St Luke's Development stalls after traffic issues

Image credit: exeter.ac.uk

Plans to create a four-storey office block at St. Luke’s Campus have been rejected by highway bosses. The university had aimed to convert and extend a former accommodation block into offices for its medical department. Hundreds of staff would be based at the site, however Exeter’s planning committee has deferred its decision after the highways authority recommended refusal as a result of the University failing to provide a transport assessment.

In its report to the committee, Devon Country Council said: “It’s pretty clear that anything of this size should be accompanied by a transport assessment but the applicant has not even provided a transport strategy to clarify additional car-borne trips that it is expected to attract”.

Richard Westlake, county councillor for Newtown and Polsloe, added: “I would like to see the University develop a rigorous transport plan that would include walking, cycling and park and ride which would significantly reduce the number of vehicle movements in the area and I would like them to provide rigorous monitoring to make sure that their plans are being adopted.

“Councillor Branston and I have been receiving, over the 12 months, a significant number of complaints from residents of commuter parking in residential areas”.

Richard Branston, city councillor for Newtown, also addressed a meeting on behalf of residents opposed to the scheme, and claimed that car parking on the site is already at capacity.

Bob Alcock, Special Projects Director, Estate Development Services, at the University of Exeter, commented: “Our proposal to redevelop South Cloisters will mean a significant upgrade for teaching and learning spaces at the St Luke’s Campus. The proposal is currently going through the planning process, but if approved, the four-storey extension will provide 224 learning and teaching spaces for students, while the Giraffe House refurbishment would provide 120 student study spaces. The University is committed to providing the best possible student experience across all campuses, and this upgrade reflects that drive”.

Another representative of the University of Exeter also told the Echo that the University already operates a green travel plan which strives to reduce single car journeys, and subsidises buses from the University to the town.

However, members of the planning committee also heard that the University had plans to develop other parts of the St Luke’s site, and felt that it would be better to take an overview rather than decide this planning application in isolation. The plans would add another floor to the current building which runs along part of College Road opposite bungalows.

Cllr Branston said that it would be better to adapt College House, a building on campus which is set well back from the boundary walls and which would not have as great an impact on local residents. The committee deferred its decision so that a transport assessment and the master plan for the rest of the site could be provided and a consultation with residents could take place.

Clara Plackett, Deputy Editor

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Enduring Honduras

Joel Mason reflects on the problems faced by Honduras, and his experience living there.

“When the great fall out, the weak must suffer for it” – so finishes the fable of ‘The fighting bulls and the frog’. Yet for the gently-spoken teacher sitting reading to the group of children assembled in front of him, wearing whatever collection of rags of uniform they could muster, this fable wasn’t just another story – it was their story. Sitting in the school on a picturesque hillside in rural Honduras, charged with teaching about 30 pupils of all ages and abilities in just one classroom, he recognised in Aesop’s tale the plight of his own country. Just as the frogs in the fable are trampled on when the bulls fight, so too do ordinary people across Central America feel powerless – victims of forces beyond their control.

US soldiers play football in Honduras Image credit: Staff Sgt. Sean A. Foley U.S. Army

At the time this occurred (the summer of 2009), the parallel had been thrown into particularly sharp relief for the students of that school, and the many like them across Honduras. The then-president Manuel Zelaya had just been ousted by the army in a coup, and much aid to the country had therefore been cut in response, including the daily ‘merienda’ funded by the World Food Program. The merienda provided all students in school with a simple meal during the morning, and for many poor pupils this was the only thing which stood between them and severe malnutrition. These people simply wished to get on with their lives – the political manoeuvrings of the country’s military elite were just news that filtered through to them on the radio and when traders passed through. Tegucigalpa, the capital, may as well have been a foreign country to them. Yet it was they, and not the powerful generals or corrupt politicos, who were punished when the bulls fought.

This feeling of being a dispensable pawn on some larger battlefield, echoes tragically once more in Honduras’ present situation. Since Nixon first declared the ‘war on drugs’ in 1971, it has consumed ever greater resources, with over $1 trillion spent on it to date by the US, but there is woefully little to show for this vast expenditure. This piece is not about the claimed rights to drugs of users in the US, nor about the Sisyphean futility of the task – cracking down on drugs, driving prices up, and thereby making drug trafficking an increasingly appealing option to poor, ill-educated people in countries with few opportunities. Instead, I wish to highlight the oft-forgotten impact this has on ordinary people in their everyday lives.

As the resources lavished on the traditional culprit, Mexico, gradually began to make drug trafficking there more difficult, the drug trade and its associated problems have gradually been pushed down Central America into countries which are even poorer and even less able to cope than Mexico. Now, it is estimated that 80 per cent of the cocaine which goes to America passes through Honduras, the majority of it overseen by powerful gangs.

Indeed, the emergence of gruesomely violent gangs across Central America, known as maras, has been exacerbated by the deportation of many who had been incarcerated in the US for drug offences. These people returned to Central America, replete with ruthless attitudes and experience of violent gangs, to countries already lacking the basic protection of law and order and awash with weapons.

Central America now finds itself inundated with violence; the murder rate in Honduras is the highest in the world outside a war zone, with an average of twenty people killed each day last year. San Pedro Sula, which should be a thriving industrial hub on the sweltering north coast of Honduras, is instead the most dangerous city in the world, in which street gangs murder with impunity. Of course, with the notoriously corrupt police barely able to keep track of all the violence, let alone prevent it, many young people are drawn to gangs by the safety and opportunities they appear to offer. With guns freely available, and the country growing ever more violent, the incentive is there for an ever-growing number of people to try to get their hands on weapons, which in turn leads to more violence, heightening the sense of fear, and so the vicious cycle continues.

