Government policy is going nowhere fast

If you are ever up late and have one of those satellite channels showing films that cost nothing to make or show, do check it out. It's the gripping story of a vast and slimy creature from the sea that attempts to eat Copenhagen. The good burghers of the city are shown trying to get to work on their bicycles while Reptilicus roars and sprays unsavoury spittle over their handlebars. Meanwhile my father, playing a cool television announcer, declares to the camera: "There is no need for alarm. The authorities have everything in hand." This is so patently untrue that even the irritable monster stops and blinks with disbelief.

The film was made in the late 1950s and the thing that strikes me most is that nothing much has changed. Copenhagen may be free of nuclear reptiles, but by and large the city is still commuting to work on two wheels.

I mention all this because of something I read about the current dispute with the fire service. Without getting involved in the politics of the issue, I am interested in the practicality. It seems that firefighters in many urban centres are having major problems with commuting. They cannot afford to live in the areas that they protect and so some are travelling to and from work for up to five hours a day. I've ranted on before about affordable housing for essential workers, but there is more to it than that.

There was a time when people left home, trotted down the road and found themselves at work. Now all that has changed. The latest surveys indicate that on average employees are spending five weeks of every year just getting to their place of employment. That's not the end of it. The average person not only gifts away five weeks of life but spends a third of his or her salary doing it.

OK, let's do the maths. The UK workforce commutes 78.5 billion miles a year on their own time and 43.8 billion miles while theoretically "at work". The cost of car commuting is £13.5bn and UK businesses foot a £20bn annual bill for the cost of traffic congestion. That's quite a lot, isn't it?

Allegedly the Reading Cycle Club have taken to yelling ‘road’ to inform other pedallers when they come across a clear piece of tarmac between the holes

Given that the public's latest rating of the government's transport performance was a less than enthusiastic -49%, it also seems that no one is having any fun. Trains are late, overcrowded and filthy, roads are congested and buses seem to operate in a kind of Bermuda Triangle of travel. For some people the bicycle may be an option but the weather and the condition of the roads can be a deterrent. Apparently, regular cyclists often shout "hole" to warn fellow pedallers of dips in the road system; allegedly, members of the Reading Cycle Club have taken to yelling "road" instead when they happen to see a clear piece of tarmac between the holes. I was recently at the Environment UK conference in Colchester and I won't even go into the cost of what we're doing to the very air we breathe, which has a knock-on effect to our health, the NHS and then … oh, don't get me started.

So what's the answer? Well, there is the very modern "telecommuting", where people sit at home and work on the internet. The damage to the lungs is negligible and the quality of the coffee can be personally controlled. I do this myself when I am writing. My average commute on a scribbling day is about 30 seconds, which is marvellous. The downside is that I find office gossip difficult to sustain.

Working from home may be a solution for some but I don't think it is ideal. Creativity often works best in groups where people can spark off each other and, of course, services like the fire brigade would look foolish sitting at home waiting with a single bucket of water.

The fact is that more needs to be done to enable people to live nearer to their place of work. I do believe it is time that some control was put on the insanity of house prices.