Responding to the publication of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill today (11 March), Steve Chambers, Sustainable Transport Campaigner at Transport for New Homes, said: 

“We welcome the new focus on strategic planning included in this Bill as something we have long called for. We need to start choosing locations for housing much more strategically, locations that are, or can be connected to existing transport networks to ensure that residents have sustainable transport connections from the day of occupation. Integrating housing with transport planning, as is already done in London with the London Plan and Mayor’s Transport Strategy, should help to achieve this and ensure that wherever your new home is, you can go out the front door and know that there is turn up and go public transport available that connects you to a whole network of destinations. To ensure that new developments are truly sustainable however, we need to ensure there is funding made available for new metros, stations and trams, and not just new roads.”

Transport for New Homes’ recent report, What is being built in 2025? In search of the station, revealed housing targets aimed at rural parts of the country and a developer-led choice of location are creating car-dependent estates far away from major urban areas and isolated from good public transport. 

A combination of wrong location, wrong transport and a lack of density is resulting in housing estates which are increasing congestion, limiting housing choices for those who don’t want to drive everywhere, and damaging existing town centres.

Jenny Raggett, Project Coordinator at Transport for New Homes, said: “New housing estates being built in England resemble a jigsaw puzzle with some of the most important pieces missing – the stations, the mass transit systems and on-site community provision and services. Housing targets aimed at rural or semi-rural parts of the country and a developer-led choice of location where to build, are plonking more and more giant housing estates on fields on the edge of towns and villages, places where it’s all about driving. We need to build differently to avoid this ‘doughnut effect’, whereby everything ends up on out of town greenfield sites whilst brownfield sites lie unbuilt and derelict, and high streets are dying.”

Steve Gooding, Director, RAC Foundation, said: “With at-scale house building high on the Government’s agenda, this report is a timely reminder of what can go wrong in developing new homes but importantly also provides policymakers and developers with guidance and tangible examples of how to get it right in providing the sustainable, accessible and all-round live-able developments we need.” 

What is being built in 2025? In search of the station made three recommendations to Government to help accomplish a different model of delivering new homes and avoid more car-dependent sprawl:

• Build transit-oriented developments serving residents from day one of occupation: New developments should be planned around better public transport, connected with metros, tram systems and comprehensive bus networks, available to residents on the day they move in to avoid entrenching car dependency. 
• New homes must be built in better locations: The planning system needs to direct building in more sustainable locations, with decisions on where we build new homes taken with more of an evidence-based approach. Places must be selected that will work with new transport infrastructure and promote regeneration, economic growth and good access to services. A revised National Planning Policy Framework needs to make this kind of wider area planning possible. 
• Deliverable masterplans that create delightful walkable and well-connected places: Local authorities and urban designers need to be able to masterplan large-scale developments as walkable, well-connected and mixed-use places with housebuilders then able to build to the plan. All parties involved need to have the assurance that the funding and governance will be in place to achieve sustainable transport aims. To achieve these, transport and land use planning must be considered at local and strategic levels with changes to the current planning system to make this possible.

Read What is being built in 2025? In search of the station in full.