CAZ: Knee-jerk move by panicked council

The clean air zone proposal is a prime example of a panic-stricken council jerking its knees while running scared from litigation. It is merely treating the symptoms of pollution, but failing totally in approaching the causes. One of the biggest causes of pollution is traffic. But why is there so much traffic? Because the council abandoned its transport strategy, allowed the bus company to ignore the obligations of a public transport provider, and continues to provide tons of relatively cheap city-centre parking. They are also forgetting that the electorate, for the most part, ‘don’t give a monkeys’ about pollution. What they care about is local parking, back-street ‘rat-runs’ and the impact on their personal finances of road tolls, and the obligation to scrap perfectly serviceable vehicles – with the environmental impact that involves – for expensive and complicated to maintain new ones. Or in other words, everything the clean air knee jerk tolls will create. It’s all stick and no carrot. The councilors are saying to its voters : we’re going to make it expensive and awkward to use your car, but we’re not going to make any effort to provide a viable alternative. And to add insult to this grievous injury, the council is also going to give money to First Bus, a private company which fails to provide a decent service, and has abandoned socially necessary and rural services to allow it to upgrade bus engines, but there’s not going to be a red-cent to other private enterprises – white van man and taxis etc. So, If the council really wants a quick-fix knee-jerk in the name of clean air, instead of inventing a tax that specifically targets the poor, makes life worse for people living in Bath, and lines the pockets of First Bus maintenance contractors, it does not have to invest in lots of expensive infrastructure, ANPR cameras complicated toll collection schemes and rat-run inducing madness. All it needs to do is make all parking in the city £25 per-hour, and use the revenue to make the park and ride free and subsidise unprofitable bus routes, at a zerogain rate for First Bus shareholders. Vincent Baughan Oldfield Park, Bath