15-minute cities: 15-minute city definition 'skewed' according to Yorkshire council leader

Coun Claire Douglas, the Labour leader in York, said it would be “absolutely ridiculous” to have amenities five miles or more away from people. This follows a speech by the UK’s transport secretary Mark Harper, who took aim at 15-minute cities at the Conservative Party conference.

“What is sinister, and what we shouldn’t tolerate, is the idea that local councils can decide how often you go to the shops, and that they can ration who uses the roads and when, and that they police it all with CCTV,” he said.

Protests have also taken part in Liverpool and Oxford this year over fears councils will monitor people’s movements following an increased activity among conspiracy theorists on social media talking about the concept. The 15-minute city idea was made popular by Carlos Moreno, a Colombian-French professor, urbanist and author, which aims to have daily necessities within a 15-minute walk of any resident.

“That term [15-minute cities] has been skewed to mean something that it doesn’t really,” Coun Douglas said. She said a good neighbourhood is about “having the infrastructure around you to live a decent life without having to go too far away.

“Everybody wants a school, shops, a doctor surgery, a dentist within easy reach of where they live. They don’t want to go five miles across town. That would be absolutely ridiculous, a waste of everyone’s time and no good for the environment either.”

When asked whether 15-minute cities have come up in her administration’s discussions, she said: “We definitely think that within planning we should be aiming for good healthy neighbourhoods where people can get easy access to the services that they need.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has committed to stopping councils from implementing 15-minute cities and reviewing guidance on 20mph speed limits in England.

“My view is that our prime minister and government should be focusing on the big issues that are challenging us at the moment and I’m not sure him getting down in the weeds of whether local authorities have 20mph zones is really beneficial for everybody,” coun Douglas said.

The council leader added that there’s always public consultation with highway decisions.

“Say a town or a village came back and said ‘we want 20mph zones’, then why shouldn’t they be able to have them?” she continued.

York has had 20mph zones in areas of the city since 2014 and coun Douglas thinks they have been positive for the city.

“I think they have been beneficial and I think that residents that have them around them really really value it,” she said. “But the devil is always in the detail isn’t it? In the sense that those 20mph limits are not readily enforced by the police for example.”

Labour will have its party conference between October 8 and October 11 in Liverpool, following the Conservatives which ended with Mr Sunak’s speech October 4.