flying abroad would be prohibitively expensive.

Is aviation fuel taxed at the same rate as car fuel ? I am asking as most of what I put in my engine is tax rather than cost of production, so not necessarily linked to cost of flying. Bizarrely putting up car costs may driv e people abroad instead of keeping them at home to spend their money.

By the way I am in the put petrol up lobby, BUT this need to be accompanied by a massive investment in public transport infrastructure to enable us to still get round.

For all of us complaining there are no jobs in the country, what do you think will happen to all the companies in big towns who suddenly can’t get staff anymore ? Would they not look to relocate ?

Imagine if all those £££ spent on flights to Malaga were actually spent on the drive to Margate? It’d be a huge boost to the tourism industry (although it would bankrupt the airports, but they’re not British owned so less of a blow).

Tourists come to Britain too. I’ve no idea how much of a difference it would actually make.

Other than less traffic at airports.

By the way I am in the put petrol up lobby, BUT this need to be accompanied by a massive investment in public transport infrastructure to enable us to still get round.

I’m in the public transport should be run as a service, and not for profit lobby. I’d be happy to pay for it via taxation.

If I believed that taxation was both affordable to all, and efficiently spent on the right things.

Does anybody have a breakdown of public spending going into public transport, and how much of that spending is subsidising private operators trying to turn a profit?

Tell that to those commuting into London from Bristol.

see? you can commute to work three or four cities away. Now that’s a lifestyle choice.

piemonster – Member
Does anybody have a breakdown of public spending going into public transport, and how much of that spending is subsidising private operators trying to turn a profit?

£6Billion a year on Trains subsidy apparently.

bigrich – Member
see? you can commute to work three or four cities away. Now that’s a lifestyle choice.

How can you possibly know what choices are available? just making presumptions.

Well the rising price and lower wages seems to have changed things around here, loads more people commuting via bike, there’s barely enough room for all the bikes in the office I work at.

If you live in the country, miles away from everything and have trouble affording petrol, tough. Move closer to work like everyone else does.

Keep zooming up in price as far as I’m concerned, it’s a limited supply and the price reflects this. Truffles don’t cost so much because the dogs are on £100k salaries.

If you live in the country, miles away from everything and have trouble affording petrol, tough. Move closer to work like everyone else does.

Troll, ignorant or stupid?

It is a choice for lots of people though. I’m considering moving house at the moment. I can choose to live in the city centre, walking distance to everything. I can choose to live a small distance away, with viable public transport. Or I could be dependent on the car. Each of these choices means compromises.

I’m not sure that the ability to commute thousands of miles a year is a good thing overall, either for the individual or society

How can you possibly know what choices are available? just making presumptions.

There’s always Swindon?

My point is the UK is so small, and travel is so cheap, you get to choose to live a long way from work.

If travel was expensive, and you had no choice but to have your family in Bristol, then you would have to take lodgings in the city where you worked; like people did before the advent of oil exploitation.

mudshark – Member

Troll, ignorant or stupid?

Seems liked a fair point to me.

Um…if someone’s struggling to pay for fuel do they really have the money to pay for a move and the likely higher property prices of being close to work? Most people have to compromise between property prices, commuting times and travel costs – I’ve known people who thought it sensible to live in Norfolk and Herefordshire in order to get a reasonable standard of living and put up with the commute.

Anyway, I’m one of TJ’s rich elite so probably shouldn’t care….

If fuel is expensive and encouragement is made to travel by alternative transport then it should available and reasonably priced. At the moment it isn’t. Where I live a bus ride of 1 mile each way costs 5 pounds. 5 pounds for 2 miles!!!!! I don’t use the bus as I can walk to work but some people have no choice.

It’s getting to a point where people become confined to their local area because they can’t afford to travel due to high fuel prices and no reasonable alternative.

Yup stop the biggest industry in rural areas, tourism, by driving up the cost then whilst there’s no more coming into area and transport cost have increased watch the prices of goods in rural areas soar, jobs lost and people move out of the area. Great do it straight away.

