Plan for growth – a transport infrastructure strategy to build community

England's Economic Heartland is the sub-national transport body charged with developing and driving transport strategies to underpin sustainable growth across a region north of London between Swindon in the west, Cambridgeshire in the East and Peterborough to the North. 

Every regional transport strategy relies on a clear understanding of what really matters to the local population. And after spending the last few years talking to local authority leaders, communities, businesses and a range of local stakeholders, England’s Economic Heartland (EEH) is clear about the priority to both decarbonise the region and protect the natural and the historic environment while still enabling ambitious economic growth plans to flourish. 

It is a big challenge. Across the region, average journeys are longer and car use is higher than the national average. That means working hard to provide real alternatives to private transport and persuading large numbers in rural communities that there is a more sustainable transport option. 

“People have higher expectations on us, and on all public bodies responsible for public funding, to spend money and to create policies that protect, preserve and better the environment in which communities live,” explains EEH interim programme director Naomi Green. “That is an enormous responsibility. We need to be sure that, as we plan transport systems for the future, we meet this goal.” 

DELIVERING TRASPORT INFRASTRUCTURE FOR COMMUNITIES THROUGH PARTNERSHIP  

England's Economic Heartland is a strategic alliance between the vast region’s local authorities, local enterprise partnerships and numerous strategic stakeholders. Significantly, the region also encompasses the Oxford to Cambridge Arc, a government economic priority area supporting sustainable economic growth and leveraging the world leading skills and innovation, which are exemplified by the Oxbridge universities, but which Green says are present across the region.  

As one of seven sub-national transport bodies (STBs) set up across England, it has the task of planning and prioritising strategic transport infrastructure, the impact of which crosses traditional council boundaries. Like most STBs, EEH is co-funded by its local authorities and the Department for Transport (DfT). 

While Transport for the North is the only STB to have been granted statutory powers, Green believes that this status does not make a huge difference at present. This is particularly so, given the very clear position from the Secretary of State all the way through his ministers and officials that STBs are clearly part of the process of setting transport policy. 

This point was underlined by a government commitment to use the principles within EEH’s transport strategy as the foundation for its work on connectivity in the Arc (outlined in the recent consultation). EEH is also co-sponsoring with DfT a regional roads study by National Highways, which follows the government’s cancellation of the controversial Oxford-Cambridge expressway – EEH had expressed its concerns regarding the new road between Oxford and Milton Keynes in a letter to previous Secretary of State Chris Grayling. The role of STBs was also highlighted in the government’s transport decarbonisation plan (EEH leads on decarbonisation on behalf of the seven STBs), while it is increasingly become a key sounding board for National Highways’ route strategies. 

“By receiving and acknowledging our transport strategy, they've acknowledged that they will give due consideration to it in their policy making,” she explains. “We have a direct route into and investment from the DfT, regardless of our statutory status, and that has been reinforced across all of the STBs.”

UNDERSTANDING THE LOCAL POPULATION, ITS BEHAVIOURS AND TRAVEL HABITS   

Green has been at EEH for three years and took over in July as interim programme director. Her focus in the role is resolutely on delivering a transport system for the region that can truly give communities a real choice in the way they travel – be that by car, bus, train, bike or on foot.    
She is ambitious for a future where there is widespread provision for mobility hubs to offer travel choice, remote working hubs to reduce the need for commuting, and delivery consolidation centres to obviate the need for home delivery vans.  

Such forward thinking is borne out of years spent wrestling with sustainable local transport policy. Prior to joining EEH, she worked in both the government’s Cities and Local Growth Unit and the DfT, where she was head of cycling policy as well as leading their approach to Housing Growth policy. Her aim now at EEH is to build on this experience, working with central and local government and the private sector to highlight how schemes can be better delivered collectively to attract more public and private investment.   

“One of the things that is quite different about the Heartland compared to other sub national transport bodies is that we are particularly focussed on first and last mile transport planning,” explains Green. “We believe local connectivity is a core strategic consideration – not least by maximising access to major infrastructure projects such as East West Rail.”  

