Category Archives: Transport policy

Ditching the hard shoulder proved too hard a sell to MPs and motorists

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Analysis: the UK government has bowed to the inevitable and shelved the expanded rollout

Pausing the rollout of smart motorways suggests the government has finally bowed to the inevitable, faced with the collective outrage of motoring groups, bereaved families, newspapers, MPs – and indeed a former minister who signed off the schemes.

Not, though, that the small print guarantees drivers have in any way seen the end of the hard shoulderless highways: ongoing major works will be completed, and even design work will go ahead for more stretches, in case the mood changes by 2025.

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‘We are sick of double speak’: French government intensifies attack on Johnson over Channel tragedy – live

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Latest updates: Macron slams Boris Johnson for trying to negotiate with him via Twitter as it cancels talks with UK officials over Channel crossings

The French government has accused Boris Johnson of “double speak”. In a briefing, the French government spokesperson, Gabriel Attal, said that the proposal in Johnson’s letter to Emmanuel Macron for France to take back people who successfully cross the Channel on small boats was “clearly not what we need to solve this problem”.

According to PA Media, Attal also said that the letter doesn’t correspond at all” with the discussions Johnson and Macron had when they spoke on Wednesday. Atta went on: “We are sick of double speak.”

What would be completely unacceptable, a stain on our country and a scandal would be to see in future those whose parents have died being placed in inappropriate institutions, in elderly care homes or mental health institutions.

That would be something that I think would bring shame to our country as well as an utterly inappropriate lifestyle for those to whom we should be giving the best possible care.

This is not a bill about a condition, it is not about dealing with Down’s syndrome, it is about people who deserve the same ability to demand the best health, education and care as the rest of our society.

It is not on our part an act of charity, it is an act of empowerment and the recognition that all members of our society must have a right to respect, independence and dignity. That is why I brought this bill forward.

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Boris Johnson’s plan for Irish Sea bridge rejected over £335bn cost

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Project or alternative of a £209bn tunnel would be vastly expensive and fraught with complexities, study says

Boris Johnson’s proposal for a bridge or tunnel linking Scotland to Northern Ireland has been rejected by a feasibility study as vastly expensive – £335bn for the bridge or £209bn for the tunnel – and fraught with potential difficulties.

Released alongside a wider so-called union connectivity review, which called for investment in road, rail and domestic aviation to better connect the four UK nations, the fixed link report found either a bridge or tunnel would be at the very edge of what could be achieved with current technology.

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Emergency visa scheme extended in major U-turn by Boris Johnson

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Threat of Christmas being ruined by driver shortages forces ministers to expand range and duration of visas

Boris Johnson’s government has made a dramatic U-turn in an attempt to save Christmas – with a raft of extended emergency visas to help abate labour shortages that have led to empty shelves and petrol station queues.

New immigration measures will allow 300 fuel drivers to arrive immediately and stay until the end of March, while 100 army drivers will take to the roads from Monday, the government announced late on Friday.

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Boris Johnson to consider using army to supply petrol stations

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Ministers to discuss emergency plan Operation Escalin after BP reveals a third of its forecourts have shortages

Hundreds of soldiers could be scrambled to deliver fuel to petrol stations running dry across the country due to panic buying and a shortage of drivers under an emergency plan expected to be considered by Boris Johnson on Monday.

The prime minister will gather senior members of the cabinet to scrutinise “Operation Escalin” after BP admitted that a third of its petrol stations had run out of the main two grades of fuel, while the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents almost 5,500 independent outlets, said 50% to 90% of its members had reported running out. It predicted that the rest would soon follow.

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European lorry drivers ‘will not want to come to UK’, warn haulage chiefs

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Emergency visa plan will not resolve Britain’s road transport crisis, says industry as majority blame Brexit in poll

The government’s emergency programme to issue temporary visas to thousands of lorry drivers is far too little to resolve Britain’s supply-chain crisis and is unlikely to attract them to the UK, haulage chiefs have warned.

