Jeremy Hunt to impose UK {“} road tax {“} on electric cars for first time – ft.com
Jim Pickard, George Parker, Peter Campbell
Electric cars are to be subject to vehicle excise duty for the first time under measures to be introduced by Jeremy Hunt, the UK chancellor, in this month’s Autumn Statement.
People briefed on Hunt’s plans said that applying road tax to electric vehicles was the first sign of a chancellor “dipping a toe in the water” to address the fall in motoring tax revenues caused by the transition to battery-powered vehicles, as their owners also avoid paying fuel duty.
Yesterday, we were treated to another statistics masterclass from anti-Low Traffic Neighbourhood journalist Andrew Ellson, of @thetimes – Jon Burke FRSA – Twitter
@jonburkeUK
1/ Yesterday, we were treated to another statistics masterclass from anti-Low Traffic Neighbourhood journalist Andrew Ellson, of
@thetimes . Since I’m mentioned in the piece – a weird fixation – which cherry-picks DfT data to falsely imply LTNs increase mileage, this is my reply.
Cycling UK calls for end to driving ban loophole – TransportXtra
More than 83,000 drivers in the past 10 years have escaped disqualification due to “mitigating circumstances”, the charity estimates.
Cycling UK said the legal loophole has resulted in the death and serious injury of other road users.
In October 2020, the Sentencing Council issued guidance for magistrates, which was intended to reduce the number of offenders with totting up offences who avoided disqualification.
However, the Sentencing Council said that some magistrates and legal advisers have suggested that courts are too often imposing short discretionary disqualifications (of less than 56 days) where people have received 12 or more points.
Wandsworth is first council in the country to have the power to issue 20mph speed fines – Simon Hogg – Twitter
@CllrSimonHogg
Wandsworth is first council in the country to have the power to issue 20mph speed fines. Making sure drivers stick to our 20mph limit improves pedestrian safety. It also encourages more people to walk or cycle – and helps to reduce harmful emissions
Active Travel worth £36.5 billion to UK economy in 2021 – Cycling Industry News
Mark Sutton 20 October 2022
Sustrans’ Walking and Cycling index has demonstrated the ongoing economic benefits of active travel to the UK economy, calculating walking, wheeling and cycling to be worth £36.5 billion.
The Walking and Cycling Index is the largest survey of active travel, undertaken across 18 urban areas in the UK and Ireland. The latest assessment of 17 of those areas tallies the benefit to the UK economy to be £6.5 billion in those places alone and extrapolates the findings to reach the larger nationwide estimate.
London hospital deploys nurses on e-bikes | Cycling Weekly
Guy’s and St Thomas’ neighbourhood nurses using e-bikes in effort to improve staff health and wellbeing
Tom Thewlis20 October 2022
Nurses from Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital in London are using e-bikes to visit their patients as part of an initiative to improve sustainability and improve staff health and wellbeing.
Members of staff within the Mawbey Brough neighbourhood nursing team usually drive, walk or use public transport to get to their patients in Lambeth, South London.
Although they can now sign up to a pilot project using an e-bike featuring a cargo hold for any equipment they need.
As well as reducing emissions and congestion on London’s road, the e-bike also involves fewer parking restrictions meaning the nurses can operate within the capital more quickly and efficiently.
Low Traffic Neighbourhood opponents love to perpetuate the myth that everybody with mobility issues needs a car – Jon Burke FRSA –
@jonburkeUK
Low Traffic Neighbourhood opponents love to perpetuate the myth that everybody with mobility issues needs a car. Safe active travel conditions through LTNs and cycle lanes is an act of liberation, which allows those with physical disabilities to participate fully in society.
New safety tech trial catches hundreds of drivers breaking law | road.cc
“We have been shocked at what we have seen during the trial,” says Warwickshire Police inspector
A trial of road safety technology being deployed in the UK for the first time has led to hundreds of motorists being caught breaking traffic laws, with a senior roads policing officer saying he is “shocked” at the number of offences recorded.
The trial, using equipment developed by the consultancy AECOM and run jointly by National Highways and Warwickshire Police on the M40 and A46, involved a “sensor test vehicle” equipped with Artificial Intelligence (AI) software that is able to recognise, for example, a motorist using a handheld mobile phone.
Lost rainforest could be revived across 20% of Great Britain | Environment | The Guardian
Patrick Greenfield
Temperate rainforest, which has been decimated over thousands of years, has the potential to be restored across a fifth of Great Britain, a new map reveals.
Atlantic temperate rainforest once covered most of the west coasts of Britain and Ireland, thriving in the archipelago’s wet, mild conditions, which support rainforest indicator species such as lichens, mosses and liverworts. Today, it covers less than 1% of land, having been cleared over thousands of years by humans and is only found in isolated pockets, such as the waterfalls region in the Brecon Beacons and Ausewell Wood on Dartmoor.
Two maps released by Lost Rainforests of Britain, and shared exclusively with the Guardian, show both what exists today and what could be revived in the future. The map showing the remaining fragments of rainforest in England, Wales and Scotland was compiled with the help of the public, scientists and geolocation specialists.
The second map shows that more than half of Wales and nearly all of western Scotland – as well as large parts of Cornwall, the Lake District and other pockets north of Manchester – have suitable climates for temperate rainforest.