Briefing from the Walking and Cycling Alliance on the LEVELLING UP AND REGENERATION BILL (LURB) INTRODUCTION This draft briefing represents the views of the six organisations comprising the Walking and Cycling Alliance, namely: • The Bicycle Association, the national trade association for the UK cycle industry; • British Cycling, the governing body for competitive cycling; • Cycling UK, the national membership charity promoting everyday cycling; • Living Streets, the national charity promoting everyday walking; • Ramblers, the national charity primarily focussed on recreational walking; and • Sustrans, the walking and cycling charity, best known for the National Cycle Network. SUPPORT FOR THE BETTER PLANNING COALITION’S AMENDMENTS In 2020, the Government proposed reforms to England’s planning system in a White Paper. These attracted criticism from across the political spectrum within parliament, and from a wide range of interest groups outside it. Some of these wider interest groups have coalesced to form the Better Planning Coalition (BPC), coordinated by CPRE the countryside charity. The BPC has adopted 6 tests for reforms to the planning system, including the need for developments to be planned: • To address the climate crisis – from an active travel perspective, this means ensuring that their location supports active travel and public transport, as well as ensuring that the design of road and path networks support cycling and walking, including highquality facilities specifically for active travel (including cycle parking) within and around the development. • To benefit people’s health and wellbeing – this includes provision of good walking and cycling networks, and access to nature, both within and around the development. The second of these calls is also the focus of the Nature for Everyone campaign, led by Wildlife and Countryside Link (who are themselves also key members of the Better Planning Coalition). Four of the WACA organisations (Cycling UK, Living Streets, the Ramblers and Sustrans) are members of the BPC, while the remaining two are broadly supportive of its calls. Specifically, we support the BPC’s proposed amendments relating to: • The purpose of planning; • Embedding climate considerations in the planning system; • Embedding health and well-being considerations in the planning system. We also expect to support BPC amendments which aim to ensure that climate and other environmental, health and wellbeing considerations are fully reflected in the Bill’s provisions relating to: • National Development Management Policies; • Environmental Outcome Reports; and • The Infrastructure Levy.
INTEGRATING CYCLING, WALKING AND RIGHTS OF WAY NETWORK PLANS INTO LOCAL PLANS However there is also an issue which relates specifically to cycling and walking, for which we wish to propose an amendment in addition to those adopted so far by BPC (though it may well also be adopted by BPC in due course). It relates to areas where there are two tiers of local government, namely: • A local transport authority – which could be either a county council (in which case, it will also be the local highway authority for the area) or a combined authority; and • A number of local planning authorities within the area of the transport authority – these planning authorities could be district or city councils, or national park authorities, or metropolitan borough councils and other unitary authorities that are both local highway and local planning authorities but not local transport authorities (because that role is fulfilled by the combined authority for their area). Local transport authorities have a duty to prepare a (statutory) Local Transport Plan (LTP) for their area. They are also responsible for drawing up one or more (non-statutory) Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans (LCWIPs) for their area (or parts of their area), while local highway authorities outside London (which are usually the same body) are each required to draw up a (statutory) Rights of Way Improvement Plan (RoWIP) for their area. The Department for Transport (DfT) has announced that a forthcoming revision to the statutory guidance on Local Transport Plans (which is expected to take effect next year) will require local transport authorities to include LCWIPs – and potentially also RoWIPs – in their LTPs. Meanwhile local planning authorities are responsible for preparing a Local Plan for their area. Local plans determine what kinds of development can (or cannot) take place in which locations. They can also safeguard land to prevent development (e.g. where this would block potential future transport infrastructure or rights of way) and can help secure funding contributions from developers towards the costs of providing or improving transport and other infrastructure (including green infrastructure, such as rights of way). DfT has recognised the need for local transport networks and any proposals in LTPs for improving them – including LCWIP and potentially RoWIP networks – to be reflected in Local Plans. This is important both to safeguard any land required for them and to ensure that funding is secured from developers where appropriate (i.e. through the Infrastructure Levy proposed in the Bill) to implement or improve these networks. However the issue is not yet addressed in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill itself. This potentially causes two problems. Firstly, where a local planning authority does not see eye-to-eye with either the local transport authority or the local highway authority, it could seek to frustrate the aspirations of the latter to improve cycling and walking conditions by not including an LCWIP or RoWIP as part of its development plan. Secondly, even where they do see eye-to-eye, there can still be substantial time-lags between (a) the adoption of an LCWIP or a RoWIP, (b) their incorporation into an LTP and (c) their inclusion as part of the development plan. In the following proposed amendment, subsection (1) requires a local planning authority to incorporate within its development plan the policies and proposals of (a) any LCWIP prepared by a local transport authority, and (b) any RoWIP, that are relevant to the development of land in the local planning authority’s area. Subsection (2) then
additionally stipulates that, when making a planning determination, regard must be had to any material policies or proposals in any LCWIP or RoWIP that have not been included in the development plan (e.g. because the latter has not yet been updated since the LCWIP or RoWIP was adopted, or because the LCWIP or RoWIP has been drawn up by an authority other than the local transport authority or local highway authority respectively). In practice, the aim of subsections (1) and (2) is to provide a basis for planning determinations to favour proposed development that would support the realisation of an LCWIP or RoWIP, or to reject development that would frustrate this aim. PROPOSED AMENDMENT (1) A local planning authority must ensure that the development plan incorporates, so far as relevant to the use or development of land in the local planning authority’s area, the policies and proposals set out in: (a) (b)
any local cycling and walking infrastructure plan or plans prepared by a local transport authority; any rights of way improvement plan.
(2) In dealing with an application for planning permission or permission in principle the local planning authority shall also have regard to any policies or proposals contained within a local cycling and walking infrastructure plan or plans and any rights of way improvement plan which have not been included as part of the development plan, so far as material to the application. (3) In this section: (a) (b) (c) (d)
“local planning authority” has the same meaning as in section 15LF of PCPA 2004; “local transport authority” has the same meaning as in section 108 of the Transport Act 2000; “local highway authority” has the same meaning as in the Highways Act 1980; a “rights of way improvement plan” is a plan published by a local highway authority under section 60 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.