I looked back at the thread as well and I was sceptical about what Lee Craigie could achieve. I would have liked to have been proved wrong. She is, I think, a decent person who had honest intentions and plenty of energy. But there you go –a river of vision and energy usually ends up in a swamp of bureaucracy and a delta of consultations.
I don't buy her solution.
An additional and essential element of this cooperative and collaborative approach to increasing levels of Active Travel at national and local level lies in the values we allow our policy and strategy decisions to be guided by. A series of small-scale People's Panels made up of a diverse cross-section of each local authority area could prove invaluable in helping Local Authorities make locally informed decisions on the most effective measures to incentivise walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport and disincentivising the driving of private cars.
Small scale People’s Panels would be dominated by the time-rich -i.e. the driving pensioners who bedevil Community Councils. You need more courageous politicians to make things happen, not more public engagement.
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