Our Carbon Neutrality Open Forum, on 29 January 2024, explored the question of ‘how can step away from our cars and decarbonise transport in the Winchester district?’
The forum focused on active travel and public transport, with speakers including:
Sustrans (Roddy Crockett): Active travel and thriving without owning a car
Stagecoach (Marc Reddy): Stagecoach’s Sustainability Strategy
Hampshire County Council (Stewart Wilson): The County Council’s role in reducing reliance on private car travel and supporting sustainable economic development and regeneration.
Winchester Action on the Climate Crisis (Phil Gagg): The work of the WinACC Transport Committee.
The Open Forum was chaired by Winchester City Council’s Cabinet Member for the Climate Emergency, Cllr Kelsie Learney.
The event is one of the council’s regular Open Forum events at which there is an opportunity for discussion and to submit questions to the council for answer.
So I think everyone has come in from the lobby and Kelsey should be um good to go right great um good evening everybody um I’d like to welcome everybody to this meeting of the uh Winchester carbon neutrality open Forum um I’m councelor Kelsey lerne the cabinet member for climate emergency at Winchester City
Council um the open forums are regular events held to discuss topics relevant to the climate emergency and the usual housekeeping rules for a public meeting apply so we’d appreciate it if you turn your cameras off um unless you’re asked to turn them on um and today we will be discussing decarbonizing transport and
Asking the question can we step away from the car transport emissions are the largest source of greenhouse gases in the Winchester district and without significant changes to the way we travel we will fail to hit the government Target to hit Net Zero by 2050 and let alone the district’s more challenging 2030
Target so to go through that with us this evening we’ve got an exciting panel of speakers this evening um including from sustrans Stage Coach Hampshire County Council and Winchester action on clim on the climate crisis um and after they’ve had the opportunity to speak we will be having a question and answer
Session a number of questions have been submitted in advance which we will take first uh but please feel free to enter questions in the chat as we go along and we will take as many as we have time for at the end um this is a packed session
So um at this point I will hand over to Rod Crockett um from srans who’s the Partnerships and public affairs manager who’s going to speak to us on active travel and thriving without owning a car so over to you Rod thank you Kelsey my name is Rod Crockett and uh I’m partnership’s public
Affairs manager for England South um I’ll just start sharing my slides um see if they’ll come through I’m hoping that people can see them now yes we can thanks Ry oh great thank you okay um so my name’s Ry Crockett and I work for srand and we’re the a
National charity or we work actually in Northern Ireland Scotland and Wales and the and England on at your travel and our main aim is to make it easier to um to walk and cycle um we we do lots and lots of projects in lots and lots of different
Areas and we’ve been around for about 50 years now um we have two main priorities and one of which is called PA for everyone which is about the national cycle Network and the other one is um called liable cities and towns and by that we mean how can we look at place in
A different way in terms of making it easier for people to walk and cycle so in um in trying to work out what to say today um I was trying to find out as much as I could about Winchester so my my presentation is probably going to be quite a few
Challenges and questions to ask uh and I also feel a bit of a fraud in that actually this is probably the first part it feels of of of two presentations um because the F the first my first way of looking at it was to look at the top
Level needs in terms of terms of carbon emissions so I’ll just move to my next slide um so as Kelsey has said it it transport is is is a major major issue in terms of emissions and I’m just interested in the makeup between motorways a roads and transport here and
In terms of making a transition to a low carbon sustainable transport Network one of the key things that we would like to make sure is front and center is a just transition now in order to try and do that you have to work regionally County wise locally and hyperlocal as well in
Terms of who’s going to be winners who who might be losers I sit on the uh the Steering group for the regional active travel uh strategy for um transport for the southeast and I’m also part of the tra just transition working group so I’ve got quite a few ideas on on what’s
Important but uh I’m very interested in hearing what people have to say today later on um I’ve looked at at this uh in terms of where the carbon emissions are from um apologies for many people are very familiar with this um but this is from carbon place and this is showing
The areas around Winchester that have the the lifestyles with people which have the greatest emissions I find it a very fascinating place to start um and also then when you go into that with this website you drill down into flights and different aspects of people’s lives in terms of where the carbon emissions
Are and I also just drill down into two areas here of Winchester just to look at the difference um Badgers farm and St Luke’s and looked at the differences in terms of flights on for one thing in in Badgers farm and and compared with the local Authority average um and then
Looking at cars in St Luke’s I don’t know the areas um but very intriguing intrigued to know you know what’s going on in terms of these different areas and and also something else that we must remember is a lot of the people who might be living in a Cosmopolitan
Student area end up later living in comfortable Suburbia um so so that that’s something which I find really useful to look at is to try and see what’s going on in terms of different people’s Lifestyles because if we’re going to have a just transition we we can’t force people to change their
Lifestyles dramatically we’ve got to use as many carrots rather than sticks so understanding what people need and their lives is important to do a co-discovery or co-design approach when we’re uh when we’re thinking about changes so the next thing I looked at was Data shine um and data shine is
Based on the the 2011 census and that image in the middle is the the journeys to a point in Winchester uh and their their car Journeys and the blue are journeys to that location in the morning H and the red are our Journeys from that so straight off we’ve got widest is a
Place with lots and lots of commuting going on and in terms of a just transition how do we enable people to live without needing to own a car in some of those places and still be able to get to work um so just one of the
Things I saw when I was walking around is this part walk and save idea uh that you got and I think that’s that’s a brilliant idea and I think that if you wanted to expand your Park and drive more I think that would be a a good
Idea um so what about the longer Journeys versus the shorter Journeys and and this is important in terms of you know owning a car and how you’re going to get around so the majority of the emissions come from those longer distance Journeys and and it kind of
Makes sense when you think about it that someone going to work five days a week is making two commuter Journeys and that really adds up in in terms of um are compared with smaller Journeys which you might be making locally but one of the things that can can happen if you’re if
You’re needing to use lots of local Journeys is that if you own a car then you start using the car to then do the longer Journeys as well and it becomes quite easy Once you have one two or three cars in a household to start using the car more regularly than perhaps you
Might like to because of the convenience in trying to look at the the the work and there’s been some fantastic work in Winchester wow you’re you’re really far ahead compared with other areas which is which is great to see but but something that I I find frustrating
In terms of local transport plans and uh when when carbon assessments are made is this idea of somebody else’s emissions um it’s you know scope one two and three but these scope three emissions that I they’re not including motorways and transport for the north they don’t include National Rail they don’t include
Motorways in that yet I saw that 39% of the transport emissions in Winchester come from the motorway so I think you got a real struggle here in terms of how do you enable people to get to Winchester in terms of having a thriving City Center for for people who live
Further away in terms of how they’re going to get there if they’re not going to use a car so I’ll come to that later in terms of many options that you can make uh this is coming out more and more in terms of whose emissions and I just
Put that bit from National highways which is from was from the guardian in terms of looking at the a303 and when they were doing the analysis of carbon emissions they were just looking at the section that they were hoping to improve not all the increased emissions that
Would occur along the whole length of the route and one of the frustrations that I have is that the government still hasn’t produced its quantifiable carbon reduction methodology from the Department of Transport now we’re we’re not able to reduce carbon in a really significant way in my view unless we can
