Environment Audit CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Sustrans

Summary

1. Sustrans welcome the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry and this opportunity to contribute. We agree that accessibility should not be seen as just a transport problem, and that a wide range of policies—in health, education, housing, planning, welfare and taxation—should give greater priority to tackling transport poverty and ensuring that people are able to access essential public (and other) services.

2. Access to public services is part of a wider problem of transport poverty. Although transport poverty is not widely recognised and there are no measures to tackle it, millions of people face barriers to accessing public services because of the costs of car ownership and the absence of practical alternatives. Sustrans’ recent report, Locked Out, highlights the issue of transport poverty in England, defines and assesses the scale of the problem, and proposes a number of policy measures to tackle it.¹

3. Sustrans wants to see a wider public debate around the issue of transport poverty. We would welcome the opportunity to work with the committee to get transport poverty recognised alongside fuel poverty as a meaningful concept, and to frame recommendations to tackle its consequences for millions of people across the UK. Sustrans has identified the following recommendations in our report:

4. Practical measures including: promoting alternatives to full car ownership; making public transport available to all through conventional and demand responsive services; increasing awareness of existing alternatives; and making walking and cycling safer by developing high quality walking and cycling networks and instating 20mph as the default national speed limit.

5. Action by local government including: introducing smart ticketing to improve access to the best value fares and concessions; pooling local authority vehicle fleets sitting unused whilst travel needs go un-met; and undertaking a strategic analysis of public transport demand to make more complicated journeys easier.

6. Action by national government including: redeploying a proportion of the existing £1 billion school transport budget to active travel; refocusing public transport subsidies; targeting affordable fare schemes; securing a cross government commitment to tackling transport poverty; and reviewing accessibility planning.

7. Rather than attempting to tackle transport poverty through cutting fuel duty, the hypothecation of additional revenues to create a fund to invest in increasing transport choice would ensure that people are not trapped in transport poverty by the costs of car ownership and the absence of alternatives. The postponement of last month’s fuel duty rise cost £550 million in just five months: almost the total amount invested in the Local Sustainable Transport Fund over four years. This money could and should be used to tackle the root causes of transport poverty, rather than increasing our dependence on cars to access essential public services.

Introduction

8. This submission provides a summary of Sustrans’ views, based in part on our practical work over three decades to improve people’s access to opportunities in education, training and employment through independent and active means of travel:

We create networks of walking and cycling routes to create safe routes that enable people to get about more easily and safely on foot and by bike. For instance we work with local authorities to link homes, schools, local services and employers to the National Cycle Network, which is used for over a million active journeys every day. The design standards for the Network call for the routes to be suitable for use by a novice adult cyclist, a family with young children or an unaccompanied 12-year-old.

We work with people in communities, schools, colleges, further and higher education institutions, and with jobseekers and those in work, to change travel behaviour and create a pro-cycling and walking culture. For instance Sustrans’ Bike It officers have worked successfully with thousands of schools across the UK, typically doubling levels of cycling and reducing car trips while improving young people’s confidence to travel safely and independently for other trips.²

We work to influence policy and practice. For instance Sustrans policy call More Haste Less Speed called for action and investment by government to realise the potential that exists for over 80% of local journeys to be made by walking, cycling or public transport.³ Our current work on transport poverty, in partnership with Save the Children and Age UK, aims to achieve wider recognition of the issue and the urgent need for both policy and practical measures to tackle it.

Transport Poverty

9. Sustrans has recently released a report, Locked Out, which highlights the issue of transport poverty in England, provides an assessment of the scale of the problem, and proposes a number of policy measures to tackle it.⁴ This builds on previous work in Wales.⁵ A detailed series of maps and an explanation of the methodology that underlies our assessment and mapping of transport poverty is annexed to this submission.

10. There is no officially accepted measure of transport poverty and no strategies are in place to address it, but our figures show that millions of people are already affected or are at risk of being cut off from opportunities and essential services including education, work and healthcare because of the rising costs of car ownership and a lack of practical alternatives. Transport poverty is a complex issue, but it is a growing problem with a clear negative impact on millions of people across the UK, forced to choose between car ownership they simply cannot afford or being unable to access key public services and other facilities.

