ATE Guidelines on Consultation and Engagement

Active Travel England (ATE) recently published community consultation and engagement guidelines for active travel schemes.

The document says:

‘Good engagement and consultation on active travel should start before schemes begin and continue after they are complete.

It isn’t always easy but when done well, engagement and consultation is powerful’.

It adds that a consultation is not a referendum.

Policy Framework

When engaging with the community, those developing schemes should explain the policy framework – the standards and how they influence designs.

The policy framework includes:

• Inclusive Mobility
• LTN 1/20
• Manual for Streets (place above movement in residential areas)
• Manual for Streets 2 (applies to busier locations such as high streets)

The scheme promoters should also present background data about the status quo.

Engagement

Engagement should be ‘honest, open, transparent, and enable anyone who wants to take part in the project to do so’.

How much engagement should there be? ‘More than you think is necessary wherever possible’.

A collaborative approach works best on active travel schemes, according to the guidance.

Engaging with schoolchildren who will benefit from the scheme ‘will provide huge benefits…by balancing the views of older people’.

Project Stages

ATE has identified a series of project stages, and the guidelines suggest what sort of engagement might be done at each stage.

• Baseline – this is understanding the existing situation and gathering data. This is the time to consider with whom you will engage, and to communicate the reasons for a proposal for change
• Feasibility Design, perhaps including options – the time to get everyone involved
• Preliminary Design – tell people how they can input into the design, being clear that this is not a referendum but an opportunity to input into the design
• Detailed Design – keep people engaged and involved
• Statutory Consultation – the bare minimum engagement, often associated with TROs
• Construction – make sure to give local people advance warning of works

Reservations about the Guidelines

I have reservations about the guidelines.

Crass Comments about Cycle Campaigners

The guidelines include crass and totally unfair comments about cycle campaigners in para 4.3.4.

‘…A local cycle campaign group may be great providing constructive criticism and expert local knowledge, but will however provide a view skewed by the fact that they already cycle’.

I’m sorry, what a load of crap. It is outrageous to dismiss a whole category of people as having “skewed” views on the basis that they sometimes cycle.

Who else are you going to ask about the local conditions for cycling, apart from people who already cycle? (Non-cycling) HGV drivers? Gardeners? Chess-players?

Local authorities like North Yorkshire already think they know best, and are dismissive of cycle campaign groups. The last thing ATE should be doing is giving them ready-made excuses for dismissing the input of cycle campaigners and going ahead with low-ambition schemes.

This paragraph should never have got through quality control.

Ironically, if the author of the guidelines had only consulted and engaged on a draft, he or she could have avoided this egregious error.

Lack of Realism about Opponents of Cycling

The guidelines seem to apply to a fantasy world where everyone is calmly giving constructive input into active travel schemes.

My experience is that a proportion of local people are anti-cycling, and whatever the scheme, if it involves cycling they are against it.

My starting point would be that it’s unacceptable for people who choose to get around town by bike to be routinely put in physical danger by drivers.

By all means consider options, but doing nothing and thereby continuing to put people’s physical safety at risk should not be an option.

Ultimately, even if some people are against meaningful change to make cycling safe, councils must push it through.

Most people don’t know what ‘good’ looks like. You need to build some cycle infrastructure to show them. Then most people will see that it works and support what you did.

Active Travel England Hasn’t Made Cycling Safer Locally

It seems to me that ATE are very nice, but not very good at pushing recalcitrant councils to get things built.

I watched Chris Boardman in Parliament making the case for quality design, and looking after people along whole routes – but is it happening locally?

No. Cycling in Harrogate has not become any safer since ATE was set up. Nothing has been built.

The only project that is currently being built is Victoria Avenue, which has been drained of ambition and stripped of its cycling elements. And by the way, in the consultation only six people supported it.

Unless ATE can help make utility cycling safer, and soon, the risk is that people who want to support them and want them to succeed will conclude that whatever they are doing is not working.