Oral evidence: Draft National Policy Statement for National Networks, HC 1135Monday 31 March 2014
Oral evidence, 31 March 2014.
Witnesses
John Rhodes, Director, Quod, Andrew Shaw, Planning Officers Society, Jeremy Evans, member of the Transport Policy Panel, Institution of Engineering and Technology, and Naomi Luhde-Thompson, Planning Adviser, Friends of the Earth, gave evidence.
Chair
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Transport Select Committee. Could you tell us your name and organisation, starting at the end?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
My name is Naomi Luhde-Thompson, planning adviser at Friends of the Earth for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Jeremy Evans
My name is Jeremy Evans. I am representing the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and previously I was immediate past chair of Intelligent Transports Systems (United Kingdom).
Andrew Shaw
I am Andrew Shaw. I work for Dorset county council, and I am representing the Planning Officers Society.
John Rhodes
My name is John Rhodes from Quod. I am a private sector planning consultant promoting, for instance, strategic rail freight interchange developments, and today I am jointly representing Kilbride, a rail freight developer.
Chair
Thank you. Do you find the national policy statement on national networks a statement with clarity? Is it very clear what it is saying? Is it generally acceptable? Are there any major changes you would want to make to it?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
We think it is really the wrong vision as a national policy statement for national networks. One of the reasons for that is the assumption of need and the responses to that need, particularly on road, because there are issues such as demand management, public transport and modal shift that need to be considered as measures initially, and it should filter the projects that come forward after that. In addition, I do not know whether you have seen the evidence of the Campaign for Better Transport, which showed the inaccuracy of some of the traffic forecasts, particularly from the Highways Agency and the DFT itself. Those have been presented in evidence to the Committee. I would like to draw your attention to them as evidence that perhaps the assumptions made in the national policy statement are not quite as accurate as they should be.
Chair
Mr Evans, what is your general view about the statement?
Jeremy Evans
In general, the national policy statement is a good move, but there are some gaps in it that need to be filled. One of them is more consideration of what technology can do to make better use of the network, particularly the road network, and also the issue of resilience. Resilience is hardly mentioned at all in the national policy statement, in particular resilience in response to incidents that happen on the network, such as accidents and so on, which cause major disruption to travel, and impact on journey time reliability. In my view, the forecasts are based on certain dubious assumptions, particularly for road development over the next 30-odd years to 2040. The assumption that the cost of car travel will continue to reduce is not necessarily the case. Certainly, putting forecasts into a national policy statement is a mistake. You cannot say that a forecast is Government policy. I believe those forecasts will continue to be challenged through the DCO process.
Chair
Mr Shaw, what is your general view on the national policy statement?
Andrew Shaw
I think the comments made by Naomi regarding alternatives for increasing the road network should be taken on board—the need for demand management and the need for improved and increased sustainable transport. On Mr Evans’s comment on the forecasts, we are concerned about the basis of the forecasts in terms of their, in effect, simplicity; they are looking mainly at population changes, increases in GDP and possible reductions in the cost of road transport. All of those combine, and, rather than producing a document that enables Government to provide a network that will provide for that increase in road transport, we should consider it a very alarming figure and we should be doing something about it in terms of reducing road transport.
Chair
Do you think the predictions are correct?
Andrew Shaw
As I said, they are simplistic, inasmuch as they ignore a number of issues that are coming to the fore. For instance, new technology, such as e-commerce, tele-commuting and social networks, is reducing the need for people to travel generally. I think that technology in terms of something like road pricing is a technological solution that could manage demand for transport, so effectively the pressure is downwards, or possibly going to become downwards very soon.
Chair
Is that for road and rail?
Andrew Shaw
This is just for road. The response from the Planning Officers Society was based simply on the projections for road.
Chair
Mr Rhodes, what is your general view?
John Rhodes
In principle, the idea of having an NPS for networks is extremely welcome and overdue. My impression is that the private sector generally—if I can assume to talk for them, which I shouldn’t—welcomes the infrastructure planning process under the 2008 Act and thinks it is a good way of bringing forward nationally important infrastructure, but for it to be effective it needs a national policy statement to create the tests against which applications are to be judged by the Planning Inspectorate and the Secretary of State. Having an NPS is important. This NPS is very good in a number of ways, but perhaps not particularly clear in others. Part of the NPS is more of a conversation than a direction of policy.
Chair
Which areas lack clarity?
