If Jeremy Clarkson can accept (however begrudgingly) that climate change is a fact, I suppose that I can too. However, one thing I’ve never heard him have any sort of positive comments about is this whole idea of eco-towns. For the purpose of this article, a quick explanation of what exactly constitutes an eco-town is necessary.
An eco-town is one described as being small, with zero carbon emissions and being “built on brownfield” land. They comprise of 5,000-10,000 homes and would have strong public transport links to towns and cities. All sounds very good yes? So why the title?
In insane proposals put forward by the government, those who live in Gordon Brown’s ideal future ‘towns’ could face fines for both driving out of town and also be forced to park their cars away from their homes (as their weird eco-towns will be mainly pedestrianised). They’ll then be expected to leave their vehicles and walk or cycle back to their abodes.
Naturally, the proposals go a little further. There will be a requirement to pay a fee for a permanent parking space (I don’t recall paying a ‘fee’ when buying my house so I could park my car on my drive) and potentially penalties for driving the car outside of the town above a certain set number of times a year – though god knows how many times this will be.
There’s also another major concern. Those who need to use a car for whatever reason (whether disabled, needing to ferry around the kids, the elderly and so forth) will find journeys apparently more difficult. How can a young mum cope with two kids and a shopping trip without a car to do this? Likewise for an elderly person who may struggle with heavy bags. How fair is that?
What should we all say or do about this? Well, I think it is ABSOLUTE MADNESS. It is crazy. I’ve got a better idea for the government. If they are that focussed on these issues, why not just ban cars altogether? Well, the answer’s on the wall folks. It’s linked in with fuel prices.
Recently, Gordon Brown went to see the Saudis regarding the procurement of more oil in order to lower prices here in the UK (you can read more about this here). This is something I’ve written about before, as prices really are shockingly high. In light of this, what did the Saudis have the ‘audacity’ to say?
Lower taxes Mr Brown. Bearing in mind that the UK pays almost 70p to the £ for the privilege to drive around, I think their logic is pretty sound. However, it highlights exactly why you’ll not see a total ban on cars. Why bother when the government can simply tax every action you perform with your vehicle?
If you feel that these proposals are quite offensive and/or worrying, contact your local MP immediately to tell him your concerns. When you do contact him/her, ask exactly what they are going to do. There are better ways to support green ideals – forcing those who move to ‘green’ areas to pay more is not one of them.
If you want a really good idea, how about we take some of each MP’s average salary (circa £61,820) and expenses (not sure on that one but it’s no doubt quite a lot judging by the recent furore) and put that money into a special fund researching more on green fuels? It may solve the problem in a more proper way than eco towns, which frankly sound like they will cause more problems than solutions.
Leave a Reply