1) News from the GREEN PARTY – Press Release

CLIMATE DISASTER COULD BE MUCH BIGGER THAN EXPECTED

Six degrees of global warming wiped out most of life on earth 250 million years ago. Six degrees of global warming could happen this century, says new research. Researchers at Bristol University have discovered that a mere six degrees of global warming was enough to wipe out up to 95% of the species alive on earth at the end of the Permian period, 250 million years ago. And up to six degrees of warming are now predicted for the next 100 years by United Nations scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – if radical action isn't taken to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, the chief cause of global warming.

Cllr Prof John Whitelegg, a senior Green Party policy adviser, said today

"Unfortunately, the recent research on global warming isn't really news - we've known for some time that climate change could cause a global crisis of biblical proportions. Nor are the solutions new - they're just not being acted upon. The world needs to reduce CO2 emissions by 60% by 2050. That means high-polluting countries like UK reducing by about 90%, to allow for global equity and reasonable development in the poorer countries."

Radical CO2 reductions are achievable - with big spin-off benefits:

Professor Whitelegg, who holds professorships of sustainable development at Liverpool John Moores University and sustainable development at York University, continued:

"These reductions are achievable, and in fact there would be major spin-off benefits from the policies needed to tackle climate change. For instance, a Green transport revolution would give us huge benefits in terms of public transport, including in rural areas,as well as improvements in disabled people's transport and Safe Routes to School and Home Zone programmes. (1)

"Similarly going all-out for non-nuclear renewable energy would create a lot of jobs, because renewables sustain more jobs per unit of power than either nuclear or fossil fuels. (2) Thousands more jobs could also be created in the recycling and re-use industries, which help cut CO2 emissions. (3)

Notes:

1. See The Green transport revolution and how to pay for it,
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/reports/2001/transport/transportrevolution.html 
2. See Best of Both Worlds: Policies for sustainability AND job-creation,
 http://www.greenparty.org.uk/reports/2001/jobs/bestofbothworlds.html  .
3. See Laying Waste to Britain? Why the UK needs a zero waste strategy,
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/reports/2002/1zerowaste.htm 
4. See Stolen Life: Death and illness caused by air pollution,
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/reports/2002/air%20pollution.doc 
5. See Global Warming and Weather Disruption,
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/reports/2000/climate/climatechange.htm 

More information on climate change and the Green Party: search the Green Party website www.greenparty.org.uk  for transport under policies and "climate change" or "contraction and convergence".

We need a Green industrial revolution

"We need systematic, radical action now. Basically, a Green industrial revolution to put our economy on a sustainable footing."

The recent finding is revealed in a book by Bristol University's head of earth sciences, Professor Michael Benton, which chronicles the geological efforts leading up to the discovery and its potential implications.

2) Because it makes both financial and social sense. See the work of Anna Semlyen for a detailed case. For both historical and future technology perspectives, it is worth considering works by Wolf and Motavalli.

KEY ISSUES IN PARK AND RIDE SUGGESTED BY GRAHAM PARKHURST

Graham Parkhurst has done more research on Park and Ride than any other transport specialist in the UK. Ashford Borough Council would be well-advised to use him as a consultant to determine how traffic might be reduced in Ashford with or without Park and Ride. Parkhurst’s writings on Park and Ride are full of cautionary notes. Here are some examples:

1. Poor integration with other transport policies leading to unintended trip generation and abstraction from public transport effects;
2. Low car use costs relative to public transport costs tends to promote the use of Park and Ride;
3. Traffic redistribution and traffic increase rather than traffic reduction is an important consideration given evidence from existing Park and Ride sites;
4. In considering whether park and ride contributes appreciably and in terms of cost-effectiveness to integrating local transport, local authorities would have to take additional measures such as closing through routes, extending pedestrianisation and cutting car park capacity to guarantee some positive effects for Park and Ride;
5. Park and Ride results in increases in weekday traffic levels and does not secure relief from congestion;
6. Park and Ride can potentially add twice as much traffic outside an urban area it serves as it reduces inside it, making it very burdensome for those living nearby;
7. Strong parking controls will be needed if Park and Ride is to produce traffic reduction and Park and Ride must inter-connect with cycling and walking routes to help reduce car journeys to P&R sides. It follows that P&R must be more fully integrated into public transport, walking and cycling plans as part of Local Transport Strategies/Policies.

