Cambridge Liberal Democrat Manifesto 1998 Sustainability and the Environment of the City

One of the most important problems facing Cambridge is pollution. Air pollution in particular is very serious. Levels of nitrogen dioxide, which is associated with asthma and other lung disorders especially in children, regularly breach EC guidelines. In some parts of the city, carbon monoxide emissions have reached levels which can affect the health of the old, the infirm, pregnant women and babies. And disturbing levels of hydrocarbons, including benzene, particulates and low level ozone (also a cause of lung disorders) have been found.

We share the widespread suspicion that the main cause of this pollution is motor traffic. For the sake of our health, and the health of our children, the reduction of motor traffic in the city must be a very high priority.

What we will do to tackle pollution
Public transport
Improving Cambridge’s poor public transport will be the central aim of a Liberal Democrat administration. This can only be done by a major commitment to funding public transport. The City Council has all the necessary legal powers, but Labour councillors refuse to use them. They have even cut the modest funding we obtained for supporting extra evening and late night buses.

We will progressively shift resources into the support of public transport in Cambridge. We will start with evening and late night buses, which are important not only for encouraging commuters to use public transport in an age of flexible working hours, but also for public safety. We will also work with the County Council and surrounding district councils first to restore cuts and then to improve the services linking Cambridge with its hinterland.

We have supported Park and Ride from its inception and will continue to work for a comprehensive and effective system. Liberal Democrat councillors have helped to initiate local minibus services linking outer housing areas with edge of town shopping centres, and we will seek to develop such services.

The City Council also has a role to play in ensuring that local people have easily accessible and accurate information about local bus services.

We support the development of additional local railway stations and we will look favourably on innovative public transport proposals, such as reopening the railway link between Cambridge and Oxford and guided buses or trams. We support efforts to safeguard the railway line between Cambridge and St Ives and want the City Council to contribute towards securing the best public transport option available on the route.

We will work for a rationalisation of the coach, bus and rail stations with a view to helping to integrate the local transport system.

We will co-operate fully with any central government initiatives that will help to improve local public transport, including initiatives to find extra funding for public transport.

Heavy Goods Vehicles
More and more areas of the city are reporting serious environmental problems caused by heavy goods vehicles. In many instances either the vehicle does not need to go through the city or it is being used as a travelling warehouse and will deliver only a small quantity of goods to a city shop. We will work with the County Council and surrounding district councils to look for a permanent solution to these problems. In particular, we will investigate the possibility of transshipment at the edge of the city combined with a city-wide lorry ban.

Reducing need for commuting
The City Council should use its planning powers with the long term aim of reducing the need to use cars for travel to work. Cycling and walking become options for more people when they live near to their place of work.

We will look promote changes to the local plan that will encourage the conversion of empty offices into flats. We will also follow a number of policies designed to encourage people to live in and around the city centre.

Encouragement of distance working and flexible working
We will work in close collaboration with the private sector, the Universities and the County Council to facilitate distance working, that is working from home or from local community offices, both in Cambridge and in the surrounding area. We will also encourage employers to introduce flexible hours of working for their employees.

Cycling and walking
We will encourage cycling and walking wherever possible. In particular, we will endeavour to make sure that the needs of cyclists and pedestrians are given a higher priority than those of motor vehicles in all new traffic schemes. Where there is a conflict between pedestrians and cyclists, we will support wherever possible the separation of cycleways from footpaths. We support the idea of designating and creating safe routes to school.

We utterly condemn the decision of Labour councillors to abandon the interests of city residents in cutting all city spending on road safety schemes and opposing pedestrian crossings on busy and dangerous city streets. We will restore these budgets.

We will also continue to oppose the unnecessary and environmentally damaging bike bans that Labour and Conservative councillors seem to enjoy imposing.

Other environmental initiatives
Recycling
We have been pressing for many years for door-to-door recycling to be introduced into the city. We are encouraged by the results of the new door-to-door paper recycling scheme and want to see it extended.

Although we recognise that there have been problems in the past, we will review the question of re-introducing plastic recycling at the earliest opportunity.

Pollution monitoring and control
We put a high priority on the City Council's role in pollution monitoring. We fought successfully for extra resources to be put into pollution monitoring and for improvements in the public accessibility of the information. Cambridge’s pollution monitoring is now beginning to receive national recognition.

But monitoring must lead to action. The need to reduce pollution will inform our policies across the board, from planning to public transport. We support legislation to mandate local plans to reduce traffic. We will use as aggressively as we can any new powers given to the City Council by national government.

Promotion of energy efficiency
We support the efforts of the City Council to promote energy efficiency, especially the successful project to encourage insulation. We welcome the Liberal Democrat-sponsored laws on energy efficiency in housing and will work to implement it in Cambridge. The promotion of energy efficiency will continue to be central to our housing investment and improvement policy.

Local Agenda 21
Liberal Democrats secured the appointment of a Local Agenda 21 co-ordinator to further the Council’s environmental policies. This goes some way to meeting our previous demands for the reconstitution of the Council’s green team and the appointment of an ecologist to work in the Planning Department.

We would like to see the Council bring ecological concerns and sustainability into more and more of its policies. A start has been made in the new Local Plan, but more needs to be done.

The Long Term Future
Cambridge faces some difficult decisions over the next few years about its future shape. The County Council is collecting evidence and developing options for the next county structure plan. We want city residents to be fully consulted in that process and we want to see an outcome that respects the interests of those who live in the city. We will resist any option that treats the city only as a place for others to shop or work.

We want the County Council to take into account what makes Cambridge a good place to live and to make sure that, if any expansion of the city is necessary, it attempts to reproduce what is best in Cambridge. In particular, any expansion should contain public open spaces of very high quality and should be subject to the strictest possible controls on design.

At the same time, if any expansion is necessary it should try to avoid the mistakes of the past. Public transport links should be of primary importance in deciding where any expansion takes place. The structure plan should require the highest possible standards of public transport as a precondition of major development.

Liberal Democrats oppose out of town shopping centres, and want to preserve the viability of the city centre. We support plans for the redevelopment of Downing Street to ensure the continued presence of important department stores in the city centre. We also want to see plans for the development of "brown land" in the city before the release of green field sites of any description. That means that we will be looking for ways to develop the Chesterton sidings site, primarily as a high quality housing development but incorporating a new railway station, leisure facilities and, to the extent that it is compatible with maintaining the viability of the city centre, shopping.

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