03/12/2012 Inside Out East Midlands


03/12/2012

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Hello. Tonight in a special edition of Inside Out East Midlands, we

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investigate transport - the future and the past. Coming up in the next

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half hour: Falling out of love with the car. Research reveals who is

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driving and who is not. What has changed attitude-wise is everyone

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gave up. No-one cares about cars any more. Also tonight: eight

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months on, controversy still reigns over Nottingham's tax on workplace

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parking. It is outrageous. If people have a little place outside

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their business, they should be able to park for themselves.

:00:39.:00:49.
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How did you travel today and how will you travel tomorrow? The

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chances are you will drive or be driven. We have had exclusive

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access to a major piece of research published today which suggests that

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for some, our love affair with the car is going cold. Richard Westcott

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has been investigating the figures and asking what it means for the

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people who have to plan our Building roads is controversial but

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not building them could be controversial too. So, how do the

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planners get it right? How do they decide whether to spend our taxes

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on road or rail? The only way you can ever be sure it is to beam

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yourself into the future and we all know how easy that is. When these

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fans were watching their favourite series back in the '60s, we thought

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we knew how we would be travelling by 2012. There was talk of having a

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little personal car that flew. sci-fi got it wrong. Most of us get

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around now the same way we did 50 years ago. Having your own jet pack

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remains a distant dream. Ever since I can remember, we have assumed

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that traffic will get worse and worse. After all, we really love

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our cars, don't we? Maybe not. Whisper it, but there is a rumour

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going around transport circles that we are falling out of love with our

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four wheels. In fact, they have even given it a name, Peak Car.

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What is Peak Car? Just look at UK traffic growth in the '60s and '70s

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when we could not get enough cars, but by the '90s, the trend was

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slowing and by 2002, average mileage per person stalled. Is the

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love affair with the car cooling down? What seems to be happening in

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many advanced countries, including even America, is that traffic

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growth due to car use simply is not going ahead at the same rate that

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it used to. Now Inside Out has been given the first piece of research

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into Peak Car in the UK and this report is full of surprises. While

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some of us are driving more than ever, others are dramatically

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changing the way they travel. Take young men, for example. When I was

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young, I could not wait to get my hands on the keys to my dad's Mark4

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1.6L T reg Ford Cortina with reversing lights. Like a lot of

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young men, I saw getting my driving license as a rite of passage but

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that is changing. Market trader Lee Vernon is 19 but he will not be

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adding to the traffic around Mansfield any time soon. He has

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been forced to sell up because he has been quoted �2,800 to insure

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his three-wheeler. I really love it. It is a great looking car, a

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classic, but insurance is too much and I cannot afford it.

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research shows Lee is not alone. Young men are driving 2,000 miles a

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year less than they were in 1995. Women, young and old, are driving

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more than they used to, so what is going on? What has changed

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attitude-wise is everyone gave up and got used to using Facebook and

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phones, and sitting around, or using public transport that no-one

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cares about cars any more. One of the big things from this report is

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that young men are not driving much and there are a number of possible

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explanations for that, including rising higher education and

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insurance costs but if that carries on, there will be a lot less car

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traffic and a lot less car What else has the report found?

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This is the rainy 716 from Warwick Parkway to Marylebone. Over the

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last two years, the numbers using this line have gone up by a

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staggering 40%. And according to the report, that is in line with

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the national trend. Since the mid- 90s, the distance the average

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person travels by rail has soared by more than 60%. The last time the

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trains were that busy was during the war. The key growth we have

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seen is in two areas. One is business travel in the morning and

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the other is leisure travel, where travel has become cheaper. At the

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same time fuel prices are increasing, congestion is

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increasing so that value equation is tilting in the favour of rail.

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And all those gadgets mean you can work and play on the move. You can

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even book your ticket on the train, if you can get a signal that is.

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While business travel by rail is up, company car mileage is down by 40%

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between 1995 and 2007, so that is before the recession. Scrapping tax

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breaks made the difference and it has had a big impact on traffic in

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London. Despite more people moving to the capital, there are fewer

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cars here, but the report found people in the countryside seem to

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be driving as much if not more than ever. Of course, in big cities you

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do have a lot of options for getting around. Fairfax Hall runs a

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London company making specialist gin and vodka and thinks he has

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distilled the perfect formula for company travel. Whenever they need

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a car or van, they book it from a car club and pick it up from a

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designated car park space 15 minutes later. Like a lot of small

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start-up businesses, you do not have a lot of money, so we invested

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everything we had into the distillery. Investing money into a

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van did not seem like good use of capital. It is low cost and the

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other benefit is flexibility. You can jump into a brand-new vehicle

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:07:45.:07:45.

and drive it at 15 minutes notice. So here is a question - what does

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all this research mean for the future you of the UK car industry?

