North Yorkshire Local Transport Plan Progress Report

59% of respondents to a Let’s Talk Transport survey were dissatisfied with transport in North Yorkshire. The top reason for dissatisfaction was lack of alternatives to car use.

These facts appear in a progress report to the North Yorkshire Council (NYC) Executive on the preparation of a Local Transport Plan (LTP) for the county.

Preparing a Local Transport Plan (LTP)

NYC has to prepare a new LTP.

In 2022, the Department for Transport (DfT) asked councils to do this, with a deadline of the end of this Parliament (late 2024). The idea is that it will give the DfT an understanding of strategic transport requirements locally and nationally.

Official guidance still has not been published by the DfT.

I speculate that this is because of irreconcilable differences between:

• what needs to be done in order to decarbonise transport (stop building new roads, take measures to disincentivise driving) and
• what Mr Sunak’s government wants to do (carry on with car-centric business-as-usual)

NYC officers have started work on an LTP on the basis of ‘the limited advice coming out of government, and insight from within the transport planning sector’.

It is known or thought that the three national priorities for LTPs will be:

• reducing carbon
• improving transport for the user and
• improving the economy

As well as the NYC LTP, a Strategic Transport Plan has to be written for the Mayoral Combined Authority of the York & North Yorkshire region which will shortly come into being. A headline plan should be ready in time for the Mayoral elections in May 2024.

Databook and Quantifiable Carbon Reductions

Consultants WSP have been commissioned to develop:

• a databook for York and North Yorkshire and
• a two-stage Quantifiable Carbon Reduction Plan

The databook will provide a variety of relevant data sets, including demographic, economic and transport information (para 4.9 of the report).

Let’s Talk Transport Survey

In Summer 2023 NYC held a consultation under the banner Let’s Talk Transport.

The stated intention is to ensure that the views of local people are taken into account in the new LTP.

As this is North Yorkshire, cynicism is fully justified. Part of the real intention is doubtless to use survey responses as an excuse for a lack of ambition on decarbonisation in the final plan.

Respondents to the Survey

The number of responses to the survey was:

• 4,817 from individuals and
• 99 from organisations

While this is a reasonable absolute number of responses, it should be considered in the context of a total North Yorkshire population of 615,491 (a figure which excludes areas like York which have their own councils).

About 0.8% of North Yorkshire residents completed the survey.

Older people were over-represented, while younger people were under-represented. Specifically:

• 63% of responses were from people aged 50 to 74 but
• only 3% were from those aged 16 to 29 and
• only 5% were from 30 to 39 year olds

Key Findings

According to the survey the most common ways of getting around were:

• walking (80% several times a week)
• ICE car (68% several times a week)
• bus (18% several times a week)
• electric or hybrid car (15% several times a week)
• cycling (13% several times a week)

It’s great that so many cyclists responded; I suspect that the proportion of survey respondents who cycle several times a week is higher than the proportion of the general North Yorkshire population who do so.

The council is providing charging facilities in order to increase the percentage of people who drive electric cars. It should be applying the same principle to cycling and providing facilities in order to increase the percentage of people who cycle.

There appears to have been a post-pandemic shift to home based activities with:

• 49% of respondents saying they work from home and
• 48% saying they have groceries delivered

‘Use of the car is the habit most expected to decrease (22%)’.

changes to travel habits, p117 of the report

There is dissatisfaction with the transport system in North Yorkshire, with 59% of respondents saying that it does not meet their needs very well or well.

The percentage of respondents dissatisfied/satisfied in Harrogate & Knaresborough was:

• 51% dissatisfied and
• 23% satisfied

Some areas of most concern were:

• availability and reliability of travel 77%
• affordability of travel 62%
• road safety 60%
• impact of transport on climate change 56%

Respondents were asked how effective certain measures would be in addressing transport challenges.

Note that the headings in the second table are wrong, and the percentages appear to be completely wrong – they do not match up with the information in the text of the report.

The accurate figures show the following proportion of respondents rated the following measures as very effective or somewhat effective:

• cutting travel 37%
• discouraging car use 30% (34% in Harrogate & Knaresborough)
• encouraging more public transport 62%
• encouraging more walking and cycling 57%
• electric cars 41%
• traffic and highways 60%

Vision and Objectives of the LTP

The report says that the results of the survey will be used in setting the vision and objectives of the new LTP.

While the results should be taken into account, they should not be used as an excuse for lack of ambition or for the continuation of car-centric business as usual.

Some people might want an expansion of capacity for motor vehicles, but it is incompatible with the decarbonisation of transport.

It’s like a meal deal, where you can have a sandwich and a drink or a sandwich and a dessert, but not all three. It isn’t an all-you-can-eat buffet.

The overriding objective must be to decarbonise transport.

Within the limits of that imperative, there are options that the council can present to local residents. What the council should not do is ask people to pick whatever transport options they like if they are incompatible with the council’s most important objective, decarbonisation.

The council should have its own vision and objectives, influenced by survey results, but independent of them. Unfortunately, it does not have a vision and objectives except ‘do as little as possible’.

Where is the Leadership?

The Foreword by Council Leader Carl Les and Transport Executive Keane Duncan states:

‘The plan will demonstrate very clearly how [the] transport proposals will make a significant contribution to meeting North Yorkshire’s carbon net zero ambitions’.

foreword to the report on the results of the let’s talk transport survey

But given the track record of Councillors Les and Duncan, who can believe that?

This is a review of progress on the council’s Harrogate cycling projects in 2023; there was none.

The NYC Executive is interested in warm words and saving face and making it look as though they are doing the right thing, while doing not very much. When it comes to taking difficult decisions to change the car-centric status quo, they don’t and they won’t.

They lack the commitment and courage to bring about meaningful change. If there is a choice between the interests of a 70-year-old in a Land Rover and a 12-year-old who would like to be able to cycle to school, they will be on the side of the SUV driver.

WSP’s data book and Quantifiable Carbon Reduction Plan will at least be interesting, and provide another way of exposing the council’s failure to decarbonise transport.

Next Step

The next step is a public consultation on a draft LTP.