Labour is accelerating the war on the car

The war on the car is about to accelerate under Labour. Transport secretary Louise Haigh has announced plans to give her ‘absolute support’ to local councils who want to introduce Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs), 20mph zones and other restrictions on drivers.

On the Streets Ahead podcast, Haigh said that Labour will reverse measures put in place by the previous Conservative government that blocked councils from bringing in traffic-reduction schemes. ‘Those kinds of decisions should absolutely be made at a local level by communities and not dictated to or stoked by the centre’, Haigh said. ‘This government has ended all culture wars full stop, there’s no way you’ll be hearing that from this department now.’

Of course, we’ve heard this line about ‘the end of the culture war’ before. What Haigh really means is that, now her party is in charge, it plans to impose all the woke, green policies it likes, but it will not tolerate opposition. Make no mistake, LTNs and the like really are part of the culture war. Their explicit aim is to drive cars off the road and encourage the take-up of ‘active’ forms of travel, like walking and cycling. They are a form of ‘nudge’ to get people to change their lifestyle and to adopt government-approved behaviours.

Haigh then went on to say that traffic-reduction schemes will be ‘entirely up for local areas to decide’. ‘It all has to be done with communities’, she claimed, ‘and the worst thing you can do is put the wrong schemes in’. Leaving decisions about local roads to the communities they serve is all well and good. But Haigh is surely aware that many local authorities across the UK are foisting these anti-car schemes on residents who don’t actually want them.

Take the 20mph debacle in Wales. In September last year, then first minister Mark Drakeford launched a controversial blanket 20mph speed limit across most of the country. Now, less than a year later, new first minister Eluned Morgan is planning to scrap it in the face of a huge backlash. In fact, a new YouGov poll this week shows that a whopping 70 per cent of the Welsh population is against the 20mph limit.

This week, Bath in Somerset announced its plan to impose ‘traffic-calming measures’ on its residents, in the teeth of local opposition. The policy, called ‘Liveable Neighbourhood Areas’ (was Bath not ‘liveable’ before?), will lead roads to be overrun by decorative bollards and hordes of cyclists.

This may sound delightful for tourists, who will soon be able to leisurely munch their Bath buns al fresco on the newly pedestrianised streets. But what about residents who have work, school or appointments to drive to? What about those who are elderly or disabled, or simply have lots of things to carry, who can’t so easily switch to ‘active’ modes of travel?

Labour’s only answer is to get on your bike.

Lauren Smith is a staff writer at spiked.