Park and Ride in Canterbury is judged to be a success by council officers and councillors. This success is measured by a reduction in traffic within the so-called Canterbury cordon. This sole criterion is deemed to justify claiming success for not only the two Park and Rides Canterbury City Council operates on the A28, but further Park and Ride construction on the New Dover Road in the south of Canterbury, and perhaps more in future. This success is assessed by planning officers and civil engineers primarily: council environmental officers have not up to now been allowed to play a full part in the assessment of park and ride. The selection of Canterbury as one of a very small number of communities in the country for emissions testing is one very pertinent indication that all is far from well with transport policy in the Canterbury district. It is our view that Park and Ride policy should be under Environment Committee control, with a view to long-term phasing out of the policy in favour of alternatives listed here.

The perceived success of park and ride disappears immediately if other criteria are used to measure its effects. We are not repeating data obtained in research done upon Park and Ride in detail. Our collective observation of Park and Ride since its inception in Canterbury and our conclusions are very similar to criticisms made by transport specialists.

Park and Ride in Canterbury can be judged as a failure on the following grounds:

1. A substantial increase in traffic has been recorded near the Park and Ride sites placing a huge burden on nearby resident populations, unsurprising since the Council has chosen to site park and rides on the urban fringe;

2. Knowledge about air pollution and its effects prior to Park and Ride construction and subsequently strongly suggests the Council has created air pollution "blackspots". Recent research by environmental economist David Pearce and others suggests that as many as 24,000 premature deaths per year result from air pollution which is primarily generated by traffic. Other new research demonstrates that Britain has one of the worst rates of asthma in the world and many believe this ailment, which has increased by over 125% in many health authority areas in the last ten years or so, to be primarily traffic pollution-related. Canterbury has been included in an eight-town trial system of traffic emissions monitoring precisely because it is known to have very bad air pollution, made worse by the locations of existing park and rides;

3. The planning error of siting retail warehouses at Park and Ride sites, both on the A28, has resulted in increased numbers of journeys to these locations which have nothing to do with utilising Park and Ride, with attendant noise and air pollution;

4. There is a huge increase in the frequency of gridlock in the vicinity of the Park and Rides, with vehicles at a standstill pumping out pollutants;

5. There are reasonable grounds for suspecting that there are an increased number of cross-town journeys on the A28 between the two out of town shopping centres perversely built at the Park and Ride sites;

6. Pedestrian and cycle movements in the vicinity of the Park and Rides are being severely restricted by increased traffic movements;

7. Park and Ride loses money for the Council, perhaps as much as £1.4 million over the period that Park and Ride has been operating in Canterbury and as much as £541,000 in the last year for which figures are available. Further Park and Ride development would also be likely to lose money, increasing an unproductive drain on the City Council's limited resources;

8. Park and Ride is an unacceptable use of greenfield sites that could have been avoided by devoting funds to public transport instead and cutting city centre parking to encourage use of public transport;

9. Park and Ride encourages people to make the longest part of their journeys by car;

10. Short-range park and ride reduces journeys taken by bus and train;

11. Park and Ride has the effect of providing planning leverage for fringe of town development around Canterbury;

12. Park and Ride expansion planned for the New Dover Road in the south of Canterbury has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with traffic conditions. It is itself a condition we have good reason to believe has been placed by the developer of the Whitefriars shopping re-development in central Canterbury. This developer wanted more city centre car parking spaces than the City Council found it expedient to provide. If you add the New Dover Road parking spaces to the ones proposed for Whitefriars post-development then you get a net increase which is bound to attract car users rather than encourage a shift towards bus and train. The City Council, since the 1970s, has claimed it will reduce parking spaces in Canterbury but has failed to deliver, not least since its chosen park and ride sites are on the urban fringe of Canterbury and not at a considerable distance from the city like similar developments elsewhere. They should therefore be considered as parking spaces in Canterbury, although ones placed upon greenfield sites;

