This election is, perhaps, the most important election since 1910, when the House of Commons finally broke away from the House of Lords; the 2010 election could provide a similar shift in power towards the people.
With not a single question on transport in the three leaders’ debates the Environmental Transport Association (ETA) has examined all the parties’ manifestos and commented on their policies.
Director at the ETA, Andrew Davis, said: “UKIP does not acknowledge anthropomorphic climate change; has nothing to say about walking or cycling; and, somewhat naively, believes that its projects can be funded by leaving Europe.”
| UKIP Manifesto | My comments |
|---|---|
| General. A transport investment programme centred on high-speed rail lines, reopened railways, new bypasses, road improvements and port and airport links. The lion’s share of this investment would go to British-based firms | This is boldly at the other end from the Green party. This uncosted investment programme would, if implemented change the face of transport in this country. Allocating large projects to British based firms, as a matter of policy, would be against the law unless Britain seceded from the European Union (a process not specifically mentioned in European law – Look what happened to South Carolina when they tried it). |
| General. UKIP believes the British people have a right to a reliable public and private transport system at an acceptable cost. UKIP will invest in a transport network that meets the needs of the British people and Britain’s economy. | I think all parties would agree with this but they all have different ideas about when it means and how to delivery it. |
| General. Invest an extra £3 billion per annum in Britain’s transport infrastructure, | This extra funding will come from funds gained by our seceding from Europe. Even if UKIP won the election and the EU allowed Britain to leave (Of course Britain may, de facto, leave but the barriers would be set very high) this saving would take a long time to arrive – if at all. |
| Climate Change. UKIP accepts that the world’s climate changes, but we are the first party to take a sceptical stance on man-made global warming claims. We called for a rational, balanced approach to the climate debate in 2008, before the extensive manipulation of scientific data first became clear. Polls now show a majority of the British people share this scepticism despite protests from another LibLabCon-sensus. UKIP now calls for an immediate halt to unjustified spending on renewable sources that has led to massive energy price hikes and fuel poverty. | Everyone is entitled to their opinion about climate change. Who knows UKIP might turn out to be right but I very much doubt it. The majority of people in this country support hanging but that does not make it a correct thing to do. Everyone should call a halt on the unjustified spending on anything. |
| Walking. | No mention of walking in the UKIP manifesto so people would not manage to get to the station. Perhaps everyone will travel by car. |
| Cycling. | No mention of cycling either. |
| Cars. Incentivise and support electric road vehicles, the comprehensive electrification of rail lines and accompanying infrastructure | Nice idea but how. Money? Regulations? |
| Cars. Invest in an enhanced and safer road network, building new bypasses and widening major roads | Using an extra £3bn as part of the saving from leaving the union. |
| Cars. Be fair to motorists by subjecting parking charges and revenue-raising devices, including speed cameras, to greater democratic control. | Parking charges should be simple to understand and be enough to ensure spaces are always available and no higher. If a car park or street is full then the pricing structure is poorly set. The general public tends to want lower parking charges, which is understandable, but that means the carp ark is full it does not serve the arriving motorist. Generally speed cameras are placed on main roads and not in place of highest perceived danger. Consequently they often bring themselves into disrepute. Introducing decent voting methods would make local government more receptive to local people. |
| Freight. Introduce a ‘Britdisc’ which foreign lorries will have to pay for using major British roads. Currently, many of these lorries pay nothing for the wear and tear they cause | If only applied to foreign lorries this would only be possible if Britain secedes from the European Union. A better method would be to introduce road user charging for lorries of any country. |
| Freight. Veto European government attempts to force Britain into accepting lorries that are a third longer and a third heavier than currently allowed – up to an unacceptable 60 tons | No-one else mentioned the gigaliners or megatrucks. We at the ETA are following developments closely. Britain does not have a veto on this policy but there are many other member states unhappy with this proposal so it is unlikely to go through. |
| Freight. Encourage a major transfer of freight away from road and onto rail and canal | A bit motherhood and apple pie. This would require heavy investment, taxation or regulation. Exhortation does not work. |
| Freight. Invest in better rail and road links to ports | I guess this is part of the £3bn again. |
| Road Congestion. | No mention of this in their manifesto – I suspect that UKIP think that they could build us out of congestion – how naive. |
| Roadworks. | No mention of this either. Pot hole Britain. |
| Travel Concessions. | Who goes by bus anyway? |
| Buses. | UKIP does not believe in buses – no mention. |
| Rail. Invest in three new 200mph plus high-speed rail lines including a new line between London and Newcastle with a spur to Manchester, a London-Bristol-Exeter line and a linking route via Birmingham. | These are bold, uncosted proposals. This would be much if not all of the £3bn allocated to transport generally. |
| Rail. Expand the rail network by re-opening rail lines where there is a proven need | I would like to think that this was being done already. This is no mention of protecting old rail routes for future use. |
| Rail. Improve passenger rail franchises by demanding higher standards of customer satisfaction, and by extending standard franchise terms to up to 20 years to encourage greater investment and stability | They would have to set tough quantifiable targets in the new contracts. |
| Waterways. | I could not find anything on waterways. |
| Air. Oppose a sixth Heathrow Airport terminal and third runway and the expansion of Gatwick and Stansted in favour of a major new Hong Kong-style Thames Estuary airport with motorway connections and a high-speed rail service to London, Britain and the continent | Perhaps we already have had too much invested in Heathrow to make a new airport now – better that they had done so in 1944. UKIP have no policies to reduce air traffic’s impact on the environment. |