EEH has put together a toolkit for use by all of its partners to help them to focus on the human behaviour issues that drive the choice of transport mode in respect of first mile, last mile (FMLM) travel, creating an evidence-led approach to boost investment in active travel. 

“From a developer perspective, it means understanding how to expand the accessibility of rail stations and other public transport assets, so people have more choice in the way that they travel,” she adds, pointing out that this is a really important consideration in the EEH region, as large parts of the population cannot afford to live where they work, so have to commute.   

“At the moment, it's very hard to travel across the region,” she explains. “We know there are lots of people who want to use public transport, particularly the cities of Oxford and Cambridge but also many other urban areas. We also know that one of the key location determinants for large R&D companies is proximity to a transport hub.”  

But, she adds: “We also have a very high proportion of rural communities and, from a transport perspective, these can be very challenging to plan for. We cannot assume that the traditional models of transport can work for rural communities so we will have to be creative in the future.”

COMMITMENT FROM THE GOVERNMENT SPENDING REVIEW FOR TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE  

EEH now wants to see its ambition to move people out of their cars underpinned by central government with a real commitment of funds in the ongoing Spending Review, which concludes on 27 October. 

The EEH board, says Green, has a clear infrastructure-first principle. Its initial priority from the Spending Review is to secure the funds to deliver the infrastructure that is needed to support the growth that is planned and demanded across the region.  

“We have had years of underinvestment and the region has just grown and grown without the investment to support that growth,” explains Green. “With an infrastructure-first principle, the first thing in the government’s Spending Review should be to help us build the things we know we need.”

DELIVERING THE REGIONAL TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE STRATEGY – THE CHALLENGES  

To realise the economic potential of the region, EEH published its comprehensive transport strategy “Connecting People, Transforming Journeys” in February 2021, highlighting a pipeline of proposed and potential projects to meet a range of priorities and challenges across the region. These challenges include the need to:  

• Improve the resilience of a transport system that is already under strain; one where congestion and unreliability act as a brake on sustainable growth   
  
  
• Address the carbon impact of our transport system, where emissions are currently higher and growing faster than the national average   
  
  
• Address the extent to which poor transport connectivity serves to perpetuate inequality, particularly within our more deprived communities   
  
  
• Support our rural communities and the businesses that operate in them, a demographic which is significantly larger than the national average 
  
  
• Reduce reliance on the private car in a region where average journeys are longer, and car use higher than the national average 

Green underlines the scale of the challenge when it comes to forming and delivering the right transport policies for such a large, diverse and growing region with relatively small cities and in which people typically travel in many different directions for work and recreation.   

Currently, the disproportionately high level of private car use results in transport emissions being around about 10% above the national average. Average journey distances are longer, and people have fewer choices on how they travel.  

“Our responsibility is to make sure that residents can travel in the way that suits them,” explains Green. “The harder that we make it for them to access public transport, the less likely that they are to travel by sustainable means and the more dependent they are going to be on private vehicles.”  

Read more: Midlands Connect | A coalition to connect the Midlands

A key project for EEH is the creation of a centre of excellence across the region to help local authorities to plan, design and procure the right transport schemes – tasks for which they might not have the right capacity or capability to deliver alone. But, by providing a central overview, EEH can also more easily spot investment opportunities that might work better across authority boundaries.  

“There are many small pots of money for local authorities to bid into. We need to raise our ambition and work together to create single larger pots of funding,” she explains. “Then we can prioritise spending based on the evidence we have collected, collaborate and actually make a bigger difference.”

TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT: A FIVE-POINT PLAN OF ACTION

The EEH transport strategy sets out a vision to support sustainable growth and improve quality of life and wellbeing through a world-class decarbonised transport system which harnesses the region’s global expertise in technology and innovation to unlock new opportunities for residents and businesses, in a way that benefits the UK as a whole. 

