@theJeremyVine
This is just incredible.
Cycling made E-asy will provide free short- and long-term loans of e-cycles and adaptive e-cycles, giving communities in five target locations in England the opportunity to experience the benefits of e-cycles, dispelling myths and creating the environment where cycling is a natural first choice for short journeys
We want liveable cities, too. Charlie Hertzog Young
16 March 2022
As petrol prices soar to 165p per litre, the Ukraine crisis has made our unhealthy dependence on fossil fuels starkly apparent and given renewed impetus for a rapidly accelerated green transition. Banning cars in cities is an obvious place to start.
Yet car lobbies, along with some in government and civil society, protest automobile abstinence, citing disabled people. “How will people in wheelchairs get around if we abolish cars?” they plead. I’m a double amputee and frequent wheelchair user, and I find this faux sympathy repugnant.
Disabled people should be asked what we want, not be unilaterally drafted in by petrolheads. A recent report from the climate change charity Possible did just that, asking dozens of people to reimagine the built environment in light of climate realities.
Annabelle Thorpe
The Viking Coastal Trail, Kent
Stretching for 51km around the Isle of Thanet, the Viking Trail can be split into shorter, family-friendly day rides, while the entire route makes a great two-day trip, combining long stretches of coast and vibrant seaside towns including Margate and Ramsgate with quiet inland villages, 7th-century Minster Abbey and the spectacular chalk stacks at Botany Bay, this is a varied ride.
Matthew Weaver Sun 22 May 2022
Police have urged the public against any vigilante actions after the registration of a driver who allegedly ran over a brood of ducklings was published online.
Staffordshire police confirmed it is investigating a Facebook post which claimed that at least three ducklings were killed on Friday at a roundabout in Trentham near Stoke-on-Trent. The post claimed they were killed by the driver of a white transit van who allegedly ignored other drivers who were waiting for the ducks to cross the road.
The licence plate of the van was widely circulated on Twitter and Facebook over the weekend, prompting widespread abuse of the van’s driver and calls to hunt them down.
James Murray 28 April 2022
New report from Tony Blair Institute explores how cities could source 30 per cent of their own fresh produce by 2030 using a range of innovative new technologies
With Russia’s war on Ukraine having sparked significant food price inflation and growing concerns over food security, businesses and policymakers are stepping up efforts to identify alternative sources…
A British adventure cyclist who says he spent 835 days cycling around the world “through countries people repeatedly warned were too dangerous to visit” has had his latest adventure brought to an abrupt end… outside a Reading branch of Wetherspoons, where his girlfriend’s bike was stolen.
Josiah Skeats says he has covered over 40,000km by bike on his Instagram page, and was on only his second day of bike touring in England when he arrived in Reading on Tuesday.
According to the Reading Chronicle(link is external), Skeats was part way through cycling the new King Alfred’s Way route with his girlfriend, when the theft happened five metres away from where they were sitting outside the Hope Tap in Friar Street.
ft.com Gill Plimmer
The opening of the world’s first metro system in London in 1863 was a chaotic event: steam in the tunnels obscured signals and choked drivers, the gas lighting frightened travellers — and “there were so many anxious passengers trying to get on board, that there were fights for seats”, according to the Penny Gazette.
Nearly 160 years later, the British capital is hoping for a smoother launch this week of the newest 100km addition to its transport network: the £19bn Crossrail train line, designed to carry tens of millions of passengers between the west and east of London.
Simon Pirani
Three months into the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine, European politicians and officials are working out plans to reduce fossil fuel imports from Russia to zero.
This week, the European Commission published a plan to end Russian gas imports by 2027. Climate campaign groups say it can be done much sooner.This is a historic turning point. Gas imports from Russia started in the 1960s and came to symbolise not only a flourishing trading relationship with Europe, but also a geopolitical partnership that survived the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
How strong is the case for Europe’s labour movement and civil society to support sanctions against the Russian economy, and specifically against Russian fossil fuels? Which sanctions could be effective? And could an embargo on Russian oil and gas imports give a push to decarbonisation and the fight to prevent dangerous global warming?