Downing Street on Saturday night confirmed hastily compiled plans to add 5,000 HGV drivers and 5,500 poultry workers to a visa scheme until Christmas, to help the food and fuel industries with shortages.

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Emergency Brexit powers for lorry queues to be made permanent

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Exclusive: ministers to make traffic provisions indefinite in expectation of further cross-Channel disruption

Emergency powers to handle post-Brexit queues of lorries heading for France are being made permanent, signalling the government expects further cross-Channel disruption.

Operation Brock, a traffic management system designed to cope with queues of up to 13,000 lorries heading for mainland Europe across Kent, was meant to end by October 2021, after being extended once when the Brexit transition period ended in December 2020.

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Getting on the right track with HS2 benefits | Letters

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Jim Steer responds to an article by Simon Jenkins that said the high-speed rail link was of little use to the north, and Mark Sullivan hopes the West Midlands gets the transport hub it rejected a decade ago

Simon Jenkins’ latest piece on HS2 (Depleted and unwanted, HS2 hurtles on as Johnson’s £100bn vanity project, 30 July) repeatedly mischaracterises both the case for, and the benefits of, a rail project that will transform connectivity in the UK.

He talks as if services will only go from London to Birmingham, stating confidently that “Britain’s new high-speed railway will not – repeat: not – get to the north of England”. But this is simply untrue. Construction work on the Birmingham-Crewe section is now under way, and detailed planning and consultation prior to a parliamentary bill submission is under way for Crewe-Manchester. HS2 services will reach Edinburgh, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leeds and more than a dozen other cities across the country.

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Vaccinated Britons can travel ‘without looking over their shoulder’, says Shapps – video

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Fully vaccinated Britons will not have to quarantine on return from France and Spain for the next three weeks, bringing much needed business to the struggling tourism sector, according to the transport secretary.

But Britons will need to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 'for evermore' in order to travel between countries, Grant Shapps has predicted, suggesting that quarantine restrictions for some arrivals in England will remain in place into the autumn.

Shapps said it was vital to 'protect the domestic unlocking' after the latest changes were announced to the traffic light system that grades destinations according to their case, vaccine and variant numbers

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Cargo bikes deliver faster and cleaner than vans, study finds

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Home deliveries are soaring and cargo bikes cut congestion and pollution in cities, researchers say

Electric cargo bikes deliver about 60% faster than vans in city centres, according to a study. It found that bikes had a higher average speed and dropped off 10 parcels an hour, compared with six for vans.

The bikes also cut carbon emissions by 90% compared with diesel vans, and by a third compared with electric vans, the report said. Air pollution, which is still at illegal levels in many urban areas, was also significantly reduced.

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Fully vaccinated UK arrivals from France will not need to quarantine

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Ministers ditch plans for watchlist of amber countries such as Spain

Millions of Britons have been given the green light to travel to Europe’s holiday hotspots, avoiding quarantine on return from France and Spain where concerns have been raised about Covid variants.

Ministers announced on Wednesday that fully vaccinated holidaymakers returning from France would no longer need to quarantine and ditched plans for a “watchlist” of amber countries such as Spain.

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The lost history of the electric car – and what it tells us about the future of transport

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To every age dogged with pollution, accidents and congestion, the transport solution for the next generation seems obvious – but the same problems keep coming back

In the 1890s, the biggest cities of the western world faced a mounting problem. Horse-drawn vehicles had been in use for thousands of years, and it was hard to imagine life without them. But as the number of such vehicles increased during the 19th century, the drawbacks of using horses in densely populated cities were becoming ever more apparent.

In particular, the accumulation of horse manure on the streets, and the associated stench, were impossible to miss. By the 1890s, about 300,000 horses were working on the streets of London, and more than 150,000 in New York City. Each of these horses produced an average of 10kg of manure a day, plus about a litre of urine. Collecting and removing thousands of tonnes of waste from stables and streets proved increasingly difficult.

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‘It’s incredibly poor’: Scottish islanders angry at failing ferry service

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Ageing fleet hit by breakdowns and cancellations, with capacity low on services that do run due to Covid

The perfume and toiletries shop overlooking Brodick Bay on Arran is normally packed in the summer, as day-trippers and holidaymakers stream off the mainland ferries at the busy terminal just across the bay.

