10th September 2008
(The Falmouth Packet)
 A giant tortoise will be wandering the streets of Falmouth during the Tall Ships event to bring home the message of helping fight climate change by making the town centre traffic free.
Falmouth Friends of the Earth will take to the streets on Saturday, September 13, with their home made companion Trystan the tortoise. The group will celebrate what they say is the "all too brief" three days of pedestranisation in the town centre during the event.
The stunt branded a "celebration of slowness" also marks the beginning of Climate Friendly Fortnight, where the group will aim to inform and inspire people to restrain climate change Trystan is the size of a standard 4x4 car, but immeasurably more climate friendly. He will stroll up and down the town at ease, indulging in a little window shopping, chatting to his friends and listening to music.
Falmouth Friends of the Earth member Tom Scott said: “Motor cars given free reign to charge along the main shopping streets is very much the same plain silliness as overtook the hare in Aesop's famous fable. Even more so when this three days so vividly demonstrates the feasibility of doing without a car-infested shopping centre or Church Street car park".
The group has been campaigning to get Market, Church and Arwenack streets fully pedestrianised.
And while a rising bollard in Market Street is due to be installed soon so cars will not be able to use the main shopping streets except to access Church Street car park the group says more needs to be done.
Kate Ormrod from the group said: "There is one slowness we won't be celebrating, that is the time it is taking Cornwall county council to understand this. Mr Tortoise may come straight out of the pages of a fable, but it's the county council that is living in cloud cuckoo land if they think they can get by with any less than full-blown pedestrianisation".
More photos from the day available here
|