Work out whose budget is the carbon coming from which areas is it coming from and and my personal view this S View is that the only way to do that is is is regionally is that we’ve got too many uh borders which cross between between urban and rural and in terms of
Determining how are we going to reduce carbon emissions especially through transport is that we’re going to have to look at a regional model especially when Road pricing comes in once the shortfall of uh of um tax from electric vehicles and and fuel has really been realized you know something like 72 billion
Shortfall is predicted to occur because of the loss of of fuel um tax so yeah so I was saying about scope three you know transport for the North in their analysis they leave a lot of it out local plans usually leave U quite a considerable reference to scope 3 and
Transport emissions schools in terms of their analysis they usually leave out scope 3 and tend to focus more on um solar panels and what they can do on the school estate um but something interesting which is occurring uh from this year is that suppliers will be under pressure to report scope three for
Um their um their deliveries um and more lower carbon Freight options and Last Mile distribution hubs I’m sure are going to be coming in and I think that’s something that wichester should be looking at in terms again of of living without owning a car these micro consolidation and and Last Mile lock
Amazon lockers or or walking deliveries I think are going to become more and more important um and um part of a local transport plan uh says to meet National priorities to decarbonize the transport system but I also think there are local priorities and City priorities which are
Also important to include in the local transport plan at the moment it feels like most organizations are thinking it’s somebody else’s problem to deal with uh and I think that’s a real issue that we’ve got to grasp and part of the solution to that is really getting to
Grips with the data uh and trying to understand in terms of trip generators who might be responsible for the carbon emissions that come from a trip generator which might be in the middle of Winchester so I’ve looked at the Winchester movement strategy brilliant brilliant piece of work that really
Really interesting um uh again again we’ve got this figure that so much of the transport emissions come from motorways um and transport for the southeast which I’ll be coming to later has got plans for developing the motorways yet in the local transport plan it’s saying that we should be
Moving away from from roads and focusing Less on on um on on Highway developments and and I also see that there’s a large amount of Transport um reduction in in emissions coming from electric vehicles which which I’m really interested to unpick really because at what date is
That that’s supposed to be coming from because um you know we’re expecting about half EVS half of new sales to be EVS by 2030 um and and even then with the electric vehicles they tend to be larger they don’t really fit very well around around Winchester City Center I
Was in wi the city center in November and the size of some of the cars you know we’re really really running out of space um and and do we want to just Swap all our cars for slightly larger ones which are electric vehicles we still got
The problem that for 95% of the time most cars are just sitting around um being stored on in the public realm for a lot of the time um and is there a way that we can do car sharing can we make arrangements in villages where we sort
Of borrow each other’s cars and and although that might sounds quite quite Cloud Cuckoo Land I I lived in north of England for a year uh and it was amazing how easy you could you could pick up a car from to borrowed from people in the
Village if you asked around um and for many people that’s how they they use a car so you see maybe lower rates of car ownership in villages but actually there’s still quite a high number of people using cars and borrowing cars and combining uh Journeys to um to
Supermarkets so the local transport plan I think this is really really really really quite quite Advanced really compared with many many others you know reducing car dependency which is great we’ve got car dependency on there because for many people in many villages and housing they they have got the car
Dependency locked in and it may not just be one car in that household that they’re locked into it could be two or three so in terms of making enabling people to have more money in more money in their pockets if you can reduce the number of cars that people need to own
In order to thrive then that that that makes it easier and makes people have more flexible lives too um and then transport for the southeast that I’ve been doing work with uh this is this is their plans for for Winchester and uh and the and the solent area um and and I
Really impressed with transport for the southeast’s um focus on data and and they’re really getting to grips with um what the the size of the challenge but they haven’t got the answers yet um because National national government really is not setting the scene in terms
Of how we going to uh do Road pricing for example or how are we going to um work out whose emissions belong to to which areas um and and I was pleased to see in the local transport plan that that the that they except that the past monitoring of schemes that have created
Extra Road capacity also tends to show that that road capacity fills up with extra car Journeys and that’s an important part point to make in a local transport plan so in transport for the southeast analysis these are some of the things that they are they’ve reviewed in
Terms of what would make a difference um this is available online and it in order to try and achieve the uh the the rate of carbon emissions that national government has set we kind of need do all these things apply them apply them all at once because not all of them will
Be successful if we don’t if we don’t really try and push for all of them at the same time we’re not going to get the reduction that we need and and so so this is the only realistic way um and uh in in the local transport plan it says analysis shows
That a 10% reduction in total vehicle is required between 2,9 and 2030 in order to reach the Target by 2030 my view is that needs to go further and we need to be looking at 20% um if we don’t hit the 10% what are we going to get
5% and our position San position shows that you know we need to reduce a lot more U than than we are at the moment um and there’s also many co benefits of of reducing uh the number of cars that that we need to own and and and and to use um
And um the government’s figure so that even if 100% of new sales were electric vehicles by 2030 mileage would still mileage would still need to be reduced by 20% so and now that the government has gone back on the 2030 Target it’s another example that if we don’t if we
Don’t apply all the levers that we’ve got then we’re not going to hit our Target so another some of the co- benefits well there are many and I urge you to go to the srand website to look at some of the co- benefits in terms of
Air quality terms of health in terms of public realm but uh you know this picture’s from Winchester and and shows the the amount of space that is available uh if we start rethinking our our our road system 80% of public space in cities and towns is the road network
Uh and and linked to that is this idea that cars are getting wider and wider bigger and bigger heavier and heavier um and at a certain point we haven’t yet we’re going to have to say stop yeah we we need to reduce the number of cars we need to help households reduce the
Number of cars that they need to to own or have access to to thve as well um more levers that we we can apply Supply um more working from home uh reducing and focusing on the higher carbon Journeys and switching to lower carbon stages and by that I mean the a longer
Journeys if we can help them be made by maybe an active travel leg walking to the station or cycling to a bus stop and then a public transport leg and then maybe another active travel leg or another public transport uh leg so it’s those longer Journeys if we can switch
Some of them not all of them because there will be some places where it’s just not possible really to to thrive without access to a car but of many of the many of the places where we can um uh reduce those higher carbon Journeys we should be looking towards working in
Those places um the lower carbon choices as well EVS were required active travel is the First Choice as part of all Journeys uh looking at public and shared transport Community mobility and my last point is about data I think that that the the data that that Winchester has
Put together is is really really great and and it really helps us um try and come up with um the the vision and and the strategies and policies that we all need to get behind uh so San’s approach is we’ve got active travel officer already in Winchester City Council and a heron
Working there uh with workplaces um we’ve got Network development uh and link to the network development is the development of local cycling and walking infrastructure plans um we’ve got a design and engineering department that focuses on local transport note 120 which is the brilliant guidance that
