The need to travel (especially by car, van or lorry) can be reduced through planning policies which aim to create ‘close knit communities’, where:

• Schools, shops, doctors, dentists etc are close to where people live;
• There are safe and easy ways to reach these and other key destinations by walking, wheeling or cycling and/or by public, shared or community transport; and
• Motor traffic is therefore kept in check, because the alternatives are preferable to driving.

‘Close knit communities’ would:

• Be located close to high-quality public transport, or where this can be easily extended to serve the new development. This helps avoid the need for residents to own cars and for excessive car-parking provision (see below).
• Have road and path networks which are designed to enable safe walking, wheeling and cycling by all – including children and people with disabilities – with key destinations being easily and safely accessible by these modes. Roads and streets should either have a design speed of no more than 20mph or should include high-quality protected cycle provision.
• Be built to high but ‘gentle’ densities, e.g. at least 40-60 dwellings per hectare. Building 4 to 6 storey dwellings allows high-quality homes to be built on less land, with shared garden spaces, while also generating the density of demand for public transport services needed to ensure they are well used, and thus remain financially viable.
• Minimise the space given over to car-parking. This in turn frees up space for walking and cycling and for an attractive public realm, including green open space, benches and places where children can play.
• Incorporate ample quantities of secure, well-designed and conveniently-located cycle parking, and provision for shared mobility, including spaces for mobility hubs, car-sharing cars and bike-share schemes.

Local authorities should be empowered to secure developer contributions for any sustainable transport provision that may be needed to achieve these aims. Equally, they should be given a clear mandate to reject development proposals that are likely to become car-dependent.

Yet, despite decades of planning policy supporting these aims, research by the Royal Town Planning Institute suggests that we have made no progress in this direction, while the New Economics Foundation’s analysis suggests that new developments have, if anything, increased car dependence. Reports by Transport for New Homes have documented the persistence of low-density developments in poorly-connected locations, with lots of road and car parking space but little or no provision for walking, cycling, public or shared transport, or green open space.

The Government needs to be much clearer that its proposed ‘vision-led approach’ to transport and planning aims to bring about a future with a lot less motor traffic – in line with what is needed for surface transport to contribute its share of the UK’s carbon reduction targets. Proposed development sites or actual developments should be subject to a ‘traffic net reduction’ test to assess whether they are in line with this vision. DfT’s Connectivity Tool can be used to assess whether or not proposed development sites are well connected by walking, cycling and public transport to key destinations. It could form part of this test (though regrettably the tool itself is so far only available to local authorities).

A study by property firm Knight Frank has shown that a lot of housing could be provided on land currently occupied by under-used publicly-owned car parks.

Further information:

Official guidance: The main source of national planning policies which local authorities must have regard to is the National Planning Policy Framework (see particularly the transport chapter). There is also useful advice in the National Model Design Code. 

Unofficial guidance: See Vision Led Planning, by Transport for Quality of Life and others, and Stepping off the Road to Nowhere, by Create Streets and Sustrans.