It’s time to put the plan back in planning
A nation of drivers. A plan for drivers. Putting drivers first. Early indications from the new government suggest that this reductive rhetoric has been left behind, with new Transport Secretary Louise Haigh’s early announcements not mentioning ‘drivers’ once. But does this step away from car-centricity also apply to the reform of our planning system?
Last week the deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner committed to reforming the National Planning Policy Framework, something that’s of great interest to us at Campaign for Better Transport. It’s no coincidence that the UK has become a nation of drivers, even if around a quarter of households don’t have access to a car. Planning, bad planning is a huge reason why in 2024, some estimate that only 10% of journeys in the UK are made by public transport.
In the twentieth century there was a wild west approach to planning, a time when there was a pervasive idea that the private car might be vital for our shared future. We are still picking up the pieces not just from Beeching cuts of the 1960s, but from a haphazard, car-centric approach to planning and building new homes and towns after the Second World War. Car dependence was constructed, not just through driveways, garages, large out-of-town superstores, but by not ensuring these new homes and towns were built alongside public transport.
We constantly hear from people who say that they would use public transport if only they had any. A great many people drive not because they want to, but because they have no other option. The Transport Deserts that we document are very often the result of misguided planning. Simply put, in planning, there has been no plan.
How little we knew then, it seemed. But we should know better now, and we should have for some time. That’s why we believe that the National Planning Policy Framework needs rewriting to ensure that new developments have stringent requirements ensuring that they are built around existing public transport networks, or that developments on green or the newly designated ‘grey’ belt sites, have new public transport networks or stations guaranteed as part of the plan. This works in many parts of Europe, and the relative success of European models is demonstrated by not just the vast number of smaller cities and towns with tram systems, but the high proportion of the populations in counties such as France, the Netherlands and Germany who can reach their local city centre within half an hour – the UK’s sprawl means we do not perform at all well on this metric, leaving many people isolated.
A recent report from Sustrans and Create Streets lays out very clearly an approach to planning with a case study in Chippenham which can offer a very useful solution, and which we recommend strongly. The new government is right to prioritise new homes, and it is as vital to tackle the notorious UK problem of nimbyism in relation to housing as it is in relation to new transport infrastructure, but it would be disastrous if we were to repeat the mistakes of the twentieth century by not ensuring that transport is central. This is an opportunity, we believe, to achieve two vital things at once: new homes and new transport networks. The misguided days of sprawl have to be consigned to the past.
As Charles Montgomery’s wonderful book ‘Happy City’ has shown, getting cities right is key for our individual and community health, and vital for the environment, and this applies directly to the challenges our new government aims to address with its ambitious target of 1.5 million new homes. With the right approach to planning, high streets can become vibrant again, local economies can flourish, obesity and loneliness can be tackled, and people can be given the freedom of movement that only proper, widespread, accessible public transport can provide. This is a huge opportunity, and we will press the government to see if they will take it.
Campaign for Better Transport wrote to Angela Rayner on 25 July to urge her to place sustainable transport at the heart of new developments. Read the letter here.