13. City Council policy in support of the first Road Traffic Reduction Bill campaign, leading to an Act of 1997, and the subsequent follow-up Bill - recently accepted with modifications by the Labour Government - is contradicted by its propensity to support forms of development and locations for development which encourage substantial traffic movements, including Park and Ride;

14. Park and Ride on the Sturry Road has maintained traffic increases through Sturry village because of its location on the Canterbury side of this village. This bad planning has caused a continuance of appalling levels of noise and air pollution through the village and contributed to maintaining high levels of traffic on the A28 through villages like Hersden and on the route between Herne Bay and Sturry.

The City Council has made no attempt to learn from the problems generated by park and ride elsewhere in Britain. Oxford, the site of 4 park and rides none of which have retail development around them, was paying £330,000 a year to maintain Park and Ride by 1995. This bill was being picked up less by users than by local resident charge payers who walk, cycle, take buses or take their cars into Oxford. The 15440 car parking spaces in Oxford have not been diminished during the operation of Park and Ride and it seems to have had a negative effect on short-distance public transport since it is appreciably cheaper.

The case for a further Park and Ride at New Dover Road in south Canterbury is actually undermined by the Council officer's report favouring this development. This report does not at any point consider the traffic impact upon the residents living near the Park and Ride sites: it is as though these people and their objections to Park and Ride do not exist. The initial statement in the report that "Planning and land use policies are aimed at reducing the need for private car travel in accordance with Planning Policy Guidance Note 13" is completely untrue.(p.3) Retail warehouse development at the periphery of the city, massive facility-free house building in the Herne and Broomfield area south of Herne Bay and permission granted for so-called industrial estates in Hersden and on the Thanet Way at Blacksole Farm - despite unused capacity elsewhere in the District - are part of a long list of Council actions which flatly contradict this statement. There is little evidence of "development restraint"(p.5). The Local Agenda 21 strategy mentioned as a source of future reductions in vehicle emissions has had its substantial transport section - originally drafted by the Local Agenda 21 Transport working group - severely curtailed apparently as a result of Council involvement in the drafting process.(p.6)

Section 1.4 offers a "predict and provide" approach to car parking, suggesting that Canterbury would suffer without extra parking in the form of another Park and Ride on the southern periphery of the City.(p.6) However, since residents suffer serious noise and air pollution problems which Council research, County Council research and independent investigations have established beyond doubt, then this is recipe for extending congestion over a larger area. In fact, we would argue that the availability of car parking in itself determines levels of congestion by attracting car users. Also, this senior council officer has not apparently digested that his own council has a long-term policy of building on urban car parks. He manages to note that the A28 is the "most congested radial route in Canterbury" whilst observing that the two extant Park and Ride sites are on the A28. He does not mention the attendant retail development at the two sites which generates journeys.

The Council for the Protection of Rural England has produced a campaign briefing which radically undermines the general case made for Park and Ride. Points made in this briefing not already offered above include:

* Park and Ride does not reduce traffic congestion in city centres unless it forms part of an integrated transport strategy including "car restraint measures".(p.3) We note the absence of any example of where such a strategy has been adopted successfully.

