Are friends electric in Leeds in 2040?
by on 28th July 2017
You may be viewing the news about 2040 this week with some scepticism or relief, depending on your personal views, but the government, along with EU neighbours like France and European car builders like Volvo are reading the last rites to the petrol and diesel engine and going electric.
Leeds, like any other major city, suffers from road congestion and air pollution, and by phasing out the building of such cars, there is a belief that premature deaths from toxic fumes will dramatically decrease but today, we want to look at the future of housing once all our friends are electric, to go all Gary Numan.
Walk down any road or street in Britain and you’ll see that the car dominates scenery. The old days in the 70s, if you remember that far back and beyond, had empty roads and motorways generally.
Parents didn’t have two cars – children weren’t ferried to school and house building from the Georgian era through Victorian to Edwardian roundly ignored the car – it wasn’t invented.
Modern houses though had design changes – off road parking and garages became the norm on roads and estates, though the garage is rarely used for its original purpose now: storing the car.
So will the onslaught of electric cars change our domestic landscape?
We talked to Stephen Thorpe, who commented:
“Not only will new builds have to change with car docking stations and the like, the areas around will change. Petrol stations will decrease and shopping centres and car parks will have to be adapted to meet the new electric only new cars. Older houses with on street parking will have to change too. Rows of terraced houses, for example, would have to be adapted for on street charging.”
We wonder too at Hogan’s whether coercing the buyer to go electric will work.
Stephen has his own take:
“Remember when the 5p carrier bag levy was introduced in October 2015, there was an initial outcry from some people, but making it law, across all retail outlets, meant a 71% drop in usage. Remarkable figures really.”
It seems that legally forcing consumers, car drivers to jettison petrol and diesel vehicles, will leave a far bigger mark than the £13 million carbon savings from lower carrier bag purchases.
Leeds and West Yorkshire; its homes, its shops, its petrol stations will change and probably before 2040.
What do you think?
