Good day my good friend.
One of those kind of weeks this week. So lets get straight into it, shall we?
Oh, by the way, I wrote a blog for the Campaign for Better Transport on reimagining the rules of transport planning. You should go read it.
And one final thing, as I believe in transparency in this kind of thing, I did use ChatGPT to help me structure the first section of the newsletter. But the actual words written are my own.
📅 Mobility Camp is back, and this September we are going to Cardiff. It promises to be an amazing day. It would be amazing if you can be there, or maybe sponsor the day.
💼 I am also available for freelance transport planning consultancy, through my own company Mobility Lab. You can check out what I do here.
⚖️ Ch-Ch-Changes…
At the moment, the Labour Government is not popular. As in trailing in the polls to a limited company led by a chancer. While I personally feel that some of it is unwarranted – they are actually doing reasonably well in meeting their manifest commitments – this is partly explained I think by government focussing on fixing the plumbing rather than the crowd pleasers. Opening a new hospital is easy and gets you political points. Making it easier to build more hospitals is hard and doesn’t get you anything.
Right now, going through Parliament are two bills that could be classed as fixing the plumbing. And while most transport planners are excited about the Integrated National Transport Strategy, for my money the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill will be the most meaningful things that this government does for transport between now and the next election. Between them, they will radically change transport planning in England specifically, with profound impacts on how we do our work. So it is worthwhile taking a deep dive into this.
To set this up a bit more, I should state my general philosophy towards governance and decision making. Namely my preference is for local decision making as the norm, and national as the exception. Communities and places know best what their needs are and their own vision of the future, whilst a national government’s role must be to co-ordinate and stitch this all together into a constituent whole. Namely, the complete opposite to how things are done now.
But I’m nothing if not a pragmatist, and I realise that no government in my lifetime will reverse national governance willingly. Furthermore, in looking at these bills I have also tried to look at the submissions and commentary from a variety of parties, to try and come to a balanced view.
While I will spend this newsletter and next week’s going through the respective Bills (Planning and Infrastructure this week, English Devolution and Community Empowerment next), they need to be seen as a cohesive whole. Nothing less than an emerging vision of transport governance across England. I also cannot possibly cover every issue and clause in each bill, so go and read them yourselves, as well as their explanatory notes. To come up with your own view.
With that out of the way, lets get on with digesting with the one that has generated the most heat: the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
For what its worth, I feel that overall this Bill is moving planning in a positive direction. Because lets face it, the planning system of England needs to radically change. In order to create the things needed to meet the most significant challenges of our time – such as climate change – it needs to become more permissive. Our planning system currently is by consent, with the inevitable consequence of restricting development, while somehow also damaging our environment at the same time.
There has been far too much hot air on this bill without understanding the direction it is taking – towards planners ACTUALLY PLANNING, and consents being streamlined and efficient.
Let us take its most controversial element – that on nature recovery. The Bill here strikes the right direction, if in a flawed way. The current process of planning, where aspects relating to nature are fought over on a site-by-site basis, with nobody actually taking ownership over planning for nature recovery outside of statutory duties. As a result, I would argue the planning system does a poor job of protecting species and vulnerable sites.
What the Bill does instead is charge Natural England with strategic planning of nature recovery through Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs). Most critically focussing not just on protection, but on nature recovery. Developers, meanwhile, can contribute to a Nature Restoration Fund to discharge their environmental obligations, while Natural England can still require conditions be imposed on specific developments to meet the requirements of the Environmental Delivery Plans.
The Office for Environmental Protection secured some crucial amendments to the Bill that strengthen its environmental safeguards. Including EDPs passing an overall improvement test for environmental protection, containing backup measures in case primary measures fail, and focus on material improvements not on the potential impact of improvements.
Personally, I am concerned about two aspects. The first is a viability test being considered as part of contributions to the Nature Restoration Fund. These have often proven very useful for some developers to cry viability in order to get out of making contributions. The second is that while a strategic approach is required and long overdue, some environmental issues are highly localised. I worry if the proposed bill is going too far towards strategic at the expense of the local.