11. Our report outlines a package of policy measures that will tackle transport poverty, increase transport choice and improve access to public services and jobs. With up to half of low income households already car-less, it is clear that policies which focus solely on reducing fuel costs will fail, and would also require government to take on an additional financial burden that is only forecast to rise. Improving accessibility by investing in alternatives and planning to minimise the need for car ownership would not only address growing social and environmental concerns but would also help us build a stronger, more resilient economy, improving access to opportunities, encouraging investment and reducing congestion, while also cutting carbon emissions.

12. Unlike fuel poverty, at the moment there is no officially accepted definition of transport poverty and no strategies are in place to address the issue. Sustrans wants urgent action to ensure that everyone has access to the opportunities and services they need, regardless of where they live. This inquiry offers an opportunity for the committee to widen the public debate about transport poverty, its definition and scale, and how best to tackle it.

Current Transport Policies

How are the Government’s current transport policies affecting the accessibility of public services (ie whether people get to key services at reasonable cost, in reasonable time and with reasonable ease)?

13. For decades, transport policy has focused on the needs of motorists and has assumed that everyone has access to a car. Sustrans is concerned that current transport policies—for instance bus grant reforms, increases in rail fares and the loss of ringfenced investment in cycling—are continuing to reduce people’s ability to access key public services without the use of a car. As a key element of current transport policy, we are also concerned that planned infrastructure investment in roads are likely to further increase car dependence, for instance by enabling the development of additional road-based out-of-town employment and shopping sites rather than accessible local services.⁶

14. Our transport poverty report highlights the problems arising from a transport policy that is focused on car use. Schools, hospitals, job opportunities, leisure facilities and shops have become inaccessible to many. In rural areas, where activities and services are more widely dispersed, high public transport costs, inadequate information and non-existent, infrequent or impractical transport services are major concerns.⁷ A lack of transport options limits school choice and young people’s educational opportunities, while poor access to health facilities can mean that people miss health appointments or suffer delays in being discharged from hospital.⁸

15. In terms of public transport, we agree that policy and investment should ensure that it meets four tests set out recently by PTEG—that it be available, accessible, affordable and acceptable for all—but this is clearly not the case at the moment, particularly in rural England.⁹ Public transport systems could be improved through more effective coordination and brokerage of conventional services; demand responsive transport and taxibus operators; school, community transport and volunteer car schemes; car sharing; and pooling existing assets such as private cars and local authority vehicles. We would urge the committee to explore the potential that exists to tackle transport poverty through better targeting of public transport funding and policy in order to address transport-related social exclusion.

Other Policies

Are other policies (such as planning, education, health, welfare and work etc) adversely affecting the accessibility of public services and the environment? Do decisions on the location of public services adequately reflect available public transport infrastructure and the environmental footprint of the transport needed to access them? How significant are any adverse impacts for accessibility and the environment?

16. Evidence demonstrates that land use planning policy has a significant influence on how people travel, most notably on how close key local facilities and opportunities (eg schools and jobs) are to where people live. Solutions such as travel planning, new bus services and cycle routes are can only partially mitigate the consequences of poor site choice, for instance locating shops and hospitals on out of town sites which are expensive or take longer to access without a private car. Sustrans is very concerned that the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) gives accessibility planning a low priority, and urges the committee to recommend that national and local planning policies should ensure that key facilities are in locations that are accessible by walking, cycling and public transport.¹⁰

17. Sustrans is particularly concerned by the lack of accessibility planning in education policy, as young people are particularly vulnerable to the effects of transport poverty. Evidence suggests that children from low income families without private means of transport miss out on opportunities in education, training and employment: 40% of young people have said that their decisions on post-16 education had been influenced by the availability of transport, particularly in rural areas.¹¹ Trends towards increasing school travel distances, school choice and travel within the school day for older children has heightened the need for affordable travel for young people. Withdrawal of support for educational travel has already had a disproportionate effect on access to education for young people in lower income families.¹²

18. In Sustrans’ experience, transport is frequently overlooked in the planning and design of new public services schools, HE and FE institutions, despite school travel contributing 17% of the carbon footprint of the education sector. This situation may be due to lack of knowledge of young people’s travel needs, and previous guidance which has focused on building design with little information about the importance of site selection, site planning and local transport facilities. There is a strong case for updating and improving existing guidance on cycle and car parking and planning for higher levels of sustainable transport and lower levels of car use as a means of increasing choice of travel modes for young people.¹³ We would welcome the opportunity to assist the committee in making recommendations to education and local government ministers on this issue.