* Investigation of park and ride schemes in Maidstone, Norwich, Nottingham and Shrewsbury reveals that between 19 and 40% of travellers would have been likely to use a bus rather than the park and ride, if the latter had been unavailable. The research quoted also suggests that between 10 to 25% of users have switched from public transport to park and ride.(p.6)

* Research on park and rides does not show reductions in car journeys.(p.6)

* None of the schemes surveyed could operate without support from council tax payers. (p.6)

* Research done by Graham Parkhurst suggests that park and ride users are roughly 65% people who had previously driven into town, 20% former public transport users and 15% a mixture of would not travel, would have gone elsewhere and would have arranged their own informal version of park and ride. The research also shows no long-term traffic reductions resulting from park and ride, no apparent overall reduction in energy usage, reductions in public transport revenue sometimes coupled with service cuts and increases in the need for investment to maintain services.(p.7)

Graham Parkhurst has also said:

"In both Oxford and York the trips removed from the road network [by Park and Ride] have been replaced by new car trips and a congested equilibrium has been maintained."

* Schemes may take business away from other local towns.(p.8) We would argue that this seems to have occurred as a result of Canterbury's immense retail expansion since the mid-1980s.

ALTERNATIVES TO PARK AND RIDE

Our general conclusions from the above analysis, which we have not presented in full detail, is that park and ride is unacceptable even as a short-term solution and should not be expanded in any location. We want to see Canterbury City Council adopt a phase out policy with a specific time-scale. The alternatives available include:

1. "Park and Rail": Modest improvements in parking at rural rail stations everywhere to make parking in these locations easier and more secure, encouraging rail use;

2. Bike and Rail: A general requirement on all train operators to provide space for bicycles at no charge;

3. Integration of rural bus and train services: This would enhance rail use by making transfer between modes easier;

4. Taxation of public and private car-parking spaces in urban areas: This would serve to provide a new source of revenue to help improve public transport;

5. Dial a Bus schemes in sparsely populated rural areas: Development of dial a bus schemes in some rural areas where conventional bus schemes seem uneconomic at present;

6. Light Rail Development: Canterbury City Council should cooperate with neighbouring local authorities to develop light rail between Ashford and Margate and, in the longer term, between Folkestone and Whitstable. There should be full recognition of Kent's status as a transit traffic zone with appropriate measures to cut traffic use from its present high levels;

7. Walking: Given the location of Canterbury's two existing park and rides and the location of the proposed New Dover Road site, a better environment for walking into Canterbury would help to reduce traffic use and the supposed need for park and ride. Researchers like John Adams have suggested that enhancement of facilities for pedestrians does encourage more walking. This means better lighting for some footpaths, an upgrade of some routes, more pedestrian tunnels and bridges, good standards of maintenance, better separation of pedestrians from traffic wherever possible. Essentially, walking should be treated like cycling: routes should connect and bottlenecks caused by heavy traffic should be bridged or tunnelled under;

8. Cycling routes: The cycling facilities in Canterbury are an improvement on what was present 10 years ago but the lack of connections between cycle routes mean that a cycle network for Canterbury, like a pedestrian network, does not exist yet. Again, we feel that a full plan with a realistic timescale should be developed;

9. Public transport: Better bus and train coverage and incidence are clearly needed and will have to be fought for. The Council should cut urban parking spaces to reduce car entry to Canterbury, building housing on or over existing car parks wherever feasible and as soon as possible. By this we mean within the next District Plan period, in view of Government projections of housing need. The Council should also support public transport by making park and ride bus charges at least 50% higher than conventional bus ticket charges for the same distance, which might begin to address the revenue shortfall presently experienced on park and ride operations.

10. Park and Bus: Following from the previous point, a variety of locations on existing bus routes are particularly suitable for leaving cars and making the rest of a journey by bus. This should be explored with Stagecoach as it could represent extra revenue for them.

11. Car Sharing: Phillip Rogers, of Friends of the Earth and the People Against Canterbury Expansion committee, Janet Berridge and Steve Dawe are working on the adaptation of a German car-sharing scheme to the British context. Janet lived in Germany for 20 years and was a long-term user of a German car-sharing scheme. This small working group hopes to bring the results of their efforts to Council attention when complete. This formal car-sharing could and should be supplemented by arrangements encouraged by larger employers in particular. The Council, the Hospital and the University could all attempt to generate more informal car-sharing than already takes place.