John Rhodes
The area where the NPS is sharpest is where it can define projects. On strategic rail freight interchanges, I have some concerns about the policy, but we know what the policy is. It is difficult to know from the rest of the NPS which nationally significant infrastructure projects for rail or road would be able to claim that they are directly supported by the NPS. One of the purposes of the NPS is to make it simpler to go through the planning process. The prospect of having arguments about or examinations of forecasts is an awful one. The forecasts are not intended to be precise. Everybody knows that forecasts will change over time and the forecasts are not the policy. The forecasts identify a thrust or general direction to which the planning industry needs to respond, and we can see how to do that in rail freight interchanges. It is more difficult to see precisely what the policy is in relation to road infrastructure. For instance, is the policy to meet unconstrained forecast demand? I do not think it is. I do not think that is what the document is telling us, but it would be helpful if it was clearer in identifying what type of road projects, for instance, were most likely to be considered to be consistent with the NPS.
Chair
Would the draft national policy statement make any difference to anything in the future if it stayed as it currently is?
John Rhodes
The national policy statement would make some difference by area of interest today in strategic rail freight interchanges. It is very helpful to have an up‑to‑date national policy statement to say that there is a compelling need for a network of rail freight interchanges, but it is probably fair to say that we already knew the Government were supportive of rail freight interchanges; the policy climate is reasonably warm in principle to them. What is important about the NPS is that it is as useful as possible in the examination of DCO applications.
Chair
Would this statement do that?
John Rhodes
Not as much as it could, no.
Chair
Are there any other views? If the policy statement stays as it is, or changes in any specific way that you want to advocate, would it make any difference to the situation now? There have been a lot of calls to have a national policy statement. If it is like this, or changed in any way you want to advocate, would it actually make a difference to anything? Can we have the views of the panellists?
Jeremy Evans
My view is that it would still cause major concerns when each individual scheme was being put forward as a national strategic infrastructure project, because it would still be necessary to look at the corridor impacts and the impacts on the local feeder networks as well. That is where the constraint will occur. You cannot just look at forecasting growth on the strategic network without looking at the impact on the local network. Most of those inter-urban journeys originate or terminate in an urban area, and the capacity of those local roads is not going to change significantly over the next 10, 20 or 30 years. As an example, if the M1 southbound was improved dramatically, it would still turn up at Staples Corner on the north circular road, so the risk is that that improvement to a road network would simply be a big car park. You have to look at improvements to the national strategic network alongside local roads as well.
Chair
But to secure that would this statement have to read differently, or could any national policy statement produce the result you are talking about?
Jeremy Evans
I would suggest that the statement has to refer to overall consideration of the impact on the local networks, and that applies to rail interchanges as well as the road network.
Chair
Ms Luhde-Thompson, do you have any comments? I want to know whether you think this statement would make any difference to anything that is happening now.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
I think it would cause confusion. It would not be clear what sort of projects would be appropriate and what projects would be considered as the ones that should be coming forward, because there is no clear test as to what sort of projects should be coming forward. It does not say, “Have you considered demand management? Have you considered public transport first? Have you gone through that hierarchy before this project comes forward?” Otherwise, it might be a completely inappropriate project, as Jeremy was saying, because you have looked at only one aspect of it. Paragraph 4.2 is a very general one, basically saying that it is meeting a general assumption of need rather than addressing a problem in a particular location. What you really want in a planning policy is a series of policies that tell you what sort of projects need to come forward, and then you look differently at those areas. For instance, at the back of the national policy statement there are four maps and two annexes. Annex A deals with congestion on the strategic road network. I do not know whether you can see it from here. There are basically two areas of congestion: one in the north-west and one around London. Anyone who has been to those places will know there is a really big issue about demand management and public transport for commuters, which is putting pressure on the strategic road network, but the solutions lie elsewhere.
Chair
Mr Shaw, what is your view about whether this statement would make any difference?
Andrew Shaw
I agree that it would cause confusion simply because of the impact on local networks that schemes can potentially have, given the rate of growth that this is attempting to facilitate.
Graham Stringer
I do not know whether you heard our previous witnesses. They believed that the statement would speed up the process and make faster decisions on major projects. Is what I am hearing that you disagree with that, and you think this national policy statement will slow it down?
Jeremy Evans
I would not say it would slow it down compared with the current processes. I do not believe it would speed things up.
Graham Stringer
Does anybody else want to talk about speed?
Andrew Shaw
The danger is that the wrong schemes are promoted. Because the policy statement ignores issues like carbon emissions and the possibility of alternatives, or the need to seek alternatives, it enables some schemes to be pushed forward that may not be appropriate.