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We have had a bit of a boom recently. The UK is actually on

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course to produce more cars than at any time since 1972, but that's not

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because we are all buying ourselves a new motor. 80% are being exported.

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These Minis are heading for Asia and South America. Last month in

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London at the RAC's future car challenge, another famous sci-fi

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face was in no doubt what the future holds. What is happening now

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is a huge challenge for the car industry. I do not see that the car

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will come to the end, they are too useful but we need to rethink the

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model of how we use the car and electric cars are very much part of

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that because it makes much more sense in a city. You have somewhere

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to park it where it is always charged, ready to use. It is not

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just the car industry that will look at this research. The

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Department for Transport is planning a major role building

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programme all based on the assumption that traffic will go up

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by 44% over the next two decades. But what if they have got it wrong?

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After all, since 1989, successive governments have overestimated

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traffic growth. This is the range of predictions and the red line is

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what is actually happening. There is always a risk forecasts will be

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wrong but the key thing the model does is takes a wide set of data

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and ensures that it is rigourously analysed. There is a lot of useful

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things in this research to look at, but I am not convinced it shows we

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have reached Peak Car. government points out that the UK

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population is projected to grow by another 10 million in the next 25

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years and the RAC foundation, who helped fund the report, says that

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means we are still going to need more roads. This is not the end of

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the car. The use of the car has been declining but for 70% of the

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population, people will need to use cars unless they have railways and

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buses available, and most do not have those things. Almost half a

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century ago when Star Trek started, this is what we thought travel in

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the 23rd century might look like and it is pure '60s. It goes to

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show just how hard it is to predict the future. The danger is you end

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up assuming it is a bigger version of what we have today. The motor

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car has been the transport story of the last 50 years. But it just

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might not be the transport story of the next 50. What does this button

:10:35.:10:45.
:10:45.:10:46.

If you would like to find out how car use is changing across the

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Just how do towns and cities in the East Midlands tackle traffic

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congestion and how much should we pay for expensive public transport

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projects? Earlier this year, Nottingham launched a highly

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controversial scheme that has managed to upset drivers, commuters

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Back in April, Nottingham City Council made history. They did not

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quite tax the street but got close, slapping a hefty levy on workplace

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parking spaces and became the only council in the country to tackle

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congestion this way. We thought the levy was the best option for

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Nottingham. We decided against congestion charges and decided to

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introduce the level to provide that local contribution to match against

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the �0.5 billion the Government is putting in to our transport network.

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It may well be changing behaviour, encouraging more people from their

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cars onto the buses and trams, but it is a struggle to find support

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for this new tax. It is outrageous. If people have a little place

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outside their business, they should be able to park for themselves.

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is not helping anybody and it is making things more difficult for

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people. All it will do is drive businesses away from Nottingham.

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think it will provide a lot of revenue for the council and

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:12:34.:12:46.

A small crew in a car equipped with cameras polices the levy. It is

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their job to ensure employers with more than 11 spaces pay the �288

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per bay to the council. Some suspect the cameras may be a stunt,

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just a high-profile deterrent. car is equipped with cameras. It

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takes pictures and certainly our experience on bus lane enforcement,

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there is definitely something going on inside. We have seen the car

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that is designed to enforce the levy with the cameras on the top

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drive around on a couple of occasions. We feel very much Big

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Brother and we are not happy about Steve Walker runs Art Systems based

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a few miles out of the city on an industrial estate. He refuses to

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pay the levy and parks his car on the road a few feet from his

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largely deserted company car park. The estate has become overcrowded

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with traffic on the roads because there is a migration of cars from

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the car parks onto the roads around the estate, which has made it quite

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difficult for the trucks to get around, which has made itcongested

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and unsafe. Steve's company grudgingly meets half the levy.

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Some of his staff pay. Others do not. I have chosen to park on the

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road in principle, because I feel that this is an unfair tax on

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ordinary people going about their ordinary business. We need to make

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the transport infrastructure investment and there is no other

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way we can fund the local The levy is set to raise �14

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million a year to fund an extra tram line and improvements to the

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:14:58.:15:00.

railway station. But will it drive business away from the city?

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have some evidence of businesses that have had to make people

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redundant in order to pay the levy and reduce their investments,

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because you can only spend the same money once. And some businesses

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have left the city. Games Warehouse supply pub quiz machines. Boss

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Bernard Taylor found he was in the hot seat facing his own killer quiz.

