7:30pm Thursday 8th November 2012.
A Blueprint for Reducing Congestion in
The debate about
The continuing problems, together with the feeling that
things were getting worse not better, prompted the formation of a group to
campaign specifically on the issue of Canterbury ’s
air quality. That group is called Canterbury4CleanAir. At around the time the
group was formed, I read a book called ‘Car Sick’ by Lynn Sloman. Her book put a finger right on the nature of our problems here and elsewhere. More importantly,
it pointed the way to some solutions, citing examples of work done, and
improvements made on the continent. I contacted Lynn
to discover that, lo and behold, she went to school in Canterbury . Her Mum still lives in the area
and she herself is a regular visitor here! Lynn
then pointed us, (Canterbury 4 Clean Air) in the direction of work she had been
doing for the government on the Sustainable
Transport Towns
and Cycling Demonstration Towns
projects. This work demonstrated how congestion could be cut in British cities
comparable to our own. The success of these projects led to the creation of the
government’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund, from which KCC successfully bid
for funds.
We discussed ways in which Lynn could help us here and finally came up
with the idea of a Blueprint for
reducing congestion in our city. After tireless applications for funding by
Canterbury Green Party and C4CA member Emily Shirley finally bore fruit, the Blueprint was commissioned by the
Canterbury Society. Lynn
will be presenting the draft of it in person at an Open Meeting of the Society.
This takes place on Thursday 8th November at 7.30pm in the Dominican
Priory. (Tickets available on the door - £3 each)
We can’t wait to see what is in the draft, and we are
delighted that a number of councillors, including the portfolio holder for
transport, several council officers and officials from Stagecoach, as well as
interested members of the public, have all said that they will be attending.
It is the culmination of a lot of time and work from many.
We’ll have to see what is in the Blueprint
and how it is received, particularly by the ruling group on the Council.
However, we are greatly encouraged by their determination to deal with the
problems here. To my knowledge, this will be the first time that a city or town
will have been presented with such a blueprint (apart from those in the
projects mentioned above). Perhaps it is not too naïve to hope that, rather
than being the ‘sick man’ of the south east, identified as an egregious example
of cities with poor air quality in EU reports, Canterbury might become a beacon
of good practice for sustainable travel. A ‘Kentish Copenhagen’, an exemplar of
the shift away from the carbon guzzling autocentrism blighting towns and cities
across the country to a gentler, cleaner, healthier and more sustainable model
of urban living. What a coup for the Council and the city that would be! A
person can hope can’t they?
Russell Page
Links:
http://www.canterburysociety.org.uk/events.php
http://www.transportforqualityoflife.com/
Links:
http://www.canterburysociety.org.uk/events.php
http://www.transportforqualityoflife.com/