Look out Watford, the Liberal Democrats are going to war on how we live and get about.

Having spent many hours reading through the final draft local plan that mayor Peter Taylor and his fellow Lib Dems have just revealed, I wondered if this had been designed with help from Extinction Rebellion.

Chapter 11, Sustainable travel, describes how the plan sets out to reduce the need for travel through reducing the dependency on cars using the usual persuaders of enhanced cycle routes and public transport, plus the encouragement of walking. All perfectly reasonable objectives and ones shared by the Conservative County Council in its own local transport plan, as referenced by the Lib Dem’s.

The two councils part ways however over their expectations of a deadline. The County Council does not have a date but a recognition of challenges and objectives that will be pursued over the next ten years plus. In contrast the Liberal Democrats that are running Watford have announced a Climate Emergency and that the town will be carbon neutral by 2030, Extinction Rebellion wants 2025, the UK Government has set 2050 as has the EU.

So what does this mean for the people of Watford ?

It means, using their own list of priorities, that cars now sit below (1) reducing the need for travel, (2) pedestrians and cyclists, (3) trains and buses and (4) powered two wheelers.

It means that we can expect far more bus lanes and restrictions, it means that new high rise, high occupancy buildings will have few if any parking spaces, it means that more of our council tax will be spent on “transport hubs” and car share clubs and you can forget there ever being a drop off zone at Watford Junction.

It means that local businesses and the high street will struggle to attract customers just when they needed them most.

The crazy thing is that the Government is banning petrol and diesel cars in only nine years time. VW and Toyota etc won’t risk market share, they will all have great and inevitably smaller electric cars available well before that date, that solves the carbon issue and may well remove the over sized cars from our roads at the same time.

The Liberal Democrats are stuck in a out of date doctrine that is going to ruin this town. Stand up, complain and most importantly let them know the next time you vote.

Ian Fox

Watford