Outlining his strategy, the prime minister highlighted his clampdown on 20mph limits, bus lanes, low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), and the ability of councils to fine drivers who commit traffic offences; measures that seemingly put us at odds with most of our neighours, and at odds with national policy.

As usual with politics, the language used tries to incite and divide us into either being a car driver (now a victim of policy) or a user of sustainable transport modes (now getting too uppity). What is often forgotten as we all pick our sides, is that real life is more nuanced. A car driver can be, and often is, also a cyclist or a bus passenger; we can be grown up in discussion and have a foot (or wheel) in both camps.

On the face of it, the new plan seems purely to want to make it harder for councils to introduce a range of measures intended to make streets safer and more convenient for bus passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians, but taking a look behind the headlines, what else did it offer?

In their website article https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-new-long-term-plan-to-back-drivers published on 29th September, four main items are set out and these are summarised these below:

1)     Sunak has asked the Department for Transport to carry out a review once again of LTNS and associated guidance such as 20mph speed limits to prevent their blanket use in areas where it’s not appropriate.

2)     The plans aim to stop councils implementing so-called ‘15-minute cities’, by consulting on ways to prevent schemes which aggressively restrict where people can drive.

3)     Drivers across the country will also soon be able to benefit from new technology to simplify parking payments. The national parking platform pilot will be rolled out nationwide so that drivers can use an app of their choice to pay instead of downloading multiple apps.

4)     In the continued drive to tackle potholes, the government will support councils to introduce more lane rental schemes, where utility companies are required to pay to dig up the busiest roads at peak times. Under the proposals, at least half of the extra money raised from these fees will go directly towards repairing road surfaces.

The full plan is published elsewhere and contains 30 measures in total. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/plan-for-drivers/the-plan-for-drivers

The Good.

It's not all quackery. There are some good messages in the announcement which have been largely buried in the debate.

  • Cohesion for parking apps, the same way we’re getting rid of a million and one different types of USB charger for universal ports. Great – simple and makes sense! We have all stood in a car park outside of our local area trying to download yet another app with no signal. Just roll it out and get it to work.
  • Tackling pot holes – excellent – we will all appreciate that and identifying a revenue stream makes sense. We’ve also all had the frustration of roadworks squatting for weeks on local roads, with no progress other than different groups of contractors standing around looking at the mess they made and going ‘Yep. That’s a hole in the road.’ Extra charges would encourage utilities to get on with the job and do better at getting it right the first time.
  • Open pricing on fuel - also fair. Transparancy about who is charging what price for fuel means that those who are padding the cost have a harder time pretending they aren't, and gives consumers the ability to make more informed decisions on where they refuel.
  • Funding secured for road safety schemes - primarily trunk roads where collisions tend to be both serious for those concerned and cause impact and disruption on the network. Nobody wants dangerous motorways, so continued attention to this concern is welcome, but again, this is not new - only an extension of existing programmes.
  • Digitalisation - Another not-new scheme which is generally considered a benefit. Being able to tax your car and update details online is the standard for most modern systems, so again, no objection from most people here.
  • Reducing double standards - loosely the Plan wants to support people at the lower range of income against measures which disproportionately impact them. These people are generally more reliant on cars because of other deficits in the transport system, and are also more vulnerable to increasing costs. This again seems like a reasonable objective, although it's not clear how they're going to actually achieve this without simply opening it out to a free for all. The aim should be that you can't simply 'pay your way' out of necessary compromises, not removing the need to compromise at all.
  • Inconsiderate Drivers - The plan wants a crack down on the minority who make other drivers look back. Again, this seems reasonable. Illegal driving should be better enforced against, and nuisance is nuisance, be that noise or litter.
  • Funding for traffic lights - apparently £50m for smarter lights, removing obsolute infrastructure, although nationwide, it's questionable how much on-ground change that will actually pay for.
  • Promoting EVs - Generally some good noise here - more chargers and faster chargers, accellarated installation and more support for schools.

These are things we can all broadly get behind and I think most people would welcome.

The Bad (or at least...Dubious)

There’s a lot of woolly buzz wording in this announcement and a lot which is being criticised. There is no set definition of an LTN and they can differ from area to area, so it is unclear precisely what the proposed review will entail. The rhetoric from some minsters and media outlets has been quick to state that we need to ensure that they are locally supported, safe, and do not hinder the emergency services - these are things that all must have happened already, so nothing new there.

