Help from CfIT for local authority practitioners working on the ‘integration’ of town planning and transport planning.
If you think it is difficult to plan for sustainable travel, then think again.
Urban structure and mobility are inextricably linked. This website gives expert advice on planning for a more effective location and form of development that can help achieve sustainable travel.
This website and related work seeks to:
- Provide evidence for a range of actors involved in town planning and transport planning.
- Disseminate good practice, with an emphasis on ‘strategic’ issues and good working practices, developing ‘key themes’ for practice advice.
- Develop case study examples of current working practice in integrated urban and transport planning, with a focus on areas with development growth aspirations (such as Growth Areas and Growth Points).
- Provide signposts to related guidance by government and others.
- Hence, help practitioners more effectively use spatial planning tools in enabling greater sustainability in travel.
The Evidence
The location of activities – homes, workplaces, leisure, health, education and other facilities – act as the physical ‘structuring framework’ for travel. Although socio-economic, attitudinal and contextual characteristics all play important roles in the demand for travel, it is increasingly clear from the empirical evidence that there are significant associations between the built environment and travel.
Urban Structure as an Enabler of Sustainable Travel
Spatial planning is typically a long term instrument; its effects manifest themselves over several decades. However, the cumulative effect of land use decisions over recent decades has had a profound effect on travel patterns, and has the potential to have an equally significant effect, positively or negatively, in the future.
Target Audience
This website aims to publicise the evidence from research and practice which has become available since the last update of Planning Policy Guidance Note 13 Transport, PPG13 (DETR, 2001), the Government’s planning policy statement on transport. It has been developed primarily for those involved in the “crossover” of town planning and transport planning – both practitioners and politicians.
Individuals working on particular aspects of urban and transport planning, but with a common objective of achieving sustainable transport, can access advice which is directly relevant to their work. For example:
- Regional agencies and sub-regional partnerships should consider the travel consequences of housing apportionment and strategic business locations.
- Highway and planning authorities should seek to align their transport spending with strategic locations for growth, with new transport services provided ahead of site occupation wherever possible.
- When determining planning applications, unitary and district authorities should assess the cumulative impacts of numerous small applications in terms of likely strategic impact.
- Elected members should note that effective spatial planning decisions can help achieve local authority performance indicators (for example, NI186: CO2 emissions in a local authority area).
The application of the material will vary by scale and procedural opportunity. Naturally decisions in adopting development plans, transport strategies and determining planning applications will need to take account of multiple, and often competing, objectives besides sustainable travel.
Comments on this website should be sent to plan4sustainabletravel@halcrow.com.
