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Saturday, 7 October 2017

A Sustainable Mobility Fund for UK Cities? >>> >>> >>> The polluter pays in Exeter?

We've got a problem of having lots of housing development going on in Greater Exeter - which is never going to be enough:
Futures Forum: "Exeter faces a predicament. The population is growing and the provision of new housing isn't keeping up."

But there is little investment in infrastructure:
Futures Forum: Exeter City Futures on transforming transport
Futures Forum: Exeter is the UK's first city to launch an electric bike-sharing scheme

And so the traffic piles up:
Futures Forum: Gridlocked Devon >>> 'Devon Live' to debate "some of the major travel problems facing the county." >>> and to investigate "the attitude of local authorities to sustainable travel and highlight some of Devon's pollution hotspots"

As does the pollution:
Futures Forum: Air pollution and over-development: Exeter and East Devon "recording high readings" of nitrogen dioxide emissions
Futures Forum: Skypark and the M5: "likely to become the most carbon intensive location in the area."

The East Devon Watch blog asks a question, following on from a piece in today's Guardian:


LONDON MAYOR ASKS CAR MANUFACTURERS TO CONTRIBUTE TO ANTI-POLLUTION MEASURES

7 OCT 2017

Why stop at London?

Greater Exeter is already polluted by cars streaming into and out of the cities and towns it covers. Who is going to tackle that?

Not our Local Enterprise Partnership, or the Greater Exeter partners that”s for sure – they both want more houses and more roads.


London Mayor asks car manufacturers to contribute to anti-pollution measures | East Devon Watch

With the Guardian piece here:


Sadiq Khan asks car manufacturers to give funds towards tackling London’s toxic air

Mayor has written to BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen urging them to contribute funding to help combat UK pollution as they have done in Germany



BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen have paid £223m to the Germany government to help cut air pollution. Photograph: Anja Riedmann/Alamy Stock Photo

Matthew Taylor

Friday 6 October 2017


The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has written to three leading car manufacturers asking them to contribute to the fund set up to tackle the capital’s air pollution crisis.

Khan has accused BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen of “double standards” after it emerged they had paid £223m to the German government’s Sustainable Mobility Fund for Cities earlier this year, but have given nothing to the UK.

“Londoners will be baffled by the double standards of these car manufacturers. On the one hand, they admit they’ve got to cut emissions from their vehicles, but they confine their funding to Germany alone.”

VW has also paid $15bn compensation in the US after the dieselgate scandal – when it was found to have fitted millions of cars with “defeat devices” that made their cars appear less polluting in emissions tests than they were on the road.

Khan said: “In July, the UK managing director of VW sat in my office and said they couldn’t contribute anything to fund cleaning up London’s air, but their German colleagues are providing money. Londoners will find that unacceptable.”

The scale of London’s air pollution crisis was laid bare on Wednesday, with new figures showing that every person in the capital is breathing air that exceeds global guidelines for dangerous toxic particles...


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