A key phrase in this announcement is ‘local consent;’ on the surface this is about preventing local councils from over-riding the necessities of public consultation and forcing change through where objection has been raised. The other side of the coin is, as ever, empowering NIMBIES who typically object and then following the change, moan for a while and then get on with it. Some 19% of the country is already under area-wide 20mph speed restrictions and has been for several years now, with no major cries to overturn the arrangements now they’re embedded, but you can bet that people protested about it at the time.

15-minute cities don’t seek to aggressively restrict where people can drive. Rather, they are a concept in which most daily necessities and services can be easily reached by a 15-minute walk or bike ride. This approach aims to reduce car dependency, promote healthy living, and allow mode choice. Surely this is a good thing. Why would we want to stop such a concept and how do you stop it anyway? Presumably by putting facilities more than 15 minutes away. Let’s not forget, a lot of studies into car travel are biased towards the commuter, who often isn’t stopping on route to do anything else. What’s the justification for ploughing your car through a shopping street twice a day if you’re not actually shopping there?

The Plan argues that the main reason for implementing “anti-car” measures to date has been around environmental impact and that there is now a weaking need to hammer home slow zones and emission zones on that basis because we’ll all soon be driving zero-carbon vehicles. Except that they’ve also pushed back the deadlines for banning petrol vehicles and lowering emissions.

The Govt talk about how cars are the dominant “most popular” mode, critical for “economic growth” and “independence” for young people or connection for old people. This comes from a presumption that only cars can deliver these benefits and conflate engineered necessity and lack of choice with actual preference.

There are condradictions. To deal with congestion, the suggestion seems to be to poach back bus lane space for general traffic. They want to champion EVs but also delay several critical targets. So there's a question of balance to be addressed, and it's not clear how the Plan is doing so.

The Ugly

The worst of the announcement isn’t even really the policies it’s trying to progress, but the degree of misinformation being now broadcast in interviews and debates by those speaking for the Plan, who ought to have a duty to suppress unfounded fearmongering. Prime amongst this is the amplification of conspiracy theories that the 15-minute neighbourhood is purely about forcing people to only go to services within 15 minutes of their home. As if Anne Hildago is going to sneak across the channel in the night and build walls around your allotted segment, while Sadik Kahn hands out the compulsory dystopian boilersuits. To even hint that ‘lots of people are talking about this online’ and therefore we need to respond with a Government Plan is deeply worrying.

People talk online about all kinds of nonsense, and there’s never been an easier time to platform and amplify misinformed opinions and outright purposeful lies. The process of manipulation and falsification is also getting ever more sophisticated and difficult to identify, but in this case, it ought to be obvious. Is there really such a loss of trust between local authorities and Westminster that the Government has to take online comment sections more seriously than their own local members?

The statistics in the Plan are also the subject of question and criticism. Are 42.8% of PCNS successfully appealled? Perhaps yes, but the statement is potentially quite misleading. It's not 42.8% of the 7 million total PCNs issued. It may be 42.8% of those solely related to LTNs and School Zones, but that's also unlikely because not all PCNs are appealled in the first place. According to the London Councils, the ratio of total PCNs issued to appeals lodged remains constant at around 0.6%. That's 99.4% of PCNs which are, as a minimum, sticking.

While clarity about zones and controls should be strongly encouraged to enable drivers to understand where and when they are permitted, digging only a little way into the numbers paints very different picture than the plan is trying to paint, and concerningly, painting it in an accusatory mannor aimed at local councils.

And ultimately, the whole tone is divisive. Why is the mode of travel we use being used so heavy-handedly to define people's identities? Why are we perpetuating a 'them and us' mentality when reality is more nuanced and the solutions will be also, if not for reasons beyond the scope of actually generating a good transport network for the UK?

Conclusions

In summary, behind the attention-grabbing headlines, what the government are actually committing to doing includes welcome change such as making all parking apps into a sort of skeleton key that fits every lock and fixing our pot holes. But importantly, they’re also seeking to close off key avenues for progress in a bid to appeal to a certain type of voter. The rhetoric around that will ultimately mean greater and unnecessary local opposition to sustainable transport schemes that promote a healthier life style.

So, whilst I’d like our roads to be free from pot holes, I’d also like a decent cycle lane and a safe network of streets in my local area. Is it beyond reality to want both? Perhaps if the government had more sensibly stated that their Plan for drivers will sit alongside continued investment in public transport and active travel (as is actually stated in subdeck on their news story!) the debate could be much more intelligent rather than making us look like a country that is out of kilter with the majority of the developed world.

By Damian Tungatt, Director; and

Sarah Chapman, Principal Transport Planner