COLIN CAMPBELL: Greens show arrogance over the need to ‘change behaviour’ in Inverness

As if the move to restrict Academy Street use for motorists isn’t already incendiary enough, the Greens on Highland Council have poured petrol on the flames.

Vehement proponents of an upheaval that could cause traffic chaos across a swathe of Inverness, they didn’t hide their glee after the decision narrowly scraped through in their favour at a city committee meeting.

Green councillor Ryan MacKintosh declared: “Transport is one of the biggest sources of pollution, responsible for 26 per cent of Scotland’s carbon emissions. Of that figure, 38 per cent of those emissions are generated by cars. If we are serious about reaching net zero we have to reduce traffic.

“The wildfires this summer, from Cannich to Canada have shown the urgency of addressing this problem. For decades cities have been designed around the needs of the car. This dominance has to end, and I’m delighted the city committee has taken this important step towards changing behaviour.”

So he believes he has played an important role in “changing the behaviour” of people in Inverness.

In what way will the decision to restrict Academy Street to a mass of traffic – which thankfully is being looked at again by the full council next week – change anyone’s behaviour? Will people sell their cars and start walking everywhere? In recognition of their bad behaviour up to now, maybe they’ll just turn them in for scrap.

In reality, I doubt if a single person will stop driving a single car because councillors like Ryan MacKintosh are wagging sanctimonious fingers at them.

They’ll just carry on driving, maybe at stop-start pace along streets surrounding the city centre amid log-jammed traffic chaos.

They’ll be furious about being forced into that situation. And their behaviour will change to the extent that they’ll get angrier and more frustrated by hold-ups and maybe become more aggressive to fellow drivers and any passing cyclists around as well.

“Net zero” may be the Holy Grail for Ryan MacKintosh and the Greens and some other councillors and officials who backed the Academy Street decision. But now they’re going beyond it being a personal passion and trying to ram it down people’s throats.

They should be assured that will not go down at all well with very many of the people they’ve actually been elected to serve – to serve that is, not to arrogantly hector about their “behaviour” and disrupt their daily lives in ways of their “net zero” choosing.

And if the zealous pursuit of “net zero” at all costs isn’t enough to inflame opinion, dragging in “wildfires in Canada” pours even more fuel on the issue.

What other issues might Councillor MacKintosh link to cars in Academy Street? The melting Antarctic ice caps?

The lofty sounding Greens may be trying to apply their high-minded global thinking to the traffic flow on an Inverness street. But most of the people who would be directly affected just want to get from A to B without being mired in traffic jams.

It would have been ludicrous if a decision of this magnitude had gone ahead after being backed by just 12 Inverness councillors, with 10 being strongly opposed.

Now it will be reviewed by the full council next week. On the basis of what we’ve seen already, it should be scrapped.

But whatever the final verdict, councillors when discussing it should steer well away from sounding patronising and condescending and boasting about “changing people’s behaviour”.