June, 2020. The Department for Transport (DfT) released its plan to “decarbonize” UK transport on March 26 this year. Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps said that “public transport and active travel will be the natural first choice for our daily activities” and that “we will use our cars less.” Three days earlier, on… Continue reading
Call for £6,000 grants to encourage electric vehicle sales
June 5th, 2020 Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Layla Moran called on the Government (June 4th, 2020) to offer grants of up to £6,000 to encourage drivers to buy electric cars, as part of a green bailout of the UK’s automotive industry to counter the impact of Covid-19. Under the Oxford West and Abingdon MP’s plan,… Continue reading →
Riding the red hydrogen London bus to Tower Hill
This piece, by Gareth Huw Davies, first appeared in the Sunday Times, September 2006. There is a precedent for bus routes in London that come to represent something rather important. So just as the Clapham omnibus, and its right-thinking passenger, has entered the language as a measure of common sense, could the more prosaically named… Continue reading →
Will the Australians’ preposterous world record score ever be beaten?
Few records in cricket can be regarded as an unbreakable – although six sixes in an over has to be one – but I find it impossible to imagine, in a two overs per side game, how any team could surpass the Australians’ monumental total on a sunny Saturday in May 72 years ago. We… Continue reading →
France opens up the Causses and Cévennes – the land the sheep made
We watch Country File and Springwatch and many an informative documentary on landscape and rural life. So it shouldn’t be hard for us to open up to, and understand, a not so well-known area of France. One that is green and pure and wide and spacious, where the mood music is the ancient sound of… Continue reading →
Post lockdown cycling in New Forest medieval mosaic landscape
New Forest ponies – right to roam The bold vision of many of us who write on the subject is that travel will have to be greener after lockdown. But that is becoming more cloudy. It’s now clear it may be some time, possibly many months, before leisure passengers feel comfortable travelling by train… Continue reading →