Transport and the economy

Memorandum from the Directors of Public Health for the West of England Area (TE 47)

This evidence submission is on behalf of the four Directors of Public Health for the West of England Partnership (WoEP). The four Directors of Public Health have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the four Directors of Transport for the WoEP, in order;

"To promote effective joint collaboration to ensure that the transport system for the area now and in the future is designed in such a way that it enhances health, wellbeing and prosperity for all residents, and contributes to reducing health inequalities."

The four authorities that make up the West of England are;

Bath and North East Somerset

Bristol

North Somerset

South Gloucestershire

Issue 1; Have the UK’s economic conditions materially changed since the Eddington Transport Study and, if so, does this affect the relationship between transport spending and UK economic growth?

1.1 The UK economic conditions have changed materially and considerably since the Eddington Transport Study. We would refer the Committee to evidence contained in the publications listed below. We note that the request for evidence asks for original submissions and not for published papers. We believe that the reports from Lloyds, and from UKERC are so fundamental to future transport plans for the UK that it would be irrational for the Select Committee to fail to take account of their contents. These reports point to the unarguable conclusion that unpredictable economic consequences will arise because of resource depletion. These are probable within the current decade, and highly likely by 2030. The implications for how we design, maintain and run a viable transport system are profound. As the foreword to the Lloyds Report says, we face a new paradigm, and this is very different from normal market volatility.

Key Publications

Froggatt A and Lahn G. ‘Sustainable Energy Security; strategic risks and opportunities for business. Lloyds 360 Risk Insight. Chatham House June 2010 www.lloyds.com/News-and-Insight/360-Risk-Insight/Research-and-Reports/Energy-Security/Energy-Security

Sorrell S et al. UK Energy Research Centre. Global Oil Depletion. An assessment for the evidence of a near-term peak in global oil production. August 2009

Osborn S. Building a positive Future for Bristol after Peak Oil. October 2009. www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/Environment-Planning/sustainability/file-storage-items/peak-oil-report.en

Martenson C. The crash course. www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse .

UK Industry Peak Oil Taskforce. The oil crunch; securing the UK’s energy future. 2010 . http://peakoiltaskforce.net .

Raffle A E. Oil, health and healthcare. BMJ 2010;341:c4596 http://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c4596.full

Issue 2; What type of transport spending should be prioritised, in the context of an overall spending reduction, in order best to support regional and national economic growth?

2.1 The priority is to support regional and national prosperity now and for the future. The use of GDP as a convenient proxy for prosperity must not allow us to lose sight of what really matters for people. Growth in GDP can be achieved in the short term by any means of money changing hands, irrespective of the long-term social value of that exchange. The goal is not economic growth for its own sake, but for the sake of the prosperity and health that it brings.

2.2 Priority needs to be given to transport infrastructure that will enable people to access employment, services and recreation even in the face of economic shocks, energy depletion and environmental degradation. This means that we need to build a transport system which;

§ Makes best use of existing physical infrastructure

§ Aims to maximise access to services, rather than aiming for hypermobility as an end in itself

§ Is efficient in use of fossil fuels both for day to day running, and for building infrastructure and vehicles

§ Has minimum adverse impacts on health (through crashes, noise, air pollution, suppression of physical activity, and community severance)

§ Makes maximum use of walking and cycling for short journeys, these are low carbon, need no fossil fuel, and they improve health

§ Can withstand extreme climatic events

§ Can be maintained using locally available skills

2.3 In effect this means that mass public transport combined with walking and cycling will become essential for the economic life and social cohesion of the nation once fuel prices and economic insecurity cause private individual car use to become unaffordable for many sections of the population.

2.4 It also means that urban design and planning must be integrated with transport planning, so that there is design for access. It means that information systems relating to travel should be predicated on the primary question of ‘How do I access x, y or z service?’ as opposed to ‘How do I travel by car from location A to location B’. With the former approach this can reveal opportunities for services to be accessed with little or no travel, and gives information about walking, cycling and public transport access.

Issue 3; How should the balance between revenue and capital expenditure be altered?

3.1 It will be essential to maintain revenue funding streams for the maintenance and running of existing transport infrastructure. There is recognition from the current Secretary of State for Transport that technological fixes will not be enough to deliver the behaviour changes required. This means there is a need to ensure that there is sufficient staff resource to support and deliver parking management policies, vehicle restraint policies and behaviour change programmes in a positive way. This is revenue intensive in the initial phases. Smarter Choices teams are at risk from local authority staff cuts just at a time when their skill sets are essential.

