Fuel Protests

[TwoIfBySea]

For those of us who don't have a choice, for those of us who don't live anywhere near a place with public transport that is reliable and frequent. For those of us who don't have a lorry to drive into London to join the protests against the ridiculous cost that will hit the lowest waged and not the section of society it is aimed at and who have enough to see the current fuel price as inconvenient.

There are petitions of which that is one, so while I doubt government will give a hoot it is at least something. There were 59k signatures when I signed earlier and, like the fuel prices it has shot up!

Sorry, I fueled my car today, and am still feeling like I got mugged. Diesel has gone up far more than unleaded yet is more "efficient" so lets have none of that environment talk.

no amount of public transport will help some

what bus company will run dh home from work in an out of town centre at 5am alone as they all work staggered shift? i suggested a bile but as he has to use the motorway (severn bridge) he decided against it, after some thought.

mind you as dh works in haulage he is probably evil anyway.....

thers no supermarket here in this place, not even somewhere i can get an apple i can walk to

yet we moved here to cut overall fuel use (so i can walk to uni and the kids to school, work distance for dh equal to old home).

we do everything we can- even changed the specific riverford box so we could get one with less mileage- but theres a limit to what we can do.

But I do believe in global warming, and even if I didnta s a Mother Is till have an inyterest in keeping this planet as nice, healthy and well resourced as i can

Peachy, I think part of the point is that we will probably all have to make big lifestyle changes at some point. for some people these will be bigger than others.

if motoring wasn't so cheap now (and it is still quite cheap, as a proportion of average income), then your dh wouldn't have taken that job. I'm not saying he should change it, but I don't really think the government should subsidise it (by cutting petrol tax) either, especially not since there is no real fair way of subsiding the genuinely needy without also subsidising waste.

Maybe we should all buy a horse and cart.

And as for supporting farmers - I hope buying produce from farm shops and farmers markets goes some way to doing that? Duchesse would be the person to verify that from what I've read.

"Those second homeowners received no services for their tax, and counil tax is supposed to be about local services."

Well, perhaps if those second home owners actually lived in their homes for more than a few weekends a year, or rented them out in the meantime, then they would be using the local services, both council-run and private.

For those of you with short memories, I am re-posting the link to the Highland Council article on fuel costs.

here

Whether or not a second home owner uses the local services is actually irrelevant. They still have to be provided. Two of the five households here don't need their bins emptying most weeks because they're not here - it doesn't cost the Council any less to provide the service, does it? And those second home owners get a discount off their council tax meaning the Council has less money to play with. Have you any idea how expensive it is to provide services across an area as large as Highland, even without the fuel price hikes? The Government's distribution of resources to local councils in no way takes account of the cost of providing services in a rural area.

As for the comment about the price at which people sell their houses, well that's a pretty stupid remark isn't it?

Oh, I forgot the bit about "choosing" to live in areas without public transport. Nobody "chooses" to live in an area without any services (well very few people do, not for their first home anyway). What happens is that commercial companies "choose" to withdraw services from those areas because they don't make any money from them. The Post Office and BT are very good examples of this.

Two- yup definitely- buy directly from the producer as much as possible, preferably stuff grown as close to home a possible (a bit of a tall order for fruit and in the winter (unless you like turnips)) but the advantage is that it's often fresher and riper and flown-in supermarket stuff.

The closure of Post Offices is not a totally rural phenomenon.

no, but it matters more in rural areas.

Seems like everything matters more in rural areas

no, mostly post offices and buses/petrol tax.

would you rather we all invaded the cities then?

It's because everything's more spread out innit? We currently have a post office 2.5 miles away, a walkable/ cycleable distance. If that shut down, the next nearest one is 5.5 miles away, which starts to mean taking out the car if you just want to go and post a parcel (you could walk it but realistically who wants to spend 3 hours posting a parcel?). If you live in town, chances are you'll probably pass a post office, not necessarily the one closest to your home, at some point during your day anyway.

Only if they haven't been shut down, like our one was last year.

'if motoring wasn't so cheap now (and it is still quite cheap, as a proportion of average income), then your dh wouldn't have taken that job.'

not true he hates the commute

he'd been unable to work through illness for 6 months, he'd had 200 interviews and it was the first place that would take him on because of the risk he'd get ill again

he'd love to owrk closer to home, cant find a job in his field nearby though

Right, Twinkle, TwoIf, since ScienceTeacher thinks we should all live in cities, would do you say she open her doors to people who need affordable housing - you know, till we find our feet and that?

After all, it's in the spirit of community and having several families live in one place is more efficient than having each one in a big ol' detached house.

We can all bunk up at hers until we get things sorted!

Only my house is full!

I don't think I said that everyone should live in cities. But what I did say was something like - if fuel tax was the main consideration, then you would pay less by living in an urban area, owtte.

No bother, ST, we're all seasoned campers and outdoors people. We can bring our bed rolls and sleeping bags .

I was going to say you could pitch in my garden. My neighbours had a big party yesterday, and we had lots of tents in our garden overnight.

We are along a railway line though, so you cheucters might be a bit sensitive to the noise pollution

but the most important question: do you have clouds of midgies in the back garden at present?

anything is preferable to that.

peachy - I mean it wouldn't have made economic sense for him to take it.

I suppose eventually though, higher petrol prices will force fewer people to commute into where you live now, so he'll find a local job. I hope so anyway

No we don't Expat. I do have a mozzie bite though, but just the one.

expat, Avon SkinSoSoft, in the green packaging, the spray stuff - it works wonders on the little horrors (midges not kiddies!) Smell isn't so nice but if it means you don't get eaten alive then it is acceptable!

I don't live in a very rural area, it is just where it is it is hard to get from one town to another without a car - the town where dts go to school has brilliant public transport, train link to Edinburgh and Glasgow, buses to all large nearby towns, a decent cycle route and path leading up to some lovely country parks and walks. I've been on the council waiting list for 3 years but the council, as usual, are determined to move in only people who have previously been evicted and who are now causing nuisance there.

Once I go there (and I have to believe at some point we will) then I shall use my car once a week, to go visiting my parents and if we want a day out somewhere not on the transport routes. Until then I have to suck up the fuel prices into my small weekly budget. I hate driving too! Oh and the last time we went to Glasgow we took the train, had to drive to the station right enough and it did cost me and dts (6 1/2) £17.50. For a 30 minute journey.

expat - camping! Speak for yourself! Not when there are hotels around - dts are about to join scouts though so I may have to learn to like it, God help me.

oh, we buy that stuff in bulk off Ebay, Two .

i'm doing a picnic theme for gifts for DD1's nursery teachers and each bag is getting some of that So Fresh Skin So Soft in it.

I would love to use public transport more. But there isn't any. I remember trying to catch a bus 15 miles from a village into town and asked someone what time it would arrive. "ooh no dear, it's Tuesday, there's no bus on Tuesday, you need Thursday for Plymouth, or you can go to Exeter on Wednesday". Great that's useful.

I lived in Japan (in a rural area) where the trains (and buses) are fantastic- because the govt actually invests in public transport. In the entire year the train was later once- 15 minutes late because flooding had washed away a load of track (and I was cross - because I just hadn't had a late train for months). I've taken the train twice in the last month. On the way there it arrived 40 minutes late, on the way back it was an hour later. That's no good.