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news
Pellestrina cyclists (copyright Simon MacMichael)Tory MP attacks 15-minute city concept with known conspiracy theory
A Conservative MP has criticised the concept of ‘15-minute cities’, citing known conspiracy theories about the schemes which aim to create neighbourhoods where residents can walk or cycle to the nearest shop, cafe, school, or any essential necessity in a short period of time.
Nick Fletcher, the first Tory MP to represent Don Valley in Doncaster, said that the concept stems from socialist ideology and is an infringement on individual freedom.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Thursday, he demanded a debate on the “international socialist concept of so-called 15-minute cities”, and said that the schemes could “take away our personal freedom”.
“Sheffield is already on this journey and I do not want Doncaster, which is also a Labour-run socialist council, to do the same,” he added. Fletcher’s demand for the debate is yet to be realised and he was greeted with laughs and jeers in the House of Commons.
Ultra-low emission zones, or ULEZ, were also a topic of the MP’s ire, as he later wrote on Twitter, accusing them of causing immeasurable damage to the local economy. He also claimed that the 15-minute city will “destroy our towns and cities and keep us prisoners in our communities”.
I believe in Net Zero and in having a strong local economy and encourage us all to do our bit. But destroying our towns and cities and keeping us prisoners in our communities is not the way.
🧵7/7 #Doncasterisgreat #stronglocaleconomy pic.twitter.com/qN6IezWNMq
— Nick Fletcher MP (@NickFletcherMP) February 9, 2023
Proposed by Professor Carlos Moreno, an urbanist who won the Orbel Award in 2021 for the contribution, 15-minute city plans are currently set to begin trial in Oxford in 2024 and are being considered by many councils in the UK, in places such as Birmingham, Bristol, Canterbury, and Sheffield.
These policies sometimes use traffic filters, such as planters or bollards to reduce through-traffic and improve conditions for walking and cycling, creating what’s called a ‘Low Traffic Neighbourhood’, or an LTN.
However, these measures have caused right-wingers and conspiracy theorists to flock in opposition, drumming up misinformation and peddling fear-mongering rhetoric.
One such conspiracy group, led by alleged serial scammer David Fleming, organised a demonstration against Oxford’s plans in January, claiming that the council was using green schemes as a front to extend Covid-19 lockdowns and instate a totalitarian, surveillance state.
An investigation by Open Democracy today revealed that Fleming allegedly previously headed a company which was dissolved after taking donations for an “audit” of Covid deaths that has not been published, accusations he denies.
Out of growing misinformation, Oxfordshire County Council even put out a statement and a video, in which Cllr Liz Leffman said they were receiving panicked calls from residents fearing that they would be locked in their homes.
And it's not the first time that Oxford’s traffic-reducing measures have come under attack from its detractors. In what was referred to as an ongoing ‘civil war’ between the council and residents, vandals cut down bollards using power tools, overturned planters and melted bollards into the road last July.
> Vandals target LTN bollards and planters less than 24 hours after trial is introduced
The conspiracy group led by Fleming, whose company raised funds for an audit on the actual number of deaths due to Covid and was then dissolved, allegedly disappearing with the money, is called Not Our Future (NOF).
NOF has garnered backing from high-profile right-wing figures like writer James Delinpole, actor Laurence Fox, GB News presenter Neil Oliver, and members of music group Right Said Fred, the Fairbrass brothers. Commentator Katie Hopkins also released a video last year echoing similar thoughts, suggesting that the 15-minute city is part of a vast governmental trend of “coercive control”.
The rhetoric is being peddled on social media sites such as Twitter and TikTok, and also taken up by politicians like Nigel Farage, who called the Canterbury plan a “climate lockdown”.
Even the House of Commons Leader, Conservative Penny Mordaunt backed Fletcher, suggesting that the concerns about these kinds of policies were legitimate.
Quoting Fletcher’s original thread, fact-checker for Reuters Nick Hardinges broke down some of the comments made by the MP, for example, mentioning that in the case of Oxford, there wouldn’t be any physical barriers in the six proposed trial zones.
A sitting MP has raised his concern over 15-minute cities while speaking in the House of Commons.
I don't know how much of a grasp @NickFletcherMP has on the concept (& the misinformation surrounding it), but I do have some fact-checks that help shed some light on it... 🧵
— Nick Hardinges (@NickHardinges) February 10, 2023
An Oxford City Council spokesperson commented that “no filters will ‘trap’ residents... they're points on a road, not a ‘zone’. People living on roads near them can enter & leave via other roads ANY time without a permit”.
Adwitiya joined road.cc in 2023 as a news writer after completing his masters in journalism from Cardiff University. His dissertation focused on active travel, which soon threw him into the deep end of covering everything related to the two-wheeled tool, and now cycling is as big a part of his life as guitars and football. He has previously covered local and national politics for Voice Cymru, and also likes to write about science, tech and the environment, if he can find the time. Living right next to the Taff trail in the Welsh capital, you can find him trying to tackle the brutal climbs in the valleys.
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Pretty much everywhere was a '15-minute city' before the proliferation of the private car from the 1950s onwards?
Yep, pretty much. When I was a kid in the sixties we had everything we needed close at hand - a shopping parade with newsagent, bakers, butcher, post office, chip shop etc. Further away but still within walking distance we had a supermarket, cinema and even a bowling alley. We also had a reliable , efficient bus service.
except this was by choice, not rule enforced..
You're against any rules that organize, regulate, mitigate, prevent?
So, in a country like Turkey, you'd say no seismic building standards should be enforced?