Arguably it’s the fact that transport is too cheap that has meant that foreign goods (to that area) are cheaper than locally produced and have put all the local industries out of business, so rural areas are only have tourism as a viable business….

I agree there is no argument there.

Hmm, call me daft if you like.

But I’m pretty sure the biggest industry in most rural areas by some margin is agriculture.

But I’m pretty sure the biggest industry in most rural areas by some margin is agriculture.

How many people does an average farm employ Vs lets say a small hotel?

Couldn’t say, goes googling.

Not many hotels round my folks place in Norfolk. Plenty of farms though.

Are you including small market towns etc in your thinking?

Are you including small market towns etc in your thinking?

Yup.

Parts of Cumbria, Northumberland and other counties rely very much on tourists of course there’s agriculture too but that would also be effected by rising fuel costs.

http://www.nfus.org.uk/farming-facts

Well, quite a few in Scotland according to this.

Around 65,000 people are directly employed in agriculture in Scotland – this represents around 8% of the rural workforce and means that agriculture is the third largest employer in rural Scotland after the service and public sectors. It is estimated that a further 250,000 jobs (1 in 10 of all Scottish jobs) are dependent on agriculture.

The tourism sector is of vital importance to the Scottish economy – worth £4.3bn in direct expenditure from overnight visitors (2012) and providing employment to 185,900 within the tourism growth sector (2011).

😀

I was just getting to that

http://www.visitscotland.org/what_we_do/deliveringforscotland.aspx

Tourism already pays the wages of 200,000 people working in Scotland. Increased investment will increase jobs.

The problem is, how many of those tourists are in rural areas. To be honest, I’m talking genuinely rural.

How much of that money goes into Edinburgh?

No doubt golf is a big earner in rural areas.

Edit

However, we also know that in the Highlands employment in the tourist sector accounts for as much as 20%, with some areas entirely dependent on it.

http://www.ruralcommission.org/consultation/rural-tourism/

Toasty – Member
Well the rising price and lower wages seems to have changed things around here, loads more people commuting via bike, there’s barely enough room for all the bikes in the office I work at.

If you live in the country, miles away from everything and have trouble affording petrol, tough. Move closer to work like everyone else does.
Says someone who clearly works in a town or city, and can easily commute by bike. If you live in a largely rural county like Wiltshire, there are fewer options, do you seriously advocate someone selling up and moving to a town miles away before they’ve found a job, just to be close, or finding a job, then having to drive miles commuting, trying to sell a house and finding one that is actually affordable, in a place where affordable housing is likely to be in short supply, due to it being where the jobs are?

mudshark – Member
Um…if someone’s struggling to pay for fuel do they really have the money to pay for a move and the likely higher property prices of being close to work? Most people have to compromise between property prices, commuting times and travel costs – I’ve known people who thought it sensible to live in Norfolk and Herefordshire in order to get a reasonable standard of living and put up with the commute.

Exactly my point.

For all of us complaining there are no jobs in the country, what do you think will happen to all the companies in big towns who suddenly can’t get staff anymore ? Would they not look to relocate ?

Don’t be daft! Where would they locate to? And the staff would still have to travel, for the simple reason that rural communities are by definition small and widely spread apart. And what about kids and school? Once, most villages had their own small school, but they’ve all closed, because there aren’t enough children in each village to make them viable, so there is often just one school serving villages as much as six or seven miles away, in all directions, along very narrow, winding lanes. And no coaches serving them, because the coach companies don’t make enough money.
The kids going to high school in Chippenham come from villages covering a huge area of North Wiltshire, in a radius of maybe ten-twelve miles, how else can they get to school, when there are no coaches?

I’m guessing your talking about secondary schools?

If you live in a largely rural county like Wiltshire

I would love to, but can’t as there’s no work for me there.

do you seriously advocate someone selling up and moving to a town miles away before they’ve found a job, just to be close, or finding a job, then having to drive miles commuting, trying to sell a house and finding one that is actually affordable, in a place where affordable housing is likely to be in short supply, due to it being where the jobs are?

yes, if you have to.

it’s happened before during the industrial revolution, and it’s happening right now in developing countries like China.