Came out from uh gear change we work with major stakeholders we try and integrate as much as possible with public transport so active travel combined with public transport and we also look at the public realm and making the case for better places and by that we we’re looking at uh new housing
Developments active travel England now is a statutory consult in developments which are over 150 units I think it is and they produced a great toolkit uh which asks every planning Authority uh to uh to to to to apply for for um uh guidance and um um to for actually
Travel to be England to be a consultee and and to get a report back on on on the developments that prop they’re proposing so place-based approaches and working with the public realm is something that we’re very keen to uh to to show that actually if you make places
Attractive to to come to and spend time in um it’s a bit like being on holiday all the time because when you think about the places that you’d like to spend more time in they’re rarely with the idea of a traffic jam in the background they’re rarely a car park
They’re rarely places where there are lots of cars the places that we like to spend time are usually places that don’t have cars we might be using a car or another form of transport to get there but actually when we’re there the kind of utopian places we like don’t really
Feature cars now what if we can actually create those utopian places in our own cities in our own Villages and a lot that does require the removal of cars um so finally my last slide is travel is the harder sector to reduce carbon emissions in my opinion and and
In carbon places it’s very difficult because it involves uh looking at people’s Lifestyles and and making tweaks in terms of um levers and carrots and sticks so we need to reduce the need for transport more working from home more flexibility think about domestic tourism we need to live locally
Think about circular economy and low carbon Supply chains and have carbon neutral local plans for when we’re looking at housing we need to think of low carbon transport choices EVs and active travel as the First Choice as well and and also governance policy and
And data as well and if we do this then we can live for more cleaner active social prosperous and healthy and include learning in our life as well thank you thank you very much Rod that was really interesting and thought-provoking um I was particularly taken by the
Contrast between um St Luke Ward which for those of us on this call who know Winchester is actually um stanmore which is um an counselor state which does have a lot of um students living on it uh with Oliver’s battery and Badger Farm which is actually the ward right next
Door so it does show how you have areas with very high travel um next to to those who um actually do use active travel and public transport a lot um and I’m yeah sorry I I’ve only been to Winchester twice I should say so I’m really really interested now I’ve looked
At it and done some analysis I’ve just got so many questions i’ I’d love to have people you know question what about this what about this and actually the only time I’ve been there I cycled from London to Winchester via Hastings eastborn and the a of white when I was
15 years old I you just remembered that yesterday the a group of group of friends of mine after our o levels we cycled to Winchester and then the only other time I’ve been there was last November when went went on the train so I can say that I’ve never been to
Witcher in a car yeah right well I’m quite conscious of time so we will come back for questions later uh but we will now hand over to um Mark rdy um Stage Coach South managing director to talk about stage coaches sustainability strategy um towards a zero emission bu
Fleet great thank you very much hopefully everybody can hear me uh that’s the main thing so uh thanks for inviting me along um I’m as just said I’m the managing director for stage F South I’ve only been in post um seven months so you will have to forgive me on
Not knowing every bus route uh in my area um but uh let’s see how we go through anyway um the other thing I would say is I’m not anti car I have a car myself even though I run a bus company and in my view it’s how you use
Your car is the most important thing uh to think about so a little bit about uh Stage Coach um we’re the largest bus operator in the UK uh with 23% market share and uh every year we’re transporting around half a billion passengers or customers
Uh as I prefer to to call them uh on our buses and um we make a big influence on uh the economy and we’re operating buses as far north as the Alney islands and as far south or Southwest I should say as Cornwall um and we also operate buses in
The big metropolitan areas uh like Manchester uh Liverpool Newcastle London uh as well as the provincial towns uh that we’re used to seeing as well more locally uh stage coach is uh an operating company that I lead Stage Coach South uh we’ve got eight depos operating buses across Hampshire uh Su
And West Sussex and also into the unry of Portsmouth um we’re a collection of former nationalized bus companies that were privatized back in the 80s and early 90s and we um brought together a number of those different companies to create Stage Coach South and obviously in Winchester itself we have a Depot uh
Where we’ve got uh just over 45 buses and employ 130 people uh locally in the city so I thought it was worthwhile just mentioning how buses work because um this is an interesting uh context to so it enables people just to think about how we can make it all work but not only
The the the customer but how funding uh and how the bus company needs to to make it work commercially as well so the vast majority of bus services outside of London uh there’s a small exception in the Northwest at the moment and northern islands excluded um operators provide
The services without any direct subsidy and in essence what’s paid on the bus uh is there to cover the costs um when somebody uses a concessionary pass that’s a subid to that person and then we get paid a uh flat rate uh for each concessionary pass that’s used uh gaps
In the market uh sometimes called socially necessary that’s where local authorities can provide financial assistance uh to have them operate and different local authorities take different views on that and that’s normally not all the time uh normally run by the highway Authority but please say in the case of a place like
Winchester they do tender their own bus services Winchester City Council and I know eastle burough council do the same as well and in particular for Winchester that’s the park and ride service that we operate vehicle investment for new buses or diesel buses have always come uh from the private sector uh without any
Liability to the taxpayer um but in the last two years with the drive to decarbonization uh the government has launched schemes which are known as zebra and for the life of me I can’t remember what it stands for zero emission bus Regional area fund or something along those lines it’s easy to
Remember the word zebra and the government uh support paying 75% of the difference between a brand new diesel bus and a brand new alternative fuel bus uh and I’ll come on to that more in a minute uh but one thing to not is covid hit the industry
Very hard um nearly four years ago you’ll remember Boris on a Monday night saying You must stay at home um and in essence made the um made that message really strong to the effect that if you use public transport you will get covid um that has been very difficult to
Um Iron that myth out um although the industry does try and we do try hard but it is noticeable that concessionary passholders um have had a lower bounceback than commercial passengers um and in Winchester particularly um we see that our passenger numbers are between 70 and 76% of preco levels so
We’ve still got 25% of people no longer traveling and a lot of that is where people are doing a lot of work from home um particularly with what we’re doing now remote uh remote sessions with teams and zoom and so on so our decarbonization journey um in stage coach
Um it’s worth saying we’ve got 364 electric vehicles already um you can read the numbers for yourself there in terms of what that equates to in a contribution to uh avoiding carbon in essence you’re looking at around about 46 tons of uh reduction in carbon per year from every electric bus that goes
On the road and you also uh deliver the um 23 kilograms of not having any nox Nitro oxides in the atmosphere as well so uh it does make a contribution to air quality there’s no question about it uh we’re very committed at stage coach and have set a ambitious Target of having um
A zero Mission Fleet by 2035 uh so start ticking the hour ticking the years off that’s only 11 years away and we anticipate to be fully net zero across our business by 2050 and you’ll see other uh various decar carbonization metrics there as well but predominantly and as said before earlier
On in the presentation uh from Rod you know transport does make up a fair share of um carbon but we’re just talking about bus and public transport in this in this realm uh and you’ll find that uh cars obviously add their fair share uh to that um carbon uh carbon being uh
Into our atmosphere so by 2035 we want a zero emission Fleet and just wanted to go through with you the options that we have um so we have the clean diesel as it’s called now the Euro 6 bus we’ve got a number of these in Winchester get you
About 300 miles a day uh it’s not zero emission uh but it’s a uh a big change from the old diesel buses of 20 years ago a relatively simple Depo infrastructure you need a fuel pump and a tank um but the fuel does need to be delivered to the depot and that