But this summer has been grim, said Andrew Russell, the sales director for Arran Sense of Scotland, formerly known as Arran Aromatics. For thousands of people and businesses up and down the west coast of Scotland, this summer has been marred by repeated crises affecting ferry services run by the state-funded CalMac.

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UK food worker shortages push prices up and risk Christmas turkey supplies

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Dearth of delivery drivers, abattoir staff and fruit pickers caused by Covid and Brexit are fuelling wage rises with 5% hike in prices forecast

Food prices could rise by about 5% by the autumn – and turkeys and pigs in blankets could be in short supply this Christmas – as shortages of delivery drivers, abattoir staff and other workers drive up pay and other costs.

Industry insiders say that pay for lorry drivers and other supply chain workers, including abbatoir workers, plus vegetable and fruit pickers and packers have all risen because of difficulties in finding sufficient staff.

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Irish people in Britain to get green light to visit friends and family

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Europe’s strictest border controls to be relaxed as Ireland prepares to allow visits for essential reasons

Up to 400,000 Irish people in Britain are to be given the green light to visit family and friends at home for the first time in six months as Ireland prepares to lift the strictest border controls in Europe.

Only those with essential reasons such as haulage, health or funeral attendance have been allowed to enter the country since the border restrictions were imposed in January.

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‘Idea of commuting fills me with dread’: workers on returning to the office

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Staff warily contemplate going back to work as business leaders say it is vital to boost urban economy

With the lifting of coronavirus restrictions in England probably two weeks away, the prospect of returning to offices means the revival of the daily commute.

In a push to bring back more people to town and city centres to boost the urban economy, a group of 50 business leaders, including the Canary Wharf executive chair, Sir George Iacobescu, the bosses of Heathrow and Gatwick airports, the Capita chief executive, Jon Lewis, and the BT chief executive, Philip Jansen, are calling for the government to encourage a return to the office.

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UK’s green list update will be ‘cautious’, insiders warn

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List will be reassessed by 28 June but sources do not expect rapid growth as Delta variant cases rise

Holidaymakers should not pin their hopes on a slew of extra countries being added to the quarantine-free green list when it is updated later this month, government sources have warned.

With ministers monitoring data daily on the spread of the Delta variant, after stage four of the reopening roadmap was postponed by a month to 19 July, Whitehall insiders say the mood remains extremely cautious.

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UK tightens borders and travel rules as variants spark new alarm

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PHE data indicates dominant variant ‘more likely to cause serious illness’ as Grant Shapps warns of threat to reopening on 21 June

Ministers have moved to tighten Britain’s borders as new data suggests the Delta coronavirus variant is much more likely to cause serious illness and is circulating more rapidly within schools.

With England’s reopening on 21 June hanging in the balance, the government removed Portugal from the green list of countries and added seven more countries to the red list – moves that provoked fury within the travel industry and left many holidaymakers in limbo.

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Portugal removed from ‘green list’ of Covid travel destinations

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No countries added to England’s quarantine-free holiday register as seven moved from amber to red

Portugal has been taken off the UK’s “green list” of destinations from which people can return to England without having to quarantine. The government has said the threat of new Covid-19 variants means that less restricted travel could jeopardise domestic unlocking.

No countries were added to the green list, but seven more – Afghanistan, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Trinidad and Tobago – were moved from the amber list to the red list of nations to which almost all travel is barred, the Department for Transport said.

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Spain’s Valencia region presses to be added to UK travel green list

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Region including Benidorm and Alicante has a much lower Covid infection rate than Spain as a whole

The president of the Valencia region is to meet Britain’s ambassador to Spain next week to press for the region to be added to the UK’s green list of acceptable travel destinations.

Valencia, which includes the resorts of Benidorm and Alicante on the Costa Blanca, claims to be the safest place in Europe, with a Covid infection rate of 29 cases per 100,000 inhabitants compared with Spain’s overall rate of 140 per 100,000.

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