Where the fuck did they find these Red Wall Tory MPs? They're all paranoid loons.
One suspects that possibly they never thought they would do so well in the north and so didn't take as much care in selection as they did in the seats they thought they'd win. It would certainly explain why in several instances they appear to have elected the village idiot.
What these ridiculous MPs etc don't realise is that ALL traffic is managed. That's what junctions do, for just 1 example. Junctions 'imprison' you and tell what to do and when, how to turn and which direction.
The problem with the ludicrous, brexitty, racist right wing is they have no credible proposals for anything, so failed is their legacy, that they have to find more and more absurd things to create a ' culture war' around. If you go into a community and ask the residents 'we are considering making your area a place safer for children to play and ride their scooters and bikes, there will be less pollution and no through traffic, only local traffic, it will be considerably quieter because there will be less traffic but you will be able to drive in and out of the road you live on if you wish - it will just be restricted to through traffic' Residents would say, yes that sounds interesting, let's discuss. But the Brexitty loons have to use the exact opposite language to try to keep themselves relevant.
Another unidentified object has been shot down over North American airspace. I think we are being invaded by aliens. It's the only logical answer.
Well, the Trisolarians were due any moment
Well I for one welcome our brown belt/black shoe wearing overlords.
The twenty first century - that's when everything changes, and we've got to be ready...
Oh don't get me started on international socialist conspiracies. After a long bike ride I usually have a nice soothing bath where I can listen to jazz on my kindle (the only chance I get) Got a playlist set up for Miles Davis so it plays stuff by him and his contemporaries. So there I was the other day enjoying a long soak listening to Art Blakey, Dave Brubeck, people like that. Stuck my head underwater for a minute to rinse my hair and could hear a strange noise emanating from my device - turns out I was listening to "Release me" by Engleburt Humpledinck. This was followed by "Spanish Eyes" by Al Martino. What? That's got to be the work of this international socialist conspiracy, surely? Well it makes as much sense as what he said. And they all wear brown belts you know. With black shoes. I suppose it could just have been a blip in the space time continuum, I just don't know. Anyway, it's been ok since - Tonight was mainly Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Kenny Burrell and Chet Baker. Most enjoyable - no Release Me or Spanish Eyes.
Mingus fan, myself
Me too, although I only have one album - Mingus Ah Um. I need to buy more.
Well, if he's backed by Laurence Fox, Katie Hopkins and Right Said Fred then he's clearly telling the truth and not even a little bit insane 😬
I always had a lot of time for Neil Oliver, what happened to him?
He was stood behind me once when we were queueing for pizza in St Ives. Since then I regarded him as a close personal friend until recently. I also saw actress and wife of John Thaw Sheila Hancock a few days later.
Coincidentally, the same people who said that Brexit would be brilliant, so a proven track record of successful prediction.
You're so impatient! Obviously Brexit was immediately successful in some respects (we took back control of our borders! Well, most of them. Mostly. We can change the colour of our passports though! )
However for these big changes it takes more time to see the real impact. Two or three generations should do it...
It's getting so that Rishi has a diminishing pool of sensible, moderate, competent people to choose for his cabinet, and this latest iteration of a plainly bonkers, conspiracy theorist tory is an excellent example of how crazy the tories have got. Far from the labour party taking away your rights, it's the tories; human rights and the right to strike to name but two; but look over there! Fifteen minute neighbourhoods! So transparent.
Yesterday on Any Questions, some tory MP went off on a rant about Corbyn being a radical marxist, loony left, the most extreme of the extreme left wing; none of it was true, but nobody corrected him.
It's a soap opera that jumped the shark a decade ago. Then purged half its cast when they objected to a particularly ludicrous plot line.
It's astonishing how many people think that "15 minute cities" mean that they'll be somehow forced to stay within 15 minutes of home.
The reality is that the point is simply to make it possible to carry out more of our lives within a 15 minute journey - if we want to.
The irony is that, at the moment, the thing that we are being forced to do is travel further from our homes and become more dependent of the motor car - and the naysayers can't see that
It's all about taking away peoples' freedom.
Presumably by force fields around the boundary.
That wouldn't work as it's be 15 minutes travel from all the different houses. I'd recommend some kind of long rope and then of course people would have to walk certain ways to avoid getting all the ropes entangled. Doesn't sound like freedom to me.
Force fields sound good. We need to take back control of our borders and stop all those crims 15 minutes' walk away coming over here and stealing our bicycles.
Except having a force-field North of the Tweed clearly wouldn't work and is bonkers even though it's costing everyone in England money which is why the main parties are so keen on it.
I'd logged in precisely to make this point. So many opponents to the concept are (definitely not on purpose for a political motive) misunderstanding it and thinking it means you MUST stay within fifteen minutes of home, rather than it meaning that you could do many things within fifteen minutes of home rather than having to get in the car and drive for an hour to go to the shops (for example).
Then I would suggest that the way it's being explained to the population is wrong.
If the people aren't grasping the concept, it's not the peoples fault... they can only go on the information that's been presented; if it's been presented in a overly complex or overly simplistic way, people aren't going to get it.
It's not so much that the explanation is inadequate, more that at the moment it's being drowned out by a concerted effort by conspiracy theorists on social media to tell everyone that you will actually be constrained to your neighbourhood and will have to apply for a pass to be allowed to drive out of it. If people are believing that sort of rubbish, I think it probably is their fault.
I heard that they'll scan you - that's why they got everyone chipped - and you can only travel if you've paid your subscription and ...
... sorry, I realised I was reading from Tesla's promotional material there!
Reminds me of this old chestnut:
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