Are we closer to a new approach to transport’s role in development?

TRANSPORT PLANNING practitioners certainly have had the ability – and a certain streak of resilience – to talk up the need for more progressive thinking in creating vision-led sustainable transport strategies. Their stories of frustration, and only occasional success, whilst working within the current system were, however, a significant part of the Transport and Development event.

But so was their ambition.

Last week’s conference left me energised, challenged and — unusually for our sector —reasonably optimistic that we’ll see progress.

My company Mayer Brown was proud to be the lead sponsor of this year’s event, alongside SLR, Motts, PJA and NRP, and I was invited to provide a wrap-up of the key themes emerging across the day. What struck me most was not just the appetite for change, but the clarity of the message coming from every corner of the profession of how we might best achieve it.

The turnout was extraordinary with 170 delegates.

Many are nonetheless resigned to this being a tough struggle, and have, I believe, a ‘fixed mindset’ as to the expectations of LA highway officers (and many developers) in resisting this change, and use this as justification not to actually apply vision-led transport planning, or at least play lip-service towards it.

Though there are signs of support in the revised National Planning Policy guidance produced by the new Government a year ago, and in the work of the New Towns Taskforce, it is hard to see this as a firmly embedding a new agenda with no wriggle room for anyone to carry on ‘the old ways’.

I therefore believe we need a ‘mindset change’, so that local authorities stop accepting the traditional approach to transport assessments as the norm, and they and their consultants become more receptive and open to new ways of achieving desired outcomes.

A new narrative

More training is required to disseminate good practice and help create a new behavioural approach to transport development planning, and establish a genuine new narrative. This is in part why the event has quickly become so popular – it provides a forum for the contemporary thinkers in the industry to come together to understand how best to navigate these shifting sands.

Whilst it is obvious that details matter, too often they pass through the planning system unchallenged. Something as seemingly trivial as the location of cycle storage speaks volumes. Put it at the back of a garage or in a shed down the garden, and you silently communicate ‘Don’t cycle.’ How footpaths are designed and made might seem trivial to an uneducated eye. But they count in what a place looks like – and how it works for residents.

It was great to hear from Sheila Holden at the event. As a former Planning Inspector she knows how the process works, and where the bodies are buried when aspirations are not ultimately achieved. She is an outlier in PINS, coming from a transport planning background well-versed in the challenges of delivering sustainable transport before she trained as a planning inspector.

We also heard from Amy Burbridge and Jon Sandford from Homes England and the commitment from the organisation to help disseminate good practice. It is also helpful that such public sector organisations recognise the constraints of optimising outcomes whilst working within the current system.

Remember, that Planning Inspectors generally know very little about transport planning,and they can only make decisions based on the information presented to them. Explain how your approach is in alignment with vision-led – reference the case-studies and guidance to lead them through your assessment and enable them to challenge entrenched views of highway engineers.

The fact is, at present, it is just too hard to deliver visions. Notwithstanding what the NPPF says, parallel existing policy and guidance documents embedded in the system conspire against practitioners trying to deliver vision-led transport planning.

Three particular pieces of legislation came under the spotlight as being unhelpful.

The Highways Act 1980 hard-codes a car-first, capacity-led approach, requiring authorities to prioritise motor-traffic flow and vehicle-oriented standards. This fundamentally conflicts with vision-led planning, which starts from place quality, decarbonisation and mode shift — objectives the Act is not designed to enable or support.

Equally, the Traffic Management Act 2004 requires authorities to secure the expeditious movement of traffic, which in practice is still interpreted almost universally as “keep motor vehicles flowing.”. This statutory duty pulls against vision-led planning, where reallocating space, reducing traffic, or prioritising walking, cycling and buses may slow general traffic but deliver the desired place and mode-shift outcomes.

DfT Circular 01/2022 meanwhile still points the Highways Agency in the wrong direction, reinforcing predict-and-provide thinking and prioritises strategic road capacity, often overriding local aspirations for sustainable, place-led development. It is encouraging that Homes England and National Highways are discussing this, but nobody is having a detailed sensible conversation to engage the profession and understand the challenges of a raft of existing statutory instructions, technical advice, case law and ‘good’ practice shoring up the established regime.

And while the Road Traffic Reduction Acts of 1997 and 1998 technically remain in force, they have become dormant through lack of use. Local authorities could revive the 1997 Act themselves by setting local traffic-reduction targets, but in practice they face the headwinds of the Highways Act, the TMA and national appraisal frameworks that still privilege vehicle flow. Without national government re-activating the 1998 Act, and signalling that traffic reduction is now a statutory expectation rather than an optional extra, authorities are left to swim against the tide. The legislation that could help dismantle car dependency is effectively voluntary, while the legislation that embeds it remains compulsory. Until this imbalance is corrected, even the most progressive councils will struggle to deliver the vision-led outcomes the profession is striving for.

