This section is updated monthly.

When will they ever learn? (1)

Lillian Burns December 2008

Next year will be the 20th anniversary of Cecil Parkinson’s ‘Roads to Prosperity’ White Paper which proclaimed that a massive road-building programme was needed if the country was to prosper and it looked forward to 500 road schemes to cater for predicted traffic growth. It led to massive public demonstrations, the rise of the environmental agenda and the high-level questioning for the first time of the basic assumptions on which ‘Roads to Prosperity’ was based. Seminal reports of the 1990’s by the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment (SACTRA) demonstrated that providing extra highway capacity generates more traffic and that there is no automatic connection between new highway capacity and economic benefits in a mature economy such as that which exists in the UK. Also, that roads can work in two ways and can just as easily suck a workforce away from an area as bring employment to it.

By the time the Integrated Transport White Paper and its daughter documents were published in 1997, the road building programme had been pruned to less than 40 schemes and the government was proclaiming that it had accepted the fact it could not build itself out of transport problems. That White Paper also set in train a series of multi-modal studies around the country and it highlighted air pollution issues and, since then, the issue of greenhouse gas emissions (particularly those from transport) and global warming have shot up the international as well as the national agenda. The very substantial Stern Report, which the government accepted, made the case that there would actually be economic downsides to not adopting a more environmentally sensitive agenda.

So, how do we find ourselves at the end of 2008 in a position where the current list of road schemes nationally tops 200, the Regional Funding Allocation transport budgets are dominated by road building (in the North West new road schemes account for 63% of the programme – and rising), constantly expanding air travel and airports to accommodate it are considered a good thing and investment in public transport, walking, cycling and ‘smart choices’ is always the underdog, the afterthought, the poor relation.

A vast amount of fine words have been written in sustainability strategies , spatial strategies, action plans, transport plans and consultants reports and at conferences and in numerous public fora thousands more fine words are spoken about ‘joined up thinking’ and ‘integration’ and ‘reducing the need to travel’. What does it all actually amount to, particularly at a time of financial crisis?

With all the knowledge-base it has behind it, what does the government decide to do with some of the massive sums it is pumping into the economy to try and kick-start it? It announces it is going to put the best part £1 billion into building roads – particularly roads which feed into airports!

Announcing this, the new Secretary of State for Transport, Geoff Hoon, (he who proclaimed upon his appointment that he “loves cars”) highlighted the SEMMMS (South East Manchester Multi Modal Study) Relief Roads. This network of roads, which would wend their way through important open spaces and green lungs, flood plains, around an urban fringe and across Green Belt, seriously impacting en-route a beautiful part of the Goyt Valley and endangered birds and wildlife, includes the Manchester Airport Link Roads.

Ironically, the regional partners themselves did not consider that funding these roads was a priority. Although they allotted some money towards the scheme development, they made it clear they were not prepared to pay for the SEMMMS Roads. The government also said last year that they were not prepared to fund SEMMMS.

The RFA budget is massively over-allocated and delivery dates keep being set ever further forward to accommodate this. Yet Geoff Hoon’s announcement included the statement that delivery was subject to a contribution from the RFA pot. How can this be? The regions were given responsibility for coming up with their own priorities. This was not one of them – and in the RFA round two discussions currently underway, regional political leaders have made it quite clear that they are not prepared to throw any schemes out of the present programme.

If the government are going to inject a significant sum of extra funding into transport, they ought to be insisting it is spent on infrastructure and soft measures which will bring about modal shift and a reduction in carbon emissions - not schemes that will exacerbate the problems we have.

The multi-modal studies all came forward with packages of measures but very, very few of the non-road ones have been progressed. The SEMMMS study recommended building the Metrolink to Stockport and on to Marple and proposed an improved train service from Macclesfield into Manchester to encourage more people in the high car-owning area of North East Cheshire to use public transport. It also recommended that the western rail link into Manchester Airport should happen, ie. a spur from the Mid-Cheshire railway line, along with an eastern rail spur. Meanwhile the MIDMAN (Midlands to Manchester) multi-modal study which examined the M6 corridor recommended that there should be a parkway station on the Mid-Cheshire railway line near to where it crosses the M6, where car travellers from the north, the south and the west could park up and mount an improved heavy rail service into Manchester. In addition, it considered the idea of extending the Metrolink out from Altrincham to the same parkway station as well or instead.

Most of these non-highway suggestions, which were the outcomes of very expensive work by big consortia of consultants over two to three years, endorsed by stakeholders from across the board, were not even subsequently taken as far as feasibility studies. Similarly, the top transport priority by an ad-hoc group of NW regional stakeholders which was set up after Gus MacDonald’s 10-year transport plan was launched has yet to move forward. They decided that the key issue they wanted to see resolved was the Manchester rail hub. (Last year’s transport minister, Rosie Winterton, announced this was being looked at, but she has moved on and no more has been heard since).

Most people claim they care about the future of the planet and the quality of life. But the actions of those with power who hold the purse strings invariably belie this. For the sake of future generations, we cannot keep making the same mistakes over and over again and ignoring environmental capacity issues. Building yet more roads to airports to enable ever more carbon emissions whilst gobbling up ever more finite resources such as land, aggregates and minerals and at the same time creating more noise, visual intrusion and depleted environments is just not sustainable. We have to stop doing it. We all need to play our part in pressing for more alternatives to car travel, including better planning which makes it possible to need to travel less, and that means achieving genuinely sustainable communities with local services intact. And we need to send strong messages to governments of all persuasions that we want to leave a liveable planet for those who come after us. The stark messages which Stern gave us must not be forgotten.