Hi I’m Esther I’m 12 and I’m from Sheffield, England.
The #TrainsNotPlanes petition has three demands to the UK government:

1. Many more trains, integrated and accessible

2. Many more international trains, day and night

3. Stop the tax breaks for airlines and flight tickets

Recently, the British Government has halved the amount of taxes that are paid on flights within the UK. This causes plane ticket prices to be lowered causing more people to travel by plane when these short journeys would just as easily be made by train. This as you probably know, is bad for the environment. We want train travel to be encouraged in the UK and then world wide.

In the last October holiday (2021) we spent about 18 and a half hours traveling to Spain. Imagine how much quicker that would have been if we went by plane! Spanish railways want to make a connection through the channel tunnel to London. The journey from London to Barcelona would now take about 9 hours. By law they can do this, we just need to make the government realise that there needs to be more trains.

We’re stuck in a climate crisis and the UK’s government is just making it worse by encouraging plane travel. Why fly from London to Manchester when you can simply get the train?

We need change!