Issue 4; Are the current methods for assessing proposed transport schemes satisfactory?

4.1 Current methods are unsatisfactory. Setting the life of infrastructure programme to 60 years gives an inappropriate skew to the apparent benefits of major road network expansion projects compared with other investments. There is clear evidence that the highest value for money schemes are small scale traffic management and behavioural interventions. This includes, for example Bike It, and routes for pedestrians and cyclists. The revision of webtag guidance to include ‘fitness’ has revealed how important health benefits are but the formula is still very restrictive in terms of taking full account of health impacts in all schemes assessed.

http://www.sustrans.org.uk/assets/files/Bike%20It/Bike%20It%20Review%202010.pdf

http://www.healthyweight4children.org.uk/resource/item.aspx?RID=90422

4.2 There is also a need to incorporate valuation of the carbon costs and benefits. In line with the Government’s "UK Low Carbon Transition Plan"

(July 2009), the assessment of proposed developments should value any changes in emissions by integrating the social cost of carbon (the cost of the damage of carbon emitted in the atmosphere) into their cost-benefit analysis through the shadow price and/or non-traded price of carbon (based on the cost of mitigating emissions currently £51 per tonne). This needs to cover the lifetime of the development (ie demolition of any existing building, construction and in operation). This ensures developments account for their climate change impacts. Thus, where a development reduces emissions, this change will increase the benefits of the development, while where a development increases emissions, carbon valuation will increase the costs of the development.

Issue 5; How will schemes be planned in the absence of regional bodies and following the revocation and abolition of regional spatial strategies?

5.1 The absence of the RSS risks major fragmentation in planning policy. It opens up the risk of ‘stranded investment’ in road schemes that have popular short term appeal and do nothing to build viable solutions for the longer term.

5.2 Most of the debate about the impact of the revocation of regional spatial strategies has been about housing provision and green belt.

However, regional spatial strategies covered a wide range of other issues and policies, including transport. They provided the opportunity to integrate land use and transport planning at a sub-national level, addressing cross-boundary issues and inter-urban transport.

5.3 The speed of their abolition means that as yet there are no suitable interim arrangements in place to look at these issues. Local Development Frameworks and core strategies have been produced assuming that Regional Spatial Strategies were part of the statutory development plan. These will now need to be revised to take into account the abolition of the RSS leading to further delay in their final adoption.

5.4 Local Enterprise Partnerships may well be the way to take up this agenda in the future, but it is likely to be a while before they are in place and have the capacity.

5.5 There is concern that there are not the structures in place for local authorities to engage with Network Rail and the Highways Agency who don’t have the capacity to work directly with every individual local authority.

5.6 This could put back the planning of major inter-urban transport schemes such as the electrification of the rail services between London and Bristol, the South West and South Wales and between Bristol and Birmingham. These schemes have economic and sustainability benefits as well transport benefits. To illustrate the difficulties we would draw attention to the contrast between the planning and development of Cross-Rail in London, achievable because of an overarching Greater London planning body, versus the situation that would have transpired if the problems were left with every individual local council to solve.

5.7 Other cross boundary issues include public transport to airports, opening new railway stations and the development of park and ride sites that address urban congestion problems in one authority but are located in a neighbouring authority. The planning of urban extensions and the transport infrastructure to serve them will also be difficult with a fragmented planning system.

5.8 We fear that the lack of the RSS will mean schemes could be prioritised simply due to parochial concerns (and long-held aspirations of highway authorities eg Westbury By-pass) without due consideration of strategic value, carbon, fuel resilience and other substantive health impacts.

5.9 Urban space is valuable, and parking and congestion fees are the logical market mechanism to engineer the best use of this space and to solve congestion. There is now incontrovertible evidence that more road provision actually induces demand rather than ‘easing’ congestion. London has been able to achieve congestion charging and controlled parking in a way that is very difficult for small local authorities. Fragmenting the planning system will weaken our ability to move forward on the essential policies for managing parking and overall private motorised traffic restraint. Ultimately this will damage the economy. Individual developers can play off neighbouring local authorities one against the other by threatening to relocate if workplace parking levies are mooted. Viable park and ride services are difficult to achieve if commuters are provided with city centre parking spaces free of charge by their employer.

5.10 Deregulation of bus services in 1986 has left local authorities with little power to ensure reliable, efficient, affordable bus services for their residents and visitors. London was exempt from this legislative change and has a well used and comprehensive bus service that other cities would like to emulate.

September 2010