Category: News

Latest updates from BSTA.

Monthly BSTA meetings and a Public Consultation event

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The next two BSTA meetings are this Wednesday 5th January 7pm on Zoom https://zoom.us/j/93473523040, and Thursday 10th February 7pm at the Tambourine Café at 38 Bingley Road, Shipley BD18 4RU. At these meetings we will plan our next steps, all are welcome.

Saturday 5th March 2022: a Public Consultation on the West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s road development plans for Bradford and Shipley, hosted jointly by BSTA and Shipley Town Council.  Kirkgate Centre, Shipley – a unique opportunity for Bradford and Shipley residents to listen to and question key stakeholders in the current plans and have an impact on how this important development turns out.

Major local conference on health, climate and transport

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Shipley Town Council and BSTA are to organise a conference on health, climate and transport. Scheduled for Spring next year, we will invite Council and Transport planners, residents and community activists.

Shipley Town Council held the first of their Community Assemblies on climate on 13th November. Over 60 people filled the Kirkgate Centre with discussion about the strengths of Shipley and how it could be even better. Reduced traffic pollution was noticeably on most people’s list for improvement.

Two good examples of traffic planning

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Birmingham City Council has announced plans for an ambitious supersized Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN), spanning the entire area within the inner ring road. The plan would see the city centre split into zones, with roads closed off to traffic, preventing and discouraging short car journeys within it. The traffic restrictions will be combined with significant investment in public transport, pedestrianisation and protected cycleways. A workplace parking levy will be introduced to reduce commuting by car and to help fund the improvements.

The Welsh Government established an independent panel in the summer to review its roads programme. The panel chair was asked to fast track scrutiny of the Llanbedr Access Road and Bypass. She has now reported her findings and recommended that the road be scrapped which the Welsh Government has accepted. A package of alternative measures will now be developed to encourage modal shift, reduce CO2 emissions and reduce the negative impact of traffic on Llanbedr and other villages along the A496. We hope Grant Shapps and the DfT and WYCA are watching and learning.

Source: Transport Action Network

Bradford Council investing in fossil fuels

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Last Tuesday, Bradford Council decided not to call on the West Yorkshire Pension Fund, which it administers, to withdraw at the earliest opportunity from its 500m investments in fossil fuel companies. It decided not to follow Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield Councils in seeking an early divestment. Bradford Council leader Susan Hinchcliffe declared that councillors should not think they can take financial decisions on the Fund’s behalf, though only a review of how to divest had been called for. Instead the Council decided to urge the fund to “wind down” holdings in fossil fuels and make a commitment “to significant progress towards net-zero by 2030.” That is not even calling for divestment.

The report by the Telegraph and Argus focuses on Extinction Rebellion’s support for divestment from fossil fuels, but they would probably be the first to highlight the work by Fossil Free West Yorkshire and the lobbying of councillors at City Hall last week of Friends of the Earth, Global Justice, Unite the Union, BSTA,  and others.

Air quality and COVID

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Bradford’s air quality improved markedly during the lockdown but is back up to illegal values again (40mg/m3 of NO2). The Centre for Cities report uses DEFRA figures, showing this pattern of badly bouncing back for most cities in Britain. Bradford has the worst nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels of the 49 cities studied, both before and after COVID.

NO2 is a major polluter from petrol-driven traffic, and gaining legal levels is the aim of the Clean Air Zone starting next year. The health professionals of Born in Bradford point out that legal levels are not safe, and that particulate matter from brakes stays in lungs and blood is another killer pollutant of traffic, whether petrol or electric-driven. BSTA would like to see the Clean Air Zone insistence on ‘clean’ engines extended to all traffic, with support for those can’t afford the upgrades.

In another recent report air pollution is shown to be associated with higher risk of catching COVID. Air quality really must be improved way better than simply the illegal limits.