Blog ARCHIVE
The electric fix?
Bringing forward the ban for selling petrol and diesel vehicles to 2030 will not get us to net zero carbon emissions quickly enough. We must also urgently and rapidly reduce traffic. Techno-fixes like electric vehicles (EVs) risk giving us the comforting but false illusion that we can carry on with...
Precious landscapes under threat
Highways England wants to build a number of road schemes which would harm some of our finest countryside. National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), supposedly given the highest level of protection for natural and cultural heritage, are all under threat. Even one of the most iconic World...
High Court to rule on air quality challenge to “largest ever” roads programme
High Court to rule on air quality challenge to “largest ever” roads programme Campaigners are taking the Department for Transport (DfT) to the High Court at a hearing this Thursday 29th October [1]. Transport Action Network (TAN) is seeking permission to bring a judicial review of the “largest ever” roads...
Planning for the Future
The planning system has a big impact on our daily lives. What we build and where we locate it affects our health and well-being, the natural environment, our quality of life and climate change. It’s vital it supports the creation of high quality, low carbon, affordable communities and gives people...
Roadbuilders revving their engines…
Despite our legal challenge to the £27 billion roads programme and widespread recognition we need to dramatically change direction due to COVID and the deepening climate emergency, Highways England are ploughing on regardless. While government ministers are still under the illusion that electric cars will solve everything. This week has...
Heading in the right direction?
England's Economic Heartland is consulting on its draft Transport Strategy until midnight on Tuesday, 6th October. Once approved it will set the framework for future transport policies and investment in the area for the next 30 years. The region which lies to the west and north of London, stretching from Swindon...
Cut road spending and build back better
There are few opportunities to tell the Government how public funds should be spent, but this year with its Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) the Treasury has asked for our ideas. We’re encouraging people to tell them not to waste £27 billion and more on new roads. We want the Government...
Cut carbon now!
In March this year, the Government launched its consultation on Decarbonising Transport: Setting the Challenge which we're urging people to respond to before the end of August. While it was criticised by some for only being a consultation on creating a plan, not on a plan itself, and for some of...
TAN wins first round in roads battle
We've won the first round in our David and Goliath battle against the Department for Transport's (DfT) £27bn roads programme. We were given permission to proceed with our legal challenge to the “largest ever roads programme” at the High Court this week. An order by Mrs Justice Lieven declared the...
Road plans to wipe out e-car savings
Sometimes when you take a hard decision, it’s only later you’re sure you did the right thing. Today was one such moment when we read a new study that rubbishes the Government’s claim that new roads have little impact on climate change. The study calculates 80% of the carbon savings...
A shot across the bows?
The Government was supposed to file its response to our legal challenge against its huge roads programme this week. Instead we’re still waiting. In its annual report to Parliament, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) called on ministers to “seize the opportunity” from COVID to tackle accelerating climate change. Surely...
New report urges Silvertown Tunnel rethink
A new report: The Silvertown Tunnel is in a hole, so STOP DIGGING, published today, calls for the £1.2 billion Silvertown Tunnel project to be cancelled. It claims it is incompatible with the Greater London Authority’s vision to be carbon neutral by 2030. The report shows that the tunnel project...
Top climate scientist warns against more roads
As carbon emissions took a sudden turn for the worst this week, as lockdowns across the globe were eased, a top climate scientist has warned that building more roads “would be very detrimental”. Corrine Le Quere, is a professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia and a...
Department’s addiction to road-building challenged
After much preparation, and with substantial public backing, our lawyers have started proceedings against the Department for Transport’s £27bn Road Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2). Described by the Chancellor at its launch in March as England’s “largest ever” road-building programme, it breaches climate change and air quality laws. The historic case,...
Drive as much as you want to!
Across our cities roads are being closed while new cycle lanes and wider pavements pop up, promising to reset our relationship with cars. By contrast ministers have just started encouraging the public to “drive as much as you want to” to visit the countryside. So it was no big surprise...
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