TAPAS.network | 25 February 2022 | Editorial Opinion | Peter Stonham

Making the right case,
Using the right tools?

Peter Stonham

THERE’S QUITE A HEAD of steam building up for a long hard look at how transport investment fits into the UK’s wider economic, social and sustainability strategy.

Plenty of examples are cropping up that illustrate the issues - and they are complex and cross cutting.

In the present landscape there is, moreover, a big danger of different agencies and authorities ‘doing their own thing’ and claiming they are ‘meeting important objectives’ that might well be true - but could equally well be inhibiting or making impossible the delivery of others.

Joining the conflicts between enhancing mobility and economic development and achieving decarbonisation and dealing with Climate Change, is now the topic of “Levelling Up” and what it means for particular places.

This week sub national transport body Midlands Connect unveiled a major package of highway improvements across the North and East Midlands on the A50 and A500 corridor in a report under the title Levelling-up Stoke, Staffordshire, Derby & Derbyshire: The road to success. It outlines a series of recommendations for schemes to alleviate bottlenecks along the 90km long corridor, which links Derby, Nottingham and Leicester to Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire and the North-West.

quotations 5

There is even a risk of major infrastructure upgrades serving inter -urban and inter- regional corridors actually being at risk of ‘levelling down’ the places they pass through by visiting externalities on them, or just transferring value elsewhere.

The project might arguably bring benefits for a number of large manufacturers such as JCB, Rolls-Royce, Toyota and Alstom who use this key East-West route as part of their supply chains and provide links to international markets, which the report highlights - but is that really in the cause of ‘Levelling Up”? At least as defined in the Government’s very recent White Paper on the subject which set rather different, much more local, objectives for transport improvements to help marginalised towns and communities - and not much related to investment schemes of this kind.

There is even a risk of major infrastructure upgrades serving inter -urban and inter- regional corridors actually being at risk of ‘levelling down’ the places they pass through by visiting externalities on them, or just transferring value elsewhere.

It is a criticism that has been levelled at other ‘corridor’ schemes like the East London River Crossing being promoted by Highways England.

At the heart of these issues are potential conflicts between national, regional, and local objectives and agendas.

They are clearly not easy to resolve, but without even acknowledging them, there will certainly be no solution.

New approaches and tools will be needed to find a suitable path.

In that regard the Welsh Government’s willingness to try a new approach is commendable. As we explore in a News Extra in this issue The Welsh Roads Review Panel’s latest findings should be of interest to transport professionals around the UK for the way they tackle these challenging issues.

Until a few months ago, the £75m scheme to replace two roundabouts on the A55 Expressway in North Wales appeared to have unstoppable momentum. Funding was in place and the Welsh Government, the scheme’s promoter, gave the impression that the proposed grade separation ticked all the right boxes on safety, carbon, and journey times, with a couple of improved active travel bridges thrown in too.

Six days before the scheme’s public inquiry was due to commence in September, deputy climate change minister Lee Waters postponed all activity until the Roads Review Panel, chaired by Dr Lynn Sloman, had fast-tracked its scrutiny of the scheme. The panel’s report, now published, reveals that the scheme is incompatible with several fundamentals of Welsh Government policy.

Waters responded by cancelling the scheme and establishing a North Wales Transport Commission, chaired by Lord Burns, to undertake a multi-modal study in the same way as the 2019/20 Burns Commission which recommended on alternatives to building the M4 Relief Road at Newport.

The techniques and principles they use will be a fascinating case study for many similar situations around Britain.

Meanwhile the Department for Transport has just revealed a new toolkit to address the way transport schemes are examined against the Levelling Up mission entitled Transport Business Cases: The Levelling Up Toolkit. Strangely it claims to be designed “to help business case authors engage with and assess how a transport proposal contributes towards delivering the DfT strategic priority to Grow and Level Up the Economy” - which seems to pre-date the much more fine grained and locally-focussed definition in Levelling Up, Homes and Communities Secretary of State Michael Gove’s newly published White Paper.

The toolkit can be used in the strategic dimension in a transport scheme’s business case, says DfT, where “‘levelling up’ is a relevant strategic objective of the transport programme or project,” a statement which itself surely begs an awful lot of important questions.

Fortunately, DfT says “it remains open to views on the scope and content of the toolkit, which is a live document and open to change.”

Peter Stonham is the Editorial Director of TAPAS Network

This article was first published in LTT magazine, LTT840, 25 February 2022.

d2-20220516-1
taster
Read more articles by Peter Stonham
Worth some thought before councils sent charging ahead?
THE FEATURE in the issue of LTT 848 looks at the way in which UK government policy and ambitions about Electric Vehicle (EV) roll-out have been involving transport authorities at the local level. And some of the challenges that are emerging in achieving the right balance and level of provision of charging facilities involving a whole host of prospective players. It’s definitely a fact that without suitable such facilities neither the required consumer confidence or practical electricity energy supply will be possible to underpin this important element of transport’s contribution to meeting the net zero target.
Are we smart enough to deal with the implications of AI?
STONE AGE MAN, if handed a smart phone, might be bemused, intrigued – and probably concerned – but it is unlikely he would immediately say how useful it was, and how it was going to change his life. The functionality of the device would hardly match the priorities of his era – after all, it cannot hunt, cut trees down or light a fire.
An industrial view of a public policy puzzle
THE LONG-AWAITED report from the group led by Juergen Maier commissioned by Transport Secretary Louise Haigh when in opposition, has come as something of a disappointment to anyone hoping to see the full shape of the new Government’s transport strategy emerging, or even a comprehensive vision for the two subject areas it has specifically addressed - rail and urban transport.
Read more articles on TAPAS
Hypermobility, the damaging addiction of modern life
OUR MODERN WORLD is just a couple of centuries old . The presence of mankind upon our planet around 300, 000 years . So can it be entirely logical to just add response after response in transport interventions on top of where ‘modern man’ has ended up in just 200 years of technological trial and error (and all the problems that has brought) , but ignore the basic character and needs of the people it is all supposedly for?
Spending wish list for transport set to meet harsh post-election financial realities
The Transport ‘in tray’ facing the likely new Chancellor Rachel Reeves after the Election, will be overshadowed by the realities of harsh economics, and the pressure on public finances says David Leeder. He takes a hard look at the economic and budgetary context, and how it will impact local transport, bus and rail policy, and funding, and suggests ten approaches which might help provide new solutions.
Budget thinking could define this Government’s term for transport
SPECULATION IS GROWING about the transport implications of the new Labour government’s first Budget on 30 October. Both prime minister Kier Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves have continued to warn of ‘tough choices’ to address a funding gap which will impact both the government’s tax and spending policies, whilst they talk the language of ‘new priorities’ and more rigorous approaches to meeting objectives and securing value for money from investment.