19. Providing safe walking and cycling routes and promoting active travel can bring about significant travel behaviour change. For example Sustrans’ work in schools consistently doubles cycling and achieves an 11% reduction in regular car use on school journeys. As a result of investment in packages of measures to promote sustainable travel in the Sustainable Travel Towns, car use fell by around 10% and transport-related carbon emissions fell significantly, enabling employment and housing growth without creating unacceptable levels of congestion. Car use fell but access to services improved through better information about travel options, and by improving those that were on offer.¹⁴

20. There is significant potential for accessibility planning to play a key role in job creation, welfare and wider economic policy. For instance there is good evidence that investment in alternatives to the car can be effective in tacking worklessness and enabling people to return to work. In Liverpool, the Workwise Wheels scheme improved access to employment and removed transport barriers through providing bikes, public transport passes and mopeds. Bikes for 349 low income jobseekers resulted in 296 retained or new jobs at a cost of £151 per job, at half the cost of providing travel passes or mopeds.¹⁵ In South Yorkshire, new cycling and walking routes in the Dearne Valley are enabling sustainable travel to employment and training sites, connecting areas of high worklessness and low educational attainment to employment and training.¹⁶

21. Recent work by Centre for Cities highlights the potential for smaller scale and low cost transport measures (including active travel and travel behaviour change) to address the existing mismatch between areas with job vacancies and high unemployment, and the loss of low income occupations from city centres to out-of town retail and business parks.¹⁷ Sustrans agrees with the conclusion that “Lower skilled workers’ spatial mobility is more constrained than higher skilled workers …Welfare to work policy needs to look beyond its core remit and work with partners from across other policy areas, such as transport and planning.”¹⁸

Local Transport Plans

Is the Government’s current approach of requiring the accessibility of public services to be reflected in local transport plans working? How effective is the Department for Transport (DfT) in furthering the accessibility agenda?

22. Sustrans welcomes the DfT’s work on access to key public services—indeed we have used it in developing our own definition of transport poverty—but although this indicates the scale of the problem it is unclear that it is driving either access improvements for existing public services or accessibility planning for new ones. For instance, a number of new hospitals are being developed on sites that are difficult to access by public transport. This highlights the problem with accessibility being seen as solely or largely a transport issue at both national and local level.

23. It is unfortunate that this approach tends to suggest that accessibility is an issue which local transport plans can “solve”, rather than one which needs to be addressed through coordination of policy and investment at both national and local levels. In developing this framework, little thought has also been given to whether the accessible services are those that people need or want. For example, a local shop selling basic groceries may be within the predetermined limits, but may not provide the range of fresh produce needed to maintain a healthy, balanced diet, and food is often far more expensive than it would be from a supermarket.

24. Sustrans is concerned that existing Local Transport Plans (LTPs) do little in terms of creating an environment that enables access by active travel, and levels of investment in alternatives to car use remains low.¹⁹ One of the major obstacles is the obesogenic physical environment we live in, for example polluted, congested and dangerous roads which deter walking and cycling. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has made recommendations on how to improve the physical environment to encourage physical activity.²⁰ These have been adopted in Swansea.²¹ The committee may wish to recommend that local and national government in England adopts this guidance to improve the environment for active travel.

25. The availability of safe routes is a key factor in determining whether people are able to travel actively, whether walking to the bus stop, cycling to school or commuting by train and bike. Safe routes may be on-road, off-road and/or traffic-free, and are most effective as part of a package of measures including marketing and behaviour change initiatives. Sustrans’ defines a safe routes in terms of user attitudes and behaviour (ie are people actually happy to use it) rather than technical standards of highway design (eg path widths). Evidence points to the importance of segregated Dutch-style cycle infrastructure—as well as slower speeds and reallocating road space from cars to cyclists and pedestrians—in persuading more than a minority of people to regard cycling as a safe and viable alternative to car use.