A further improvement that I would like to say is the enshrinement of a 10% biodiversity net gain target within Environmental Delivery Plans. There is currently limited evidence of the impact that the biodiversity net gain target for all new developments – mainly because it is too early to determine yet. However, adopting such a target might actually ensure its ownership by a relevant body – Natural England – and a more strategic lens being applied to achieving it. Rather than having constant fights with every development.
A more promising aspect of the bill are the proposed changes in process to speed up the delivery of major infrastructure projects. Of particular interest is a deadline to make decisions being inserted into the Transport and Works Act – or at least the power to introduce them – and local authorities will be pleased to see that their costs in relation to a scheme under said act can now be charged for. Nor do they now have to worry about giving secondary approvals once the order has been made. Small things that could speed up the process of determination.
Another matter that seems to have caused some ripples is changes to consenting for street works associated with EV charging points. As an announcement on cross-pavement charging was made around the same time as the details on the EV clauses became public, the messaging got lost. What the act does is remove a requirement to have a Section 50 Street Works Licence where the Charge Point Operator already has a permit for the works. Doing this avoids a further, sometimes lengthy process for Charge Point Operators to jump through, and so could radically reduce delivery time.
One part of the bill that I whole-heartedly support is the requirement for councillors sitting on planning committees to have had training in planning. When I was the Chair of the Planning Improvement Working Group on my town council, this was something I insisted all members of the group had, and I honestly believe that all of us knew more about planning than the actual planning committee at the local planning authority.
I would go further than this, and require all councillors to have training relating to the areas covered by their respective committees. That includes highways, by the way.
Much is made at the start of the act text about updating and refreshing National Policy Statements for the purposes of major infrastructure. Much of which is tweaking existing laws and doing some tidying up of the legislation. Having a requirement to refresh each of the National Policy Statement’s every 5 years seems reasonable enough to me, though I am not sure it will result in revolutionary changes to infrastructure delivery.
A further aspect that has generated much debate is about apparent reductions in consultation requirements introduced through the Bill. But, to be quite honest, I don’t see it. There is some strengthening of the fact that statutory consultees should have regard to national government policies when responding, and consultation reports should be shorter. But the changes that I see simply re-affirm existing legal minimums.
This is an area where I think practice far exceeds legal requirements. There is a temptation to “gold plate” every aspect of engagement in major projects, where a more targetted approach at each stage may be more than sufficient. For those of you concerned that doing this means weakening consultation requirements, I need to remind you that the Gunning Principles still apply even once this act has passed. At least, until it is tried in court.
Finally, there is the aspect of the bill that I know about the least – the effective restriction of Judicial Review. I read Lord Banner QC’s review on legal challenges against Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects. His recommendations on reducing the opportunities for legal challenge from three chances to two or one seem somewhat reasonable, and his arguments logical. However, I say this as a lay person with little understanding of the judicial process and the UK’s international obligations.
There is an argument of principle here that I accept – namely that people should have the opportunity to judicially challenge decisions made by government, and the opportunities to do this should be maximised. However, in the case of infrastructure projects, this does need to be balanced against certainty on delivery timescales, and allowing engineers to effectively plan and deliver a project. Government is clearly seeking to favour things for the latter, which I have sympathy for. Whether or not this is the right thing I really do not know.
I could go into detail on all of the clauses and amendments, but you have a life to be getting on with. But my overall impression from reading the legislation is this. It is mostly tinkering with the existing system – a system that tries to build things quickly while protecting nature and achieves neither, I would contend.
My view is that in terms of speeding up delivery, the reforms presented will likely have minimal impact apart from making a few procedures quicker. The Stewart Review showed that while procedural issues can hold up major projects, these are just one part of infrastructure delivery, and faster approvals may not necessarily result in faster delivery. Especially here, where the changes to process – while welcome – are arguably minimal.
I would also contend that if we are to speed up the delivery of new infrastructure and homes, we can no longer tinker at the edges, and need to embrace fundamental sweeping changes to the planning system. Maybe shifting towards a zoning system – but that is a subject for another newsletter.
