Transform Scotland

26 October 2011

October 2011 Newsletter

Transform Scotland Newsletter - October 2011

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AGM and Invitation to our 'Financing Transport' event

We would like to remind our members that the 13th AGM of Transform Scotland will be held on 8 November 2011. Information about the agenda and registration can be found here.

Directly after the AGM, we will be hosting our Annual Event titled ‘Financing
Transport’. The event will be held in the University of Edinburgh Business School and we are pleased that Dave Anderson, Director of City Development at the City of Edinburgh Council, will be speaking about inventive ways to provide funding for sustainable transport.

The event is free but ticketed and will start at 18:30, ending at 19:45, when a drinks reception will be held afterwards offering opportunities to talk to representatives from the public, private and voluntary sectors.

There’s not many tickets left — so if you’d like to join us please order your ticket here.

Public Sector Travel Survey -- Minna Vertainen reports

Given the scale of the Scottish public sector, it’s imperative that the Scottish
public bodies take action to reduce their emissions if our climate targets are to be met.

The Government has declared 167 public bodies as ‘major players’. In August we issued a survey to determine whether these bodies have travel plans in place, and how sustainable these plans are. Unfortunately, the response to the survey was somewhat disappointing. Only 36 bodies responded – and of these 38% did not have a travel plan in place.

This poor response rate only reinforces our argument that voluntary reporting simply does not work. We had made our views clear during last year’s consultation on the Public Bodies Duty that mandatory reporting is required in order to evaluate progress.

We are now sending out Freedom of Information requests about public body vehicle fleets in order to gauge whether these companies are moving towards using lower emission vehicles.

Now given that all of these public bodies are going to have to produce this information for us within 20 days (or else it’s off to the Information Commissioner we go!), wouldn’t it have been more sensible for the Scottish Government just to have made our reasonable reporting suggestions a mandatory requirement in the first place?

ScotRail Franchise -- the next target in rail campaigns work

Paul Tetlaw has produced a short report on progress on key rail priorities across
Scotland.

Paul is currently writing our response to the EGIP consultation (which closes at the end of November) — so he would welcome your input to guide our response.

After that's out of the way, our focus will turn to the consultation on the new ScotRail franchise. While the new franchise is not due to start until 2014, the franchise process will get underway in the near future. We've already been contacted by several of the companies bidding to take over the franchise (including the incumbent FirstGroup) in order to canvass our views, while we are expecting the Scottish Government to launch a public consultation on the franchise specification any time now. It's not too early for people to be getting together their list of aspirations for the new franchise.

Scottish Budget evidence

In response to the Draft Budget from 21 September, we have submitted evidence to the RACCE committee and are just completing evidence for the ICI committee. Anyone is available to submit written evidence by 28 October and we strongly encourage you to do so. On 2 November we will be providing oral evidence to the ICI committee along with Sustrans and Living Streets.

As indicated previously, we're not happy with the planned cuts to sustainable
transport in the face of the large and seemingly ever-growing trunk roads programme.

Edinburgh Trams

After travelling 1500km, the first tram has arrived from Spain at the Gogar depot in Edinburgh. Once the rest of the trams have arrived, testing on the newly electrified depot will carry out in early December. It’s encouraging to — at last! — see some positive press and progress about the tram project in the BBC's coverage of the event.

Welsh Cycling Bill

We’re now looking to the devolved Welsh Government as leaders in the campaign to reduce car use and improve alternative transport routes. The planned Cycling Bill will make it a legal duty for Welsh local authorities to provide cycle routes.

Welsh Minister for Local Government and Communities Carl Sargent joined Sustrans Cymru to launch the four year, £4million project. Perhaps it’s time for a bit of Domino Devolution?: if Wales are doing it, then so should we!

More Transform Scotland news

We have recruited a new Development Officer, Katriona Harding.
Katriona also works as a Fundraising and Communications Officer for Edinburgh & Lothian Greenspace Trust. In the past she has worked as a Communications Officer for Victim Support Scotland as well as being Pudsey’s representative (well... the Grants Officer...) at the BBC Children in Need Appeal. We’re pleased to have her on the team!

Board members Paul Tetlaw, Calum McCallum and our Director Colin Howden recently had a meeting with David Middleton, CEO of Transport Scotland. Issues raised included the ScotRail franchise, the Draft Budget and our Smartcard campaign.

Colin also found himself on the front page of the Herald, responding to the Draft
Budget. He discussed the BSOG cuts which are cutting subsidies to buses in order to cover fuel costs.

Members' News

Living Streets are pleased that Joe Fitzpatrick MSP has officially declared his
intention to pursue a Members’ Bill on pavement and dropped kerb parking. It is
hoped that there will be a consultation open on this before the end of the year.

Energy Saving Trust are promoting Low Carbon Transport Loans, which offer interest free loans of £500 to £50,000 and are available to private and public sector organisations. They are funded by Transport Scotland with the aim of supporting organisations that want to reduce the carbon impact and fuel costs of their transport and travel arrangements with new, more efficient alternatives.

Cycling Scotland have announced a new fund to promote cycling. They want to
contribute to a shift away from single occupancy car use, a reduction in carbon
emissions and an improvement in wellbeing of communities across Scotland by enabling more people to have more opportunities to cycle.

The winners of the Travel Awards 2011 have been announced, and Caledonian Macbrayne has been awarded the Best Ferry Company for the second year in a row. The winners are voted for by readers of The Guardian, The Observer and Guardian.co.uk who considered Edinburgh as their Favourite UK City for its 12th consecutive year. For more details on all of the winners (including Japan as the Favourite Long-Haul Country and Sunrise Festival winning the Ethical Travel Award), click here.

Please let us know what you'd like in the next issue

This newsletter has been put together by Zoë Blah. Please feel free to email me with your suggestions for content for next month's newsletter.

Transform Scotland - For Sustainable Transport