Chloe, Lauren and Simon are marking down the market-led EV strategy from Manchester City Council. Much like the last major transport project they tried to launch on the city, this one needs to be “Under Review”.
P.S. Sorry it’s delayed. Hey, compared to MCC’s Clean Air Zone, 3 months late is nothing!
In this episode:
- Chloe introduces and Simon tries not to rant [0:00]
- Transport policy is linked to carbon emissions, air pollution and the inequality in access to quality transport. This underwhelming strategy just perpetuates the privilege of the those who can afford an EV of their own. [2:30]
- Markets – the thing that governs our lives and make all the decisions [4:12]
- MCC are expecting “the markets” to step in and deliver its EV strategy.
- National interest in purchasing EVs has dropped recently. [7:56]
- Employers offering salary sacrifice schemes are describing delays due to component shortages.
- If the strategy is to leave EV infrastructure to the markets and the middle classes, how will that benefit the whole of the city?
- Incidental charging (leisure centres, libraries etc) will be more expensive and not distributed evenly through the city. Instead, it will be put “where the demand is highest”. Guess where that will be…. [11:06]
- Some councillors weren’t happy with the “leave it to the market” approach because it is not leading us in the direction we need to go. [13:26]
- Then they recommended the strategy to the council executive with a minimal promise to review charging capacity more evenly across the city.
- Simon gets huffy [16:46]
- Lauren describes summing up from Cllr Foley, Deputy Executive Member for the Environment – a positive intervention but it showed up just how poor the strategy was [17:34]
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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