'10 wasted years'

Paul Barltrop The Politics Show BBC West

For nearly a decade Jonathon Porritt has advised the government. But in one key policy area he says it has been "10 wasted years".

Jonathon Porritt's time in charge of the Sustainable Development Commission ends in July 2009, and he has mixed feelings.

He is probably Britain's best-known environmentalist.

He built up the Green Party, and remains a member - but in 2000 was put onto the payroll of a Labour government.

Jonathon Porritt's time in charge of the Sustainable Development Commission ends in July 2009, and he has mixed feelings.

Praise and frustration

There has been good progress in some areas: waste and recycling have changed dramatically, while the Climate Change Act sets clear targets for cutting greenhouse gases.

Waste and recycling has changed dramatically

However in other areas he is not satisfied: "Of late I've become very frustrated at the length of time it takes to do what is now the absolutely obvious things we need to do."

It is a measure of how things have changed that the views he has held for decades are now very mainstream.

Guest of honour

On the day the Politics Show West went to meet him, he was guest speaker at a centuries-old private school in Gloucester.

The head teacher told the 500-strong audience he wanted to apologise for not having taken Jonathon Porritt more seriously when he first heard him talk in the 1990s.

There is now cross-party consensus about the need to act - but not about the need for living in different ways.

A better life?

Driving less 'can also make people happier and healthier'

Jonathon Porritt passionately believes driving less, walking and cycling more does not just cut emissions - it can make people happier and healthier.

It is a positive message he feels has not been properly given to the public.

"If politicians don't get their heads around doing the upside, then people will go on thinking this is the end of progress as we've known it," he concludes.

"Nobody does that kind of voting against their own interest."

The 'nightmare' department

When he sees the congested rounds outside his home in Cheltenham he shakes his head.

More cars than ever clog its streets; trains to major destinations like Bristol and London are all too often overcrowded.

Britain's roads are becoming too congested

"I get cross because the government actually produced a very good integrated transport strategy back in 1998," he sighs as he remembers a long-abandoned plan.

"Ten wasted years" is his view of what we got; he sums up the Department for Transport as "a complete nightmare".

He may deal with them less in future, but Jonathon Porritt says he will not go quiet.

With more time on his hands - and freed from the constraints of working for the government - he may be louder than ever.

Watch the Politics Show West on Sunday at 11:00 GMT on BBC One (or watch again on the BBC iPlayer).

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