TRANSPORT AND ENERGY POLICY

In the century to come these two subject will become merged into one policy because without energy you'll have no transport.

What should we be doing?

Firstly look around us and see what's going on in the long term:

• Global Warming
• Sea Level Rising
• Running out of Oil and Natural Gas

Well then this is simple, we have some of the highest tides in the world so build barrages across the entrances of all our major rivers to generate tidal power creating huge fresh water reservoirs in the process. In one stoke we protect our major cities from inundation, solve the fresh water problem for a while and make a large contribution to alternative energy.

This will also make all our major rivers into large safe harbours. We'll need large safe harbours for the thousands of sailing ships that will be needed to replace the massive oil powered ships that we have today. A large sailing ship can carry about 500 tonnes of cargo, so we'll need quite a few to deal with the 300 million tonnes of natural resources we import each year but I imagine that figure will drop dramatically once the fuel runs out.

Other large reservoirs could be constucted above sea level to which water could be pumped from behind the marine barrages at times when we have lots of wind power. This water could then be released back to flow by gravity the other way generating power like the generating station at Dinorwig in Wales but on a vastly larger scale.

At the moment most of the UK's imports come in to ports like Felixstowe on the east coast and then are moved by HGV across country to the western cities like Liverpool and Manchester. This will have to stop as it will become a lot cheaper to move heavy things by sea, even if it is by sailing ship. There is however a problem, we've filled in all the old docks and places like Liverpool - whoops! - we've filled in the docks in London too! If you have bought an apartment at Canary Wharf don't plan on leaving it to your children because Canary Wharf will be docks again before your life is over. The only way of sustaining our cities will be via river transport, that's why all cities were built on rivers in the first place.

But what about the rest of the country?

We used to have a fabulous system of canals and railways. At least we have kept many of the canals but they are far too narrow to handle the kind of traffic that we will require of them. We should start an immediate programme of widening the main canals whilst we still have fuel to do it. If we don't then prepare to use a wheelbarrow and spade because that is how we will eventually be forced to do it.

If we do manage to solve the problems of generating sustainable electricity then railways and tramways will be an option however railways also require vast quantities of steel and only time will tell whether that is a sustainable option in itself.

Personal Transport

Without oil, personal transport is likely to become a thing of history viable electric cars or ones powered by alternative fuels are still a long way off and you still need to be able to generate affordable electricity or other fuel. Already we have learned to our cost that growing crops like oil seed rape for alternative fuel causes reductions in the World's food supply, it is hardly an alternative - drive and starve or walk and eat! - and this is under circumstances when we have fuel to power the tractors and combine harvesters to get the crops in and out of the ground.

Action is needed now!

The government should appoint a permanent cross party executive committee to manage our long term Transport and Energy Policy and they should come up with some ground breaking ideas that are swiftly put into action to see us into the next century. If we don't do something like this and NOW, we are not going to make it.