To achieve this ambitious vision, it proposes a simple five-point plan to:  

1. Focus on decarbonising our transport system by harnessing innovation and supporting solutions which, in themselves, create green economic opportunities  
   
   
2. Promote investment in digital infrastructure as a means of improving connectivity 
   
   
3. Use the delivery of strategic public transport schemes – such as East West Rail, the Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro and Milton Keynes Mass Rapid Transit – as the catalyst for a shift towards lower carbon modes of travel  
   
   
4. Champion increased investment in active travel and shared transport to improve local connectivity to ensure that everyone can realise their potential  
5. Continue to ensure the needs of the freight and logistics sector are met whilst lowering its environmental impact 

The Spending Review could be a key milestone in providing the resources and approvals to help kick start this plan and, in particular, to press forward with vital major projects such as East-West Rail, initially to link Oxford to Bedford via Milton Keynes with links to Aylesbury, but then taking the route east onto Cambridge and beyond as an electrified and digitally enabled railway.   

Alongside this scheme are other plans to invest in strategic transport interchanges across the region, in new corridors to boost freight capacity and to work with the local authorities and National Highways to accelerate a host of road improvement schemes.  

“There are things that we've set out in our strategy that just need to happen,” she explains. “The vital things that are needed to support the region.”  

It’s a tough challenge and Green is clear that any measure of their success has to be about delivery. “We have a strategy - a great strategy – but it's only a great strategy if it's delivered on the ground,” she explains. “We just need to get it done.”

MEETING THE FUNDING CHALLENGE FOR TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE 

Securing sufficient funding from central government to enable EEH to create the investment ready schemes needed to deliver its pipeline of activity going forward is critical, she explains. This will allow the transport strategy to morph from a plan into real project solutions that meet not only economic and social objectives but also the region’s goals around achieving sustainable - or even net zero carbon – development.  

“Investment is needed to bring those ideas through to actual delivery,” she says. “Some of these schemes are quite significant and so will need government investment; others will be smaller and can be done through bidding rounds, or in partnerships with the private sector and with local government.”  

And while the delivery of the EEH transport strategy will involve partnerships with the private sector, the scale of some of the schemes which form the bedrock of the plan will, explains Green, require central government to come to the table with funding. 

“A body like EEH has a really important role in planning how we can actually develop infrastructure propositions to the point where they are investable by the private sector,” she says, highlighting that the key to good delivery will always be based around making sure investment serves the community.  

“While our local authority leaders would naturally say the expectations on private sector contributions are quite significant, it should never be a choice between, say, providing an EV charge point or investing in social infrastructure,” she adds. “Both are needed.”

REGIONAL TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE STRATEGY: THE INVESTMENT PIPELINE 

Electrification of the rail infrastructure (regionwide)  
Digital infrastructure provision – 5G and fibre connectivity (regionwide): 
Provision of digital infrastructure delivers opportunities for business transformation, new business models to emerge. 

Electrification of road infrastructure (regionwide): 
Investment in charging facilities required to support decarbonisation of vehicle fleet – significance increased by banning of new petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicles from 2030. 
Enhanced capacity for rail freight  
Improved connectivity (East West) 
A northern corridor that links north Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Peterborough, providing more direct passenger transport connectivity across the northern Heartland. 
Improved connectivity (East West) – middle 
Realisation of East West Rail’s full capability: Oxford to Bedford and Aylesbury to Milton Keynes sections as planned; plus new Bedford to Cambridge route, new Cambridge South Station by 2025 and new Cambridge to Norwich and Ipswich. 
Improved connectivity (East West) 
A southern corridor that links Buckinghamshire with Hertfordshire, providing an orbital passenger transport route between the Chiltern Main Line and West Anglia Main Line. 
Improved connectivity (North South) – Western  
Improved connectivity (North South) – Central  
Improved connectivity (North South) – Eastern  

Strategic interchanges  

• Oxford – with Great Western and Cross Country    
• Bicester Village – with Chiltern Main Line    
• Aylesbury – with Chiltern Main Line    
• Milton Keynes/Bletchley – with West Coast Main Line    
• Bedford – with Midland Main Line    
• Sandy/St Neots area – with East Coast Main Line   
• Cambridge/Cambridge South – with Anglian Main Line.  

Mass transit systems  

• Cambridgeshire    
• Milton Keynes – Mass Rapid Transit     
• The A414 corridor in Hertfordshire (HERT)   
• Oxford suburban network – Bus rapid transit and Cowley branch line

Access to strategic gateways  
Targeted investment in the highway network