In Newcastle on street parking costs the council £9,260,871.63 per year.
If on street parking is 'free' that would still be a cost that needs to be covered. It's roughly the same as a 6% rise in council tax, on top of existing rises.
www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-e...
New clean energy generation - almost all solar & wind - has exceeded electricity demand increases globally for the first time
Comes alongside substantial electrification of transport & heat in some places
Fossil fuel generation is, finally, decreasing
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
🤷♂️
Sarah Olney MP is quite wrong that Hammersmith fire station serves Barnes by the way. Barnes is now served by Richmond fire station, I was told this directly by the Hammersmith fire chief himself. Meanwhile LFB data shows that there have been zero delays to 999 fire response times to Barnes 🤷♂️
If you as the local MP blame Hammersmith Bridge for Putney’s very evident traffic problems at every opportunity, then local residents who would like their traffic blight alleviated are going to bring it up with you at every opportunity
Fleur says people constantly raise the issue of Hammersmith Bridge with her. She also says she has raised the issue herself 26 times in parliament since being elected in 2019.
These phenomena are not unconnected
Putney’s traffic woes are not caused by Hammersmith Bridge closing to cars, and cannot be solved by reopening it to cars. But it does make a very convenient get-out-of-jail-free-card to use on constituents living with 24-7 traffic blight, without having to expend any political capital on honesty
If the *main political issue* raised by my constituents on the doorstep was the chronic, intolerable traffic congestion on the streets of my inner London seat, I would make it a priority to *learn about the causes of & effective remedies to congestion*
which emphatically do not include road building
A lot of execrable, wilfully ignorant tosh about ‘sustainability’, as if calling for a £1/4 billion road building scheme in Zone 2 is somehow the most ‘sustainable’ way to proceed 🙃
Nobody is disputing that Putney has a horrible traffic problem. The issue here is that actually doing something about this chronic congestion requires *measures to curb car use*, which demands much more political bravery than blaming someone else, somewhere else, for not spending £100s of millions
For those interested in what the TfL and DfT traffic count data says, we compiled this here for ease of reference
Fleur Anderson MP is still pretending that traffic is up on Putney Bridge because the Hammersmith Bridge closed to motor traffic in 2019. She’s just said “traffic on Putney Bridge increased by 16% between 2020 and 2023”.
Hmm, what was happening in 2020, I forget 🧐
Anyway, here’s a short DESNZ statement on the topic that should have been du jour, let’s have a look what’s on the list 🧐
I was really looking forward to following along on the detail in Ed Miliband’s keynote speech to the Good Growth Foundation this morning setting out all the new measures to drive clean power and cut household energy bills. But it’s tumbleweeds, because Ollie Robbins is the only show in town
Instead of constantly conceding ground to reactionaries, we should be on the front foot pushing for positive progress - like the Four Day Week campaign does! In the lead
Up to the 100th birthday of the weekend, please support their crowdfunder here!
Good morning to almost everyone
I can’t listen to Today at all ever because it just ruins the start of my day and I take ages to calm down and recover my emotional equilibrium. Nick Robinson is a big part of that
IDK man I’m skeptical about this. They aren’t retroactively changing any contracts, they’re just threatening windfall taxes on generators profiting from higher prices than anyone foresaw to encourage them onto fixed price contracts. And they are emphatically not changing any terms for new RE schemes
Imagine being Ed Miliband & every time you line up a load of broadcast media appearances to talk about the latest genuinely brilliant stuff your department is doing, instead you have to spend the whole interview answering questions about the latest scandal your government has needlessly propagated
Conversely, 60% of the fuel burnt by passenger flights in Europe is due to flights over 2000km, which account for just 16% of flights and 23% of seats
47% of fuel burnt is due to the 6% flights (12% of seats) over 4000km!
As we show in our 2022 study, flights under 500km account for about 28% of flights departing from Europe and 20% of seats, but for *just 6% of fuel burnt!*
Why? Well, it might sound deceptively simple to say it but: because *they're short* doi.org/10.1016/j.jt...
With a fuel shortage looming, some (including the leader of the German Left party, below) are calling for saving fuel by cancellling short-haul flights spiegel.de/politik/deut...
Sounds like a good idea but the problem is: it will save *very little fuel* - SHORT THREAD
Also happening today, a Westminster
Hall debate on the Future of Hammersmith Bridge. Let’s see how many facts make it onto the floor of the house. I am not hopeful sadly; it’s local election season and the car brained politicians of SW London have form on this. Expect some unchallenged whoppers
Fascinatingly, the 16th arrondissement, Paris’ most wealthy - like Kensington & Chelsea - now feels poor and rubbish. They’ve not got on board as [they] want to protect their right to drive everywhere and as a consequence it’s noisy, dirty, and ugly public space
threadreaderapp.com/thread/17918...
This is the headline item from Ed Miliband’s speech later this morning, but I am looking forward to seeing what else is in it - have heard some interesting rumours. Almost every announcement out of DESNZ is good, so maybe this will be a good news day!
OMFG I had to go and check that this ACTUALLY happened.
Since when does the BBC ever do chyrons with a political party's branding, rather than their own? Not to mention this is during a pre-election campaign purdah.
(h/t @iainsol.bsky.social)
1 year ago today I was terminated by DOGE from USAID where I worked to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. Everyone I knew across almost 10 years of my career across 3 prior jobs became unemployed as well. My entire LinkedIn network suddenly became "open to work"
I'm a one issue voter. Punishment.
I appreciate a lot of people can't afford the upfront costs, so I did a bit of looking into options with zero upfront cost, in case helpful for anyone. Expect the Govt will announce more details on 0% loans for solar soon too
bsky.app/profile/josi...
Got our solar panels installed this AM. They came at 8:30am and we're gone by 1:30pm. 13 panels and 10kwh battery.
We can't export to the grid yet (the network operator has been flooded with new requests) but we charged our car with the sun this afternoon. Great feeling, strongly recommend.