A duty to change

Are government really going to sort all this out with necessary changes? Whose job would it be to do that anyway? Fundamentally we need to amend the ‘duties’ of highway professionals if vision-led planning is to be set up for success. As a key element of the change necessary we need to call-out and challenge implicit biases in transport planning, particularly that access requirements are male-orientated, and based on embedded perceptions of motor-normality.

Local Authorities themselves have a critical role to play in setting a higher bar of expectations. Individually and collectively. Some, encouragingly, already are. Often this is in major part politically led. There was a really impressive turn out at the event last week with some sending 5 delegates along to help educate the team.

But there is little evidence that the big corporate consultants, and the teams within them that many councils use, are doing vision-led yet, and it would be great to have more of them engaging in how we shape the future. It’s certainly good to see some of the smaller ones being fast of foot and innovatively breaking new ground.

Tellingly, Homes England has commissioned research into vision-led good practice from its term consultants, but couldn’t find any stand-out examples, only ‘elements’ of vision-led. We were left wondering whether this is indicative of the current situation in the UK – or perhaps of the consultants on its framework?

People are not yet sufficiently clear on how vision-led transport planning is different. We need some more case studies to show clearly what it is not. Master-developers and development corporations need to take a stronger role in delivering place and accessibility commitments.

But as some of us continue to campaign for change, things around us are changing too. AI is rapidly re-shaping the way we work- with more to come,as Andrew Browning chillingly warned us. He was previously the Chief of Staff to West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street and is CEO & Co-founder of SchemeFlow, a tech company which uses AI to draft technical reports for engineers and built environment professionals. He noted that developers, professional advisors- and members of the public are using AI to ‘game the system,’ and overwhelm the consultation and decision making mechanisms designed for another age.

As the weight of guidance currently contradicts and conspires against the effective delivery of vision-led, AI will bake this in if it remains unchecked, and this means even greater urgency in the need to address policy contradictions.

Other process issues need addressing too. We heard more about the new DfT connectivity measurement tool and its transformative potential from Rob Singleton of the DfT. It is welcomed, but the rollout has been long and tortuous. More guidance on its applications and intended uses is needed ASAP as, if left to chance, we are in danger of squandering the value of this welcomed resource. What are the thresholds for example, for ‘poor connectivity’?

Basemap’s TRACC is meanwhile a powerful tool that provides deeper analysis to understand how connectivity can be improved, with up to date data. All practitioners would welcome more guidance on how best to use these tools together.

One familiar old foundational friend in traffic impact assessment, latterly adapted for broader transport impacts, though arguably not radically enough, is TRICS. It was good to hear from Ian Coles that he recognises that too many consultants and local authorities are using the data to protect the status quo or establish a ‘normalised baseline’.

We need a step change in practice here. Reliance on TRICS data will not enable practitioners to demonstrate ability to move as envisaged in the diagram above, from the blue dotted line (TRICS currently understood trend) to the dotted red line (vision-based approach). This is where professional judgement is needed – solely relying on TRICS based assessment will not deliver vision-led strategies.

We need to flip the telescope. Stop looking at the ‘transport problem’ of development in terms of assessment and mitigation of impact. Let’s look instead at the challenge of creating and validating a transport strategy that supports the development vision and policy objectives. Back-casting from where we really want to be is a powerful technique in this regard.

Many feel that we are drowning in data, which is causing paralysis by analysis. We need to get the balance right between setting objectives and proving them right, so that we are as focused on delivering the outcomes and not over-thinking the analysis- especially when the policy is a ‘Plan for Change’…....

Consistency needed

As the profession is finding its feet in this multi-dimensional new world, there are massive inconsistencies in how we approach things both nationally, and between the public and private sectors.

Many are pushing us toward the academically-inspired ‘Decide and Provide’ regime, which is being introduced into LA guidance. David Knight’s article in LTT 926, pg35 – provides a warning “our recent experience of D&P on projects where different scenarios are assessed has resulted in more time, effort and cost being put into traffic analysis and modelling.”

For example, Kent’s new draft vision-led guidance uses Decide and Provide and requires 7 scenarios. This is not helping to deliver vision-led development – it is paralysing it through analysis.

I sense there is an over-whelming desire for change in the transport planning profession. The planning and housing development shake up the Government has initiated is a critical window of opportunity for that. But we really have to get all our thinking straight.