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Should he pay the levy for his 40- strong workforce, around �7,000,

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and risk redundancies or move to Derby where parking is free? Once

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we had assimilated all the facts and understood what the cost would

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be, it would became an easy question for us to answer and the

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answer we came up with was to relocate to somewhere where we did

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not have the same cost base imposed on us by local authorities. We made

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the right decision and probably got the question right, yes. We have

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been here for six, seven months and we are very settled here and

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pleased with the move. Nottingham has lost what we consider a very

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valuable talent pool. We have 20 or 30 highly educated, very clever,

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intelligent people within our business who are no longer part of

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:16:27.:16:32.

the Nottingham scene. And there are signs that the levy is affecting

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confidence among some businesses. If we need to expand we will need

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to take on extra buildings. If we do that, we will take those out of

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the city limits because we cannot justify working with a council who

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appears to have little or no interest in local business.

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there are fans of the levy. Adam Bird cycles to work and so do lots

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of his staff at a new technology company. They come in via buses,

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trains, trams, bikes, you name it. Some even walk. People change

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behaviour and actually appreciate that getting the bus is not that

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bad. It gives you a better quality of life if you use public transport.

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You get to work fresher, you leave work fresher and you can enjoy the

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city as well, rather than just seeing it as a place to leave every

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day. If we are going to transform Nottingham and improve the mix of

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businesses in the city, it takes the council to make bold steps like

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:17:56.:18:04.

this. The city may well be bold but the big question is will it work?

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The only other city in the world to try this is over 9,000 miles away

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in Perth, Australia. So to end this film, we asked Candice Barnes, a

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reporter in the city, to tell us how it is going Down Under.

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The parking levy was introduced more than 12 years ago. Now this

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tax has since made parking in Perth the eighth most expensive in the

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world, more costly than midtown New York city. This is a high cost time

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and place in which to do business, and the presence of a parking levy

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adds another burden to businesses, which at the moment are struggling.

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We have not seen congestion ease, so it is difficult to see what the

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point of it was. Parking is shocking. It is too expensive to

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park in the city, about $35 a day. I do not get a bay and if I do park

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in the city, I would expect to pay about 25 bucks. The revenue raised

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promised to ease congestion and support a better transport system.

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12 years on, and the latter is still in question while the revenue

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sits in state government coffers. Nottingham, you might want to think

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again about your parking levy, but I guess it is too late for that.

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This is Candice Burns for BBC From cars to bicycles and this year

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marks the 125th anniversary of Raleigh. At its peak the firm

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employed 12,000 people at its Nottingham factory. Alan Sillitoe

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wrote about it and now his son, David, is finding that despite

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moving production to the Far East, the brand will always be associated

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:19:49.:19:55.

with the city where it has shaped Raleigh is the greatest cycle

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There was a time when this bike would have been made here, Lenton

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in Nottingham. At the Raleigh factory, which was on this site,

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they used to produce 1 million bikes a year. Families worked there,

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big families. In our department, you had five or six brothers

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sometimes working from the same family together. You could go into

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a frame shop and see brass boiling where frames were being dipped into

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it to seal the joints. It was wonderful. There was huge talent

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here, some of the skills we have had, it made it very humbling and

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as a graduate coming into the business, you were very quickly

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:20:50.:20:52.

brought down to size. Of course Raleigh's bikes are now made in the

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Far East. Because it is cheaper to make them there than here. But

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Raleigh's reputation as a global brand was made in Nottingham. It

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was the people of this city who turned it into the world-famous

:21:04.:21:11.

name in cycling that it is to day. But how did a tiny business from a

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Nottingham backstreet get known all around the world for making the

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best bicycles money could buy? And what is the future for the firm now

:21:20.:21:30.
:21:30.:21:33.

These buildings are a credit to the city. They have won awards for

:21:33.:21:37.

their design and environmental credentials. They are part of the

:21:38.:21:40.

University of Nottingham, a 21st- century campus built to educate a

:21:40.:21:49.

21st-century workforce. But this site was once home to a very

:21:49.:21:53.

different kind of workforce. At its height, 12,000 people were making

:21:53.:21:59.

bikes here and one of them was Harry Hardy. From school, a lot of

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friends went there. You didn't know what you had let yourself in full,

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but it was very friendly. A friend of mine was in the same class as me

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in school. He was in the buffing department, buffing wheels. Dust

:22:19.:22:27.

was indescribable. And naturally, not many of them retired because of

:22:27.:22:37.
:22:37.:22:39.

the effects of the dust on their chest. When Harry worked here,

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Raleigh were selling bikes to 144 countries around the world, quite

:22:42.:22:45.

an achievement for a firm that started out with only three

:22:45.:22:49.

employees. It was called Woodhead, Angois & Ellis after the three men

:22:49.:22:54.

that were running it. Paul Angois was an engineer, Richard Woodhead a

:22:54.:23:00.