Generates emissions in itself cell um and at the moment it is still cheaper than alternative fuels there’s then biog gas uh sorry I should say a clean diesel vehicle is around about 280,000 each double decker uh in contrast to you can have a gas bus biog gas uh that’s looking at about £380,000
Per vehicle uh you looking at about quarter of a million pounds to have a gas plant uh in the depot and not many manufacturers are doing this anymore it’s turned into a bit of the betamax um of the alternative fuels um and you know gas has been tried for many
Years um so in Southampton they introduced gas buses in 1995 with varying degrees of success um more recently in about the last five years gas buses have been rolled out in places like Bristol uh and reading um but the majority uh of Manufacturers as I say are now um moving away from offering
That uh that option and biogas is not fully zero emission so then you have the EV the electric vehicle uh about 240 miles a day uh you’ve got a factor in that you’ll need a replacement battery uh just like you have to do with your iPhone that those on Apple now and then
It’s the same principle um but there’s other challenges around Depo infrastructure and I come on to that shortly in some of the things that uh we have to do um but the good thing about electric vehicles is it’s easy to make marginal to add marginal additional Vehicles providing there’s enough
Capacity in the grid um whereas other uh like the the the gas buses uh you know you need to put a gas plant in there um probably for the maximum amount of buses you need you can add uh elements to a a gas plant but uh it’s not easy and and
An electric double decker will cost you just under half a million pounds each at the moment so as I said before a Diesel’s about 280 uh an EV is uh just under half a million so there’s quite a difference there and that’s where the government’s helping to support uh 75% of that
Difference uh and then finally you’ve got hydrogen vehicles uh around 280 m a day um you’re going further north in the price now we’re looking at about £600,000 above bu um two and a half million pounds to put in a hydrogen plant in the depot there are a few
Operators around with them so there’s a hydrogen plant at um the bus depot in Crawley uh there’s West Midland and abine um they are very challenging vehicles to keep on the road uh they’re expensive uh they’re more expensive to maintain and the other big issue at the
Moment is that the health and safety executive um are very reluctant to sign off these plants um at the bus depos I believe there’s one person in the whole of the UK that does it and it’s proving very challenging so I know one operator that’s got it is actually just bringing
In uh small bottles of hydrogen to then fill the buses rather than having a major plant with a with a big tank there because they can’t get it signed off by the uh hsse so I said it was a conundrum on my opening slide these are some of the
Things that we need to think about when going for uh alternative fuels what fuel and we probably covered that already uh Depo infrastructure obviously for Ev the big issue is is there enough juice in the pipe that comes to the depot uh it can be there today uh when you talk to
The dno the distribution Network operator the southern electrics of the world World somebody else might take it tomorrow um and so so that’s a real key element and sometimes they might not be enough juice in there uh to supply the whole Depot and I again I’ll come on to
That in a minute but do you charge the buses at night do you when they’re in the depot is there opportunity charging out on the road um but by having charging in the depot does mean that your footprint of the depot increases by about 15% um and as I’ve said there is there
Enough power in the grid and the other thing that we all need to be mindful of it’s a monopoly option here going to the distribution Network operator um and you can’t get the power from anywhere else so what we have done is we’ve employed Consultants that used to work for dno to
Make sure that we’re getting value for money uh when we’re given quotes for uh grid connection but there’s still maintenance just like diesel pumps Chargers sockets um and you also have to take into account particularly with EV on uh the terrain and the range and just like your
EV car you will get less mileage or range out of it um in the winter time uh than you will In The Summertime by definition of you know the the weather makes an effect on the battery uh and also the various different heaters and functions on the vehicle that will be
Drawing current um in the winter compared to the summer so locally uh I’ve got nine electric buses I have them in Guilford had them there since 2019 uh and we don’t have enough energy in the grid to charge all the buses so we have an Innovative solution where during the day uh
Batteries from Tesla uh the car manufacturer are charged and then when all the buses are in at night um they’re connected to the grid and they are also connected to the batteries as well to ensure that there’s enough charge for the following day um you know the it
Really is critical in making sure that there is enough juice in the grid um otherwise you do have these challenges like I’ve said here and obviously the Tesla batteries will need replacement uh at some time uh in the future as well uh I just show you a a short video
About our electric uh vehicles in Guilford only a couple of minutes if I may W Oops okay so that gives you a little flavor of um what we what we do in Guilford with our electric buses and then finally um we can all talk about decarbonization uh and I’m a big advocate of it and it makes a huge uh collectively it makes a big benefit
To air quality um but the big worry I have is that we’ll all move to electric vehicles electric cars we have electric buses but those people that move to electric cars will think to themselves I’ve done my b bit uh for the environment I’ve done my bit for air
Quality but unfortunately it just means that we’re all sat in the same congestion except we’re not giving tail pie permissions and to make the bus attractive it has to be quicker uh and that’s been proven up and down the country you make a bus quicker it makes
It more attractive and people will use it um so I’ll leave that uh thought with you if that’s okay thank you very much Mark that was very informative um and very helpful um I a regular bus user myself um and big app fan so which helps us know when the
Bus is actually turning up or not but I think we’ll we’ll there are a few questions around the buses which we’ll take up later um but I am Keen to move on so we’ll hand over to Stuart Wilson who’s the principal transport planner at Hampshire County Council will be talking
To us about um local transport plan for um and the county council’s role in reducing Reliance on Private Car travel so over to you Stewart good evening everyone um yeah I’m Stuart Wilson principal transport planner at the County Council I’m actually work in the scheme development
Team um so uh we essentially work on um developing schemes that have been identified in in uh strategies trying to take those forward and um identify funding to to deliver those and um yeah I’m going to talk about the draft um local transport plan for um and as by
Way of um background um so it’s a structur requirement for all local transport authorities to um develop uh and publish local transport plans uh and that’s set out in the enabling legislation the transport act 2000 um what does the transport um plan do it describes um council’s essentially the
The policy framework for transport in an area and um and it’s an important document because it helps to um uh it’s help helpful in terms of securing funding from central government but it also signals to to um other agency and stakeholders the the County Council priorities for transport um and the
Current local transport plan local transport Plan Three which was developed in 2011 is is no longer fit for purpose or relevant to today’s challenges and and hence why the County Council is is developing a a new local transport plan um and um ltp4 has been already been developed and consulted on in several
States stages so there was a scoping and stakeholder engagement work in 2021 and 2022 um over the same period um there was an Evidence base that was developed including some carbon emission forecasting um and a consultation in um between April and June 2022 um so the County Council it was expecting to adopt
Ltp4 um not long after the public consultation um but it was waiting for DFT to update its ltp guidance and we’re still waiting for that um and it doesn’t look like that will be coming soon um so the County Council is going to go ahead anyway and and put forward ltp for
Adoption in in 2024 so hopefully that will happen in the first half of this year but just to be clear the presentation covers the draft ltp4 um and and not not the ltp4 that that will be adopted um so there were three big issues for ltp4 um climate change um and obviously
There is urgent action required uh in order to avoid dangerous climate change um caused by greenhouse gases um including transport related um CO2 and and a recognition in ltp4 that if we carry on with existing policies and practices um we won’t meet our carbon neutral Target for 2050 and I
