12th February 2007

Dear Editor,

On Saturday February 10th the Star reported that the Green Party wants a "car-free city centre" and says that the city "must learn to live without the car". The article accurately reported our comment that the city must improve and regulate the bus service to ease congestion and avoid losing out again on Government funding. But we have never said that we want cars banned in the city centre or anywhere else.

We appreciate that there are some drivers, such as the elderly and disabled, who will always find it difficult to use public transport and depend on their cars. Most of the rest of us need to use or own cars occasionally or get a lift in someone else's.

We think car pools and car-sharing are great ways to use cars responsibly and hope that the Council will support and encourage them. What we don't want is people to feel forced to use their cars every day for routine journeys like going to work because the buses are too unreliable, expensive or inconvenient

Until the Council commits to making public transport so cheap and
efficient that people prefer it to driving there will be too many cars
clogging up our roads - and our lungs - and we'll all be going nowhere.

yours

Cllr Bernard Little
Sheffield Green Party