City council’s anti-car policy needs a radical rethink - Iain Whyte

The number of fines issued for breaching Edinburgh's low emission zone is on the rise

Part of another daft target to make the whole city Net Zero by 2030, this was introduced by the previous SNP/Labour administration. Ridiculous when the wildly optimistic academic research they’d commissioned at your expense said it couldn’t be done before at least 2037.

Even those assumptions have proved catastrophically wrong on the cost of insulating council buildings. And progress has been glacial with almost no funding and the technology far from fully developed to introduce at scale.

The UK already has the fastest cut in greenhouse gas emissions of any G7 nation and now only accounts for 1 per cent of global emissions. Edinburgh is only 0.66 per cent of UK emissions - lower per head than the UK average. An unachievable target to cut 0.0066 per cent of global emissions here by 2030 while they keep rising in China and the rest of Asia is meaningless but remains one of the council’s three key priorities.

A recent motion decrying the lack of a mechanism to achieve the 30 per cent cut in car use shows they won’t give up. But the impact will likely be more cost for all of us and a failure to focus on getting the basic council services right.

I had an example this week when a friend who lives in England visited Edinburgh and reasonably assumed he could pay a small fee to bring his older car into the Low Emission Zone. After all, Birmingham is £8 per day, Bristol £9 and even London only £12.50.

It came as a shock to him that Edinburgh “kindly” reduced his £60 charge to £30 for early payment.

Unless the council gets realistic, their unachievable targets will simply make Edinburgh more expensive than everywhere else to live, visit or do business. As an example, my friend’s visit patronised local businesses and assisted his elderly mother who still lives in Edinburgh.

The LEZ is only one aspect of a wider malaise. I am perfectly happy to continue cutting our emissions, but it must be done affordably and in an achievable timescale.

The current unrealistic and economically damaging targets and policies are driving us locally towards higher cost goods, more tax and more costly travel. All reducing economic activity generated by residents and visitors to Edinburgh without any benefit on climate change or any other environmental goal.