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Thursday, 20 November 2008 |
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Yesterday we heard from Stewart Stephenson at a conference in Edinburgh that the government supported the concept of demand responsive solutions to our travel and transport needs. Of course the government should be supportive it is a sustainable development no brainer. A demand responsvie approach gets people from A2B in a more efficient, economically competitive, environmentally responisble and social more equitable way.
Unfortunatley there is no meat on the bones of that government support. No framework, no direction, no investment.
The Regional Transport Partnerships, with the exception of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) are struggling to advance DRT. Plaudits are due for SPT in pushing DRT into the mainstream but the advent of the Single Outcome Agreements between central and local government has not stimulated a flourish of more innovative and 21st century fit for purpose solutions to issues such as transport.
Central government talks of the 'freedom' afforded by the agreements to local government. With conflicting demands on budgets local government is far from 'free' to allocate it resources.
Overtime the SOA may reap rewards for the public through improved service delivery and local accountability but few have mentioned travel and transport in their first SOA's.
We need strategic direction and leadership if we are to retain the level of DRT activity that in the main has been provided by the community itself and to develop greater provision. It has taken years of hard work to get to where we are today but it will not take anything like that long to unravel current provision.
Let us hope that this is not another false dawn for DRT in Scotland and that once again we will miss the boat in an area where we were at the forefront. Our European cousins have been rapidly expanding their DRT approach whilst we have marked time.
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Wednesday, 28 May 2008 |
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Forward Scotland rejects the premise that economic growth, as expressed by GDP should be the principle means of measuring progress. A nation that embraces the principles of sustainable development would seek to achieve a more equitable balance between the spheres of the environment, the economy and society.
Our latest research with partners the Scottish Council Foundation discusses and proposes a a basket of subjective indicators which could be used as an alternative to GDP. We think it makes sense to explore these kinds of topics and challenge traditional thinking.
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