Net-Zero Transport for West Dunbartonshire
West Dunbartonshire Council is developing an approach to transport consistent with national and international goals to decarbonise transport. The Council has a key role in enabling and supporting local residents, businesses and organisations to secure better value, fairer, greener approaches.
The Council’s new strategy and plan was developed through open consultation with everyone who lives and works in the area. It recognises that the Council’s responsibility is to ensure that zero-emission travel choices are the most attractive and affordable options for most people most of the time. West Dunbartonshire Council faces substantial new challenges to deliver on the new national transport decarbonisation programmes, but they also offer new opportunities to refresh the Council’s longstanding sustainable transport goals for a stronger economy, a more inclusive society and a cleaner environment.
Many activities require cross sector action and leadership. There are new programmes where the Council is well placed to expand its service delivery to ensure best value, and other programmes where the Council can be more effective by enabling other organisations to reduce transport emissions, and deliver the best value for citizens.
Implementing the new approach seeks to ensure that:
- All fossil fuelled vehicles will be phased out and replaced with zero emission vehicles, and increasingly the Council will seek net-zero in all of its transport procurement, including for roads, parking, staff travel, buses, trains and the movement of goods.
- There will be less travel, with people relying more often on shorter trips and investment emphasising place making, strengthening the connections between local people and their opportunities for local access.
- Everyone has safe walking routes available between their homes and local services including schools, shops and health centres. These routes should be suitable for use by an unaccompanied 10 year old, with step free surfaces suitable for a wheelchair user and suitable lighting to ensure safe paths for all even during hours of darkness. The cycle network will also be developed, with local gap free connections to local services and facilities, and a core network of routes also suitable for e-bikes and scooters.
West Dunbartonshire has a relatively high share of transport emissions compared to its overall economic activity, so this currently drains economic activity from the local economy. Regenerating transport through the new approach requires that all transport that the Council buys, regulates and facilitates to be consistent with a fair and decarbonised approach. Net-zero emissions means that every tonne of carbon used in the manufacture and use of cars, lorries, buses, trains and bikes must be part of a balanced system which invests as much resource as it takes out. The broad range of new activities in the plan seeks to ensure that the new jobs and investment associated with these changes become as much a local as national economic opportunity in the years ahead.