Good day my good friend.
It’s been…a week lets say that. I really do not have the energy to write anything witty, sorry. Let’s get to it.
📅Mobility Camp is back, and on 29th 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.
🏘️ Don’t be a pain
Few terms in planning rile me more than NIMBY, or Not In My Back Yard for those who don’t know. I bet a picture is forming in your mind right now. A picture of a retired couple in a nice house in the suburbs, objecting to new housing because it might affect their view in the morning. Or maybe they are concerned that about how “you can’t get a doctor’s appointment now, let alone if they build the houses” or “there’s too much traffic and I am worried about the safety of the kids.”
I hate the term because it is a lazy and broad generalisation levied against anyone who objects to any development. Sadly, I have seen far too many urbanists rail against NIMBYs (quite often in a rant against the idea of council meetings where NIMBYs usually “turn out in force”) on the assumption that anyone objecting to any development is bad. When very often that are very sound reasons for why developments should not go ahead.
The excellent work of Transport for New Homes highlights that any development does not always equal good development. They tell a tale of bad developments proceeding (or good developments being built badly), and locking entire communities into a cycle of car dependency in places with no facilities or sense of common ownership. The very worst housing sites can literally just be that: a housing estate remote from any facilities, or any means of getting to and from there without a car.
For some time I have worked with community groups who have opposed development. Even one, ironically enough, in my own back yard. In doing so, I often get asked the same questions about “how can this development be stopped” or about “can you prove this will be disastrous for traffic, as I just know it is.” In doing so I exercise my best judgment, and attempt to approach the issue impartially.
Due to the nature of this engagement, I often get drafted in towards the end of the process. The planning application is in, and the Transport Assessment and Travel Plan needs assessing quickly. The principle of development is sometimes already established in the Local Plan, with the development being an allocated site. While I cannot control when people bring in expertise, it does frustrate me somewhat. Very often minds are set on developments, and I am tasked with providing some degree of confirmation bias.
This is a shame, as I feel that many of the issues that are often experienced in the heat of objection felt by NIMBYs can be dealt with through a little pro-activity at a much earlier stage. Too often as professionals we experience people who have concerns about developments in the heat of battle, so to speak. When actually there is far more common ground than we think there is.
In my experience, most “NIMBYs” actually understand the need for development. They just haven’t been told about a development, or felt that they have been left out of key decisions that affect their neighbourhoods. Feelings often well founded.
Transport planners and planners generally know what needs to be done not to overcome all possible objections, but at least to take the heat out of new developments. But what they often do not do is advise community groups. They never advise that there are ways to actually be a “good NIMBY” and not just stamp your feet and say no all the time.
This is why I have written this edition of the newsletter. To tell you what good NIMBYs do – NIMBYs who secure a good outcome from development for their areas. These are the lessons that I wish I could tell every community group when I talk to them, but can’t as its often too late. Because local communities often have far more agency than they think they do.
Lesson 1: The best NIMBYs are pro-development
This sounds stupid, so let me explain. Look at the bigger picture here. There is a chronic shortage of housing across most areas of the country. Housing is unaffordable to first time buyers without a substantial deposit across most of the country. Houses need to be built in most places across the country. And whatever you might think about “we can just bring old houses back into use” and “there is loads of land up in the North (why is it always “the North”),” we are now at a point where housing is needed everywhere.
Luckily, there are ways and means by which, with a little thought about how your area could develop in the future, you can make a big difference. I am a huge fan of the Neighbourhood Plan process, where local neighbourhoods can identify development sites in their area, and have them adopted as part of planning policy. While it does not override the Local Plan, what it gives you the power over is where future development is prioritised. So rather than a new 50 home development being promoted on green fields, you can promote such a development in the centre of town.
By being proactive, you can avoid many issues much further down the line. I personally would also urge ambition in neighbourhood plans. Don’t settle for plans that just tweak existing local policies. Identify sites for development, and put them in the plan, with conditions on what should be built there. Go one stage further, and adopt a Neighbourhood Development Order to speed up these developments you want to see.
Every development you want to see reduces the pressure to build a development you don’t want to see.
Lesson 2: Don’t assume everyone in the new development will drive
One of the biggest learnings of transport behaviour change over the years is that people are willing to change how they travel at major life change. One such life change is moving house, and so people moving into the development which you want to fight tooth and nail against have a real opportunity to change how they travel so that their cars don’t clog up your roads.
Research has shown that when there is the capability, motivation, and opportunity to change, the behaviour change becomes much more likely. It does not make change certain, but it vastly increases its chances of happening.
