Summary of main policy points

• Transport
• Cancel Translink and use the old railway line for a cheaper, faster-to-implement and more viable and useful light rail link
• Stop all airport expansion
• Cancel all proposed road building projects in and around the town
• Invest in bus services so they are a viable option for most journeys
• Make proper provision for safe cycling, with safe cycle storage facilities at schools, sports facilities and the town centre
• Introduce more 20mph speed limits in residential areas
• Review speed limits (a very few are unreasonably low), then enforce them all fully
• Clamp down hard on pavement parkers, misuse of disabled parking spaces and illegal parking on yellow lines and in bus and cycle lanes
• [More subject areas to be added when time available]

Tragedies in Wardown

The park, situated on New Bedford Road, is listed on English Nature's Register of Historic Parks and Gardens, and is renowned for its mature trees. Replacement trees have been planted, but it will be many years before they reach maturity.

The Council has also shown the hollowness of its vaunted (pre-election) green credentials in the park by removing all the shrubs around the lake and most of those on the island, converting what was an oasis for small birds and other wildlife into a desert.

To be fair, the Council have brought about some improvements to the park, such as the restored fountain and some refurbished buildings, and in planting new trees they are taking account, among other things, of both the effects of climate change (making beech a poor choice for a warmer, drier future climate) and new serious diseases threatening the future of some species (especially horse chestnuts, which may soom disappear as a new fungus disease kills them).

Cyclists forgotten again

Of course a council or government which took global warming seriously instead of merely talking about it would not consider building the road in the first place.

Airport expansion

You report that our local prospective Tory candidate says of Luton airport that it is "vital to plan expansion in a sustainable way."

No air travel is sustainable. Air transport is, in terms of energy used per passenger mile, the least efficient means of mass transport ever invented. It is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution, and is unfairly subsidised by tax breaks not available to any other means of transport. Luton airport also imposes an unreasonable noise blight on our neighbours in nearby towns and villages.

The only sustainable expansion would the negative sort - reduce its activities, not increase them.

Jim Fisher
Luton & Beds Green Party