Leicester is No Place for Peat

At our last meeting, we decided to run a 'Peat Free' campaign. We discussed peat being used as a growing medium in bags of compost sold at garden centres and the lesser known facts about peat locking away carbon and keeping it out of our atmosphere. 

Over the last 10,000 years, UK peatlands have sequestered 5.5 billion tonnes of carbon - nearly 40 times the amount of carbon stored in our woodlands. Peatlands contain about half of the UK's stored carbon. Globally, peatlands store about half a trillion tonnes of carbon, trapping organic matter underwater. Unfortunately, digging up the peat enables oxygen to get to it, so the organic matter starts to decay, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The environmental damage caused by extracting peat for compost is immense. It releases huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. Peat bogs are also excellent areas of biodiversity, so peat extraction contributes to habitat and species loss. 

In 2011 the government published a White Paper with targets for the end of peat use in horticulture. The aim of this was for all compost available to amateur gardeners to be peat-free by 2020. Unfortunately, the targets were voluntary and most garden centres chose to ignore the issue and still sell bags of compost containing peat. 

So, we are asking garden centres to reconsider selling peat.  Our ask is that people visit their local garden centre and see what they are selling, then send them a letter (as we cannot face to face campaign at the moment), requesting them to reconsider their position. A copy of a standard letter is available on Google Docs.  If you do send a letter perhaps you can let us know in the comments below so that we can keep a record. 

There is also another letter for people to send to schools to ask them to go peat free if they buy compost for any gardening projects. We have already had one positive response from a school. Let us know if you get any more - then we can add their name onto our list. Here is the link to Google docs.

Also, we are asking people to pledge to buy peat free themselves. The pledge can be found at  https://actionnetwork.org/forms/pledge-to-use-peat-free-compost. Facebook users can also sign up to our Facebook group to share information about peat-free gardening.

This is the beginning of our campaign, as, hopefully, COVID restrictions get lifted we hope to step up the 'Leicester is No Place for Peat' campaign.  Watch this space......! 

Who pays for parking?

Many organisations in Leicester provide free car parking for their employees. Most do not provide a benefit of the same value for employees who do not drive to work (e.g., a free bus pass), so they effectively subsidise travel costs only for the car drivers[1]. The lowest-paid in any organisation are the least likely to own a car and benefit from this subsidy. One organisation I used to work for provided car parking spaces for the CEO and directors (who were of course paid the most) and everyone else had to choose another form of transport or pay for street parking. This just compounded the inequality created by free parking. And any incentive to drive has a cost for everyone in terms of air pollution and carbon emissions. 

There is a way to address this issue and it was introduced in Nottingham several years ago. Local authorities can charge a workplace parking levy (WPL) so that organisations have to pay for every parking space they provide. The levy is charged to employers but most pass it on to the employees who use the car parking spaces. The money generated can then be used to fund sustainable transport initiatives that benefit everyone. In Nottingham, it goes towards their tram system[2]. 

Leicester City Council are now considering introducing a WPL. They are meeting employers and working with De Montfort University to gauge whether it would work in Leicester. They are hoping to launch the public consultation later this year. If it goes ahead, they would have continuous funding for transport improvement works, instead of relying on government funding schemes as they do at the moment. 

The way that the government forces local authorities to bid for funding has always seemed ridiculous to me. Council officers spend enormous amounts of time preparing bids for specific funding schemes, in competition with other councils, only to be unsuccessful and have to shelve their plans on a regular basis. If the government funded local authorities properly, councillors and officers would be able to look at their area, decide what is most needed and make it happen. Instead, they are dependent on the vagaries of whatever the government feels like funding that week. This is just another way for the government to take away local control. Although the government has provided funding for various sustainable transport initiatives over the past few years (e.g., cycle lanes and electric buses), it is always piecemeal and never allows local authorities to confidently plan an ongoing strategy. The WPL could change all of that. 

In a pre-consultation meeting we had with Leicester City Council recently, they explained that they are planning to link all revenue to work on climate change action, with three investment priorities:

·       Rail station transformation - to allow for increased capacity

·       Rapid mass transit network - electric tram quality buses

·       Active travel everywhere - expanding the walking and cycling network

These all have the potential to make it easier for people to choose sustainable transport. 

In Nottingham, the WPL has also given the council an excuse to talk to employers about travel demand. These conversations have led to the adjustment of bus routes to better serve employment locations and created a scheme where employers can bulk buy bus season tickets at a discount. Along with the disincentive of paying for parking, these schemes will help to discourage people from driving to work. 

Although we will want to look at the details carefully, to make sure the proposals do not unfairly disadvantage the lowest-paid (as the current situation does), it is clear to me that environmental groups should support the introduction of a WPL in Leicester. We are looking forward to the consultation.

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[1] This point was recently made by Professor Donald Shoup in an online lecture called, ‘The High Cost of Free Parking’, hosted by Queens University Belfast.

[2] Nick Ruxton Boyle’s article in Air Quality News has more about Nottingham’s WPL scheme: Workplace Parking Levy - the second coming - Air Quality News