| Land-use Planning. Abolish EU-inspired Regional Spatial Strategies and regional government bodies such as unelected Regional Development Agencies and Assemblies Abolish Regional Government – including the nine Regional Ministers, Regional Development Agencies and Assemblies – and return their powers to local government. | This is more radical than the Conservative party policy. Would be fine as long as the counties were reorganized – some of the current ones are very small, for example, Wokinghamshire and Stokeshire. |
| Land-use Planning. Abolish the new Infrastructure Planning Commission, which will have the power to override serious local democratic objections to planning proposals, including wind farms | Up to a point. No locality can hold the rest of the country to ransom when networks (cable, rail, road or pipeline) require access. But single developments, for example, incinerators or power stations would have to find a locality which would give planning permission. |
| Land-use Planning. Introduce binding local referenda for major local schemes such as the building of new supermarkets or the Chelsea Barracks regeneration. Remote planning appeals will not be able to override the local vote. | On the face of it this would seem a good idea but government by referenda could end up like California – where people vote for higher spending and lower taxes at the same time. Planning appeals are often a pain in the neck but people should be able to appeal if due process had not been followed. |
| Taxes. Offer a ‘Windfall Return’ on fuel duty above a set world dollar oil price. When this level is reached, government receipts from oil duties will be returned to motorists as fuel tax cuts | This assumes, perhaps correctly, that fuel tax is purely there to raise revenue for the exchequer rather than a mechanism to reduce car use or mitigate climate change. |
| Taxes. UKIP will pull out of EU Carbon Trading Schemes and the proposed EU Carbon Tax. | Naturally UKIP would not want a carbon tax because it does not believe in climate change. |
| Local Government. The county will become the prime local government unit. Return to county and district plans, and encourage major public participation | As long as they do not bring back Middlesex. People like their counties but the national government has changed them so often since the war that I would say most people in Britain do not know what county they live in. Before doing this I would recommend that people in each city, town and village vote for which county they want to be in. Bye bye North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire and Telfordshire. |
Ray Spalding
I have made recommendations to UKIP re; their new transport manifesto. Briefly I feel that ,many of your comments above are valid, some are now absolute rubbish and devalue the good work that you are trying to get implemented.
My recommendations encompassed ALL forms of transport, recognising that animals are also road users on some occasions and they also need to be considered, as they, pedestrians & cyclists are ll road users, largely unresponsive to any form of control, which all forms of mechanised are subject to. Air transport and shipping are also closely controlled, rightly, due to their ability to cause large numbers of casualties. Thus I believe that all people should support the AA in their efforts to have road safety (& driving) included in the National curriculum so that our young people learn to behave responsibility on the road by emphasising; Enthusiasm Exceeds Experience is a dangerous mantra and needs to be replaced by Care Courtesy & Consideration for all road users as espoused by the Institute of Advanced Motorists. Disabled road users also need special consideration with training to consider when driving in towns blind people and other disadvantaged users. I was”run over” as a child through no fault of the motorist, I did not look. All children need to understand that they are no competition for a moving hard metal object so do not try to compete.
Proceeding to other issues, all long distance road haulage should be banned so solving problem of Continental lorries damaging UK roads, the traffic transferred to our electrified rail system, most freight to be carried overnight, with double deck wagons being considered to solve capacity issues, which will need UK to adopt Continental loading gauge (Double Deck passenger trains have already operated in UK and are currently doing so in Belgium & France)
The necessary adjustments will provide jobs in (e.g. Scunthorpe: Tata making new rails. These measures will obviare the need for HS2, the cancellation of which will free up some funding towards the above. Add to this offering cheap finance to heritage railways in exchange for their guarantee to provide regular reliable services will further reduce overall costs. Displaced road carriers to be compensated by issue to them of shares in the new rail operators.
Heavier & coastal freight to go by sea/canal (Heritage Railways/waterborne units also provide tourist opportunities for more jobs and foreign capital coming in to UK.Air travel to be reduced to absolute minimum overflying land, so all new developments to be Coastal/Estuary based with reintroduction of sea planes where viable, so enabling flights to destinations where conventional land based airports not viable. Shipping should be increased to regain cruise markets and other leisure options.
How to pay for this (UKIP policy: stop paying for yet another level of Government;EU and reduce admin costs in UK by scrapping all unnecessary/unenforceable laws, keeping those deemed essential (e.g. crimes against the person ad ensure enough police resources ring fenced to enforce them but drop all P.C. nonsense.
Finally Scrap all present UK government/admin in present form and establish regional governments based on pre Roman kingdoms (man is a tribal animal) each establishing the taxes for that region and paying %sge to a VERY small National body, with the sole role of ensuring continuity between each province/region, the Armed forces, Foreign Office etc becoming shared resources with costs shared proportionally by size of population. Imports of all goods except raw materials not available in Uk to be subject to Nationally imposed taxes, proceeds to be shared by the regions. Power needs to be satisfied by;
1) All rubbish to be burned locally (as Norway) using Edmonton, London as a starter and power generated used locally, thus no ugly pylons
2) All new buildings to be fitted with Solar Panels before planning permission granted (to reduce demand)
3) Tidal/Sea power to be developed (Use Severn bore and, spin off, lower risk of flooding) Consider using tidal power by barrage in Menai Strait, even across both ends of the Irish Sea
4) Where Peat available burn that, plus reopen pits etc pending new Nuclear facilities available
5) Develop all of the above with a prime requirement for clean burn,until UK world leaders then sell technology to mass polluters (Chins, India etc)
These measures, I believe,if adopted will make us world leaders with vastly reduced import costs and no National Debt