Think somebody else has already said that um based on the evidence base that was developed for LT tp4 um we need to reduce um uh car marage by around 10% to achieve that um so it isn’t just about um zero emission vehicles um we do need
To reduce traffic um the other big feed was health and Society um so transport clearly plays a vital role in our lives um me how we access um work or facilities and services um and not being able to uh access those things does does mean that people live in isolation um can affect
Their ability to work um we also have quite high levels of car use across the county um and a lack of walking and cycling and other active trouble and that that does uh contribute to obesity and poor health um when ltp4 was um being developed um that was
When um the pandemic was on or just after and um but I think this is this is still obviously relevant today um we do need to think about how we um a shift in how we support economic growth in in the context of climate change and obviously
Uh transport has has a key role to play to play that um but I think taking all those um those big issues ltp4 recognizes that at the heart is a need to reduce car dependency and particularly private car use um and that means reducing traffic levels as I said um the evidence
Suggests we need to reduce traffic by around car mileage Sorry by around 10% if if we’re if we’re going to achieve carbon neutrality um but it also means um providing people with more more choice and uh the other speakers have already spoken about needing better walking and cycling routes and
Infrastructure we need quicker um quicker buses and um we need an increased bus Network as well and obviously there are challenges with with trying to achieve that those are those things um so this this slide uh is ltp on a page Ian as you can appreciate a
Local transport plan is is quite a large document um essentially there are four outcomes um around these key themes of climate change environment economy and Society um and then there are two guiding principles um reducing the overall need to travel and significantly reducing dependency on private car and alongside that providing a transport
System that enables high quality and prosperous places um we also have a number of core policies that cut across um climate change road safety and freight and then there are a number of specific uh policies based around these kind of themes such as public transport development master planning which I’ll
I’ll talk a bit more about in the next couple of slides sides and then there’s a whole section on implementation and um and how we’re going to prioritize um schemes um so yeah I just thought it would be important to kind of go into some of the
Themes in a bit more detail um and and one of the themes is called planning for people and places um that might seem like an obvious thing to do but not really what we’ve been doing as transport planners and Engineers over the last few decades um so essentially what is what
We’re trying to to do is is to shift away from planning for vehicles um move away from worrying about affecting uh car capacity and and delaying cars to thinking about places and spaces and planning for people um so um there are some quite key things in ltp4 um to try and Achieve
That one of them is a transport user hierarchy so um thinking about prioritizing the most vulnerable and most sustainable transport modes and having those at the top um and the least vulnerable and least sustainable at the bottom um there’s also something called a movement and place framework
Um and and to try to get us to think differently about our roads and our streets so um not just through routs but but places where um people spend time socialize um and enable activities that add Vitality to to neighborhoods for example um and and something that that
Is being rolled out um across the council including um trade in for um transport planners and Engineers um and others is is the healthy streets approach um so again it’s it’s um thinking about roads as streets and how we can make them more attractive more comfortable and safer for walking and cycling and
Um I think that’s a big uh step change and um for the County Council and and really how it how it approaches um developing and designing and implementing improvements across the transport Network and system I think it’s a really important thing um and and this has been touched on by others but
Um I mean there’s sort of lots of uh lots of reasons for for doing that um practical as well and I mean essentially our streets do not have the space to accommodate an ever increasing amount of car traffic um and even if we even if they did it’s not really something that we
Want to do because we know that that creates poor unhealthy places to live so um you know many areas um attractive walking cycling and public transport options um mean that we can carry many more people around more efficiently um the next um slide was on development
And master planning um and so this is really about the County Council working with um planning authorities including which just city council um in trying to influence the location and Dei design of developments in order to reduce the need to travel and reduce car dependency and there are a number of um
Factors that are listed um in this slide for you know what is needed for high quality development um and the County Council itself is looking to produce um development planning guidance and updating its guidance on transport assessments and travel plans in order to to help achieve um more sustainable um housing and employment
Sites um next slide um making it happen so ltp has a kind of root map to 2050 and in the short term um that’s really about um developing area strategies and plans and I’ll talk a little bit more about um bus service improvement plans um and local um cycling walking infrastructure plans um
It’s about a big cultural shift internally um so how the organization um develops and implements the transport system and I said said earlier it’s it’s really thinking about um roads are streets and places now um the County Council leading by example so trying to reduce its own carbon
Emissions um and embedding movement and place framework which I talked about earlier and then in the medium term so 5 to 10 years it’s about trying to S to to deliver those measures um that are required to um support uh a mass shift in in mode use um and achieve the transition from
Traffic growth to traffic reduction and in over the longer term trying to consolidate those those travel behaviors um I thought it would be helpful just to very briefly talk about some of those some of the challenges um obviously funding is is a big challenge for us
Because um most of the funding that we get for walking and cycling improvements um to implement bus priority and other other um measures um comes from central government um that involves generally a competitive bidding process um you know we really aren’t very good at providing enough funding and and that
Being long-term investment for these kind of things so that that is a challenge and I think particularly around things like plac making um an an urban realm you know which is much more expensive typically don’t have enough funding for that those kind of improvements um the other challenge is
Is around Behavior change so I’ve said about the kind of internal uh cultural shift required at the County Council um I think it’s also about um people changing their behavior uh and and doing that in a way that um you know Prov providing those Alternatives but also nudging people to
Make those changes I think there’s a there’s a sort of fine balance there um next slide um yeah I just wanted to um yeah briefly talk about um providing better walking and cycling which is obviously essential in reducing car use and dependency um and and um we aim to do this through
A step change of walking cycling infrastructure so the County Council has been um developing um local cycling and walking infrastructure plans and these are evidence-based plans that identify preferred walking and cycling routes and and a program of uh infrastructure improvements um as I say to improve and
Increase cycling um um the intention is for LC whips to become fully adopted policy document so hopefully they’ll carry more weight um in local transport plan and local planning policies um for Winchester City there was an LC whip which was developed as part of the the Winchester movement strategy um and
That’s being updated and reviewed and it will cover the whole District I’m hoping to consult on that later in the year um and in terms of of of buses um you know we also aim to speed up public transport including more bus lanes and and bus lane enforcement
And and um obviously work with operators under a new enhanced partnership to make Services better and um I’ve listed here some of the things that that are going on and being done um so in the Winchester City Council area um there are some things called bus route Improvement plans and those are being
Developed for for several routes in the city the the route two three and five and also for some routes outside of of the the city but in the district um the 64 the 66 and the star 7 um the council is also using some of the funding that
We’ve secured from central government um for the bus service improvement plan to um bring about some service enhancements within the the district and um we’re still working through the detail of those and we’re hoping to be able to share some more information in Sp in um that’s the end of