12. Taxis: Taxis are a form of public transport often not considered in the context of urban transport strategies. They are particularly appropriate for certain kinds of uses: the journey back from the supermarket and the journey home from the pub. More taxi pick-up points with freephones could be provided, either by the Council or employers.

13. Getting goods delivered: Some local companies willingly deliver goods: many do not. The Council should investigate this and compile a document for sale to the public listing companies which do deliver, what charges if any are required, geographical limits on delivery and telephone numbers to use. Funds for this purpose, which will be of commercial benefit, could be diverted from the Canterbury City Centre Initiative or be obtained by reducing Council spending on consultancy fees and the promotion of the city of Canterbury as a tourist destination.

This report was compiled by:

Steve Dawe, in 1998, who has done research on the Trans European Road and Rail Networks at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

PRESS RELEASE

J. Mansell Jagger,
Planning Department,
Canterbury City Council,
Military Road,
Canterbury,
CT1 1YW

Dear Mr.Jagger,

OBJECTION: PLANNING PERMISSION IN RESPECT OF PARK AND RIDE ON THE NEW DOVER ROAD: CA/98/0466/CAN

This letter is to register our objection to the granting of planning permission for a proposed further Park and Ride on the suggested New Dover Road site. We object on the following planning grounds:

1. Traffic: The experience of the two existing Park and Ride facilities is that a very considerable increase in traffic may be expected around the site, of the order of 22% judging by County Council measurements. This is unacceptable on grounds of noise, disruption and air pollution;

2. Urban sprawl: The development would contradict repeated statements by Planning Officers and councillors that they do not support development on greenfield sites. A Park and Ride at New Dover Road on grade 1 farmland, now less than 2.5% of farmland in Britain is a major loss to society. In addition, the experience of Park and Ride at the other two sites in the district is that such sites give rise to adjacent development attempting to utilise the proximity of the Park and Ride parking. In other words, granting permission to Park and Ride at New Dover Road will create a further basis for planning applications threatening farmland and countryside south of Canterbury;

3. Failure to consider alternatives: No serious consideration has been given to a wide variety of alternatives offered by voluntary groups to the City Council including expansion of car parking facilities at railway stations and reduction in urban parking spaces to encourage the use of public transport. Given that the Council loses money on Park and Ride, this is certainly tantamount to maladministration.

We are writing to the Secretary of State for the Environment to request that this application be called in for consideration, since the spread of Park and Ride is a national problem threatening green belt land around cities.

Yours faithfully, STEVE DAWE, COORDINATOR, CANTERBURY DISTRICT GREEN PARTY

I think the Oxford - Canterbury contrast is a good one. One problem is where local authority boundaries are. Thus Canterbury's efforts to find a park-and-ride site on the western approaches have focussed upon Harbledown and (even less plausibly) the Rheims Way allotments rather a site as close as possible to Brenley corner (although I note one councillor thinks he's found an alternative site at Dunkirk). Obviously in an area with widely dispersed population such as Ashford district, park-and-rides make sense, but they do need to be out on approach roads and not tacked on to already busy industrial estates / retail parks. Chris Rootes

Glad you're doing this- I'm against more P&R as they increase traffic in rural areas outside the urban area they are designed to protect. I have not yet persuaded CPRE Kent to totally oppose Canterbury 4th P&R, but I expect will be expressing reservations on the proposal in the Transport Action Plan. One aspect to emphasise is the need to protect and develop shops and services in villages to reduce travel to urban centres. Bridge is an excellent example of relatively self-contained village.

So i would suggest saying that "it has been shown that P&R increase traffic on roads to P&R sites, to detriment of areas through which this traffic passes".  There may be a case for better car parks (free??) at rural railway stations so that traffic only travels short distances, rather than being attracted to honeypots. Note that A28 is potential air quality problem zone, no doubt helped (if that's the right word!) by the P&R sites.

