Train races past plane for public sector travellers
TLABOUR have picked a councillor from an English council 500 miles away to be the party’s candidate in a Scottish constituency.
Elizabeth Carr-Ellis has been picked to stand in the new Angus and Perthshire Glens constituency at the upcoming General Election – despite currently being a councillor in Canterbury, Kent, The Courier first revealed.
The ancient English city is around
HE train has overtaken the plane for public-sector travel to London from Scotland’s Central Belt, a new report has found.
The report, Fight Or Flight, by Transform Scotland, Scotland’s alliance for sustainable transport, showed that rail’s market share has doubled over the past decade.
Published today, the report analyses the travel behaviour of Scotland’s public sector. Some 52% of trips between the Central Belt and London are now being made by train, up from 26% in equivalent research carried out by Transform a decade ago.
This progress has been brought about by concerted action by some of the larger public bodies who travel most, including the Scottish Government.
However, Transform’s research also finds that the vast majority of Scottish public sector organisations still have no credible plans to curb climate emissions from flying, with only one in five of the public sector’s top 50 fliers having a target to tackle emissions from air travel, the most polluting mode of transport.
The research, collated from Freedom of Information requests, investigated the travel patterns and policies of more than 150 Scottish public bodies – including local authorities, NHS trusts, colleges and universities – and a wide range of organisations working in the environment, science, the arts, social care and other sectors.
Public bodies which performed particularly strongly on targets and policies to tackle flying included Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Glasgow Caledonian universities and Forth Valley College; the City of Edinburgh Council and the Scottish Government; Historic Environment Scotland, the Moredun Institute 500 miles from the constituency she hopes to represent.
Angus and Perthshire Glens will also be contested by the SNP’s Dave Doogan, currently the MP for Angus, and Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr, who briefly represented Stirling in the UK Parliament. Labour finished last in the Angus seat at the most recent General Election in 2019, garnering just 2051 votes and reportedly losing their deposit.
Carr-Ellis’s selection has been described as “deeply insulting” and the Tories have said it shows Labour are “disinterested” in the area.
Doogan told The Courier: “It’s clear as day that Labour are taking the people of Scotland for granted yet again – so much as that even their own members in Scotland can’t get behind Keir Starmer’s pro-Brexit, pro-austerity Labour Party.
“It’s deeply insulting that Labour expect the people of Angus and Perthshire Glens to vote for someone who just last week expressed their excitement at representing a council ward in the south of England for the next three years.
“While voters are desperate to get rid of this cruel Tory government, they are also deeply unimpressed with Keir Starmer’s list of broken promise people in Scotland know that only the SNP will put them