I think we can tell from Andy Burnham’s announcement late yesterday evening that Heidi Alexander will stay on as transport secretary that he doesn’t want to rock the boat in this area, which would be consistent with his time in Greater Manchester.
For all that Burnham did in Manchester to expand and link public transport, what he avoided was taking radical action to tackle toxic air pollution – vetoing a possible charging Clean Air Zone (CAZ).
As I have written, Manchester falsely framed measures to improve public transport as an alternative to a CAZ, where the two could (and legally should) have been run in parallel, to bring the region into compliance with the Air Quality Directive as soon as possible. The measures were not mutually exclusive; they were mutually supportive.
With new evidence showing the effectiveness of CAZs and London’s (now expanded) ULEZ in cutting air pollution and the health problems it causes, we can only conclude that Burnham put an unwillingness to upset drivers over the health of his residents.
And if there is one thing that characterises Alexander’s tenure as transport secretary, it’s an unwillingness to upset drivers; countless Department for Transport announcements have been directed at this group – as well as expanding air travel in a climate emergency.
It was obvious from the outset that Louise Haigh was forced out because she took far more radical approach to transport policy and it is interesting that she is now back in government in a more powerful role than Alexander.
Whether Alexander might be persuaded to change tack remains to be seen, but what we can see for now is that Burnham is more focused on consumerist, individualist approach to politics than seeing the bigger picture.
One response to “Burnham keeps Alexander to placate drivers”
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It’s a shame that all the lessons learned during the 1990’s and changes in Transport Policy at the turn of the century and the positive actions taken (by BOTH major political parties) have been reversed in the early 2010s and now forgotten and ignored.
Infrastructure (of the right sort?) has been ‘accepted’ as a priority for the economy but new Strategic Roads are not going to help the economy or the public except just after they open for a couple of months. New wind turbines, modernising the grid, getting proper hold of our water and sewage and reinvesting in the existing failing infrastructure like 97.5% of the road network, hospitals and schools would.
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