‘Residents can’t live without their cars’

Peterborough residents cannot live without the car, say councillors who rejected an idea to amend the draft Local Transport Plan (LTP) to include climate emergency changes.

Speaking to members of Peterborough City Council at their Town Hall meeting on October 16, Cllr Nick Sandford, leader of the Liberal Democrats on the council had proposed: “…significant changes” to Cambridgeshire’s Combined Authority’s draft LTP.

But according to Conservative Cllr Peter Hiller, who was among many councillors who voted against the motion: “Peterborian’s will never give up their cars; this is a car-friendly city that has, for the last fifty years, been built with the car in mind”.

Cllr Sandford had presented his motion, saying: “In July this council made a historic and ambitious commitment by declaring a ‘climate emergency’, and said at that time that we wanted to get to a net zero carbon emission by 2030 – not 2050, as the government says, but 2030. Yet we have a draft LTP that simply doesn’t pass that test.

“Transport is one of the main causes of carbon emissions that this council would have control over; but councillors will struggle to find any mention of a ‘carbon emergency’ in the draft LTP – I know, because I’ve done a ‘word search’ to look for it.

“When you look at the proposals for Peterborough, there is page after page of policy, listing schemes for everything from road-widening, duelling, adding lanes to the Parkway and vague references to improving the bus services.

“Similar woolly talk can be found about walking and cycling – but no indication whatsoever of how any of this is to be done.”

Cllr Hiller responded: “Cllr Sandford complains that we repair our road network too much, but the fact is that is what our residents want, because better infrastructure, networking improvements, capacity increases and road widening, all have a direct impact on the ability of traffic to move around our city easier, faster and with less polluting traffic jams.

“Peterborough is a carfriendly city. However much Cllr Sandford bleats about it, he will never alter that fact.

“After nearly fifty years our Parkway system still allows residents, visitors and commuters, heavy freight, delivery vehicles and businesses of all types to move around, through and across our great city – normally without congestion and the subsequent pollution afflicting so many towns and cities in our country.”

Members voted on the motion which was narrowly defeated 28 Against to 26 For.