Derby City Council’s leader lies on BBC Radio Derby about A38 environmental impacts

On the 20 April 2021 at 1hr 27 mins on BBC Radio Derby the Conservative Councillor Chris Poulter (Also leader of Derby City Council) makes an outright false statement (a lie). The A38 scheme will NOT decrease carbon emissions and Highways England's "ecology" report does not say that.

Transcript of what Conservative Councillor Chris Poulter said:

“There is an ecology study that has been done as a part of that. We are waiting on the transport minister declaring what his plans are for the scheme, but what we do know is that for many many years (decades in fact) it has been recognised that these three junctions need to be tackled and to be made better and actually the study clearly shows that the ecological and carbon neutral are to [sic] reduce the carbon effect, these three sites will do that in spades”

Many falsely believe CO2 emissions will reduce if traffic flow improves. The construction alone is 131,000 tons of CO2. Then the induced traffic from the extra road capacity will increase CO2 emissions further.

The numbers in Highways England's own planning documents clearly state this on page 24.

In fact the legal challenge to stop the A38 was successful on climate and carbon emission grounds.

Derby News covers the success of the A38 legal challenge.

"The Secretary of State had to concede as he had failed to address the fundamental recommendation of the Planning Inspectorates 567 page report on which his decision was based – on the cumulative effects on Climate Change!
The analysis of the A38 scheme included a considerable amount of evidence on the carbon emissions from the project. In summary these are
- 131,000 tonnes of carbon would be produced from the construction phase, alone, and
- an annual increase of 856 tonnes in 2024, up to 2,723 tonnes in 2039."

How can we trust Councillors to make development and planning decisions for Derby when they don't read planning documents properly?

This isn’t the first time a Councillor failed to read planning documents and told this same lie.

Councillor Mick Barker stated the outright false claim that the A38 expansion would be better for the climate in the long run. When his mistake was corrected and evidence presented, he acted disrespectfully and inappropriately to the Derby resident sending the correct information. A complaint was made about his conduct for being dishonest and disrespectful with a request that Mr Barker apologises and undergoes climate science training. The Conservative Party’s Councillor Barker has a track record of dishonest and disrespectful behaviour but the Council decided the complaint had no grounds without providing a reasoned conclusion for their decision. The Council chose to defend the unprofessional conduct of Mr Barker.

At best these Councillors are ignorant about environmental planning, at worse they are apathetic about the human suffering caused by the climate emergency.

Trees and ecology

Conservative Councillor Chris Poulter also claims the smaller, younger trees don’t have any value (yet still thinks it's fine for the majestic centuries old trees near Markeaton to be felled?!). Those young woods are still habitats for wildlife, provide food for wildlife and sequester carbon. The Kingsway area had wildlife sites identified in the planning reports that will be permanently lost if the A38 expansion happens. The trees and shrubs also providing a screen against the current road’s noise and pollution.

Also we believe the number of trees is closer to 100,000 after Simon Beavis, an ex-council gardener who originally planted the A38 mitigation trees from 1980's counted them.

None of the environmental assessments in Highways England's planning application give an actual number for the trees that will be lost and some Derby City councillors tried claim that not even 100 trees would be lost from the A38 expansion when residents objected to the scheme (these councillors had likely not looked at the planning document maps, visited the tree felling areas and certainly not set out to count the trees).

So Simon Beavis set out to discover what that number is. Simon visited areas in the "red areas" in the Highways England maps that show where trees will be felled. Then marked out 20 sq metre grids, counted the numbers of trees in the grid and scaled it up to the area. Turns out around 100,000 will be lost.

What can you do?

This is outrageous that those in positions of power can spread false claims about carbon emissions and climate like this. Imagine if they were spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic? These kinds of lies have real world harm. We must hold them to account and ensure they do not abuse their positions of power.

Write to BBC Radio Derby and ask them to correct Councillor Poulter’s false claims about the A38 expansion.

radio.derby@bbc.co.uk

Do NOT vote Conservative in the local elections. As of April 2021, the Council’s cabinet is dominated by Conservatives (including Mr Poulter and Mr Barker mentioned above) who support environmentally destructive schemes without reading planning documents then spread misinformation about the schemes. How can we trust them to make any development and planning decisions for Derby or respond the climate emergency?

Encourage others to NOT vote Conservative. If Derby City Council is going to act on the climate emergency, we must get the Conservative cabinet out of power. Since Derby declared a climate emergency in 2019, the leadership’s words and actions (or lack of) have clearly demonstrated they do not care about the climate and ecological emergency.

Ask your other local election candidates what their stance on the A38 expansion is and their plans for the climate emergency in Derby. If they don't promise to set a carbon reduction pathway with targets that align with the Paris Agreement, then they aren't doing enough. To check this, look at the recommended carbon pathways for local authorities. Also see what other local authorities are doing in response to the climate emergency.

Write to the Councillors and request they publicly correct their mistakes and provide the correct information on the carbon emissions of the A38 expansion.

mick.barker@derby.gov.uk
christopher.poulter@derby.gov.uk

If they refuse to, are rude and ignore your request. Then file a complaint about their conduct for dishonesty and disrespect.

Write to Derby City Council’s chief executive and request all Councillors and staff undergo climate science training.

Chief Executive Paul Simpson Paul.Simpson@derby.gov.uk

Derby City Council’s leadership has failed to set any carbon reduction targets that align with the Paris Agreement.

This report presents climate change targets for Derby that are derived from the commitments enshrined in the Paris Agreement , informed by the latest science on climate change and defined in terms of science based carbon setting . The report provides Derby with budgets for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and from the energy system for 2020 to 2100.

For Derby to make its ‘fair’ contribution towards the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the following recommendations should be adopted:

Stay within a maximum cumulative carbon dioxide emissions budget of 7.1 million tonnes (MtCO2) for the period of 2020 to 2100. At 2017 CO2 emission levels, Derby would use this entire budget within 7 years from 2020.
Initiate an immediate programme of CO2 mitigation to deliver cuts in emissions averaging a minimum of -13.1% per year to deliver a Paris aligned carbon budget. These annual reductions in emissions require national and local action, and could be part of a wider collaboration with other local authorities.
Reach zero or near zero carbon no later than 2042. This report provides an indicative CO2 reduction pathway that stays within the recommended maximum carbon budget of 7.1 MtCO2. At 2042 5% of the budget remains. This represents very low levels of residual CO2 emissions by this time, or the Authority may opt to forgo these residual emissions and cut emissions to zero at this point. Earlier years for reaching zero CO2 emissions are also within the recommended budget, provided that interim budgets with lower cumulative CO2 emissions are also adopted.

Many local authorities have pledged to net-zero 2030 and have developed climate action plans.

Derby is lagging behind other local authorities because of the current leadership’s attitude to the climate emergency.