Britain’s oldest and largest Park and Ride facility is 21 years old. The four sites, which cover the main radial routes into Oxford, has places for more than 3 000 cars with plans to expand this by 2 000 spaces over the next few years.

Since it’s inception in the mid-1970’s, Park & Ride was hailed by urban engineers as a panacea to inner City car congestion and a mainstay of ‘green’ transport planning. The idea was, and is, attractively simple; encourage drivers to leave their cars a suitable distance from a commercial centre by providing out-of-town car parks (preferably near some major trunk road), which have their own frequent public transport link into the heart of the city. Unfortunately, the reality of Park & Ride has proven very different. Research has consistently demonstrated that, far from reducing car traffic, Park & Ride actually attracts it. One does not have to dig too deep to find the reasons.

Firstly, and perhaps most perversely, Park & Ride (P & R) is based around the requirements of car owners. This simple fact will astonish no one, but does place P & R firmly in the grip of the ‘car culture’. Thus it’s very presence endorses the acceptability of car ownership and inevitably diverts funds away from public transport and other spending designed to reduce car ownership and usage. Ironically in Oxford, the bill for Park & Ride is footed by those least likely to use the facility, the residents, whom are more likely to either walk, cycle or take local bus services to access the City centre. The cost of maintaining Oxford’s P & R is a significant part of the City’s Highways and Traffic budget, costing more than £330,000 a year, equivalent to the subsidy for three electric bus routes (Oxford had the first electric bus service in the Country, but this has recently run into financial difficulties).

Secondly, P & R is killing middle distance public transport, typically affecting the regional railways and rural bus services, by offering a subsidised alternative for those with access to a car. Most of Oxford’s P & R users live in the towns bordering the City within a 20 mile radius, in places such as Abingdon, Thame, Witney and Wantage. All are well served by peak-time public transport alternatives. Offering free P & R, with a modest-priced bus link into the City, has inevitably encouraged people into their cars at the same time increasing out-of-town traffic. When Oxford users were asked what alternative they would use if P & R was unavailable, approximately one third admitted that they could use a public transport alternative. It is also clear that the use of Park & Ride is purely based on economic criteria rather than any desire to improve Oxford’s environment. Only a small adjustment in fares would be required to make middle distance bus services more attractive. For example, the current annual pass for the P & R bus is £135 (to which must be added running costs - at least £100 in fuel alone) compared with £325 for a typical unlimited annual bus pass to the outlying towns (e.g. Witney, Thame, Abingdon). Interestingly, Oxford’s current P & R budget approximates the difference between these two figures, with each parking space costing around £100 per year.

Thirdly, P & R is responsible for a certain amount of social engineering unpredicted by the original planners. Approximately, 10% of the traffic in Oxford’s P & R is a result of former residents moving out of the City as a direct result of the more convenient car access that the facility provides. Inevitably, this has affected house prices, the provision of other services, and the structure of rural communities. By allowing people that work in Oxford to live in cheaper properties further from the City, it could be argued that P & R has selectively subsidised certain lifestyles at the expense of traffic pollution and congestion.

Finally, P & R can only hope to fulfil it’s original aim of urban traffic reduction if it forms part of a managed transport reduction plan including, most importantly, the elimination of parking spaces within the area the P & R is designed to protect. In Oxford, this has not happened. A few on-street parking spaces have been removed permanently and some turned over to residents parking, but an increase in private developments, each with their own spaces, has meant that overall parking provision in the centre has remain largely unchanged. Thus, rather than shifting available parking out of the City Centre, P & R has merely augmented the existing parking and ‘induced’ traffic much as any road-widening would do. Too late the Council has realised this but, the additional traffic already introduced by Park & Ride, is forcing them to expand P & R still further to cope with the removal of City centre spaces, endangering Green Belt land.

On the face of it, P & R’s coming of age has not been auspicious. A re-evaluation of it’s place in transport planning is urgently needed if a useful maturity is to be achieved. After 21 years, the real debate on Park & Ride has only just began. In years to come the story of Oxford may well become the salutary tale of youth.