LEZs: Little Enclaves of green Zealotry

Anything that Edinburgh Council finds inconvenient about city life, like a marathon or a flight path, they dump in East Lothian.

As the 20th jumbo jet of the day rocks the roof of my house in Prestonpans, I can at least console myself that all is at peace in our neighbouring LEZ…that Little Enclave of green Zealotry surrounding Edinburgh city centre. The boundaries of this sacred sanctuary also dovetail nicely with the airport’s no-fly zone, hence the jets roaring overhead here.

Anything that Edinburgh Council finds inconvenient about city life, like a marathon or a flight path, they dump in East Lothian. Now they’re turning the suburbs into one large car park as vehicles are displaced from the centre by the LEZ. Predictably, commuters with non-compliant cars are parking in surrounding towns and completing their journey on public transport. This raises the nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels in towns like mine.

I support efforts to improve air quality for all Scots, but shifting NO2 from the city centre to the suburbs isn’t progress. Just slapping a trendy emissions zone up to shift the pollution elsewhere is simply selfish. Improving health in the City is a welcome initiative but missing is a serious investment in public transport to maintain access.

I’m the kind of white car owning trash that Maggie Chapman (Green MSP) so despises. I don’t particularly like driving; I do around 5,000 miles a year, but when I need the car out here in the sticks…I need it. Where alternatives exist they are slow (bus), expensive (train) and too infrequent (train).

There are essential medical services in Edinburgh that now can’t be reached within the LEZ: pushing my elderly parents on and off a bus on a 3-hour round trip isn’t feasible. The capital railway station, Waverley is also cut off for early and late travellers who have no inbound/outbound options.

So why don’t I bite the bullet and “just” buy a new car that can enter the LEZ? Too tight, probably, but many drivers are struggling just to pay the latest hike in insurance. There is another greener reason to remain non-compliant: a large proportion of the carbon dioxide produced by a car over its lifetime is in its manufacture. Scrapping a working car to buy a low-emission variant is environmentally wasteful. But that doesn’t trouble Scotland’s green brigade when the real game is flaunting their luxury beliefs and curtailing economic growth.

Cities emerged to smooth transportation and ease commerce for all…they are designed to be busy. This reality is being warped at the expense of working people, who have no credible alternative other than to drive an older car.

I wish our politicians would read more before signing off on the latest green fad. Something like Ed Conway’s brilliant book “Material World,” which explains the complex trade-offs in decarbonising the economy would be a start.

If only a Book Festival existed to challenge established political wisdom. Unfortunately our enlightened environmental lobby is busy burning book forums, by torching the reputation of the sponsors. Nicola Sturgeon needs to publish her autobiography, “Sorry”, soon otherwise there’ll be no stage left to hear her apology for the unthinking state of Scotland.