\u00a0 \u00a0 The latter is usually done by a UK transport minister, but none were available to attend the 20th National Transport Awards in London on October 5. It perhaps wasn\u2019t surprising given the flurry of announcements that week at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester.<\/p>\n On Monday, transport secretary Mark Harper had followed orders and led an assault on initiatives that constrain car use \u2013 the kind of initiatives that his government had previously supported. These are also the kind of initiatives that the National Transport Awards have always provided recognition for \u2013 a well-deserved pat on the back for transport professionals and politicians who have overcome opposition to create better places for people \u2013 and not just cars.<\/p>\n Two days later, Harper\u2019s boss, the prime minister, used his conference speech to axe HS2 north of Birmingham and produce a \u2018Network North\u2019 blueprint that was riddled with errors.<\/p>\n Harper may have believed, quite understandably, that his tilt towards populism would not have made him popular among the 600 people assembled in the ballroom at the Westminster Park Plaza hotel for the National Transport Awards. So it fell to a junior minister to appear instead \u2013 in the form of a pre-recorded video.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like a hostage situation!\u201d declared the event\u2019s host, broadcaster and keen cyclist Jeremy Vine, before introducing Richard Holden\u2019s video message.<\/p>\n Conveying an admirable level of enthusiasm, Holden said: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I can\u2019t be there in person. Sadly I am at a roads conference in Eastern Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n I later discovered that, although the XXVII World Road Congress was indeed taking place in Prague that week, Holden was actually appearing on the BBC\u2019s Question Time show, live from Wolverhampton, on the night of the National Transport Awards. Aside from that, there\u2019s nothing much more to say about Holden\u2019s pre-recorded contribution. <\/p>\n If the room was looking for a rallying cry, Lee Waters, deputy minister for climate change in the Welsh Government, provided it.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m afraid the roads conference in Eastern Europe was fully booked,\u201d he joked. \u201cSo I hope you\u2019ll put up with me.\u201d<\/p>\n During his party conference speech, Harper had attacked the Welsh Government for \u201cblanket 20mph speed limits, an ideological ban on road building and plans to charge people to drive on the M4\u201d, and Waters did not miss the opportunity to return the favour.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no strategy, it\u2019s all tactics and pretty grubby ones at that<\/p>\n \u201cNow, despite the slogan, there\u2019s no longer a pretence that this government are thinking about long-term decisions,\u201d said Waters. \u201cThere\u2019s no strategy, it\u2019s all tactics and pretty grubby ones at that.<\/p>\n He argued that the decision to use \u00a31bn of the money saved by cancelling HS2 north of Birmingham to electrify the North Wales Main Line illustrated the government\u2019s short-term thinking.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve clearly learnt nothing from HS2, or from the broken promise to electrify the main line to Swansea,\u201d said Waters. \u201cThen, as now, there was no development work behind the announcement, no plan, no costings. I heard [chancellor] Jeremy Hunt asking why it cost 10 times more to build a railway in this country than just across the Channel in France. Well, that\u2019s why.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cI was particularly disappointed to see Mark Harper, who in my dealings has been a decent and reasonable man, drawn into spreading misinformation about what we\u2019re doing in Wales and legitimising conspiracy theories about \u201815 minute cities\u2019 involving local councils deciding how often you go to the shops.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNow this is playing with fire and if one of the most reasonable Conservatives has been drawn into that type of dangerous culture war, I do worry about how we\u2019re going to respond to the profound challenges that are ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n For Waters, those challenges are centred on the response to the climate emergency.<\/p>\n He challenged the audience: \u201cJust as our parents\u2019 generation asked their parents, \u2018what did you do during the war, mummy\/daddy?\u2019 We need to be ready with an answer when our own grandchildren ask us, \u2018What did you do when you were given the evidence of catastrophic climate change; when you were shown flood maps, showing sea water rising by two metres; when you saw that 40% of species were in long-term decline; when you were told that all the coral in our waters were on the absolute brink of devastation; when every year broke the record for the warmest temperatures? What did you do? What did YOU do?<\/p>\n There is always, always, a reason for maintaining the status quo. Always a short-term argument for maintaining a business model, for doing just the minimum that\u2019s required by the regulations, for going with a grain<\/p>\n \u201cThere is always, always, a reason for maintaining the status quo. Always a short-term argument for maintaining a business model, for doing just the minimum that\u2019s required by the regulations, for going with a grain.\u201d<\/p>\n Waters acknowledged that change is difficult, and he spoke of his own experiences. Nearly half a million people have signed a petition calling for the Welsh Government to abandon its 20mph speed limit in built-up areas, and Waters has faced an (unsuccessful) no confidence vote in the Welsh Parliament.<\/p>\n Furthermore, he\u2019s had security cameras installed in his home, has a police patrol calling by, and has been asked to stay away from events in his constituency. \u201cYour operating environment is going to be turned on its head,\u201d he said. \u201cBy the time my children are my age, the science tells us that most of the towns on our coast will be flooded. Our rail infrastructure, our roads, underwater \u2026 Now, what\u2019s that going to do to our economy? How is that going to impact on your business model?