Having written about the Conservatives and their conspiracy theory ideas about fifteen minute cities, I thought that I ought to find out more. And, much to my surprise, I am a guinea pig in just such an experiment. The map shown comes from Ipswich Central, the Business Improvement District for the town, and shows the area defined by the "Connected Town" project, launched with some fanfare in 2021 and supported by £25 million of public money supplied by... the Conservative Government. Indeed, the funding was announced by some chap called Rishi Sunak. I wonder whatever happened to him?
Yes, it was funded by the very same people who are now suggesting that 15 minute cities are designed to take our cars away from us and limit our freedoms.
Part of the project is to encourage the building of housing in the centre of the town to replace the retail and offices that lie empty or soon will be. We all know that, as online shopping has become an established way of buying goods, that retail outlets are failing due to the costs of shopfronts and sales staff that their online competitors don't have. And therefore, finding ways to revitalise our town centres and bringing more people into them is probably the most obvious way forward.
America offers a preview of what happens if your town and city centres decay -residents stay away as crime levels climb and the only people still around are the poor, who can't afford to move out to the leafy suburbs, and those who have no choice but to frequent the area.
Luckily, Ipswich has a town centre university, and a surprising amount of "stuff", all things considered. And, as I now live somewhere pretty central, I am no more than fifteen minutes from pretty much all of the good things indicated on the map (with the exception of Ipswich School, which is uphill). I can hear when Ipswich Town score, even with the windows closed, I'm three minutes from the waterfront (if the traffic lights on the gyratory are friendly).
That includes the bus station serving the wider county, Sainsbury's, my office, Christchurch Park, two cinemas, two theatres and Dance East, my new doctor's surgery and our mainline railway station, with its three trains an hour to London.
This strikes me as a good thing, allowing me to cut my personal carbon emissions significantly, enabling me to walk to most things I need, whilst buying me additional time to do other things and saving me significant sums. And all without denying me any of the freedoms that Conservatives seem so keen to take away from me whilst claiming to be doing the exact opposite.
Sadly, I'm expecting our local MP to jump on the conspiracy theory bandwagon, condemning the plans he so lauded two years ago, but given that the only weapon apparently left at his, and the Conservatives, disposal is scare tactics and culture wars, it will come as no great surprise.
I've never been a supporter of the Conservative Party, and I do not see the day when that will change. But the country needs a credible right-of-centre political grouping, socially and economically conservative, a balancing force in a healthy political ecosystem. Sadly, it currently resembles an extremist cult which hates the country it wants to rule. And when even the likes of Mark Harper pander to the conspiracy theorists and the zealots of the right, the hope that we might have a more rational politics in our country is a faint one.
The "15 minutes city" debate is an important one for our towns and cities, and for the rural communities that they service. It could be a major contribution towards achieving Net Zero, improving public health and wellbeing, and growing the economy (or perhaps, helping us to adapt to a low economic growth future). Is it the answer? Possibly, we'll have to see. But mainstreaming the anti-New World Order, anti-World Economic Forum conspiracy theorists threatens our civil democracy and drives the reasonable and the genuinely curious away from the public arena, and Conservative supporters should be ashamed that their leaders are not only enabling this, but positively encouraging it.
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