Author name: Steven Edwards

Good news!

Following a meeting with our legal team we have been able to agree a revised cost estimate of £12,500.
BCP Council ignored the views of residents and reopened Keyhole Bridge to traffic.  We are challenging this decision in a Judicial Review.
In August 2020 Keyhole Bridge in Poole was closed to traffic under an experimental traffic order.  The closure made the bridge safe for non-drivers and protected Poole Park from hundreds of cars an hour. It also reduced traffic passing Whitecliff and Baiter parks.  Many people who had been unable to use the bridge were finally able to do so knowing they could do so in safety.  It was a hugely popular move, and the majority of residents asked for it to remain closed.   Yet in March 2021 the Council reopened the bridge.  

The government has been accused of making a mockery of its own net zero carbon emissions targets by including billions of pounds worth of road contracts in its 10 year construction pipeline.
Transport campaigners have said that the government’s Build Back Better agenda is undermined by the prevalence of road schemes in the £650bn pipeline. In total, 12 road contracts worth £13.23bn are included in the pipeline.
The pipeline’s biggest four contracts by value also all relate to roads jobs. The two biggest contract opportunities are both worth £4bn. They are for the Lower Thames Crossing tunnels and approaches contract, and a National Highways “scheme delivery framework”.
The main works contract for the Stonehenge Tunnel (£2bn) and the Lower Thames Crossing Northern Link roads contract (£2bn) are also among the biggest contract opportunities included in the pipeline.

Environment 17 September 2021
A UN analysis today revealed a bleak upward trajectory for global carbon dioxide emissions, despite new CO2-curbing plans by scores of countries, including major emitters such as the US and the European Union’s 27 member states.
Global emissions will rise 16 per cent by 2030 on 2010 levels under governments’ plans put forward since the start of 2020, according to the synthesis report from UN Climate Change. That puts the world ruinously off track for the 45 per cent cut that climate scientists say is needed to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of holding global warming to 1.5°C.

Sheffield North West Neighbourhood Police team uploaded a 20-mile ride from the Fox Valley Festival of Cycling on Saturday (September 11), in which they carried out a close-pass operation aimed at catching unsafe drivers.

A new road safety campaign has begun after more than 20 people died on Devon and Cornwall’s roads in a month.

The average number of fatalities across the counties was usually about four people per month, but it was “in excess” of 20 in August, police said.
As part of the initiative, 170 dashcams are being given out.
Project heads said the level of deaths was “particularly high” and they hoped the cameras would make drivers think before they made “stupid” manoeuvres.
On Monday, a convoy of emergency services vehicles travelled along the A38 in Devon to launch the new initiative and highlight the resources required to attend a serious road traffic collision.
The road trip was organised by the charity Project Edward (Every Day Without A Road Death).

Would you and your children like to see one of these on your street? We know we would!
Our friends at the climate charity Possible have launched a new campaign to grow parklets in our towns and cities.
What are parklets?

open consultation
How to respond
Please remember:
• To submit your views by 1 October 2021.

Let’s ban cars. Not just internal combustion-engined cars—that should happen within eight years anyway—but all of them. Sorry, Elon, even electric cars.
Too radical? OK, let’s keep some cars but instead dismantle all auto-centric roads installed since the 1920s. This isn’t as far-fetched as you might think. Plenty of places have demolished flyovers and have not seen any increase in congestion. The poster child of the “freeway removal” movement is the transformation of an elevated highway in the Cheonggyecheon district of Seoul, South Korea, successfully turned into a linear urban park in 2006.
There are many other examples, such as the removal in 2014 of the Belgrave Road flyover in Leicester and the dismantling of San Francisco’s double-decked Embarcadero Freeway following the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989.
Removing these roads didn’t result in any short- or long-term congestion. Predicted jams never materialized. Academics call this “traffic evaporation.” Just as building more roads leads to more use of those roads—induced demand has been well understood since 1866—removing them leads to a reduction in use.