\u201d<\/p>\n In Wales, the response has been to place transport alongside planning, housing, regeneration and environment in one climate change department, to try to achieve the elusive policy join-up. <\/p>\n \u201cTo be in with a chance of hitting the 2050 target, we need to cut emissions in the next 10 years more than we\u2019ve managed over the course of the whole of the last 30 years,\u201d Walters said. \u201cMore than three decades worth of cuts in under one decade.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s hard to do and transport must play its part. Now, since 1990, the base line used by the UN, we managed to cut carbon emissions from waste by 64% from industry by 36%, the same from the energy sector \u2026 But transport has decreased the least, just 6% since 1990, and that\u2019s even with the advances in technology that we\u2019ve had in the last 30 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo if we continue to move at that pace we\u2019ll be sunk, literally.\u201d<\/p>\n Technology alone will not be our saviour, Waters warned. <\/p>\n He pointed out the UK Climate Change Committee, the independent advisers to all the governments in the UK, have said that the move to electric cars is necessary, but not sufficient.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also need to shift behaviour,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why the Welsh government has put modal shift at the heart of our transport strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n The Welsh Government has set targets. It wants 30% of people to work remotely on an ongoing basis. And it\u2019s aiming to switch the number of trips by sustainable modes from the current 32% to 45% by 2040. To achieve this, <\/p>\n key policies include fewer new roads, bus franchising and a new \u00a31bn metro system (see below).<\/p>\n We have to make the right thing to do, the easiest thing to do. And thankfully that\u2019s doable. There is a way \u2013 but the question for us all is, is there a will?<\/p>\n Waters concluded: \u201cWe are close to the point of no return with climate change, but we\u2019re not there yet. We still have choices. There is still hope, but pulling back from this point will be a challenge for us all \u2026 We will only be able to bring people with us if we make it easy for them to get around. If we expect people to make heroic sacrifices, we will fail. We have to make the right thing to do, the easiest thing to do. And thankfully that\u2019s doable. There is a way \u2013 but the question for us all is, is there a will?\u201d <\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n FEWER NEW ROADS<\/strong> A NEW ORTHODOXY<\/strong> 20MPH DEFAULT SPEED LIMIT<\/strong> BUS FRANCHISING<\/strong> A \u00a31BN METRO SYSTEM<\/strong> \u00a0 DON\u2019T MISS OUT \u2013 GET YOUR COPY! \u2013\u00a0click here to subscribe!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The post Waters attacks \u2018grubby\u2019 Westminster tactics<\/a> first appeared on Passenger Transport<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u200b\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Welsh Government\u2019s deputy minister for climate change used the National Transport Awards to hit back at critics and issue a rallying cry \u00a0Lee Waters: \u2018We have to make the right thing to do, the easiest thing to do\u2019 \u00a0 The National Transport Awards is a great opportunity to recognise those who are going above and beyond across all modes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camcab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Lee Waters: \u2018We have to make the right thing to do, the easiest thing to do\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThe National Transport Awards is a great opportunity to recognise those who are going above and beyond across all modes of transport. It\u2019s also an opportunity to consider the challenges that the sector faces and present a vision for the future.<\/p>\n
\nHe took aim at those who argue that action to mitigate climate change will harm our economy.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWaters\u2019 view on key Welsh Government policies<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\n\u201cBuilding a road cannot be the default answer whenever we face congestion or have an accident black spot. As well as consuming tons of carbon from all the steel and concrete \u2026 roads quickly fill up with traffic again and deepen the cycle of car dependency.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThere is hardly a nerdy manual\u00a0that is not infused with car dominance. There\u2019s nothing unconscious about that bias. We need to rewire our systems to make sure they\u2019re focused on modal shift, to make sure our high-level goals are aligned with delivery mechanisms.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s the biggest change in the rules of the road since seat-belt wearing became compulsory in 1983, and just as with that change there is pushback \u2013 but there\u2019s no going back \u2026 Average speeds are already down and as a result we can expect to see fewer accidents, fewer deaths, fewer tragedies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOur planned system of franchising will finally reverse the fragmentation of bus privatisation, it will correct the market failure which has seen bus use steadily fall to the point that half of us have never set foot on a bus.\u00a0Simply put, our plan is for one network, one timetable, and one ticket, bringing people before profits.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe\u2019re building a \u00a31bn metro system for the Cardiff city region, a project that the former chair of Crossrail, Terry Morgan, said was the most ambitious project on the UK railways today.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article appears in the latest issue of\u00a0Passenger Transport<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n