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Dea Campbell
- Car-free Development
The huge proposed development of the Phoenix site
has generated a lot of controversy, not least from people
who are worried about the effects of hundreds more cars on
our quality of life. Personally, I had a horrible vision of
a future Lewes; gridlocked, noisy, dangerous and rat-run infested,
which spurred me into doing some research on the option of
car-free development. This, it turns out, has proved very
successful in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Edinburgh.
Instead of owning private cars, residents have access to a
car club, where they pay an annual membership fee and have
access to low rental, low emission vehicles, parked in a car
park on the periphery. The benefits are enormous for the development
itself, and its surroundings. People seem to really enjoy
living in these quiet, traffic-free areas, where everyone
in the community can stop and chat in the streets and children
can play outside.
I think innovative solutions like this will have to be explored
if the South East is not to become unbearably congested as
a result of the government’s massive house-building
programme. This is quite apart from the urgent global need
to encourage alternative, low-carbon ways of living. What
do you think? Please browse the net to find out more about
car-free housing, or have a look at my report in the Reports
section of the Lewes
Matters website, then pop into the LM Discussion Forum
under Infrastructure and have your say.
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