The green agenda is an agenda taken from the lockdowns. The UK has now come up with a new plan to improve urban living and encourage activities like walking and cycling known as the 15-minute city. The scheme is for now being planned at Oxford.
The 15-minute city concept was developed and popularized by French-Colombian professor Carlos Moreno who imagined a future in which city dwellers could walk to everything they needed. The scheme places shops schools workplaces doctors parks libraries and restaurants within a 15-minute walk or bike ride of the home. This is how it appears in a nirvana state and on black and white. In reality it is a different story.
Parts of Paris are incorporating the concept as part of Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s plans to create more self-sufficient communities with diverse economies while also reducing pollution and stress.
The idea gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic when people spent more time than ever before in their neighborhood.
Councillor Duncan Enright who is the Cabinet member for Travel & Development Strategy and Deputy Leader of Labour & Co-operative Party group actually seems to not want to do much development at all but wants only certain kind of transport.
Even though Oxford has low LTNS (low traffic neighbourhoods) there has been gridlock in places like Haringey and in Brixton with a number of LTNS that have suffocated local businesses and residents. And now they are coming up with “Bus Gates” which they said are still a trial which will mean people can’t drive in many arteries and people will be allowed only a 100 passes a year. So if one has two cars that would mean 50 passes each to go to certain areas. Otherwise you have to go much further around the whole wing roads. This means that people’s journeys are getting massively delayed and there’s far more pollution especially in run down areas although this scheme is said to allegedly stop pollution.
Many of those living in East Oxford who are poorer and much more run down have no facilities around them in 15 minutes to walk to. So once again ordinary people the working-class people and taxi drivers are being punished more. The politicians are not taking into account the most vulnerable parts of society. What is most problematic with this scheme in Oxford a problem which is also being witnessed in other cities across the UK is that when the consultations go out the majority of people are responding and saying no. 5600 respondents in Oxford responded. Over 3600 responses (93%) were negative. Even businesses have challenged it. The plan has also sparked outrage among residents and protests:
So the people are against this scheme and yet British communism does not care and is still going ahead and any objections from residents are being overruled. It is not taking into consideration the real life implications of such a policy. Communism is not allowing people the freedom of choice – to choose any transport available to you and the one that you can afford. “Coincidentally” even the WEF has an article on their website entitled “The surprising stickiness of the 15-minute city”:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/03/15-minute-city-stickiness/
British communism is still calling it a trial but the trial of the 15-minute city cannot exist without the existence of LTNS but it is going ahead with it anyway. In reality this scheme is more like a perpetual state of crisis rather than a sober way of addressing how things are dealt with. In fact this is coming from the International C40s chaired by Silicon meaning that other countries and states have a declaration to tackle the emergency climate crisis. As though the issue in cities does not revolve around better housing or hospitals or infrastructure or transport but it is this crisis.
So during lockdowns businesses suffered. Now they are being killed by this. During lockdowns people were locked down inside their homes. Now they are being locked down inside their city. And it is all being done for you to save the planet with communism’s coercive undertone with no lack of democracy in this decision-making process.
Speaking in the Commons the first Tory MP to represent Don Valley in Doncaster said the scheme being planned in Oxford could “take away our personal freedom”. He tweeted: “Destroying our towns and cities and keeping us prisoners in our communities is not the way:”
In 2021 Ipswich announced its intention to become the UK’s first 15-minute town in a “post COVID world ” in an effort to improve connectivity and assist businesses in recovering from the pandemic. Birmingham also plans to become a 15-minute city while Colchester has said the idea “should not be off the table”. Bristol Sheffield and Canterbury are among the other UK cities and towns considering 15-minute city schemes.
Creepy British authority bureaucrats are making it a must to see the entire existence of the British boiled down to the duration of a quarter of an hour with these deeply illiberal un-British 15-minute cities.