But what the reforms presented in this bill, along with the English Devolution Bill which I will go into next week, indicate is a shift in planning itself. Away from arguments over the details of individual applications and projects, and more towards what planning does best. Planning strategically.
I find it most interesting that one of the organisations most enthusiastic in its language and its engagement has been none other than the Royal Town Planning Institute. Its proposed amendments on a National Spatial Framework and The Purpose of Planning are particularly instructive. The wording of these amendments indicate a general desire to shift to a more strategic focus of planning. Something I completely agree with.
What is clear to me is that government has a clear idea in mind of how this strategic planning should be led. Not necessarily by government. Not even by regional authorities. But by city regions, potentially representing a significant change in planning powers and decision making in this country – with significant implications for transport as well. To understand that, we need to look at the Devolution Bill. And that, my friend, we will delve into next week.
👩🎓 From academia
The clever clogs at our universities have published the following excellent research. Where you are unable to access the research, email the author – they may give you a copy of the research paper for free.
Characterizing Extreme Rainfall-Induced Culvert Washouts in North Carolina
TL:DR – If you know the details of your transport assets, you are more likely to understand what may cause them to fail in heavy rain.
TL:DR – No shock in the findings, let me put it that way. Oh, and capitalise Wales, please.
TL:DR – KhAnIzAgLoBaLiSt742 is going to be disappointed when they read that ULEZ may have increased footfall on high streets in Outer London.
The effect of subway policies on gasoline consumption: Subway expansion versus fare changes
TL:DR – If you expand subways, petrol consumption drops. Its that same for changing the fare policy, but only in the short term.
😀 Positive News
Here are some articles showing that, despite the state of the world, good stuff is still happening in sustainable transport. So get your fix of positivity here.
- Trial pedestrianisation of old Killaloe-Ballina bridge starts Monday (Nenagh Guardian)
- Council invests £16m in hydrogen buses (BBC) – its Surrey, btw.
- More buses on the way as free travel scheme for under-18s launches (Sheffield Star)
- New Coventry cycle lanes welcomed as locals say ‘they make sense for the city’ (Coventry Telegraph)
📻 On the Wireless
This week has involved me pounding the miles up and down the M1, so I have had a chance to delve into the podcast back catalogue. The War on Cars podcast is no doubt listened to by most discerning sustainable transport advocates. Their podcast on What Makes A Cycling City, talking to Dutch researchers on just this topic was fascinating, especially when discussing experiences in Africa. The always-excellent Streets Ahead podcast also did an episode on the Spending Review which is worth a listen.
In non-transport podcasting, I delved back into Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast, specifically his Blueprint for Armageddon series on World War I. You now have to pay to listen to it, but believe me, its well worth the money.
📺 On the (You)Tube
It’s been at least a month since I shared a Geoff Marshall video. In this one, he rode a Class 153, a train that I used to ride on my commute on the Marston Vale Line. But this one has been fitted out to inspect the track.
📚 Random things
These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope that you enjoy them.
- What JD Vance, Pam Bondi, and Sam Altman Can’t Stop Listening to, According to the ‘Panama Playlists’ (Wired)
- The great crime paradox (Financial Times)
- Confessions of the Working Poor (MacLean’s)
- The Unseen Fury Of Solar Storms (Noem)
- Is Hitchhiking Dead? (Hickman’s Hinterlands)
📰 And finally…
Jet2 Holiday’s is experiencing a thing. Especially its advert song and voiceover. British followers will know EXACTLY what I mean.
For this week’s song, the Lionesses victory in the Euros got me going through the back catalogue of English national team songs for major tournaments. Most of which are utterly awful, with a few exceptions. Three Lions is one, Back Home is another, and then there is World in Motion. The best of the lot in my view.
Not only are New Order behind it, but John Barnes drops the sickest rap in history. Too bad he used up all his skills in this, and not in the 1990 World Cup.
Mobility Matters 