26. The White Paper on the Active Travel (Wales) Bill sets out proposals to require local authorities to identify, map, plan and deliver a network of routes that are safe and appropriate for walking and cycling. This will create a network of safe routes of the type that already exists in other European countries such as the Netherlands, where young people make the majority of their daily trips by bike or on foot, transforming young people’s travel. We would urge the committee to recommend that similar mechanisms for local authorities be adopted in England, together with an ambitious vision for increasing active travel.

27. Our report on transport policy recommends that there should be a review of “accessibility planning” as a valuable mechanism in tackling social exclusion. This should involve government departments responsible for health, education, planning, welfare, employment in order to better support local authorities in using accessibility planning tools, focusing particularly on access to the opportunities that have the most impact on life chances (such as work, learning and healthcare. We would urge the committee to recommend that accessibility planning should become a cross-departmental agenda, rather than one that DfT is solely responsible for.

Measuring Accessibility

How should the transport-related accessibility of public services be measured? How can decision-making in government better reflect “social” and accessibility impacts, alongside environmental and other considerations? Do social and accessibility concerns conflict with environmental considerations? Would a measure of the transport accessibility of key public services, in a similar manner as “fuel poverty”, be useful for policy-making (and if so, how should it be defined?)

28. Sustrans agrees that a better measure of the transport accessibility of key public services would be very useful, and our definition of transport poverty is intended to provide a starting point. Transport poverty is a complex issue and is therefore inherently difficult to measure. For the purposes of our transport poverty report, we developed a new methodology based on three indicators that could be used as proxy measures for each of the issues faced: access to eight key services in less than an hour using walking, cycling or public transport; distance from the nearest bus or rail service; and family income. Combining these indicators has enabled us to estimate the level of risk that people living in a particular area face of being in transport poverty.

29. These figures are robust but are not intended to be definitive, and we would welcome the opportunity to work with the committee to stimulate a wider debate on how to define and assess transport poverty. We strongly agree that such a measure of the transport accessibility of key public services, in a similar manner as “fuel poverty”, would be useful.

30. We do not take the view that social and accessibility concerns necessarily conflict with environmental considerations: indeed by ensuring that more public and other services are available locally, this is likely to reduce carbon emissions, particularly if this is done alongside measures to increase low carbon and active travel ie walking and cycling.

Alternatives to Travel

The impact of broadband networks and the Internet in mitigating the need for transport infrastructure to access public services

31. Sustrans recognises the important role that alternatives to travel may play in improving access to some public services, but we would question whether this is likely to be a solution in the short term, or for all services, or for those most at risk of transport poverty. There are many essential public services—education and healthcare for instance—which are likely to require a physical journey for the foreseeable future. Also many of the groups at greatest risk of transport poverty (eg lower income groups, older people, rural communities) are among those who also face the greatest barriers to accessing gateway services such as high speed broadband. There is good evidence that alternatives, including measures to change travel behaviour and increase active travel, offer more immediate and low cost ways to improve access to public services without additional high-cost transport infrastructure.²²

18 September 2012

Annex

MEASURING AND MAPPING TRANSPORT POVERTY

Transport poverty is a complex issue and is therefore inherently difficult to measure. In undertaking this study, Sustrans has developed a new methodology—identifying indicators that could be used as proxy measures for each of the issues faced.

Mapping contains Ordnance Survey data supplied by Welsh Assembly, HMSO, DEFRA and Dotted Eyes © Crown Copyright licence nos 100017916, 100020540 and 100019918. Also OpenStreetMap © www.openstreetmap.org (and) contributors licence CC-BY-SA (www.creativecommons.org)

Combining these indicators, using the method outlined below, has enabled us to estimate the level of risk that people living in a particular area face of being in transport poverty. These figures are not intended to be definitive; we hope through demonstrating how widespread transport poverty is we can stimulate a much wider debate on the issue.

Method

Sustrans’ map of transport poverty in England is compiled using Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA) data relating to three indicators of transport poverty: time taken to access essential services; distance to the nearest bus stop or train station; and family income.