Even in the small, rural village in which I lived for a year and a half between 2004-2005, it was commonplace even for respectable members of the community to walk around armed, pistols casually tucked into belts. I often used to go with friends to visit their little plots of land or tend to their cattle; though younger than almost everybody at this University, they would often carry pistols. In a society lacking the rule of law, and with a severe problem of alcoholism thrown into the mix, it is not hard to envisage the bloody end which is all too often the result of this toxic combination. In the year and a half I lived there, in my village and the surrounding area alone, with fewer than two thousand people, there were fourteen murders. This was, we were told, a good period. Having since been back, the problem has worsened significantly.

Looking at the problems faced by countries such as Honduras, and the effect these have on the lives of ordinary people, it is hard not to feel a sense of despair. Yet perhaps if more thought can be given to the lives of ordinary people as these great battles rage on around them, then there can be the prospect of a more optimistic future. Indeed, there is a growing cacophony of indignant voices which, appalled at the carnage they see, are calling for a change in the policies pursued by the US.

Ultimately, until people can harbour hopes of a better future from legitimate activity, they will continue to be drawn to drug trafficking. Until they can expect safety from the law and the state, they will continue to be drawn to violent gangs and the reassurance of weapons. The challenge faced by Honduras and other Central American countries is of how to achieve peace and prosperity when every day they face more bloodshed. For the sakes of the friends I have who live there, and the many people like them who simply wish to live their lives, I hope a solution can be found.

Joel Mason

Grappling with graphene: what do you know about the material of tomorrow?

Described as a ‘super-material’, the anticipation over the new material graphene in the scientific and consumer world is escalating. Philip Thomas takes a look at what all the fuss is about and some of the more complex issues surrounding this incredible scientific breakthrough.

The most exciting material of our generation: graphene. All photo credits to United States Government Work.

Graphene is an allotrope of carbon that can be found right underneath our noses. When you write with a standard graphite pencil, a mixture of miniscule graphene flakes and coal are deposited on the piece of paper. This deposit is one of the few two-dimensional materials to have been discovered in physics which is fundamental to its extraordinary properties. Graphene is the thinnest, stiffest, most conductive and most impermeable material known to man. It is an excellent conductor of heat, highly transparent and as flexible as rubber. It is far stronger than diamond or, in other terms, it would take an elephant balanced on a pencil to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness of cling film. Graphene truly is a substance of superlatives. The two scientists at the University of Manchester, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who were accredited with the discovery of graphene were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. That’s how scientifically important this material is.

Considering its breathtaking properties, the potential applications of the material are massive. To name but a few, graphene may be used in touch screens, lighting within walls, aircrafts, solar cells, flexible electronics, enhanced batteries, electronic payments, biosensors, DNA detectors and HD-TVs. Even if it fails to deliver in any of these fields, it could also be highly useful in the advancement of energy or medicine. Of course, the time and cost of converting to graphene must be financially viable for businesses but its alleged potential is nonetheless exciting. As Geim said, “No one can accurately predict what the future holds for us, but there are so many potential technologies that have already been suggested for graphene, even statistically the chances are sky-high that graphene will bring around some really important future technologies.

“Among everything I know graphene is my best bet for the next big thing technological breakthrough. Nevertheless, one needs to remember that it takes typically 40 years for a new material to move from academia to consumer shelves.”

Even in times of global economic uncertainty, politicians are finding the money to pump into research regarding the commercialisation of graphene. In December 2012, renowned for his tight fiscal policy, George Osborne gave £22 million to UK universities to develop graphene, taking the total he has granted to over £60 million. The National Graphene Institute is also to be built in Manchester at a cost of £61 million; Professor Novoselov declared himself, ‘delighted’ by the governments’ decision. Perhaps even more surprisingly given the economic woes across the continent, the European Commission, a part of the EU, in January 2013 chose Graphene to be the recipient of a ten-year £850 million Future Emerging Technology grant. They are hopeful that, “it will revolutionise multiple industries and create economic growth and new jobs in Europe”.

Groundbreaking research is being conducted all over the world. All photo credits to samsungtomorrow.

Although politicians in Europe are investing substantially in graphene, a growing fear is rising that it will not be enough to fight off global competition for patents. A report conducted by CambridgeIP on 15 Jan 2013 showed that since its discovery, the Chinese have 2,204 graphene patent publications, the US 1,754, South Korea 1,160, with the UK lagging far behind with just 54. UK science minister David Willetts simply outlined the problem: “we need to raise our game. It’s the classic problem of Britain inventing something and other countries developing it.” Europe’s struggle with stagnant growth and high unemployment may consequently reduce our ability to compete globally.

Another issue with the development of graphene is what could be labelled as the Concorde syndrome. Heightened by a shortage of public money, if money is pumped into a single project that appears beautiful but has few uses, a lot of time and taxpayers’ funds have been wasted. We can only be hopeful that this is proves to be untrue.

From a scientific perspective, graphene is arguably the most incredible material ever discovered. However, from a commercial perspective, there is still a lot of uncertainty over its future both in terms of development and the ability to compete with Asia.