mechanic and William Ellis a financier. The fortunes of these

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men changed when one day in 1887, a lawyer walked into their workshop

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and bought one of their bikes. That lawyer was Frank Bowden. He was so

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impressed with the bike they sold them that he bought the company. A

:23:15.:23:18.

year later he founded the Raleigh cycle company, named after the

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street their workshop was on. John McNaughtan joined Raleigh as a

:23:24.:23:29.

graduate in 1965 and ended up running the place. What was the

:23:29.:23:34.

secret of their success? Raleigh really has been created by the many

:23:34.:23:37.

thousands and thousands that have worked for Raleigh and felt a sense

:23:37.:23:43.

of identification with the product. The spirit that was in Nottingham

:23:43.:23:49.

that went into Raleigh. What did they bring? A total dedication to

:23:49.:23:55.

the product, identification with A huge factory, a huge impact on

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the city, but what amazes me is when you come to Nottingham today,

:23:59.:24:04.

you have to look hard to see any evidence that Raleigh was ever here.

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They have invited Harry and the other former Raleigh workers to

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talk about the factory that was here before the university. When it

:24:12.:24:18.

is done it goes on a conveyor belt? No. From there, from that, it went

:24:18.:24:28.
:24:28.:24:29.

to the bench where you finished bracing there. I think it is part

:24:29.:24:35.

of the city and the history of the city. I have just discovered that

:24:35.:24:42.

the factory was here on campus. That is one student who has learned

:24:42.:24:46.

something from these former workers. But there is more to be done. So

:24:46.:24:49.

the university has commissioned a play to tell the story and

:24:49.:24:56.

tonight's event offers the director an opportunity to research material.

:24:56.:24:59.

One of the guys I was talking to was there on the very last day,

:24:59.:25:03.

when Raleigh closed its doors. He was one of the 200-odd employees

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who received a thank you mug as the doors were finally closed, so that

:25:06.:25:10.

was great to find one of the 200- odd people left in Nottingham that

:25:10.:25:20.
:25:20.:25:20.

Geoff was also made redundant in 2003 when Raleigh closed the plant.

:25:20.:25:23.

It was a massive blow to the city but an inevitable result of years

:25:24.:25:33.
:25:34.:25:35.

of decline. You could see the workforce decline. You'd ask,

:25:35.:25:38.

"Where is so-and-so?" "They finished him on Sunday." "Why?"

:25:38.:25:44.

That was the constant feedback. They are buying it in now.

:25:44.:25:47.

decline started in the early '70s, but Raleigh managed to hold on for

:25:47.:25:52.

another 20 years. One of the reasons was the Raleigh Chopper.

:25:52.:25:55.

Geoff worked in the department that developed it, but the Chopper was

:25:55.:26:02.

not the only product to come out of Raleigh. Anybody that was doing a

:26:02.:26:08.

little work for themselves on the side, was doing a bit of a Jago. I

:26:08.:26:14.

once saw a chap welding some steel together to make a wheelbarrow. I

:26:14.:26:20.

myself made quite a few items, including a grandfather clock.

:26:20.:26:26.

is the first night of the play. you keep your stuff behind the bar?

:26:26.:26:36.
:26:36.:26:42.

Are you excited? I am. A little bit nervous. I can't do anything about

:26:43.:26:51.

it now, it is just sitting there When you went out onto town, you

:26:51.:26:54.

could tell the girls that worked out Raleigh by the smell of their

:26:54.:27:04.
:27:04.:27:05.

Harry, what did you think? I think they have done a marvellous job.

:27:05.:27:15.
:27:15.:27:16.

Marvellous. It depicts the factory as it was. Excellent. What keeps

:27:16.:27:23.

England going is export and Raleigh had its export. Throughout its 125

:27:23.:27:27.

year history, Raleigh has been bought and sold half a dozen times.

:27:27.:27:32.

The latest owner is the Dutch bicycle company Accell. What is the

:27:32.:27:38.

future for Raleigh now? It may be linked to its past. I think they

:27:38.:27:41.

bought it for reasons of its heritage and what they think they

:27:41.:27:45.

can bring it back into being as it is in Holland and Germany, perhaps.

:27:45.:27:54.

A bit of Cool Britannia for Europe? Maybe. The company it bought is

:27:54.:27:58.

nothing like the one my father worked for and wrote about in the

:27:58.:28:06.

1950s. Sadly those days are long gone, but the name Raleigh still

:28:06.:28:09.

evokes quality thanks to the men and women of this city, my father

:28:10.:28:19.

among them, and it is something we Happy anniversary, Raleigh, and

:28:19.:28:23.

that is it from Nottingham, the city it helped put on the map. We

:28:23.:28:29.

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