Wednesday 1 August 2007

*A bridge too far

From The Guardian:

London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, must be ruing the day he was forced by the London assembly greens into handing £50,000 to people objecting to the Thames Gateway bridge in east London. A formidable team of academics, NGOs such as Friends of the Earth and Transport 2000, community groups and local authorities spent the cash fighting against top QCs, solicitors and the might of Transport for London-and last week a government inspector sided with the underdogs. His devastating judgment that the bridge would indeed add to pollution and carbon emissions without bringing any regeneration should make central and local government think again when big business knocks on the door touting grandiose developments.

Hazel Blears, the embarrassed communities secretary, now wants the inquiry to reopen, but this leaves Livingstone in a corner. If he coughs up more money for the alliance to take on TfL again, he may be signing the scheme's death warrant. If he doesn't, he will be accused of trying to engineer a result. But there are still a couple of options, Ken.
How about a public transport-only bridge? Or even no bridge at all?

http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,,2138434,00.html

1 comment:

weggis said...

Incorporate a tidal generator and I will be interested.