Below is a copy of our press release, issued on 12th September 2024.
Have a read, and sign/share our letter campaign to MPs in England.
- The Government plans to build 1.5 million new homes in the next 5 years. The Low Traffic Future alliance says these must be located and designed to help people make clean and healthy transport choices, rather than having to drive to reach key destinations, if they are to avoid adding to ever-increasing levels of motor traffic.
- They are urging the Government’s planning reforms to support the idea of ‘Close knit communities’, where schools, shops, health facilities and other key destinations can be easily reached by walking, wheeling or cycling, or by using public, community or shared transport.
- This would reduce the cost of living and create safer and friendlier communities, while also protecting the health and environment for future generations.
A wide-ranging alliance is today urging the Government to ensure that its plans to build 1.5 million homes support a shift towards clean and healthy transport choices, rather than increasing our dependence on motor vehicles. They point to evidence that this could enable a lot more homes to be built, taking up less land and generating much higher public support.
Their call comes in response to the Government’s draft guidance to local authorities on planning policies, which the alliance fears will allow motor traffic levels on our roads to continue rising, instead of helping to reverse this. Motor traffic in Britain has now almost doubled since 1980, with the Department for Transport predicting up to 58% more motor traffic in England and Wales by 2060.
Politicians of all parties have long agreed on the need to build “the right homes in the right places”. Yet the planning system continues to produce soulless, poorly-connected housing estates, from which people often have to drive to reach schools, groceries, healthcare, public transport and other key facilities. They therefore contain large areas of car parking, while failing to make provision for clean and healthy transport choices, or for green open space. So the roads nearby end up being congested, polluted and dangerous, while children are unable to walk, scoot or cycle to local schools, or to play outdoors. It is unsurprising that these developments often face strong opposition.
The Low Traffic Future alliance’s “Close knit communities” campaign, launched today, calls for the Government’s planning reforms to ensure that new homes are within easy reach of key destinations without having to depend on cars. They want the new guidance to say that local authorities’ planning policies should explicitly aim to reduce car dependence, in line with the Government’s wider health and net zero ambitions. They cite evidence – including examples from Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany – showing that higher-density developments with less car-parking enable more homes to be built on less land. They can also support more walking, wheeling and cycling, as well as better-used (and hence more economically viable) public, community and shared transport services. They therefore avoid generating extra congestion and are more likely to win public support.
The Low Traffic Future alliance includes 28 national environmental, health, road safety and sustainable transport groups. They have written to housing and planning minister Matthew Pennycook MP, urging that the Government’s planning reforms should support the creation of ‘close knit communities’. They are now asking their members and supporters to email their MPs in support of this proposal.
Chris Todd, Director of Transport Action Network, said:
“By supporting the idea of ‘close knit communities’, the Government’s planning reforms could help get Britain building, as well as supporting many of its other goals. People who live on less traffic-dominated streets are healthier, safer, and have a better quality of life, with more friends among their neighbours and greater access to education and employment opportunities. This is about building communities today that also protect the health and environment for future generations.”
Michael Solomon Williams, head of campaigns at Campaign for Better Transport, said: “It is vital to address the housing crisis, but this must be an opportunity to move away from car dependent developments. Many European countries are showing the way with design codes for cities which ensure access to public transport but unfortunately, the UK has a very poor track record on housing development. To create healthy, vibrant, and cohesive communities, the government should introduce stringent requirements that all new developments are located near existing or planned public transport networks.”
Richard Dilks, chief executive of Collaborative Mobility UK (CoMoUK), said:
“There is no doubt that the government needs to address the housing shortage, but building homes that can only be accessed with a private car would be hugely short-sighted. We should be reducing people’s reliance on private cars, not increasing it, so we have to be creating places in which they are not needed or are needed far less. Shared transport schemes such as car clubs, shared e-scooters, and shared bikes alongside public transport and good active travel routes fit in perfectly with such developments, as well as saving people money, helping them lead more active lives and cutting congestion and emissions.”