City Council Transport Plan equals Pollution - Meet the Flintstones

The latest announcement by Stoke-on-Trent City Council in that they are 'slashing' bus fares across the region comes at exactly the same time as the main operator in the area - First Group, cut services to many outlying areas, leaving people unable to get to work or to take children to school. Talk about giving with one hand and taking away with the other. In effect, why is North Staffordshire reliant on First Bus to serve the area when this company have consistently demonstrated that they are a backward, antiquated polluting disgrace.

It wasn't so long ago that the best environmental offering from Stoke-on-Trent City council appeared to be 'Bus Gate' which will supposedly improve air quality in one part of a busy, inner city thoroughfare. Apparently, a small section of College Road is now operational for buses only (you know the ones, those First Bus polluting death traps), which means that drivers who dare trespass on the cordoned off section will be fined.

Meanwhile, the councils 'buddies' First Group (and Staffordshire University - who this little Bus Gate gesture is meant for) have stated in writing that we must wait thirteen years for our buses to become electrified - talk about a contradiction in terms.?Shouldn’t someone politely whisper in officialdoms ear that many of us will have departed this earth by then (some of us slowly gassed to death).?In the meantime, cancer/asthma causing fumes, spewed from their antiquated Flintstone-like contraptions goes on. When I challenged Janette Bell, CEO of First over a year ago, she said:

“We are also very much looking at the opportunities presented by zero emission technology.?First is committed to operate a 100% zero-emission bus fleet by 2035 and not to purchase any new diesel buses after December 2022.”

Oddly enough. I was writing in the Letters page of a local newspaper some twenty years ago with regard to this contaminating corporation. One headline went something like: ‘Get your Gas Masks; its First Buses.’?Twenty plus thirteen equals thirty-three, meaning that it will have taken thirty-three years after first raising this serious matter for this company to possibly do something.?Talk about a climate emergency?

One would imagine that First/City Council would want their brands associated with a modern, clean, non-polluting ethos.?Instead, they have associations with backwardness, toxicity, disease, death, fat pay packets and silly slogans.?Recently, strewn across the sides of Firsts dilapidated busmobiles was the strap line:

‘I’m only half-dressed at the moment, My look and new name will be revealed soon.’?

Have you ever read anything so idiotic in your life; the general public arent interested in their daft name, they want a non-polluting public transport system now.

When initially complaining to CEO Matthew Gregory (2020) about bus pollution, I vocalised regarding the way drivers let the engines run when the bus is static at bus stops (engine idling).?This is unnecessary pollution: if a vehicle is static, why not turn the engine off??There was also concern for local businesses in town centres whose shops were covered in a fine noxious dust, directly caused by engine idling.

I was subsequently put in touch with Nigel Eggleton, Managing Director of First Midland who oversees the Potteries area.

The upshot saw me personally policing the bus fleets in North Staffordshire. There was no help or support from any of the councils either – they may portray green credentials, but when push comes to shove, they were and still are environmentally toothless. ?Then again, perhaps Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s new ‘in fifteen years’ transport plan will coincide with First electrifying their decaying fleet.?If this is not the case, will the councils new pie in the sky transport proposal include Firsts current decrepit bus squad running parallel alongside it??Suspect isn’t it, when faced with annihilation via the ballot box our Tory controlled councils suddenly pull their sticky little fingers out. If things go to plan, it will have taken the council/s some thirty-five years for them to actually do something about our backward transport system (current date: April 4th, 2023). If it goes to plan of course.

Turning back to my new unpaid job – it included noting the buses who were engine idling (most of them) and passing the details on to Mr Eggleton who would then summon the offenders into the office.?This was a time consuming, exhausting and a stressful process for me personally – especially when faced with the ignorance of most of the drivers. I also wrote to Matt Evans of D&G, for what use he was. ?D&G mitigated that it was okay for engines to idle for five minutes (on one occasion, I timed a D&G bus engine idling for a full fifteen minutes). In the end, I recommended that it would be best policy for D&G to move their bone rattling fleet to the scrap yard with immediate effect.?To any transport expert or non-expert, their vehicles do not appear road worthy, never mind ecologically friendly.

When I finally detailed to Mr Eggleton that it had all been a wasteful exercise and nothing was changing, he quickly reverted to type - our Nidger just loves a good fairy tale you know. He fabled:

“My own observations, and those of Dan Flanagan, continue to indicate that the vast majority of our drivers are switching their engines off even when sitting for relatively short times when previously they wouldn’t have. Even in the PM “peak” Newcastle Bus Station can be virtually silent in terms of engine noise, as can Hanley.”

After a month or two in my new unpaid policing the buses’ role, I called it a day, having concluded that the bus fleets operating in north Staffordshire were so ramshackle, drivers were afraid to turn the engines off when the bus was static at bus stops.

This was because the drivers would struggle to start the antediluvian scrap heaps up again.