No parking on some new housing to tackle BCP congestion

Cllr Mike Greene says the authority would have to use the ‘carrot and stick’ approach if it is to avoid many of the roads in the area being constantly clogged up.

The portfolio holder for sustainability and transport said the council was likely to ensure that some residential developments, typically more high density, would have no provision for car use and those who chose to live in those developments would have to make that decision knowing there was nowhere to park a car.

He said that would be coupled with further parking restrictions to encourage people to opt for cycling, walking and public transport, instead of having their own car and also expecting a parking space to go with it.

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Cllr Mike Greene

“We are already ultra-congested and if people are to be allowed to continue to use cars as they currently do we will end up with problems,” he told a hearing into the council’s climate change policies.

Cllr Greene said the council could give itself a collective pat on the back for climate work already underway towards making the authority carbon neutral by 2030 and the wider council area carbon neutral by 2050.

He said that if the council decided to join a national group of a hundred authorities leading the way on climate change it could mean the wider target having to be met five years earlier, by 2045, although he said no decision had been taken yet on the decision to join the national group.

His optimism was not shared by opposition councillors.

Cllr Andy Hadley said the council still lacked positive targets: “We need to be focused, with laser accuracy, on species survival,” he said.

“Are we doing well? I don’t think we are, there’s a lot of blah, blah, blah.”

Cllr Greene said that the council was in the process of setting up a climate change group of officers with a director and ten officers, some still to be recruited.

“With that I am confident of having a climate action plan we can stick to…we probably already are a leading authority and with the team in place we will be a leading authority, one a only a few who can give full disclosure for our carbon activities,” he said.

He told a meeting of the council’s overview and scrutiny committee that some measures remained difficult to quantify  – including whether having staff working from home was better for the environment, overall, than having them work in council buildings, the number of which the council planned to reduce over time.

The authority has yet to formally adopt a climate change policy.