Each indicator was used to assign a score to an area. The three scores generated were then combined to create a final “transport poverty” figure—placing individual areas into one of the following three categories:

LOW RISK	MEDIUM RISK	HIGH RISK
Areas awarded a score of three points were identified as being at “low risk” of suffering transport poverty, scoring low scores across all three indicators.	Areas awarded a score of four or five points were identified as being at “medium risk”: People in this area may face a significant risk from one or two of the indicators identified, but not all three. As car costs and public transport fares continue to rise, and the full impact of bus cuts is felt, people living in these areas will face an increasing risk of falling into transport poverty. And it is likely that those families without cars are already struggling.	Areas obtaining a final score of between six and nine points were identified as being at “high risk” of transport poverty: It is likely that a significant proportion of the people living in this area will already be struggling to afford the cost of running a car and those without a car are very likely to be excluded from accessing essential services by walking, cycling or public transport.

Once each LSOA had its own risk rating they were then regrouped to provide local authority and constituency-wide figures.

The individual scores for each of the three indicators were calculated as follows:

Income

Sustrans used benefit and tax credit data, made available by the Department for Work and Pensions, to identify the number of households that would need to spend 10% or more of their income on the costs of running a car (whether or not they are actually running one). This will include those households that cannot afford a car at all. For the poorest households, research shows this figure can be as high as 25%.

The LSOAs were then ranked according to the number of people on low incomes in the area:

LOW	MEDIUM	HIGH
Those LSOAs in the bottom third—indicating they had the lowest number of households needing to spend 10% (or more) of their income on the costs of running a car—scored one point.	Those LSOAs in the middle third scored two points.	Those LSOAs in the highest third—indicating they had the highest number of households that would spend 10% (or more) of their income on the costs of running a car—scored three points.

Access to Essential Services

The second indicator used Department for Transport data to identify areas where residents would take longer than one hour to access each of the eight services defined as “essential” by walking, cycling and public transport:

LOW	MEDIUM	HIGH
Those LSOAs where no essential services took longer than one hour to access were identified as “low” risk and scored one point.	Those LSOAs where between one and four (inclusive) services were found to be more than one hour from residents were identified as “medium” risk and scored two points.	LSOAs where five or more essential services were more than one hour by walking, cycling or public transport were identified as “high” risk and scored three points.

Access to Bus and Train Stations

The final indicator used mapping data to identify the number of people who were further than one mile from their nearest bus stop or railway station.

LOW	MEDIUM	HIGH
If less than 5% of the population lived further than one mile from their nearest bus stop or railway station, the area was identified as “low” risk and was awarded one point.	If between 5 and 30% of the population lived further than one mile from their nearest bus stop or railway station, the area was identified as “medium” risk and was awarded two points.	If more than 30% of the population lived further than one mile from their nearest bus stop or railway station, the area was identified as “high” risk and was awarded three points.

References

¹ Sustrans 2012—Locked Out: Transport Poverty in England http://www.sustrans.org.uk/assets/files/Press/Transport%20Poverty%20England%20FINAL%20web.pdf

² Sustrans 2012—Transforming young people’s travel: smarter choices for everyday journeys

³ Sustrans 2010—More Haste Less Speed

⁴ Sustrans 2012—Locked Out: Transport Poverty in England

⁵ Sustrans 2012—Access Denied: Transport Poverty in Wales

⁶ Sustrans 2012—Sustrans response to DfT consultation on devolving major transport schemes

⁷ Commission for Rural Communities 2009—Rural Insights

⁸ Consumer Focus 2011—Rural consumers in the UK

⁹ PTEG 2010—Transport and Social Inclusion

¹⁰ Sustrans 2011—Planning for schools development: Sustrans response to Communities and Local Government consultation

¹¹ SDC 2011—Fairness in a Car-dependent Society

¹² Barnados 2012—Staying the course: disadvantaged young people’s experiences of the 16-19 Bursary Fund

¹³ Sustrans 2008—Response to DCSF consultation on BSF waves 7-15

¹⁴ Sustrans/Socialdata 2009—Travel behaviour research in the Sustainable Travel Towns

¹⁵ Merseyside Transport Partnership 2010—WorkWise Wheels evaluation report

¹⁶ South Yorkshire 2011—Cycling strategy consultation draft

¹⁷ Centre for Cities 2011—Access all areas: Linking people to jobs

¹⁸ Centre for Cities 2011—Moving on up, moving on out?

¹⁹ Sustrans 2011—Moving towards smarter travel?

²⁰ NICE 2008—Physical activity and the environment

²¹ Labour Party 2012 Local election manifesto for Swansea

²² Sustrans/Socialdata 2009 Travel behaviour research in the Sustainable Travel Towns