Traffic & Transport
Andy Burnham has barely acknowledged the climate crisis. If only Britain’s workers had that luxury | John Harris
I don’t think I have ever written before about a British strike directly related to the climate emergency. But that’s exactly what began late last week in north London, with a zeitgeisty connection to Andy Burnham’s fixation on buses: picket lines outside depots and massed walkouts, while the temperatures in the relevant parts of the capital and its suburbs hovered at about 34C (93F).
Last Friday, more than 1,500 drivers employed by the transport giant Arriva began a planned run of 26 stoppages through to October, affecting bus routes spread between London and Essex. Everything is being led by the union Unite, whose recent grievances include alleged company union-busting and assaults by the public on staff. But the fundamental basis of the dispute is at the heart of the national condition: the near-impossibility for millions of people of working through another insanely hot summer.
Most of Arriva North London’s buses, says Unite, have old-fashioned air cooling systems rather than air conditioning, which means that onboard temperatures have come down by only two or three degrees during this year’s five heatwaves. On other such vehicles, it insists, the air-con is broken. The cabs where drivers sit are essentially compact greenhouses, and can easily reach 40C or higher. And there is another grim twist: union members complain of a shortage of toilets on too many routes, meaning they refrain from drinking water. Unite has been warning about all this since the phases of intense heat that began back in May; its members, the union says, have experienced “heat exhaustion, heatstroke and dehydration”.
Arriva’s last financial figures showed a pre-tax profit of £133m. The company insists that it has “introduced short-term measures to protect drivers”, and is now also spending money on “longer-term fixes, including cab air-conditioning upgrades and our ongoing investment in new fleet”. But the root of its current problems seem clear. There is a longstanding failure, which runs across the UK’s public and private sectors – and also transcends national boundaries – to understand the mounting everyday effects of global heating, and to engage in what so many 21st-century companies and institutions remain so bad at: protective investment, with both eyes fixed not just on the searing inevitabilities of the future, but realities that are already here.
Arriva places tight restrictions on its drivers talking to the media, so Unite pointed me instead to Mo, who has worked for another London bus operator for over 15 years, and had come to a picket line to show the strikers his support. “When it’s very hot, it’s very difficult to concentrate,” he told me. “Imagine the heat you feel when you put your hand near an oven. That’s what it’s like.” What, I wondered, had happened when these problems were raised with management? “Sometimes, we don’t want to raise this stuff, because they don’t want to hear it. If you say, ‘I’ve got a hot cab, I want to come out,’ they’re like, ‘Well, we’re going to lose mileage; we’re going to get penalised by TfL [Transport for London].’ I know the mayor’s put the message out” – in June, Sadiq Khan said he was committed to improving working conditions for drivers – “but the company says, ‘He doesn’t employ you. We do.’”
There are no end of similarly unsettling reports from other occupations. The Royal College of Nursing says some of its members working in the health service have recently collapsed, while others have reported dizziness, nausea and dripping with sweat “from head to toe”, along with profound concerns about NHS patients’ most basic welfare. Recent research into the building trade from the University of Reading showed that 44% of the construction workers it contacted had experienced a heat-related illness, such as heatstroke, heat exhaustion or dehydration. Moreover, 57% said they had received no compulsory training on how to deal with heat.
Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote about the tragic story of Montse Aguilar, a 51-year-old woman who worked as a street cleaner in Barcelona, and returned home from a working day in which the city’s temperatures had reached 35C, only to collapse, hit her head and die. Soon after, people marched carrying banners that read “Extreme heat is also workplace violence”, and street cleaners demanded better summer workwear and more breaks. Much to her family’s distress, the city council has still not recognised her death as a workplace accident, and there has yet to be an autopsy.
This year, Barcelona’s authorities handed out about 1,400 bracelets for staff working outdoors – including street cleaners, park workers and refuse specialists – which measure workers’ body temperatures and go into alert mode if they sense that the wearer is at risk: as and when that happens, the person concerned has to stop working. But despite Spain’s reputation for comparatively stringent heat regulations, unions continue to draw attention to a supposed system of protection still full of gaps. Late last month, the CGT union filed official complaints with Barcelona’s labour inspectorate about what it deems deficient management of those wristbands, a lack of air-con in working vehicles and pledges from the city council being applied “late and halfway”.
Across the world, every hot season inevitably brings more victims. In the US, official figures suggest that more than 550 workers die annually from heat exposure across the country. One recent story is that of Umeshkumar Thakkar, a 58-year-old postal worker who lived in Little Elm, Texas – who, though the cause of his death has yet to be officially established, has been cited as the third such employee in three years to die in the Dallas area amid extreme heat. Amazingly, Texas has barred its cities and counties from passing local heat protections – while, to quote the New York Times, “The Trump administration is moving to rewrite Biden-era rules that would mandate breaks and access to water and shade for workers.” Hydration, it seems, is that bit too woke.