Presentation thank you very much Stuart um I think it’s we’ve had a lot of questions about where the County Council is on all of this work and it’s really useful to have that update um as you say the ltp4 is a a fundamental change from managing growth to encouraging decline
Um in terms of motorized transport um and it is something that people are struggling to get their heads round to a degree um I think one of the things that changed my thinking about a lot of This was um going to a local school to talk to them about what new play equipment
They’d like um they told me they didn’t want new play equipment they wanted the local streets to be safe enough for them to be allowed to go to the playground in the first place and I think that’s the kind of thinking we need to apply to a
Lot of this um so we’ll move on to our our final speaker so thank you Stuart which is um the Winchester action on the climate crisis chair of the transport working group Phil gag so over to you Phil thank you Kelsey um I need to find the presentation is that’s can people see
That y yes that can be seen thanks Phil fantastic um well I think I think my job is to do a brief presentation um uh and to cover the bits cover the parts that other people may not have reached so what I what I thought was I’d say a word or two about
I think I’m going too fast um a word or two about the urgency and scale of the problem because people have talked about particular issues sometimes a bit technical about particular modes I want to talk about the overall picture very briefly and uh this is a visual way of
Showing the overall picture um and shows very clearly in the purple line at the top how transport has dominated and this was covered uh quite a lot in the srand presentation by transport much more than domestic much more than agriculture much more than commercial so it’s really
Important I think to get transport right and you’ll see there was a big dip during Co but it’s going up uh which is uh rather alarming so the uh real achievement will be to make sure it doesn’t go up as far as it used to be
And this is another way looking at it in 2021 and you can see that transport by far outweighs the size of emissions associated with domestic or Agriculture and um certainly industry and Commercial are really and certainly public sector are really insignificant so very important to uh get transport
Right and it’s not a normal situation this Winchester is outstanding in terms of the emphasis on emissions that transport causes and this is one way of putting that which is to look at how many emissions what emissions there are per head and you can see that Winchester
On this scale is usually about twice as much per head as the national average um it’s urgent this is a way of looking at all emissions in Winchester and if we are to achieve Z by 2030 or have a go we’ve got to do something really radical for the rest of this
Decade and you can see that the drop in emissions is severe um but it’s not just the emissions that matter let’s go to the other end um uh certainly uh uh it was a very interesting uh presentation about buses but uh what we have to do is not
Only worry about the grid and make sure people get enough electricity for electrified Road Transport and other things at the same time as we’re trying to Electrify our housing heating uh but also we need to produce green electricity it’s no good electrifying transport and then fueling it by
Electricity it’s produced by gas you only save onethird of the emissions so uh backto back with the need to Electrify is the need to produce green electricity to meet the demand and you can see here that uh electricity from Renewables is very very little of all our energy use this big black gray
Segment here is all the petroleum that we use the diesel and electricity but also there’s additional petroleum and gas so uh we’re only just beginning to produce green electricity um so uh We’ve covered uh we haven’t covered Walking much but we’ve covered cycling and public transport but
Uh I think what I’d really like to say is um it’s more important that people change their mode get out of their cars use the buses start to walk start to cycle then it is that we Electrify the buses and I I think maybe Stage Coach are underselling
Their role by not emphasizing that we need to have more people on every bus because a a single car in Winchester not only uses an awful lot of causes an awful lot of emissions but only on average carries about one .25 people and when you think of it you
Get a car and a half in the length of a bus and we’re only transporting about two people by car on average then we could uh transport probably uh if we were to be ambitious 20 people in each bus so uh for about the same um uh gain
In terms of emissions so persu trading people to use more buses designing walking cycling and public transport infrastructure very well and I think um uh our colleague from Hampshire County Council was covering this if we can get people to transfer the mode that’s even more important than developing the
Technology um cars Vans and lorries the public discourse is usually oh well well it’ll be all right because there battery electrification well we’ve got to get the green electricity from somewhere to fuel that and they will use enormous amounts of green electricity um this is the graph of um
The growth in plug-in electric vehicles in Winchester district and you can see it’s really really optimistic it’s an exponential curve more and more people are buying electric vehicles as the years proceede but we have to just look at the sheer number of electric vehicles that were recorded uh early in
2023 uh in the D uh driving vehicle licensing Authority and it was 1,800 and if we then compare that with other vehicles we end up with 1,800 as a proportion of 90,000 and the really worrying thing about this chart is that despite everyone’s wishes despite everyone’s aspirations uh the number of petrol and
Diesel vehicles on Winchester District roads that are licensed within Winchester is still growing so year on year we get more and more diesel and um petrol vehicles uh so the Outlook is really really really quite worrying and uh what we will have to do is something
Quite radical if we’re going and I think I agree with earlier speakers that there is a fundamental need for uh lifestyle change uh but of course we’ve got to find ways of doing that so that people don’t feel bullied or intruded upon and I think that is the real challenge that
We’ve got in the next few years um I’d just like to say it was great to hear from sustrans but it would be great Kelsey if there were time for someone from cycle Winchester to say just a few words about how what such trans was talking about might apply to Winchester
District and I hope that when we return to working on the Winchester movement strategy we can make sufficient Amendment from the earlier iterations to take account of Hampshire County Castle’s most welcome uh desire to reduce the number of cars but I do doubt whether a reduction of 10% will be
Enough to come up with the arithmetic that means that we have to find ways of fueling our transport system uh and not blow the electricity Supply uh so they’re just a few thoughts for people thank you thank you very much Phil um we really appreciate all the work that um winac do
On developing this data and helping us um helping us graphically understand what’s going on in particular over time um we are going to um move now into the question session uh we’ve got um about quarter of an hour for question so I will prioritize um
The um questions that uh were sent in in advance so um if our presenters could turn their cameras back on and reappear on the screen to take them as appropriate um the first the first question is um from Henrietta bue of a Crawley Parish counselor who asks um there are many
People within the Winchester District who live in rural Villages and not the Winchester City Center many of the policies that the Winchester groups tend to discuss appear to be very anti-ar to those who live outside of the city there are very few Villages who have a Dependable bus service that would allow
For Reliable commuting or even getting in and out of town at convenient times particularly in the evening it is also expensive and a great deal slower than cars um does this forum recognize this Challenge and how will it introduce new policies without alienating the rural car user um the question’s a lot longer
Than that but I have paraphrased I know everybody’s seen the full question uh there was a a later linked question which um on similar lines which was in Satellite Villages walking to the city isn’t an option and bus services are limited what can be done to help these communities reduce their travel
Footprint um rodia do you want want to go first I know you referred you referred to this in your presentation yeah yeah yeah yeah it’s a good really good question really good question and it’s all all part of a how to try and achieve a just transition and
It’s also linked to governance and where the boundaries are between different um parish and town and City and district councils and County councils are as well but but regarding walking um every Journey has walking involved or cycling involved in their you know it’s part of every single Journey every Journey even
If you’re walking to the car um or Wheeling to the car if you got a wheelchair um involves active travel and and the more that we we rely on vehicles to take us from one place to another in comfort and warmth um the the less likely we’re going to get our physical
