of the Rough site that the UK’s energy operator, National Grid, issued a formal warning that the country did not have enough gas to meet demand during the freezing “beast from the east” storm which battered the UK in March 2018.

The gas market surged by almost 75% within the day. The country did not run out of supplies but analysts estimated that the cost of gas overall on the day of National Grid’s warning had climbed eightfold from usual levels.