If you can’t work to sustain your bucolic idyll, what choice is there? Can’t magic more oil out of thin air.

Over the last 30 years many people have gotten used to cheap fuel (is still cheaper in real terms than pretty much any time previously), and have changed their lifestyle to accommodate that financial cost. However, that percentage cost of transport relative to income has changed, and its now becoming more expensive relative to income to commute large distances. Personally I don’t think this is a bad thing but it will require a systematic reevaluation of people’s lifestyles and a change to our expectations.

Real term price of petrol:

Im going to use my best friends situation as a real world example & would love to hear the thoughts of all those saying raise petrol prices & live closer to work…

4-5 years ago he bought his first home with his partner, a real fixer upper, put his heart & soul into it doing as much as he could, did a brilliant job, it stretched him some what, but was all affordable.

3.5 Years ago, find out first baby on the way, happy families

3 Years ago get made redundant from Job in Liverpool, (approx 8 miles from home)

Spends approx 6 months unemployed, looking for a another Job/career, Baby arrives & things start to become tighter.

2.5 Years ago he finally gets back onto the ladder, all be it on a lower wage, problem is the job is in Manchester, 100 Mile a day commute, has a 50+mpg car, drives sensibly to save cash etc…

Since then his partner has gone back to work part time at her Job in Southport, Both Parents who look after kid are close to home making work possible.

Before anyone states the obvious, of course he has looked for work closer to home…

So please explain to me what he should be doing in your eyes? & explain to me how putting people who are already under financial pressure under even more is fair / right? this is a common situation up & down the country, if you think it isn’t, your out of touch, if you think tough, we’ll id rather not hear your thought’s.

timc
At last someone with a real world example of how it it is for many people.

I also work in Liverpool but there is no way I’m moving near to work (Toxteth) until recently my wife worked in Chester so we live roughly 1/2 way between.
Sadly due to her MS we have had the house adapted at our cost. Should we junk all that just so I can save about £2000 a year on traveling?

Even if I rode my bike every day it would still cost close on £1000 a year.

So please explain to me what he should be doing in your eyes?

http://www.carpooling.co.uk/carshare/Liverpool/Manchester.html

He doesn’t live in central liverpool or work in central manchester, has to be at his desk for 8am, occasionally needs to travel with work to site, even without travelling to site a city centre to city centre share wouldn’t really work with commuting costs & time at each end.

It’s always possible construct or quote an extreme example to argue a point.

Your friends circumstances appear unfortunate. If its his only option for the moment he should of course do what he has to, but for his sanity and long term work life balance look to reduce his travel.

Its costing time and money that would otherwise be spent with and on his family.

That some one is willing to do a 100 mile commute is an example that petrol is cheap IMO. If they will not consider a car share that just adds to it. Sounds like they are in a tough situation but the current cheap price of fuel is helping them out.

I’m all for reduced car usage, it’s massively important, but simply ramping up the price right now would have devastating consequences. Most people would rather not do it with the current price of fuel, so we need alternatives.

Only a long term government strategy can do this.

It’s always possible construct or quote an extreme example to argue a point.

It’s not that extreme.

Molgrips plus one.

The fact that so many car journeys ae less than five miles means that there are alternatives already that aren’t being taken! Ramp up the cost of fuel and folk will start to make more sensible choices. Instead of driving 200m to the shop to pick up the weekend papers, they will save their fuel for the daily commute.

I really struggle to understand how some people can be so hard up yet still make such irresponsible choices when it comes to transport and lifestyle. It’s not as if this propblem hasn’t been foreseen and deliberately taking a job with such a long commute as some of those mentioned seems foolhardy and short sighted.

Just wait for the time when petrol reaches the price of beer!

Regardless of the short-term problems, ultimately fuel will approach being prohibitively expensive, and lifestyles will change. And that, is the end of it.

Public transport may already be subsidised monetarily, but that’s nothing like the subsidy (above and beyond the oil itself) the environment puts into the world’s car habit, and one day that subsidy will run out. Sadly, it will probably run out for those least deserving of the ensuing catastrophe first.