Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution

1.       Environmental sustainability

(e)   There is still a tendency for the "predict and provide" approach to be adopted, particularly in the less prosperous parts of the UK where there is a great desire for economic growth. There is view that economic sustainability should have a higher priority than environmental sustainability. Planning guidance needs to be strenghtened to redress this balance, particularly in Wales as the National Assembly has sustainable development as legal requirement of its activities.

(g)   A sustainable approach to transport planning does require adequate funding if it is to be effective. At present, the level of expenditure on transport in the UK is low by the standards of other developed countries, and funding levels are lower in Wales than in England. This is a particular problem when it comes to developing high-quality public transport, such as rail or light rail schemes, in major urban areas.

2.       Boundaries

(a)   Individual local authorities are reluctant to introduce planning controls which they feel may undermine an area's competitiveness. For example, few if any local authorities are likely to introduce road pricing or workplace parking charges, unless their neighbouring authorities are required to do likewise. In Wales, it would seem logical for the National Assembly to take the lead in introducing such measures on a regional basis.

(c)   Land use planning has a significant role to play in delivering policy targets for traffic levels under the Road Traffic Reduction Acts. Guidance to local planning authorities needs to make this clear. The Commission for Integrated Transport has proposed the adoption of 'benchmarks' for different types of urban and rural area (such as metropolitan city, rural district) so that local authorities can adopt realistic targets and assess the progress they are making towards RTR objectives.

(d)   A number of models based on GIS technology are available for measuring accessibility by different modes of transport, for example, the ACCMAP system developed by MVA. Greater use of these models in the development planning process should be encouraged. The capital costs of setting up such systems can be quite high (typically £10 -20,000) and there is a need for regular updating of the stored data. Close collaboration with public transport operators is necessary, as the frequent changes in bus timetables permitted under the 1985 Transport Act makes it difficult to keep information up to date.

3.       Integration or co-ordination?

(b)   In terms of transport, there is currently something of a policy vacuum at the regional level in Wales. County Councils were abolished in 1996, and the system of regional planning conferences which exists in England, has not been adopted in Wales. The National Assembly needs to be encouraged to take on a strategic transport planning role, for example in the development of the rail network in Wales. It would be helpful if the Assembly were given powers to influence rail services comparable to those of the Scottish Parliament.

(f)   The publication of PPG 13: Transport in May 1994 (draft revision October 1999), and its equivalent guidance in Planning Guidance (Wales): Planning Policy (1996 - revised 1998) marked a major shift in Government thinking on land use planning, and its relationship with transport. However, the view of the DETR seems to be that progress since that time has not been uniform across the country, and in some areas few practical changes are apparent as yet. This is not because the necessary policy indicators are absent from the PPG. For example, the May 1994 version of PPG 13 stated that local authorities should prepare 'accessibility profiles' to identify sites which are well-served by public transport (par. 4.23). In practice, few local authorities have carried out such an analysis of accessibility levels within their areas. The DETR and the National Assembly for Wales need to be making such studies a requirement of each local authority's development plan.

PPG13 also advised that individual development control decisions should support policy aims of reducing the need to travel. Unfortunately, there are a significant number of cases where this has not been done. In part this is because local authorities are only just developing the necessary assessment techniques, but it is also because development plans have not addressed accessibility issues adequately when making land use allocations or formulating policies. There remains an underlying belief in some areas that stricter control over the location of development will discourage investment, although the evidence to support this contention seems largely absent.

4.       Subsidiarity and democracy

(d)   In Wales, the National Assembly needs to take the lead in developing environmentally sound strategies for transport, where issues frequently cross local authority boundaries. It already has powers over trunk roads, and needs to be given equivalent powers to plan and develop public transport services, particularly the rail network as suggested above.

5.       Assessment Approaches

(a)   It has been suggested that local authorities should carry out an assessment of the likely transport impact of their development plans, in the same way that 'Traffic Impact Assessments' or 'Travel Assessments' are carried out for individual planning proposals above a certain scale. This would need to take account of the likely land uses, parking standards, proposals to improve public transport, cycle and pedestrian networks, etc.

The DETR is currently preparing guidance for local authorities in England on multi-modal appraisal of the transport impact of individual developments. Traffic Impact Assessments have traditionally concentrated on the movement of private cars. It is important that the National Assembly for Wales introduces corresponding guidance.

(c)   Local authorities should be encouraged to acquire computer modelling capability to measure accessibility, and to use this when preparing their development plans and when dealing with individual planning applications. A number of models are available, as indicated above.

(e)   There is at present a marked shortage of people with the necessary skills to carry accessibility modelling and travel appraisal work. In Wales this is partly due to the under-resourcing of the strategic land use and transport planning functions within local authorities, following the abolition of County Councils in 1996.

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