Edward Leigh

A clear, well argued case by Cllr @AndrewGant3 in @OxfordClarion for essential transport changes in #Oxford to create a healthier, happier and thriving city. It’s all about vision, leadership and listening. oxfordclarion.uk/oxford-traffic… #LTN #TrafficFilter #ZEZ #WorkplaceParkingLevy

The Economist just published a deeply-researched story about car bloat, and it's very, very damning: "For every life that the heaviest 1% of SUVs and trucks save, there are more than a dozen lives lost in other vehicles." Well worth your time: economist.com/interactive/un…

‘Action to tackle water scarcity, for example, has shown what can be achieved when local authorities, central government and public bodies work in partnership…’ Worth saying, so far ‘Greater Cambridge has seen statements but nothing concrete on water credits… Thread: 1

So, four years after @CambsCC first introduced an experimental bus gate on Mill Road bridge to support active travel and improve bus reliability, it has decided to abandon its weak defence of the challenge to the permanent TRO, and rerun the process again: cambridgeshire.gov.uk/news/an-update…

@EdwardALeigh @Sam_in_Cam @4soundandfury @mhclg @GCSP_Planning The water credits system is, last we heard, being developed- but the agreement to do so, between the councils and Michael Gove, has been enough for the development to go ahead.

@Sam_in_Cam @4soundandfury @mhclg @markrwilliamson @GCSP_Planning My earlier threads about the wholly unrealistic expectation that water credits can be used to offset demand from new housing before additional water supplies come on-stream (from 2032 at the earliest): x.com/EdwardALeigh/s… and x.com/EdwardALeigh/s…

@Sam_in_Cam @4soundandfury @mhclg @markrwilliamson And now @GCSP_Planning has granted permission for development of Bourn Airfield (3,500 new homes) to go ahead, on the basis that the government has set up a Water Scarcity Group with £8m. cambridge.gov.uk/news/2024/07/3…

New housing targets according to @mhclg

There an extremely powerful psychological tendency across human beings that professor John Jost calls "system justification" -- basically, the tendency to see the social/economic/political regime in which you were raised as normal & proper & good.

THREAD: I’m going to try this thread to clearly state my perspective on electric vehicles, car dependency and better cities, to those who frequently ask me, including media, elected leaders and many others. Here goes. Please share if you think it helps. 🧵#EVS

Of all the insights gained from this year’s #Nudgestock, the most important and sobering must be @JonHaidt’s analysis of the harms that social media has been doing to children since 2012 – well worth 30 minutes of your time: youtube.com/live/qV-sjk6tK… @Nudgestock #anxiousgeneration

@RobNoLastName Illustrating your point with a preposterous 20% tax rate is unserious. For a real-world example of a wealth tax, US states tax property at between 0.32% and 2.23% pa of the assessed value. Owners pay that out of their income, not by selling the asset.

Incredible how few people understand wealth. Almost as if they imagine "rich people" have pots of cash. They have assets. If you tax an asset then the asset has to be sold. Imagine I taxed you 20% of the value of your house. Do you have it in cash? No, so you have to sell it. Then you buy a smaller house. Next year, I tax you 20% of that. You don't have it in cash, so again you sell it and move to a smaller one. This happens year after year until you can no longer afford a house. The state then has to pay to house you. Anyone who calls for a wealth tax is frankly economically illiterate.

Someone reminded me of that thread today, so ill tell you something. I live in Finland now. Some time ago I left my job hoping to get another one. It didn't worked out and I became unemployed. (A secondary thread).

@PhilRodgers It’s excruciating to have to watch this slow-motion train crash. Clearly, nobody at @CambsCC – officers or councillors – listened to us back then. Here was my response to the draft TRO in December 2022. Any of the ten councillors I copied in could have intervened.

I knew this was going to cause trouble twitter.com/PhilRodgers/st…

Here is the full judgment in the latest stage of the Mill Road bridge judicial review application. The case will now proceed to a further hearing and the bridge will stay open to cars in the meantime. assets.caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/admin/202…

Buses don't often have a great reputation. In any case, they're certainly not the preferred method of transport. But there is a route in Yorkshire that didn't just overcome the stigma, it demolished it! There are lots of lessons to learn from #the36, so let's go through some: 🧵

Boeing's 787 "Dreamliner" is manufactured far from the company's Seattle headquarters, in a non-union shop in Charleston, South Carolina. At that shop, there is a cage full of defective parts that have been pulled from production because they are not airworthy. 1/

@borofergie The Police and Crime Panel wrote to the Secretary of State in 2021 to request for the next PCC election in Cambridgeshire to be held in 2025, aligned with the county and mayoral elections. You know the response. democracy.peterborough.gov.uk/ieListDocument…

Why they didn’t take the year delay during Covid to put the PCC elections on the same rotation as the mayoral ones? The turnout outside Cambridge and Peterborough is going to be shocking. Voters in those cities are going to have a disproportionate influence on the result.

If you believe driverless and unstaffed trains, trams and buses are the future, read this (unsettling) account of why trained staff on public transport are essential, not a luxury. We must never ignore the experiences of women and other “vulnerable” people.

Article from a construction industry website about @michaelgove's plans for developing Cambridge building.co.uk/focus/a-vision…