Climate Change Campaign Update - June 2019

Council meeting
Tomorrow Richard and Beatrice’s will be meeting with Sheffield Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment and Streetscene and Climate Emergency, Cllr Lewis Dagnall

Context on the meeting - Lewis requested meeting with Extinction Rebellion and other climate groups. Beatrice is attending the meeting with Richard and will be discussing the Green Commitment for Sheffield which is now 2 years old and see what is progressing. Rachel for the Sheffield Climate Alliance will also be attending. Richard has been speaking with Simon Bowens, FOE rep for the North East about the key messages for the meeting. Group discussed sending out a press relase after the meeting to keep up the pressure.

Cycling

Dexter from Cycle Sheffield shared information about their campaigns for a cycle friendly city through enabled infrastructure. They responded to Sheffield’s transport strategy with the view that the climate change section was rather weak as did other charities but from their responses it has been improved so is now sounding a bit more ambitious on the walking and cycling plans. With transport producing the biggest amount of greenhouse gases there needs to be clear indicators on how they can decrease that.  Sheffield Council does not have the funds to do everything in the transport strategy priorities and the worry is that they will just continue to do road improvements. Sheffield Cycles advice to the council is to look at schemes such as in Nottingham where they have a Parking Levy for businesses for 10 or more car parking spaces at £400 per space. This is then used on sustainable transport. Lewis has said that this can’t work for Sheffield as it has a different distribution of businesses in the centre. We will raise these points  in discussions with the council.

Cycle Sheffield have a great article relating to transport in Sheffield. The link is here.

Picture Source: pixabay.com

HS2

FOE’s position on HS2 is that it is loads of money to spend instead of improving the current rail network. 

Trees
Webinar on doubling Tree Cover on the 1st of July –  Amy registered and to feedback to the group.
Richard discussed an idea for a schools student climate confrence. Sara discussed the event for young campaigners happening in Keele soon and will share info with the group.

Picture Source: pixabay.com

Air Pollution Update February 2018

Shaun mentioned that the future Friends of the Earth campaign is likely to focus on idling cars but we are awaiting strategy from Friends of the Earth.

Richard shared materials from Healthy Air Leeds campaign.

The big solutions to tackle air pollution in Sheffield at the moment are:
Bueses
£1.9m will be invested to retrofit 117 buses across the Sheffield network with emission reduction technology. Once upgraded, the buses will produce less NOx emissions per kilometre than many types of modern car. The retrofit will reduce NOx emissions of buses to Euro VI standard, complying with standards set out in the council’s Clean Air Strategy. Upgrade work will be prioritised on the bus routes that travel through the worst pollution corridors – particularly First’s routes 51, 52a, 75/76, 81/82, 95 and 97/98, plus the Stagecoach routes 7 and 25. These buses travel around 7.8 million kilometres each year (4.8m miles) and so this prioritisation will significantly improve air quality across the city. For more details see: http://www.sheffieldnewsroom.co.uk/bus-investment/

Hydrogen Vans
Amey has two hydrogen powered vans at its depot at Olive Grove. It is gearing up to run another 15 electric vehicles to replace the current diesel vehicles. Hydrogen for the vehicles will be provided by ITM Power from their hydrogen station based at Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in Sheffield – one of only a handful of hydrogen refueling stations outside of London. The hydrogen used is produced on site using renewable energy from a wind turbine. For more details see http://www.sheffieldnewsroom.co.uk/streetsaheadhydrogenvehicles/

Ofo Bikes
The Ofo bikes have been a huge success in Sheffield and hundrens more bikes are due soon. For more details see https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/sheffield-set-to-get-hundreds-more-yellow-scan-and-ride-ofo-bikes-as-scheme-proves-big-hit-in-city-1-9017047

Tour De France

We now have a stall at Coronation Park, Oughtibridge. Richard, John, Steve, Shaz (Birmingham FoE), Trisha and David will be helping on the day. Accreditation for us on stall plus Beatrice will sort out ID.

For the stall we have, Sheffield cycle maps, 50 copies of FoE transport policy, other things from FoE shop, urban cycle guide, posters, pictures of good and bad cycle lanes and cycle board games (Beatrice to print larger copy). Greenpeace have mentioned that they have poster boards that we could borrow (Beatrice to contact them),

We need tables, t-shirts, gazebo and stuff on site by 9am on the day. Beatrice will take it in her car but will need things beforehand. Beatrice to contact Bob Worm  regarding contents and 2 tables.

Tour de France group to meet on 30th June 7-7:30 start at Red Deer to finalise details.

Tour de France Yorkshire Grand Depart

Richard and John met up to look at funding opportunities for running cycle campaigns in the run up to the Tour de France Yorkshire Grand Depart. Unfortunately, they were too late to receive funding.

Group members discussed a number of campaign ideas such as running another commuter challenge where people use different forms of transport to get from point A to point B. We did this a few years ago and Liddy was featured on Look North. We have decided to run a sub group to formulate ideas and plans. This group will meet in the Red Deer pub (downstairs) on Thursday 27th February at 8pm. If you have any ideas then please pop along or email John (see contacts tab).

Stalls for 2014

We discussed which stalls are available throughout the year. We also discussed the need to do something to link in with the Tour de France which comes to Sheffield on the 6th July. We aim to start planning this event at our February meeting. If you have any ideas then please get in touch with us.