Planning for car light communities must start now

FOR THE LAST few years, there has been cross party support for the delivery of more housing to ‘solve the housing crisis’. There has been much less debate about the effect this could have on our need to reduce the impact of travel on carbon, beyond the ongoing and planned technological fixes for the vehicle fleet.

There seems to be broad agreement that a traffic reduction of at least 20% by 2030, relative to current plans, would be required to meet the surface transport carbon reductions identified in the 6th Carbon Budget pathway. Without it, currently anticipated traffic growth means that the transport sector will significantly exceed the emissions budget anticipated by the Climate Change Committee, as effectively demonstrated by the detailed work of Professor Greg Marsden, and leave us well off course for achieving Net Zero.

Not only does this suggest that changes are needed to reduce car use within our existing travel behaviours, but surely that we must avoid reinforcing car dependency as we build new communities, and ensure that the quality of life of future generations is not compromised in the dash for housing and growth.

The argument for making changes to our approach to community development has historically focussed on securing changes in policy. The Department of Transport PPG13 planning policy guidance document advocating the need to ‘reduce the need for travel’ dates back to 1994, whilst the concept of vision-led planning was embraced in the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) issued last autumn, thirty years later. Yet despite this policy making progress, many commentators have pointed to the lack of practical change on the ground. Outside the main conurbations, development continues to be promoted in unsuitable sub-urban locations, with roads-based master plans continuing largely to prevail.

Despite good intentions, reducing the car dependency of future generations appears to be somewhere in the distance. Not only does this mean we are failing to sufficiently tackle climate change, we are also creating new communities where non car transport choices are less attractive, reducing opportunities for active and healthy lifestyles. In the spirit of vision-led planning, let’s imagine how a debate about development outcomes might appear in 2037, based on our current trajectory.

Perhaps there has been continued traffic growth, fed by road building, population growth and support for electric vehicles, creating increased congestion and delay. Perhaps new bus service investment has fallen away, leaving car use as the only realistic option for longer distance journeys. Perhaps local community facilities and connectivity never arrived as promised. And perhaps carbon-based taxation has been introduced as the climate crisis becomes ever more evident.

In these circumstances how would a future family regard the lack of forethought about the design of new sub-urban places in which they are now trying to live sustainably ? What would they say when their lack of choice, compromised lifestyles and increased cost becomes evident?

Would they not question why there couldn’t have been a smarter way to live? Why couldn’t changes have been made in the planning of community development to ensure sustainable connectivity and investment in low carbon alternatives to car travel? Alternatives that provide a real and cost-effective alternative to the car, for at least some weekly movements? Making that alternative choice might currently feel a stretch for those used to car dependency for the major part of their lives, but for younger people these options are far more business as usual. And who, if not them, are we planning these new houses and new communities for?

This is not a no-car approach, but it is a call for innovation in the planning and design of car-light communities. Many of the ingredients are with us, but we seem to have difficulty in finding ways of delivering places that bring them together in a way that creates attractive communities that the market wants to build, and that people want to live in. How can we deliver that radical change from the status quo needed now?

It would mean a more robust approach to regional site selection, designed-in accessibility by public transport, alternative urban forms with significantly lower levels of parking, and provision of local community and mobility services offering highly convenient and attractive alternatives. All of this would need to be supported by changes in professional practice to establish an achievable basis for monitoring the outcomes of our vision-based plans – more than measuring delay and congestion, instead seeking to understand how access and movement support quality of life.

So far, so good? Perhaps. But everything you have read so far has been about our professional world of policy and practice - and, as we know from our efforts over the last 30 years - policy and practice alone will not be enough to prevent more car dependent communities. Unless we urgently identify and address the other barriers to change, then we will yet again miss the opportunity of this period of investment in housing to change the development paradigm.

Let’s be ready to admit our gap in perception here. Over the past couple of years, after leaving my old day job, I have become acutely aware that my own lack of understanding of the views of society, decision makers and the development market about alternative development solutions has been a significant reason why I have been unable to complete the journey from policy change to change on the ground in my career.