Activity in order to um keep keep our health so I think that enabling physical activity in rural areas is is really important and looking at the public rights of way um and how to connect Villages up so that people have got nodes where they can they can access
Either shops or Transport Services um I’ve been part of a rural Mobility group in transport for the southeast looking at this specific issue um and and it is tricky but there’s there’s quite a lot of levers you you can apply I talked about uh demand responsive transport and
Uh I know that just near near near s sort of near Crawley in basing Stone billingshurst U there used to be Jake taxis that used to run a service once they’ done all the runs into school they used to do uh connecting people up and there’s also some of the the buses that
Connected up with the the supermarkets as well so I think there’s there’s a range of range of levers that can be applied in rural areas but to to to have a to have a policy that that penalizes people who live in villages to to get into City centers is is is unfair and
Unjust I think um but um but I think that to to think that that there aren’t Alternatives I think is wrong I think that there’s lots and lots of things that you can do to enable active travel routes between Villages and towns um and and using ebikes E Scooters if they
Become legalized uh or or autonomous vehicles I know somebody who lived in rural areas was unhappy that she’d never get one of those Milton ke’s robots delivering her her weight food and wanted one of those and so yeah why not if if we have sealed surfaces then then we can have autonomous vehicle
Deliveries in in in rural areas yeah and certainly at the city council we’re very conscious of that rural urban divide um I was brought up in the countryside and I know how difficult um transport can be um which is partly one of the reasons why I
Choose to live in the city now where it it is much easier particularly when you have children um yeah um you I mean one of the things you mentioned in your presentation was for example the park and walk um and park and ride uh that we have in Winchester and certainly
Encouraging that modal shift partway through the Journey to when people come into the city from the countryside is I think really important but we do recognize that there are issues um in the evening which is why we keep a lot of car parks close within easy walking distance of the
Center free the other thing that we’re looking at in terms of helping with that those mobility issues is around expanding the number of disabled spaces uh within the city um so essentially um taking space away from General Car users who who can walk and making sure that
Throughout the city for people with um real Mobility difficulties um there’s access to those spaces um Stuart did you want to add anything from the county point of view well I I think it’s only probably to repeat what you’ve said that you know as part of the Winchester movement
Strategy there is a plan to expand the park and ride capacity um and proposals to help improve um link those with more and more um more buses and buses that are quicker and that aren’t caught up in congestion um and in terms of um the LC whip um so
The local cycling walking infrastructure plan that’s not just focused on on the city but looking at districtwide so to try and help with those connections where people are able to to cycle in from the immediate surrounding areas into the city so there there’re already a number of policies and plans to help
To help with that um but as you say there could could be further improved yeah Mark and bses clearly are an important part of this transition um how do we provide better services in the countryside well I think that there’s a couple of things I mean a quick example
Is um we’ve added additional enhanc the frequency on service 64 which goes Winchester to Alton um and so there’s more bus on a Sunday we’ve extended the operating day and last May I think it was we operated the Sunday service free of charge for eight eight weeks uh on on
A Sunday that generated some great growth and we kept obviously people are paying now at the reduced Fair of two pounds but um we’ve kept that enhancement on the Sunday service so you know we’re quite happy to try things see if we can stimulate demand it won’t work
On everything we got to accept that um but it it’s the we’ve also got to remember it’s one of those things you need to use it um rather than have a bus service there as an insurance policy for when you don’t have another mode of Transport so it’s uh it really is about
Putting money where your mouth is and and using the bus and while the government is doing a grand job uh and I you know I regardless of color of government um I think it’s a a great initiative to have a flat Fair of no more than2 on the buses at the moment uh
And that’s likely to last till the uh end of this year so there isn’t a better time to try the bus yeah yeah I have to say the 64 is also a great Scenic bus route if you want a day out and a nice cup of coffee in Alford then I can
Definitely recommend it um a related a bus question from Peter Jacob um who lives in central Winchester um every time the County Council has to make spending cuts subsidized bus routes always get hit hard um areas like Oliver’s battery oleb and all Brook which used to get regular Services now
Get nothing or a token service a couple of days a week um if we’re encouraging public transport use while aren’t efforts made to stimulate use before cuts are made which presumably exacerbate further passenger avoidance and justify further cuts of vicious circle um yeah I’m sorry to pass this on to
Stuart who clearly is here representing the the County Council I think we all understand that the count is in a difficult position uh but obviously the cuts to bus services are something that uh people are very worried about um where are we on on those cuts yeah I think yeah it’s it’s a
Really difficult thing isn’t it and um some difficult choices that having to be made um in terms of where we are I’m just trying to find um there so I believe there haven’t been any decisions yet made um in terms of what cuts and whether Cuts will be made
Um so I I think that those decisions still need to be made um I’m just trying to find the email but I can’t find it so um the consultation is live I think Stuart isn’t it yeah yeah that’s right yeah yes the county are doing a wide a wide ranging consultation
Currently on Cuts they’re proposing which cover not just um bus services but also road maintenance Street lighting and a whole range of other things so I would encourage people on this call to have a look at the County Council website it is being um widely promoted um I a related question is uh
Whether the city council are putting pressure on Hampshire County Council to keep services that are vital to the rural community um we um we do put what pressure we can on the County Council to emphasize the importance of um particular bus services uh we do generally respond to consultations where
That’s appropriate and clearly rural transport um is something that really matters to in a lot of our country areas um I would also say though that some of the subsidized Services as has been mentioned separately um aren’t very frequent and aren’t really a substitute for an effective regular bus service
Which really encourages people to to get out of their cars and change the mode of Transport um but it it is something that we’re very conscious of um I don’t know Phil did you want have a comment on bus services I I I think we’re looking at
The hardest cases and if uh and indeed it’s really important that people who live in isolated communities have good public transport and that’s a real burden on the uh Council rates but I think if we’re also concerned to get more people to you uh to cause fewer
Emissions the example that Mark gave of the um Improvement of the bus service to all Alon is really important uh what we need to do I think is concentrate on providing much much be better Services where people will respond and the example of the 64 gives us that which
Means at least we’re getting people out of cars where the bus service exists and I think there’s a great deal of mileage dare I say mileage there’s a great deal of benefit we can get from improving major services and uh leave more space on the roads for the people who have no option
But live in isolated Villages so I think we need to be very sort of strategic in how we persuade people to use their cars less and where it’s possible to provide good public transport for example a good Suburban service from Winchester to Southampton on the railway uh then we
Should improve that and uh that will reduce the actual volume of cars as well yeah I think that that’s a very well made point right bring Stuart back in again I’ll just I just go to ad and I think I in my presentation I I did talk
About where there is is a focus on some of the routes within the city and some of those Interurban routes and and I think that’s the idea it’s where we think the best where we think it’s best to Target funding because that’s where we think we’re going to get the greatest
Impact I think that that is is what is being done um I mean I’m not directly involved in this there are other colleagues at the County Council that are in the public transport team but but I think that that is that is basically what they’re doing so just just to be
