Continuing from Part 1

Steve Pitt (Culture and Leisure): Lynne, you are absolutely right first of all: there are too many cars on the island. It is a grave[?] situation. I know of a three bedroom house that’s got nine cars, which is absolutely ludicrous. So I’ve got three points. The first one is that there are solutions. 30% of all car journeys in the city centre, right around the world, are people looking for parking spaces. There are technological solutions to that. And I know the officers in Portsmouth City Council have known about at least one of these for at least four[?] years. So that is going to take people with an app to a parking space.

The second point is that in the future we are going to be going electric. Government policy includes[?] diesel/electric so that should solve a lot of the pollution problem. And the third point is that, again, in the future as we get more driverless vehicles, we are going to have fewer cars owned by individuals. Cars spend 90% of the time sitting at the inelastic roadside are [in future] going to be pick-up-and-go cars, that are going to be electrically driven, pollute less, and there will be far fewer on the road. So there is a good long term outcome and that is coming towards us a lot faster than predictions even three or four years ago.

Lynne Stagg: The parking scheme is called AppyParking. That really only applies to places where you pay for parking because you have to have the sensors in the road.

Audience member: You can do it with non-pay parking.

Lynne: Yes I think you can but [we are tackling it] bit by bit. We are putting electric charging points in. We have put in 50 so far. That again is a chicken and egg situation because as well as putting in electric charging points, they have to go in lamp posts because you can’t have trailing flexes into people’s houses. Those will be parking bays specifically only for electric charging of electric cars. But you have got to have enough people wanting electric vehicles, or buying them. They are not cheap. Nick [?] you’ve got one and they are not cheap are they, Nick?

Nick: Well they are not and they’ve reduced the subsidy. 

Lynne: But the more people that get them, the prices will probably go down. So we are reacting as people are asking for them. We have the next list of those wanting to go in. And it’s specifically outside people’s houses or as close as possible, because obviously that is the most sensible thing. I don’t know what will happen if you have a whole street of electric cars but we will look at that as we go along, bit by bit. That is part of the grant, rolling it out as demand comes in.

Alec: I think it is important that Tim mentioned the harbour. That ships themselves are polluters, and therefore I think it would be a good idea to consider the shipping companies and the navy contributing something to this issue.

Lynne: That is already being done. The navy actually plug in. They put in this big electric cable about 18 months ago. So the naval ships aren’t. It’s the ferries, we are having difficulty persuading them, because the reason for that is swift turn around. They tend not to cut their engines because they come in and they’ve got about an hour or so, before they turn around. But we are certainly working with them.

Panellist: Not wishing to be rude, and thank you for doing this unannounced, there were some challenges by Tim. Do you know what year Portsmouth expects to come into legal compliance?

Lynne: 2021 for one of them and 2022 for the other, but I can’t remember which way round it is.

Panellist: And on what basis are you confident of that?

Steve Pitt: I got a briefing from environmental health about a week ago. Please do be assured that the council is going to be held very strongly to account for getting this right. It’s not something we can do, and say “we’ve done the best we can so that will have to do”. There are very, very strict guidelines being laid down by DEFRA, who is now sending a member of their department to Portsmouth every single week, to work with us on this plan. In January [2019], we are expected to come up with a draft plan. If they do not believe it is credible, they can take control of how we manage vapours[?] in the city. If they do not believe in the full business case that we put together at the end of next year is credible, they have the ability to step in. So this is not something that a couple of people are working on to try and tinker around the edges. We are talking it deadly seriously. And we want to make sure that we hit those targets as soon as we can. The deadlines are 2021 and 2022, but if we can get them earlier then we need to do that. But in order to do that, we are going to have to make some very… clear choices around some of those things, for example, on there Tim you have Clean Air Zone. If we don’t do it [reach compliance], it won’t be a choice. That’s how clear this is. Will strong measures be considered in planning? That little list there, that’s not things that might happen, that’s things that DEFRA will do, in Portsmouth, to us, unless we get this right. So please don’t think that we are not taking this seriously, we have to take this deadly seriously. Apart from anything else, we don’t want people breathing air that’s not safe, obviously, because we live here too. We don’t live on a planet elsewhere and beam ourselves down to be councillors in Portsmouth. It’s our home as well. So we are really really clear that we will deliver this. The head of environmental health is working with a big group of officers in the council and we are having to draft in extra people to work on making sure we deliver this. It’s a serious thing and it has to be resolved.

Panellist: Tim, are you reassured? It sounds very convincing.

Tim: What has been said sounds quite interesting. I am definitely looking forward to the January report. So, yeah, fingers crossed. And thanks for filling in because DEFRA seems to get hung up on the wrong area. Thanks for clarifying that.

Lynne: Can I just say I used to teach geography and environmental studies, so I am very keen on improving the environment, right across the board. I’m back this 100%.

Matthew Winnington: I’m also on the cabinet. I’m the health, well-being and social care cabinet member and councillor for this area. So to add on the importance of what both Steve and Lynne have been talking about, because it is a knock on from this, it’s all very well for doing these things for clean air now but what it’s also about is the effects beyond the situation, in terms of people’s public health.  So as the cabinet member in charge of public health, this is all feeding in to what we are doing as well. But in particular, one of the interesting things that has come out in terms of the research that has been going on, on the public health side, on the CCG on the hospitals[?] on the public health as well, is that actually a lot of areas in the city with the worst air pollution issues are also the areas with the worst obesity issues, for adults and children. So something that the council is bidding funding for, is actually to get [?] obesity and activity for children and adults. We should also have additional help for areas with high air pollution, because then we will have people going around, rather than getting a car or getting a taxi or whatever. They will actually be walking and cycling and getting about in a healthy way. Because that is going to have a really good outcomes in the future as well. One of the interesting things about air pollution in the city is that it is giving us a kick to do things in a more wholistic way. Which is about, “let’s get this air clean”, it’s also saying to us “it’s not just about that. Let’s try and help people so they are not in a situation that they are thinking about using polluting things in the first place.” They go about their business in a way that is better for them because it is going to keep them healthier, but also better for the environment because they are not going to be driving around in their cars. And as Lynne as said earlier, if we don’t do anything about cars in the city, we are going to have utter and complete gridlock. So those have to come done. But the best way to do that is by encouragement, and an even better way is for people to make the choice that they are happy to get around using other forms of transport, and keep themselves healthy, rather than “I’ll just go down the road an pick up the children and do my shopping in the car”. So, that’s some of the work that is going on at the edges, but that is really key to making sure we have something sustainable as well. Because otherwise we could just sort this thing out now and ten years down the line, we will just end up doing it all over again.

Audience member: [What would DEFRA do to us if we didn’t produce a credible plan?]

Steve Pitt: They would take control of the policy themselves. And that means instead of us having the ability to draw up a plan that we think works best for Portsmouth, they could do things, for example, enforce a clean air zone on the city. So it is in all of our interests to get this right and do a good job of it, because we need to make sure the decisions we take are also best, economically for Portsmouth, because the economy matters a lot as well to all of us. So the work is crucial. We don’t want DEFRA coming in and saying we are not happy with that, you have not done a good enough job of it, so we are going to take extreme action, we’ll say there’s no cars allowed down that stretch of road. They have that ability.  The government are taking it seriously. DEFRA are taking it seriously. We are taking is seriously but we want to lead on it and come up with a plan that works best for the city, not having government agencies coming down here telling us what to do. [We have enough of that already.]

Analysis coming soon…

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