I also found that I was far from being alone in this. If I didn’t understand why communities have been rejecting low carbon land use and transport solutions, (such as vehicle to grid parking barns or local mobility services) how could I understand how to convince decision makers, developers, investors and those communities themselves about the wisdom of moving away from traditional development planning?

“It is easy to blame the public for a lack of societal readiness (for alternative land use and transport solutions). But this ‘public deficit’ approach to societal readiness diverts attention from vital questions about the solutions themselves. How ready are they for people to adopt into their everyday lives? How easy are they for businesses and developers to sell? How can politicians promote them and still be elected? How good are they for society in the long term?”
Professor Monika Buscher in the Bridging the Gap report in 2023)

As Professor Monika Buscher has noted in the Bridging the Gap report in 2023, it is unhelpful to ‘blame’ the public and politicians without understanding how it all looks to them.

It is not that we (the professionals) need convincing of the need for change, but that we need to have better developed solutions to address the barriers to implementation. Why should the public invest in our vision of the future? Why should developers invest money in new models of development? Why should decision makers take electoral risk by voting for change?

By failing to engage with others fully we are failing to set the right context for creating places that are appropriate for the situation we face, and the people who will live there. We have focussed too much on our issues, not theirs, thus fuelling continued resistance to change. Then we wonder why we are in a minority of people who believe they are right!

I do believe, however, there is a way forward and here then is a brief list of the questions we need to tackle if progress towards a car-light future is to be made,

First comes the right approach to community engagement, and the recognition of market and political risk:

The key issue is what do future communities really think might make a car light development work for them? This needs an open mind about the readiness to adopt various alternative land use and transport plans, and a willingness to up-end the way we have consulted with communities thus far. One project seeking to address this issue is the groundbreaking £7.8m study, Inspiring Futures for Zero Carbon Mobility (INFUZE) being led by the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds, along with research partners The Royal College of Art and Lancaster University. This provides an opportunity for us to better understand what a world might look like in which people did not need to own their own cars, and thus ease concerns about market and political risk.

Second is the way we plan, in the context of devolution and changes to the structure of local democracy.

Does the prospect of devolution create the opportunity to establish plans that set a ‘larger than local’ vision which local planning can take place? Can agreement be reached quickly about Spatial Development Strategies that define a framework of outcomes and a new vision of place that set the foundations for effective implementation of smart growth rather than get buried in detailed policy debates?

Third, we need to focus on delivery: finance, funding, and legal detail are all important.

A shift is needed, away from one-off infrastructure capital funding, towards the long term revenue funding needed to support reliable, low carbon community and mobility services. This brings challenges for traditional development business models, as well as for the structuring of planning conditions and obligations linked to long term funding commitments. Recent experience has demonstrated that there are solutions to these issues, but wider review and dissemination is needed.

Unless making a change from the status quo can be made easier to do, and confidence established that different approaches will be effective, change will never happen. Solutions to deliver car light housing and a pathway to reduced car dependency now need to be part of strategy at regional and local level, providing a framework into which new development can be placed. Engagement with regional and local government, developers and investors about the barriers to change, and potential solutions, is essential to find a new model.

Having talked about this widely, I do believe there is a willingness to address these issues, but so far, little clarity in the way to move from words to action. We have an opportunity now to change that. The prize could be greater than we think. Not only could we be planning for wider transport choice and better quality of life for new communities, why could we not be aiming for these new communities to act as a catalyst for greater transport choice, lower dependence and higher quality of life more widely? Perhaps, then, our 2037 cohort, as they move into their new homes might not be quite so disappointed in us?

After a career in transport project and business leadership roles with consultants culminating as a director of PBA and Stantec, Keith Mitchell is now working independently to research and provide strategic advice relating to transport decarbonisation and the design of more sustainable communities.

He recently led Bridging the Gap, a research project with the University of Leeds and Transport for the North addressing this issue.

This article was first published in LTT magazine, LTT912, 2 April 2025.