STOCKPORT: A 15 Minute City or a new ‘DRACONIAN’ car-less prison?

#stockport #stockportcounty #15minutecity
Despite telling us otherwise, Stockport councillors are planning a town without cars and are willing to consider ‘frankly more draconian things’ if they can’t nudge you out of your vehicle.

Stockport Town Centre Residential Design Guide – https://democracy.stockport.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=229564

Economy, Regeneration & Climate Change Scrutiny Committee Meeting 29th Feb 2024 – https://democracy.stockport.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=1010&MId=28998&Ver=4

we have no 15minute City plans they were challenged to name a single one I know of No Such plans and there are certainly n here in Stockport hello you and thanks for joining us at Stockport Council watch now here at Stockport Council watch there’s not just me there are a dedicated group who believe that the elected counselors are not working in the best interest of you the good honest people of Stockport now you might not know this but there is a war to take away your freedoms and Stockport Council are leading the charge on behalf of global billionaires who want all the things for themselves as you struggle to keep a roof over your head and food on the table now the counselors are just useful idiots in the eyes of these so-called Elites because they have been brainwashed to believe that they’re doing the right thing now all it has taken is just a 7-hour carbon literacy training pack and constant repetition on the mainstream news and yes that’s the mainstream news that we know lies to us all the time let me give you an example they have just told us that we’ve had a hottest May on record if you miss that just do a Google Search and you’ll find out they know they’re lying to us we know that they’re lying to us and they know that we know they’re lying to us so all it’s taken is those few things for the counselors to believe that they’re doing the right thing and because they think they’re doing the right thing they think it makes it okay for them to lie to the public and to nudge you and your behaviors in a way that reduces your freedom and takes money out of your pocket and if those nudges don’t work then they will use and I quote frankly more Draconian things to force you to change your behavior now if you don’t believe me then just watch this video now the public are now beginning to realize that the war on carbon dioxide is an attack on their freedoms and travel rights when they see 15minute cities and their restricted travel zones locally I will not be a lone voice in this Gallery demanding answers from The councils Who allow this to happen we have no 15minute City plans they were challenged to name a single one I know of no such plans and there are certainly non hearing stop part the planning system is very clear we should firstly cater for for walking and cycling as a start before we start to consider other other matters our officers have have mentioned that car parking should not be Central to any development or resident development in you know so it should be hidden if you know we kind of have this you cultural thing where we’re kind of stuck in our cars but we feel like cars of Freedom the absence of cars in town centers is is freedom and I just wonder will that change in the INF infrastructure will that sort of nudge people out of their cars um or yeah will we need to think about some other you frankly more Draconian things you frankly more Draconian things okay so now you might be asking what is a 15minute city well I’ll leave you to do your own research on that but I warn you if you don’t want to be called a conspiracy theorist then don’t bother just hit the unsubscribe button and bury a head in the sand climate change denies climate change denies conspiracy based inaccurate content more likely to agree with me than you someone claiming the Earth is flat conspiracy theories are banded around as true however if you’re concerned I will leave links to Stockport Town Center’s residential design guide in the description below and I’ll leave the link to the full meeting which happened back in February because what they’re planning is a 15minute City but they’re just not using those words if you only take one thing away from this video then consider this Stockport counselors are willing to look at more Draconian measures yeah we need to think about some other you frankly more Draconian things to get you to do what they want and bear in mind what Draconian actually means it means excessively harsh and severe so just ponder that for a while it might just be about getting you out of your cars now but what could it mean in the future what excessively harsh measures would they be willing to take against you in the future did you elect them to do that remember all this is predicated on the idea of man-made climate change that carbon dioxide CO2 is causing global warming so before I let you go let me ask you just one question what percentage of carbon dioxide is there in the atmosphere any guesses well I’ll tell you the answer is 0.04% okay 400 parts per million of that we humans produce about 4% the rest naturally occurs through the carbon cycle without carbon dioxide all plant life on Earth would die which means we would die too okay I’ll leave you for now but we’re going to keep you updated on this and other matters so be sure to subscribe down below and hit that little bell so you won’t miss another video as and when they come because we’re going to be doing lots more of these videos we’re getting active now and for the counselors that are watching okay we’re keeping an eye on you okay we want you to work in our best interest and if you don’t work in our best interest then we’re going to continue to do these videos and we’re going to show the people of Stockport what you’re doing because they’ve not got time to look through all the videos of your meeting but we at Stockport Council watch have got a dedicated group of people who will now are you in favor of town planning that ensures your work your shops your education needs your health care and Leisure are all within a 15minute walk or cycle ride of your home on the one hand the idea sounds benign but in British cities including bath Canterbury Edinburgh and Oxford the very idea is being actively challenged by protesters who fear the thin end of a dystopian totalitarian socialist wedge designed only to strip them of their traditional Freedom I’m joined Now by Alan Miller from the together declaration and shortly also by Nathan albach an urbanologist from Philadelphia Alan thanks for coming in what exactly is proposed um or being pushed in Oxford and the other cities uh so in Oxford we’ve had a number of different things so they keep calling them trials we’ve had low traffic neighborhoods they said were trials even though 65% of people who