Stop using the phrase ‘war on motorists’ when there are real wars being waged, says Cambridgeshire County Council leader
Councillors should avoid use of the phrase “war on motorists” at a time when there are real wars raging, according to the leader of Cambridgeshire County Council.
Liberal Democrat Cllr Lucy Nethsingha made the point at a meeting of the Combined Authority board.
She said that the “rhetoric around war on motorists” was “unhelpful”.
“I’m going to ask gently that perhaps we can try and avoid using that phrase in this chamber and in our broader communications,” she said.
“This has been raised by one of our members at the county council recently, who is originally from Russia. She was talking about the real war that there is in Ukraine. We now have an even more horrific war going on in Gaza. I think it is inappropriate language for this kind of a conversation.
“I think it is being used in some cases quite deliberately to wind up divisions between communities within our society and I think that in itself is really unhelpful.”
But Cllr Chris Boden, Fenland District Council’s Conservative leader, said he would “continue to use the words ‘war on motorists’” after complaining that the Combined Authority’s Local Transport and Connectivity Plan (LTCP) had left the door open to future congestion charging in the county.
“It’s a phrase that resonates very clearly with a lot of people because many people regard some of the policies being put forward as highly inappropriate for their particular localities. I will not be muzzled on that,” he told Cllr Nethsingha.
“Attempts which are made to try and reduce the political discourse or to change the messages which people are trying to put across I think are highly undemocratic and unhelpful.”
The debate came as the board approved the Local Transport and Connectivity Plan (LTCP) at the third time of asking.
Cllr Boden, however, said he was still not able to support the strategic vision for transport in the county, despite the changes that had been made to it.
The vision prioritises the use of active travel and bus routes to help get people out of their cars.
It does not reference ‘congestion charging’ or ‘road charging’ directly, but it does allude to the prospect, while discussing how to “shift private car use” to more sustainable transport, stating: “It is recognised that fiscal measures could be used to help manage demand and/or generate revenue that can be used to support other sustainable transport measures.
“Where there is local support, we will assist our local authorities in the exploration and appropriate implementation of these as a mechanism to create space and raise revenue which in turn will improve the reliability, speed, and frequency of public transport, as well as funding cheaper tickets. All of these issues have consistently been highlighted as barriers to using bus services.”
Cllr Boden told the board: “As long as we have a report in here that does have that one-size-fits-all in terms of car disappearance, and the road-charging narrative in there, I cannot help feel that we have a continuing war on motorists which I do not believe is appropriate, especially in more rural areas.”
Cllr Nethsingha was not the only councillor unhappy with the phrase, however.
Cllr Bridget Smith, the Liberal Democrat leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, argued: “We’ve got to stop talking about war on motorists. We’ve got to start talking about war on climate change.”
Road charging could be “a weapon in our arsenal” in that war, she suggested.
“The future is not all about the car,” she added, while accepting that rural areas did face “lamentable” public transport.
And, as reported, Cllr Smith also told the board that “road charging in some form is coming” because there was “no other substantial revenue stream” to pay for public transport improvements.