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The UK’s position, it is a relief to say, is not nearly as dreadful, though there is still much work to do. For people working indoors, official guidance suggests a minimum temperature of 16C, which falls to 13C for “physical work”, but there are no maximum temperatures for either indoor or outdoor labour. Things do finally seem to be moving: last month, the Department for Work and Pensions said that the Health and Safety Executive will soon launch a public consultation on improvements to safety-at-work rules that will cover levels of heat at work. There again, the official line from the prime minister’s spokesperson sounds bleak: “We have no plans to introduce a mandatory maximum workplace temperature.”
In the wake of the Green MP Hannah Spencer’s private member’s bill to establish exactly that, Unite is loudly making the case – as are the TUC and the independent advisory Climate Change Committee, which wants employers to “ensure that workplaces and working practices are safe for employees, including for those working outside”. Meanwhile, having planned for a late summer talking about the cost of living, Burnham did not mention the climate crisis until last Friday, in a country where brown fields are so starved of water they are now turning a scorched yellow, homes have been engulfed by wildfires, and far too many workers are finding the once-simple business of earning a living physically impossible. Like many people – including, I would imagine, plenty of those north London bus drivers – my guarded optimism about the new prime minister and his government endures. But the last of those issues needs as much urgent action as the others, before another boiling summer takes an even grimmer toll.
Traffic & Transport
Number of cloned number plates on UK roads at record high, data shows | Transport
The number of reported “cloned” vehicles involved in offences on UK roads has reached a record high, official data shows.
More than 11,400 drivers contacted the DVLA last year after being issued with fines for offences they said they did not recognise or accept responsibility for – most of which are believed to be down to cloning, where a number plate is copied fraudulently on similar vehicles to avoid enforcement cameras.
The number of complaints about misattribution was 9% higher than in 2024 and almost double the figure recorded in 2018, according to the RAC motoring organisation, which analysed data obtained under freedom of information requests.
The rising figures underscore concerns about the number of illegal number plates in use, allowing criminals to evade detection and dangerous drivers to avoid being caught.
Although drivers should provide number plate suppliers with the V5C vehicle logbook and proof of identity, an investigation last year uncovered more than 130 official suppliers in the UK willing to sell cloned versions, which allow drivers to dodge police and congestion charges.
Cloning vehicles has left many innocent car owners having to struggle to prove they were not responsible when enforcement camera images apparently caught their vehicle committing offences.
A parallel concern is the use of “ghost” plates which are designed to be unreadable by the UK’s 18,000 automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, which enforce safety measures such as speed limits or lane closures on smart motorways.
The RAC said the UK needed to overhaul an outdated and poorly regulated number plate system. Its head of policy, Simon Williams, said: “If number plate suppliers were carrying out all the checks they’re supposed to, it would be much harder for dodgy drivers to buy cloned plates in the first place. It’s only when a fine arrives at a vehicle keeper’s home address that they realise someone else is driving around using their vehicle’s number plate illegally.”
He said that more also needed to be done to catch drivers with ghost plates, “whether that’s more police officers being equipped with handheld devices that can detect if plates are unreadable, updating ANPR cameras and introducing higher security standards for number plates and for those who produce them”.
The government last month said there would be a new nationwide crackdown on illegal number plates, with funding from the Department for Transport for a new roads policing team. A new National Roads Policing Coordination Centre would share intelligence as well as trialling new technology such as specialised goggles to detect number plates that have been designed to be unreadable by cameras.
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Drivers using an incorrectly displayed number plate can be fined up to £1,000.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “We’re cracking down on illegal number plates with significant investment in a new roads policing team and innovative tech to stamp out the scourge of cloned numberplates.
“Illegal number plates help facilitate crime, and we are supporting the police to work with the DVLA to make it easier to report these crimes and support victims through a new digital tool.”
Traffic & Transport
‘A big responsibility’: Clifton Suspension Bridge master hails £7.6m renovation | Bristol
The job does not give the holder age-old perks such as the right to drive sheep across the great structure, but the title “bridge master” does have a certain ring to it.
“I don’t tend to say I’m the bridge master when I’m at a party,” said Tristan Ralph, the current holder of the title. “But people do seem to know and bring it up. It’s a job less ordinary, isn’t it? It’s a Victorian sounding title and people are really, really interested.”
There is, however, nothing ceremonial about the title. Ralph is in charge of maintaining and running the Clifton Suspension Bridge, a UK feat of engineering, without any public money.
“It does feel a big responsibility,” said Ralph. “When the chairman of the trustees rang to say we’d like you to do it, you suddenly feel the pressure. It’s so famous and people in Bristol, quite rightly, are proud and almost possessive of it. Bristolians think: ‘It’s our bridge.’”
