Greener, cleaner?

Saltaire's car parks are mostly empty during lockdown. (You have to pay, so where there's space to park for free on the streets, people do. My own residential street is regularly full of parked cars belonging to commuters, walkers and people working locally. It gets a tad annoying!)

There are some moves towards a greener, cleaner transport system. They've provided bike racks in this car park (confusingly illustrated with a car shape...) and are improving cycle routes. A few electric vehicle charging points have been installed throughout the district. There's a long way to go. 

The Bingley Bypass and other 'improvements' further up the valley have speeded up traffic, which then gets severely snarled up coming through Saltaire and Shipley. The main route through Saltaire is (apparently) one of the most polluted in Britain, and regularly has traffic jams. It has, of course, been a little better during lockdown but the traffic density at certain times of day hasn't seemed to drop very much. You kind of get used to it.

There's a significant divide between the planning rhetoric and the actual decisions that get made. We have recently been granted a local Shipley Town Council, which perhaps means the lobbying voice will be stronger and also means certain funds are available to spend locally. The trouble always seems to be that what suits some folk harms others. Perhaps it always been like that but it feels more than ever that we need to come together with a significant effort to protect our beautiful planet and at the same time enhance our local areas to make them healthier and greener places to live. Seems that lockdown has proved we can pretty much do without our city centres but everyone wants some green space to help us hang on to our sanity.