responded to the consultation said they did not want them then you’ve had a proposal for uh bus Gates uh and bus Gates when they’ve put the proposal without getting too complex for the travel traffic plan for o oxer County council do uh they intertwin that with the idea of a 20-minute neighborhood but basically the bus Gates mean you can have 70 passes to drive if you’re Local 100 passes a year uh but if you’re not you can’t and there’s a Ring Road you have to go around slightly different in bath where you have a ring of Steel they call it very lovely name uh and you have low traffic neighborhoods as well uh and we’ve seen in other places like in London where eing where they’ve got rid of low traffic neighborhoods because residents have challenged it you still have a discussion about a 20-minute neighborhood and we might have some of these road closures as well so basically they’re are top down imp position using the idea this would be a lovely livable Street active travel it’s all about people friendly oriented but actually what it means is it’s an attack on cars and our freedom of movement and Independence that is what it feels like because what I’m suspicious about is the fact that a coercive element is there first you know that you whatever big flower boxes blocking roads talk of fins for people that that use their car on the wrong sort of Journey too many times in the year you’d have thought if it was a naturally utopian good for the people initiative people would just naturally incline towards it with of to be pushed absolutely well one of the things is as well that we’ve seen in Ox here with the County Council we’ve seen that in the consultation they had a report and a survey done beforehand but they suppressed it according to Freedom of Information Revelations that were in the times this week uh and on and the Oxford mail until after the consultation ended because apparently they the councilors didn’t want to people to see what this would mean would contradict their very own study a bit like what’s happened with Sadi Khan it sounds like with the ules situation and our point at together is that uh why we say free our streets but also take back democracy is that the public should be at the heart of town and City Planning urban planning what we need in terms of travel Dynamic trade infrastructure housing you know what happened to local authorities the idea they would provide decent services but also it’s not just local authorities it’s central government have been under underwriting this and funding it which is why we’ve been campaigning saying to Mark Harper and the department for transport you need to cut this umbilical cord now because this underwriting of road closures undemocratically imposed is damaging businesses they’re being forced to close down we’ve seen it on the C Road in Oxford we’ve seen it on Middleton Road 100 Years of trade in Middleton Road shops having to close we’ve seen um that in a number of areas across the UK now and also residents all types of residents not what they say which is conspiracy and far right but a whole different demographic diverse multi-generational uh all being impacted in a negative way and I think that what’s going to happen here is like we’ve seen in little more an award in Oxford that many more people are going to be standing independently going to be challenging labor won it by a tiny clinch by 100 votes they brought out all the guns lots of people to Canvas but that was a three or four- week campaign that people stood independently and as these low traffic neighborhood impositions and as these 15 minute and 20 minute neighborhoods that are basically a technocrats idea of what we should do the great unwashed how we should travel and not travel without providing any better provision in any way we’re going to see much more of a fight back and we’re actually supporting people locally nationally uh to do that alongside launching our cabinet bear with me I’ve also got um n Nathan albach an urbanologist from Philadelphia on the line Nathan are you there I’m here thanks for having me Neil good no pleasure to see you Nathan do you recognize the version of let’s say 15minute cities as described by Allan and do you are you sympathetic towards the the controversies that they have already uh had form around them yeah absolutely I think um you’re hitting the nail on the head in terms of the problems of distress that are arising around the concept of 15minute cities particularly around Oxford have to do with the fact that they came from a top down level and I think the the policies themselves weren’t prescribed transparently or coherently to the public and I think that’s where a lot of these problems come in and the fact is is that all around the world including parts of the US Europe um Australia all over the place um these ideas around new urbanism this whole concept of building more walkable places that aren’t necessarily centered around cars these ideas been popularizing and with that obviously governments are finding you know ways to kind of meet people where they are in in their cities but I think to be successful in implementing these policies you have to also work with the residents of an area and if you don’t do that in a transparent way it’s no surprise there’s going to be uh protests I suppose The $64,000 Question for me Nathan is why is it already coercive you know what we are seeing here what Allan’s describing is rather than put in all of the facilities make sure everyone’s got this idilic world within a 15-minute walk of their home with all of the all of the stuff of Life readily accessible it starts with talk of fins for for driving your car too many times in a year and roads being blocked off is it to for the betterment of people’s lives or is it just to get cars off the road yeah I mean I don’t want to uh defend the the policies around Oxford because I I agree with you in the sense that they weren’t really implemented um with residents best interest in mind I think there’s cities all around the world including parts of um including parts of the Netherland uh states in the US particularly cities like Portland um parts of Australia like Melbourne uh Barcelona has has implemented their super blocks uh program in recent years all of these different places have done this from the bottom up in ways where they trial different street designs uh that include more complete Street uh elements where they carve out protective bike Lanes they carve out bus lanes they they create raised crosswalks and protected sidewalks and all these different things that kind of like organically build out um from from starting in C City centers that are already highly pedestrianized and they kind of organically built out from there um and I think that that’s where again this this problem from top down uh control coming from Oxford uh it’s it’s facing these these issues at a protest