Integrated Reform for Transport and Oil/Petroleum Products The following proposal for an integrated reform for transport and petroleum products. This was sent from us under our earlier name of Dragonfly Trust. It was sent to Newspapers and Government Ministers. See the replies from Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Treasury. Please add your own suggestions in the Forum, re Peak Oil. We are willing to develop this section!

Dear Sir,

We wish to place before the government of this country a series of proposals that seek to address the immediate necessity to act on the problem of Global Warming and to mitigate the undesirable/unpopular effects of such measures.

We list below, the bare statement of each of the proposed measures and further down the document are the explanations of the reasoning for the said measures.

GLOBAL WARMING PROPOSAL

1. A new tax called the Environmental Tax shall be introduced and shall be applied to all petroleum and petroleum based products at the point of entry into the U.K.
2. Road Fund Tax in the current form shall be replaced by an increase on the price of fuel.
3. The MOT test shall be required for all vehicles regardless of age and they shall display an MOT disc similar to the current tax disc.
4. The fares on all forms of mass public transport (surface) shall be set by legislation at a fixed price per mile and ticket carrying passengers may use whichever form of transport is available.
5. Rural and unpopular routes shall be subsidised from the income produced by the environment tax.
6. Financial assistance shall be available for the establishment and operation of Community Shops in rural areas.

We suggest that the Environmental Tax shall be levied at 30% over and above the current price including all current duties and taxes.
By applying the Environmental Tax at the point of entry into the U.K. we can ensure that all users are taxed equally and in proportion to the amount used. This will apply to fuel users and to those who manufacture petroleum based products such as plastics,
cleaning products, paints and coatings etc, all of which contribute to the deterioration of the environment and the need for landfill sites.

The purpose in replacing the Road Fund Tax in favour of a further increase in the price of fuel is twofold.
First it will further discourage excessive and unnecessary use of vehicles.
Second it will enable the staff who are currently employed in administering the issuance and policing of the Road Fund Tax to be transferred to the administration and policing of the new M.O.T. procedure.

The new M.O.T. test will apply to all vehicles regardless of age in order to help reduce accidents involving faults due to wear and usage that can occur within the first year of a vehicles life. The issuance of an M.O.T. disc which must be displayed in the same way as the current Tax disc will ensure that vehicles which have not undertaken an M.O.T. test will be easily identified and removed from the road.
It will be a requirement that all vehicles must have a valid Certificate of Insurance at the time that the M.O.T. test is performed.

Items 4 & 5 are designed to ensure that a viable alternative to the private car is available. Passengers will be able to travel at times which they choose, without fear that the cost of such travel will be dependent on the whim of the provider. They will also be able to choose the most convenient means of travel and alternate between different means and different providers in order to reach the desired destination within the specified time allowed. This shall apply to all methods of surface transport with a carrying capacity of 6 or more persons. Vehicles with a carrying capacity of 5 persons or less shall operate on the meter principle with the rates being set nationally and not subject to local variation.

To further reduce the necessity for the use of vehicles, particularly in remote/rural areas, a proportion of the Environmental Tax shall be made available for the purpose of setting up and subsidising the operation of Community Shops.
These shall be set up and staffed by local people working as volunteers or semi-volunteers to operate the business with some subsidy available to offset the need for complete financial viability. In those cases where financial viability is achieved, the profit can be used to reduce prices and/or to improve facilities and services within the community.
The shops should, ideally, be able to provide a range of retail goods which would commonly be found in a good general store, together with a prescription service (possibly linked to the nearest full-time pharmacy), a Post Office with it’s attendant banking facility and a ticket office for the transport network.

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