Government red-tape preventing roll out of green buses in Crawley

It is now four years since I took a tour around Crawley aboard one of Metrobus’s planned hydrogen-fuelled buses. During the trip we were told by the company about their plans to roll out green hydrogen across the network, as part of their commitments to achieving net zero.

It was clear that a lot of investment was going into these plans, enabling us to benefit from green bus travel earlier than almost anywhere else.

Five months after it was first flagged with me by a local resident that Metrobus were having difficulties rolling out the new vehicles, it has been publicly acknowledged that the buses are still sat in a depot due to Government red tape preventing the supporting infrastructure from being signed-off.

Hydrogen clearly comes with some risks, so it is only appropriate that there be stringent standards in place, but if we can’t get to a point where the Health and Safety Executive are two-years behind in signing-off on a hydrogen refueling station at one bus depot, with no end date in sight, then we are going to have a real problem in coming even vaguely close to decarbonising our transport network in time to prevent catastrophic climate change.

It’s time that the Government stepped in to clear this mess up and urgently reviews their processes to ensure that the assessment process is fit for the challenges ahead.