level because yeah people they don’t feel like they were part of that discussion um I I don’t I don’t necessarily know the intent of the government officials locally like maybe they had seen some kind of case study and thought this was going to be the best move for them but clearly as we’re seeing with the backlash um it’s having the opposite effect Nathan albach urbanologist from Philadelphia I’m push for time tonight but thank you so much for your contribution so far and I’m sure it’s a story that we can pick up again in weeks to come thanks for just now uh thanks for having me now thank you since since we’ve mentioned Oxford County Council uh I I should go to a statement here a spokesperson said we would like to reassure people that Oxfordshire County council’s transport policies are not designed to confine people to their local area our transport plans in Oxford are intended to address the city’s traffic problems and create an environment where it’s safer and easier for people to walk and cycle and where public transport is more than reliable we need a more sustainable reliable and inclusive transport system that works for everyone policies are debated and decided by Oxfordshire elected counselors using local Insight and information sounds lovely Jacob do you buy it do you think they really do care about the people or are they just using a a velvet glove to slip in the iron hand of control there’s kind of a reason why these policies go hand in hand with the same kind of policies advocated by environmentalists it’s not just because they want to kind of reduce car use and reduce fossil fuels going into the atmosphere or something like that it’s because they share with lots of environmentalists a culture of low expectations around human beings they think that in the same way as environmentalists think lots of producing of consumer goods is kind of bad because more is kind of worse similarly they think lots of travel lots of going to different places you should be happy with one Pub in your no local area the fact that you like the one kind of a 20-minute drive over is bad your viewers will be very familiar with the SL that we slogan your going to own nothing and you’ll be happy which in a way is just a rationalization of economic distress the fact that we can’t produce enough Goods to satisfy people’s needs this is like a you’ll go nowhere and you’ll be happy a low expectation of humanity do you think that underscores I think this goes back to your monologue actually that that the people who are in charge basically don’t trust the electorate whether it’s nationally or locally there’s this kind of sense of distrust that you know democracy doesn’t work and if you do do things from the bottom up organically then you’ll end up with with something you know terrible that’s bad for the environment and I think that um whilst all lovely everything that we heard from from your other guests there it reminds me of the sort of like experimental architecture of sort of I would say totalitarian art Architects like Kier um but I think this is actually part of something much bigger in the Zeitgeist that is this kind of um this attack on all of the things that has made modernity possible all of all of the things that make how modern lives you convenient that keep us all healthy and free um I think that it’s it’s part of this overall phenomenon that includes a lot of the environmentalist policies it includes a lot a lot of um this sort of attitude from those who do have positions of authority in local or national government that makes them feel that they actually have the right because my first thought with these 15-minute cities is who gave you the right you have no right to do this to limit the way that people can move around this that is the question isn’t Alan my wife says to me all the time when we talk about these things is where do these people get the idea that this is up to them yeah who do they think they are well maybe they think they’re feudalists uh where you get charged TOS to go from one Hamlet to another because the idea of free movement in the modern environment is now scorned upon in the way I agree with these comments uh I think you know if you look at uh the today’s times for instance it also shows how some of these consultations they have to be seen for what they are dodgy data quite often counselors and councilors not wanting to respond uh showing that they don’t they even on their own terms they’re not actually they’re they’re disingenuous and they’re dishonest and we have such a low level of trust at the moment uh which is a problem for anyone who really wants to change things we’ve got to believe that we can do it I mean it’s a bit to this point we got to believe that humans are capable of doing things for betterment and Improvement we got to have a bit of that ambition that urban planning that’s about dynamism wealth creation for and at the moment and I call them technocrats and I think they’re all very similar the ones in central government and the local authorities it’s not just one or the other they have this approach which is we know best we need to limit things you’ll be quiet and have things done to you a bit like we’ve seen in the last three years and frankly people are not going to put up with it and that’s why together in the together declaration we’re saying get involved locally regionally and nationally we’re campaigning we’re challenging uh and people should be ready in May for the independent election for the local elections but also uh in the coming year and it’s not just about elections it’s about reigniting a sense of the democratic kind of public and us being at the heart of things and that’s what we’re determined to make sure happens in uh in Britain because we’ve seen too long now this this contempt for the public and sidelining US contempt for the public that is what it feels like Alan Miller together declaration thanks for coming in again and you will certainly be invited in again to continue this debate thank you think it’s going anywhere it’s not slowing down it’s speeding up we have no 15minute City plans they were challenged to name a single one I know of no such plans and there are certainly none here in Stockport the planning system is very clear we should firstly cater for for walking and cycling as a start before we start to consider other other matters our officers have have mentioned that car parking should not be Central to any development or residential development in you know so it should be hidden if you know we kind of have this you know cultural thing where we’re kind of stuck in our cars but we feel like cars of Freedom the absence of cars in town centers is is freedom and I just wonder will that change in the INF infrastructure will that sort of nudge people out of their cars um or you will we need to think about some other you know frankly more Draconian things