Clear yeah U Peter makes the point that his question is really about the cumulative decisions which have been taken over time which I think we all understand that that has impacted the use of bus service in rural areas over not just the past few years but decades um in another question from
Peter um he asks um are there ever going to be more useful cycling routes around the district rather than half-hearted measures like painting cycle symbols on a busy road or routes that are unsuitable narrow Pavements on worthy Road and the route that crosses over various roads from the top of otor hill
Through the village towards Winchester um we are um currently working on the the LC whip but I think Stuart highlighted the issues around funding uh do you want to comment on some of the schemes that are within the LC wi Stuart and that we’ve been working on city and
County together yeah so I think I said that the updated LC whip is being updated and and there’ll be a consultation this year um but in the meantime we have been quite successful in getting some funding so um we are developing um proposals for for worthy
Road um for the whole Corridor um and uh phase one of that so um the section of worthy Road between Dyson drive and Stoke Road will be implemented this summer um and obviously if we’ve got a design that puts us in a better um better position in the future to secure
Some funding um and there are other schemes going on in in the city so there’s a a Crossing going on on romsey road and some changes to traffic management so that trial will be starting in March um and there are various other schemes in the city center
But yeah fun funding is a problem I think space is a big issue as well and it goes back to that need to reduce traffic levels um you know if we are to get um ltn 120 which is the guidance that was published by the DFT a couple
Of years years ago if we are to get lt120 compliant cycle infrastructure um in places like Winchester City where obviously the roads are very narrow um it it does require us to think about reducing traffic as well um it’s a challenge yeah thank you Stuart um moving on
Um yeah uh we have a a question from Nick Golder in olford which is around um one way the city council could reduce Reliance on cards would be to persuade HCC to allow use of the household waste tips by pedestrians um now this is some this is
Something which I don’t think anybody on this call is actually is actually able to answer but it it is a point that we recognize that we do need to look at access to Services um by foot and other forms of Transport not just expect
People to to Rock up in a car so that’s one which I will which I will take away and although I have said it before to the County Council say it again to appropriate people I just come in there and say that um I go to the tip with um a bike and
Add the trailer on the back and it’s great cuz I can go past all the cars I don’t have to wait probably should but I just go straight past them all and it’s brilliant and uh it’s the fastest way to get things to the tip and I I’ve got
Various um ssb’s crates that I’ve um sort of found over the years and um pile them all back and and I can take equivalent of probably what would be in the back of a Ford Focus um on on the bike so um yeah that’s that’s a trick if
You want to bypass the on a bank holiday um to um to get to the tip yeah if you have a bike you have to book in Hampshire so it’s it’s worth talking about the situation we’ve got yes it is it is something that we have taken up before um I am conscious
Of time and we’re coming to the close so um I’m afraid we’re not going to get through all the questions we’ve been asked uh one question which has been raised by several people is around the electrification of vehicles uh particularly cars um I have um councelor Mike Reed who has a a related
Question but we have been asked asked you know what difference will electrifying car makes cars make and is that part of the answer uh Mike I’m going to unmute you now and you can ask your question as well thankk you Kelsey um thank you for all the speakers it’s been quite
Interesting um quite involving in a sense electric vehicles are much heavier on the road as already been stated they are are larger than the conventional Vehicles the fossil fuel ones um however because of their weight they are actually causing damage to the road surface people moan about
Potholes and one of the reasons we’ve got so many potholes is because of electrification with regard to vehicles um this is told to me by the Department of Transport and also the police um how can we get get and again I don’t suppose there’s anybody here who
Can answer it how can we get Hampshire County Council to review its Road structuring in my road I have at least two foot where every time the road surface has been adjusted they thrown it further there’s no um foundations to the road the road collapses um generally
Towards the residents um can I give the other question as well KY uh can we deal with electric vehicles I think Mike you want to put the other question in the chat and we’ll I have right okay yeah so um clearly there is an issue with electric vehicles and weight
Although I have to say this is does seem to be driven to a great extent by people’s choices in road vehicles because petrol vehicles are getting much um heavier and bigger and wider as well there’s no reason why an electric vehicle should fundamentally be heavier
Than a a petrol one um I know several of you made comments about about electric vehicles and that not being entirely the answer um so who would like to go first I’m happy to say something that I think that you know you hit the nail on
The head I think in terms of vehicle size um you look at a mini today and a mini 30 years ago uh and they are completely differ sized vehicles uh so it’s a choice and therefore we have to influence the market if we’re going to reduce the size of vehicles um the
Second point I would say is that um if we can move more people onto public transport then overall there should be less cars on the road that would balance out the heavier vehicles uh that are electric for when people do need to use their car um that’s how I would like to
See it but uh you that probably needs a lot more intervention and carrots and sticks I would have thought yeah thank you Stuart yeah well I think I think as I said in my presentation I think there’s a recognition that it’s not just about electrification of of vehicles and and
The bus fleet Etc we do need to reduce traffic levels and um yeah I think not much else to say I think right Phil did you want to in at the end of that yeah I think the equivalent electric vehicle is a bit heavier but uh I think small vehicles
Are lighter than big vehicles whether they’re electric or diesel so I I I I completely support the suggestion that uh we need to encourage people to get smaller vehicles and use them less um then our road surface and anyway there’s a pothole fund which we’ve lost hs2 to
Pay for so we should be able to get through this but uh there are different solutions I think no I think I think you’re right and I think a lot of the presentations well the present all the presentations I think have have um talked about that um
Need to think other than the car um rather than just Alternative forms of fuel um now I am sorry that we haven’t reached um we haven’t managed to ask all the questions um I will have a look through the questions we’ve got and see about getting a writing at least a short
Written response to to those whose questions I haven’t answered today um we are running slightly over but I would just like to to um finish um today with a a small slido as we like to to traditionally finish with asking about the um what you think the barriers are to using public transport
Or active travel um Anna I’ll hand over to you to explain how this works hopefully you can see my screen and if you scan the QR code with your phone it should take you straight to the um poll or you can um go to the website
Slido.com and put in the code you can see on screen and hopefully that will also give you an opportunity to um participate y so we’d just like people to to join that slido poll and just uh write down their their major issues with public transport or active travel uh
Which we can take away and think about um I will take the opportunity to thank um all of our speakers this evening I think it’s been really informative um I’d certainly um appreciate if you could um all forward your presentations to us and then we can we can get that up on
The website for people to refer to in future um a lot of it is things that people have been asking has a lot of questions about um over the past year or so um and it’s good to see that being presented in a way that’s quite digestible and helps people understand
Some of the backgrounds and some of the difficulties with moving forward with this agenda um so looking at the slider we’ve got um frequency um coming out um clearly around around the buses um convenience reliability uh with cycling the lack of separate cycle paths um I’m sure you can all see these coming
Through so we’ll just give that another minute or so to go right um yes thank you to um everybody who’s um made the effort to to fill that in again this will provide part of our record of the meeting so we’ve still got a participant typing so we’ll wait for that to
Finish right so um like I say thank you very much to our speakers Mark Rody Stuart and Phil um and we may well ask you back again on another occasion um so I’ll just say uh good night to everybody and thank you very much for attending