Ecomarsho's Buggy Park

In politics, some stories are easy to tell and get a tremendous boost from connivance, scandal and indulgence - and the public takes little heed of how ultimately important or trivial they may be. Others might well be examples of problems we are all going to have to face but which somehow don't get picked up for star turns in any particular political bandwagon. On the face of it, initially, such was the case with my little car, a nice runner which was confiscated, despite paying £80 fines and making appeals, leaving me after a few months with a refund cheque of just £150. As I discussed with the moderate mannered businessman across the road, all I did was to get a diesel car off the road.

Government officials of all kinds enjoy laying down the rules and claiming the perks, whether the rules actually work or not. The local government in Swansea Council is no exception. After they have given planning permission to a local builder on the make, they no longer see it as their responsibility if the guy in the neighbouring house has his roof wrecked and has to repair it himself and clear the garden before he can have guests. They see themselves not as an exploitative syndicate but as the only ones in the community who actually represent it, and which justifies for them their right to over-heated offices in winter and expensive holidays in summer. They do have a complaints system, managed by themselves, but they don't see it as a problem if an unemployed person has his economical diesel car taken away after it was left off the road for a time on a corner where many local business drivers park off the road to avoid double yellow lines - without getting ticketed. It is not simply that local governments cannot back-track on demands for funds - they have only to hand over the responsibility to an independent commercially operating bailiff who will take away ones vehicle and auction it or sell it to his cronies and give one whatever small refund he sees fit, without ever having to account for details of any transaction. Whether or not the local Council workers envisage a Putin-style government is not his concern.

Meanwhile, what ought perhaps to be more important as an issue is that the government in Westminster has stated its aim is for the public to stop using fossil fuel burning cars, and especially to get those with diesel engines off the road. However, even though diesel cars, for example a 2009 Fiat Panda, are notoriously reported to inevitably produce an intolerable amount of NO2 gas, to renew the Road Tax for such a vehicle it is still only £30, whereas for a 2002 Peugeot petrol car with the supposedly more environmentally-friendly improved fuel injection system, Road Tax costs £155 annually. Where is the good sense or justice in that? If C02 is the main concern, an old petrol car certainly does not produce over 5 times as much - that would be a sheer impossibility! So the government tax levy is not in proportion.

Another problem that my transient plight has highlighted is the sluggishness and inertia in a system that is already heavily invested in old vehicles and fueling systems. To scrap all old cars and replace them with electric ones would require a really massive amount of time and labour, not to mention the number of businesses with investment in fossil fuel cars that would have to go bust and, likewise, the same problem would arise with redundant fueling stations. Some people might say "so you are unemployed and still have some savings, so why not take up thy bed and walk, forget climate change, invest in another car, start a small business providing services that the big concerns can't or wont supply?" Alternatively, I might be advised to live on benefits and dwindling funds and spend time improving my house where I live, and let others be concerned about worldly political issues - problem is, unemployed people are expected to show they are spending 35 hours per week just looking for work! So, whether ones meditation strays to the big world issues or dwells morbidly on personal problems and safeguards, sluggishness and inertia is not always so much a problem of willingness, but more of how does one find the wherewithal to get started in something worthwhile...

So that is why I need funds. If this has the potential to become a more widespread campaign, rather than just one individual blowing his own trumpet, then I should like it to be for the right reasons, not just a jealous and chaotic backlash against solving the main problem, or notions of bureaucratic overrule. True, there is use of diesels in farming, goods transportation and industry, and, indeed, widespread parking on street corners to avoid double yellow lines. Such is common practice amongst busy business people. Rather than a simple rejection of large-scale organisation gone wrong, I should like to see a more worthwhile strategy for enabling people to become part of the solution.

Please help; any excess to requirements will be invested to provide regular payments to fund worthwhile projects.

£900 would pay for one years fuel and Road Tax for an old petrol car.

£1200 would pay to covert a petrol car to LPG gas.

£1800 would pay for a Super Soco electric motorbike.

£4500 would buy a used petrol car in not too bad condition.

£9000 would buy a road-legal Gazelle electric buggy.

£12000 would buy a patch of disused land to use as a recharging car park for electric vehicles.

(£180000 could even go some way towards sponsoring a solar or wind farm or a government election campaign, but that level of success seems a long way off) .