If you know that a major development is planned (look at the Local Plan for your area to find out what is planned), and you are worried about its traffic impacts, rather than use that as a stick to beat any application with, get on the front foot. Talk to councillors and planning officers, and demand the highest quality public transport links from the start of the development. Insist that new, safe, cycle tracks to the town centre, schools, and other facilities are built. Say that unless the Travel Plan (which promotes such improvements to new residents) is the highest quality, you will kick up such a stink you’ll have councillors quaking from now until election day.
Too often I encounter people who assume that those in the new development will travel how they do – namely drive. This often means they miss the opportunities for changing behaviours that can result from new developments. Or they vastly over-estimate the impacts of the development on the highway network. I recommend you trust in the fact that people can, and do change, and people moving into the new development are ripe for changing.
Lesson 3: A dead hero is a useless hero
I have seen it too many times. Campaign groups against development who never say die. They are fighting a noble cause. They are fighting development on every issue, with every fibre of their being. They give no ground. They fight them on the beaches. They fight them on the hills, and in the streets.
Then they lose.
The developer wins. They build everything they want, and the community gets nothing apart from what the council negotiates for it.
This is often my first piece of advice that I give to community groups fighting developments. Chances are, you will lose, and you need to be prepared for that.
My advice here is two fold. The first is that when fighting against developments, you have to be focussed in your objections. It is so tempting to fling everything at the wall and see what sticks, but in reality this takes focus away from the planning grounds on which the development may be very shaky indeed. Its better to go in hard on one or two areas where your case is strong, than try and object to as many things as you can. It is worth knowing the Local Plan for your area for this reason.
The second piece of advice is no less important. You must ask yourself honestly whether your objection can be overcome by improvements to the development secured by an obligation to the developer to do something (like improve a road junction) or through a condition on the planning application (like plans for road improvements must be approved by the council before development starts).
The one question I never get to ask community groups is a simple one: if the development went ahead, what would you want to happen to make it less bad? What cycle links would you want built by the developer? How frequent should a new bus service be? Should the developer pay for a new community facility in the town?
Asking yourself such a question feels awful. You are against this development, after all, and I certainly don’t mean to ignore how you feel about it. My purpose is to encourage you to think honestly and logically. Even more than that, it is so that when developers or the council come to you, you go to them prepared. You get to say that if it was to happen, you want to see these things happening, as its the least they can do to stop the worst impacts on the local community.
It sounds like selling out, or being bought off. It is far from it. It is being practical, and getting the best for your community. Ultimately, that is what most community groups I have dealt with want – the best for their area. But that means accepting that there will battles which you will lose, but that doing so does not mean its a lost cause.
Hopefully, these lessons will act as a useful guide to you on how to get the best out of the planning system. And, importantly, approach your task based on an honest assessment of your position.
👩🎓 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.
TL:DR – The Clash might not be interested in this behavioural classification of EV drivers and their behaviours.
Acceptance of crowd-sourced delivery tasks using diverse transportation mode options
TL:DR – People would rather their deliveries be made by car than by bike.
Roadblocks in measuring transport poverty (for Social Climate Plans)
TL:DR – It is hard to measure.
TL:DR – Taxi drivers need more training.
😀 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.
- £1 Bus Fares for Young People in Wales (Transport for Wales)
- Edinburgh’s new cycle hire scheme launches today (Midlothian View)
- Vienna tramway: An extension of the network and a new line (Urban Transport Magazine)
- Prague to build two new tram lines: Libuš – Nové Dvory and Olšanská – Habrová (Prague Daily News)
- New operator Voi to power Glasgow’s cycle hire scheme with fully electric fleet (Glasgow City Council)
📺 On the (You)Tube
Geoff comes to my part of the world, and explores quite how far the Metropolitan Line of the London Underground came out of the city. It was a long, long, long way.
📚 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.
- The world’s surprise boomtown: Baghdad (The Economist)
- From solarpunk to the metaverse: The way we think about the future needs to change (The Big Issue)
- It’s Possible to Remove the Forever Chemicals in Drinking Water. Will It Happen? (Wired)
- Britain is in the eye of the financial storm (Unherd)
- 99 Problems: The Ice Cream Truck’s Surprising History (Longreads)
🎶 Musical Outtro
It’s September, which only means one thing. It’s this classic from Green Day.
The story behind the song is somewhat well known in musical circles. When his father died in September 1984, Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong was so upset he ran home, and shouted to his mother “Wake me up when September ends.” Needless to say that it is a song tinged with sadness and loss.
Mobility Matters 