The bridge master – and the not-for-profit charity the Clifton Suspension Bridge Trust – have the task of maintaining the bridge “in perpetuity”. “I’m a temporary custodian,” Ralph said. “When I’m finished, I have to make sure it is handed on in just [as] good a condition or better than I inherited it.”
Ralph, a bridge engineer by profession, was speaking to mark the conclusion of a large refurbishment project that has taken two and a half years and involved hand-painting more than 4,000 original iron chain links and installing an energy-efficient lighting system. It has cost about £7.5m. “It’s been a big job,” he said. “But it’s come pretty much bang on budget, which is rare these days.”
That is important because, to many visitors’ surprise, the bridge does not receive public funding. “The upkeep of the bridge, the running of it, the salary costs and everything are all paid only by our toll money,” said Ralph. “People think that we might get something from local or central government. But, no, it’s just the toll money.”
Motorised vehicles – including motorcycles – pay £1 to cross the bridge. There is no charge for pedestrians, cyclists or horse riders. As well as being a beautiful structure, it is also a vital part of Bristol and North Somerset’s transport system.
Ralph said: “It draws the tourists in. We get visitors from hundreds of countries every year but primarily, it’s still a vital piece of local infrastructure. If the bridge wasn’t here, the difference it would make to Bristol traffic would be incredible. We average over 8,000 vehicles a day still. Maintaining it as a transport link is utterly vital.”
The end of the refurbishment does not mean Ralph can rest on his laurels and spend more time hobnobbing with members of the Bridge Owners Forum.
“In a few years, we’ll need to paint the underside of the bridge. The under-bridge gantry unit itself will be replaced over the coming years. So there’s always something. We need to keep on top of things. It’s like your house or your car. If you just ignore it, don’t do things for a couple of years, they start breaking down.”
As in most walks of life, the climate emergency is a challenge Ralph and the trust are having to face. “We were monitoring the bridge daily in the summer with the very hot weather. And maybe if the bridge was being designed today, there would be a little bit more robustness around wind.”
The prevailing south-west wind is not usually a problem and the bridge rarely has to close but if it blows directly through the Avon Gorge it can be more difficult. “We need to keep an eye at both the magnitude of any wind events but also their frequency,” Ralph said.
The engineer admires the bridge’s designers, including Isambard Kingdom Brunel. “It’s remarkably advanced for its time.”
And there is no sign that its days are numbered, largely because the Victorians did not skimp. Ralph said: “There are three layers of chains. The original Brunel design only had two, but because it went from a timber design to a cast-iron deck, they upped it to three.
“There’s a little bit of comfort in there. Today there might be pressure to say, well, can you keep it to two, but in Victorian times they did like to add a little bit of meat on the bones.
“It doesn’t have a finite life. There’s no end date in our plans. We all just keep it going in the highest standards as we can. It’s in really good condition as long as we keep doing what we need to do, keep our attention on it and don’t let things drift. Forever is a long time but there’s no reason why we have any need to worry at the moment.”
Uber has begun a trial of autonomous vehicles on the streets of Manchester as it looks to bring robotaxis to cities around the UK.
The first self-driving cars are operating, using the technology of its partner firms Pony and Verne, with whom Uber recently launched Europe’s first autonomous taxi service in the Croatian capital, Zagreb.
Uber said it was “excited to take this first step toward making this technology accessible to people across the UK”.
In social media posts, Verne said it had “started our autonomous vehicle testing in Manchester”, while Pony said there were “plans to bring robotaxis to the city” and that testing was under way.
The tests involve the company mapping the streets of the city in north-west England with a safety driver behind the wheel and no passengers.
Limited passenger services started last month in London, but with a safety driver in the front seat of cars supplied by Wayve under Transport for London’s licensing rules for private hire vehicles.
The next steps are unclear. Opposition from Uber drivers, their unions and the capital’s politicians to the rollout of robotaxis is mounting. The GMB and ADCU unions have both said thousands of drivers jobs will be lost and have called for help for those affected.
A critical report from London assembly’s transport committee this week called for the government to devolve authority over autonomous taxi services.
It said there was “considerable uncertainty about many of the claimed benefits of autonomous passenger vehicles”, and fears over the impact on public transport and congestion, as well as safeguarding and accessibility for disabled passengers.
There has been no official application to launch passenger services in Manchester so far, and the vehicles are operating under government licence via the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) and the Department for Transport.
A spokesperson for Transport for Greater Manchester said it wanted the city’s taxis to be the safest in the country.
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“New technologies play an increasingly important role in the growth of our city region,” they said. “But they need to be introduced responsibly, safely and with real thought about what it means for our residents.
“Although no applications have been made to operate driverless taxis in the Greater Manchester, we’re aware of potential interest from companies to do so.
“Safety will always be our top priority, and we will need strong assurances that no vehicles will operate on our roads that pose any risk to residents.”
Uber said it expected to offering robotaxi trips in as many as 15 cities worldwide by the end of 2026, mainly in the US and the Middle East.
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