Privately-owned cars should be BANNED from London by 2030, says pro-Corbyn think tank | This is Money –– AUGUST 2019: Revival needed? SE)
By Rob Hull 2 August 2019
Private ownership of cars should be banned in London by 2030 in an effort to tackle the capital’s air pollution crisis, a new report has boldly claimed.
The published paper – uncompromisingly titled Away with All Cars – has been released by a think tank of academics supporting Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn with the help of environmental campaigners Greenpeace UK.
Common Wealth, which has former Labour leader Ed Miliband on its advisory board, called for Transport for London to introduce its own car hailing service, provide free tube travel and offer e-scooters around the city in an effort to drag down the capital’s ever-increasing carbon emissions.
Away with All Cars: A think tank says all private cars should be banned from London in 2030 to tackle the city’s air pollution crisis
The group – founded by influential left-wing Labour figure Mathew Lawrence – was formed in April to set out plans for ‘ownership models’ for a more sustainable future economy.
It wants to see the nationalisation of utility companies and a wider use of co-operatives and more public involvement in ownership models, including in the area of transport.
In its new report released this week it said: ‘The privatisation of public transport in the UK has had widespread negative impacts on human welfare and social justice.
‘But these are dwarfed by what may prove to have been the most profoundly damaging privatisation project of all time: the relentless subjugation of the public realm to the exigencies of the private motor car.’
The think tank pulled no punches in its criticism of the government’s Road to Zero strategy, which has set a deadline for a ban on the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars in Britain by 2040 to push more towards low-emissions hybrid and electric vehicles.
‘To get onto an emissions pathway consistent with our commitments under the Paris Agreement, it is estimated that the UK will need to see a reduction in overall traffic volumes of between 20 per cent and 60 per cent by 2030, depending on how fast we can switch to EVs. That is a lot of traffic to lose,’ it warned.
‘Yet the DfT’s Road to Zero strategy for decarbonising transport contains no measures to reduce traffic growth.’