Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Another green motion wrecked by an amendment: council fails to rule out running buses down the Railway/Cyclepath

Surprise, surprise!! Labour and the Tories on Bristol City Council have again used an amendment to wreck a truly green motion that would have stopped a bus route being built down the Bristol to Bath Railway Path, used by thousands of cyclists and walkers and a haven for wildlife.

The amended motion clearly leaves open the option of using the path for buses (details/comment here and here). They should be warned that they have ignored the very, very strong feelings expressed by campaigners (who will fight on for clarity I'm very sure, see here) and many thousands who signed the petition - very likely this will affect votes in the ballot box for Labour and Tories alike as the petition has been signed by a significant % of Bristols population (nearly 10,000 when I looked today).

The council has done this before eg with a green motion opposing airport expansion (as well as also wrecking green budget initiatives) . Such compromise at crunch points by councils and governments has resulted in the poor state of the environment that we currently experience and at this rate our children and grandchildren will experience a worse environment - thanks to them and their unethical politics. Pity we dont have elections to Bristol City Council this year (would they have dared to amend/wreck in this way at this time of the year then??).

For more on cycling in Bristol issues see here.

1 comment:

  1. "...very likely this will affect votes in the ballot box for Labour and Tories alike as the petition has been signed by a significant % of Bristol's population (nearly 10,000 when I looked today)."

    It's unfortunate that there are no council wards up for election this year. One can only hope the electorate has a long memory and punishes the treacherous councillors concerned in 2009 and subsequent years (the knives are already being sharpened for those Labour councillors through whose wards the path runs and who told their electors one thing and nevertheless voted in support of the wrecking motion).

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