John Rhodes
I think the nature of the debate demonstrates the need for the national policy statement, because there is always a range of opinions on transport investment, whether it should be demand management or economic growth. The lead principle is that there needs to be a national policy statement that sets it out clearly. It would reduce debate significantly at examinations if the NPS was in place, as long as it was as clear as it could be. It is also important to distinguish that the NPS should do two things. It should identify what sort of projects it supports or that can claim to be consistent with it. It could be clearer about that. The issue about whether large projects have impacts on local roads, for instance, is not a reason to be concerned about the national policy statement, because the second half of the statement tells you, once you have worked out what sort of project is supported by the NPS, how to assess that project. It tells you in the detail of assessment principles how to look at the traffic impact. That is the job of the Planning Inspectorate, and they are given guidance as to how they should do that. If the traffic impacts are unacceptable, they can recommend refusing the project. There are two distinct parts. In relation to what sort of projects can claim the support of the NPS, it is not sufficiently clear in relation to road projects particularly; it is clearer in relation to rail projects, but the assessment principles, subject to detailed concerns that we set out in our statement, are reasonably clear.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
I want to add one more point about the way climate change is treated and about chapter 3, which in the main is about wider Government policy on national networks. It is basically using what I suppose you could call offsetting measures. It is saying that, although they see an increase in road traffic, they do not think that will increase carbon emissions. This is a very serious issue, because the decision maker, when examining the project, will have to have regard to climate change considerations and will have to be able to look at that impact, because that is going to be an impact. If you look at some of the ways carbon emissions are expected to be reduced, such as through electrification of vehicles, it is taking a while to bring them in, even in London, which has its low emission zone. The forecast impact is being brought forward, whereas the implementation is going to be slower than that. That is another place where the national policy statement needs to be looked at.
Graham Stringer
Is that not a bit of a red herring when there are legally binding targets on carbon emissions for the whole energy system, and there is a detailed plan for electrification, as you say? Basically, you will not be able to buy gas, and cars will be electrified. A whole process is going on in the Department of Energy and Climate Change that is going to do that, so why is that relevant here?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
Because it should be integrated.
Graham Stringer
Why should it be integrated? If it is going to happen, why should you take account of the same policy in two different places?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
Because they are taking account of one policy, which is the electrification of vehicles, and in this area you are deciding whether or not to permit the building of a road, which means that you have to consider climate change among a load of other considerations.
Graham Stringer
But if the vehicles that are going to drive along the road are electric ones, what impact will those vehicles have on the atmosphere?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
Because other things, such as reducing demand and the need to travel, are also considerations that have climate impacts.
Graham Stringer
So you want to stop people travelling.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
No.
Graham Stringer
Well, that’s what you have just said.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
No. I would like to ensure that, when a decision maker is taking a decision on projects that come forward under the aegis of the national policy statement, they are able to consider climate change emissions.
Graham Stringer
I will not repeat the points. Can you tell me when Friends of the Earth became in favour of trams and light rapid transit?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
Sorry?
Graham Stringer
In your written statement somewhere you say you are in favour of light rail. I just wondered when you changed your policy to be in favour of it.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
I am not sure when we changed our policy. I am not sure how that is relevant.
Graham Stringer
It is part of your statement saying that you support it.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
Yes.
Graham Stringer
In practice, you have opposed light rail in Greater Manchester. It is a welcome change in policy, but I just wonder when you changed it.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
I would have to give you that information afterwards.
Martin Vickers
Mr Shaw, if I understand you correctly, a few minutes ago you said that the wrong schemes were being promoted. What evidence do you have for that? If I think of my own constituency and the immediate region around it, we have an off-the-book process of schemes coming forward, be they road, rail or whatever, many of which are discussed endlessly for years even before central Government get involved. What is the basis for saying that they are the wrong schemes?
Andrew Shaw
My own area of Dorset has a priority list of schemes, but those are not the strategic schemes. If the strategic network is going to be developed, it needs to be developed in a way that enables growth—if that is the purpose of it. The schemes that enable growth are the ones that need to be promoted. Going forward, when no alternatives are looked at, in terms of things like road pricing, the possibility of demand management or anything else, naturally there must be a sub-optimal outcome when the schemes are decided.
Martin Vickers
Do you think that local authorities, LEPs and so on have sufficient expertise within them to do the increasing volume of work that is demanded of any scheme?
Andrew Shaw
Speaking for my own authority, I think we are struggling, but we are a very small highway authority. The answer is that you become parochial. The authorities or LEPs that have the best capacity to promote schemes are the ones that take them forward, so it still does not necessarily promote the best schemes or the best outcome.
Chair
Mr Shaw, you have mentioned road pricing a couple of times. Do you think there should be an assumption that road pricing will be enacted?
Andrew Shaw
Over the course of 25 years it seems such an obvious solution that—
Chair
But in planning for the future and making assumptions about growth rates and traffic, are you saying there should be an assumption that it will actually be done?
Andrew Shaw
I do not think so in terms of growth rates, because there are other downward pressures on growth rates. In terms of deciding whether or not you are going to produce additional capacity, or simply use the capacity you have got better, you really need to assume that you are going to do it better in future.
Chair
Including road pricing.
Andrew Shaw
Including road pricing.
Chair
Is that on all roads, or most roads?
Andrew Shaw
It rather depends on the technology. In an ideal situation you would price roads according to demand. The roads where there is excess demand would carry the highest prices, but I think we are a long way from that situation.
Chair
I just wanted to clarify what you were saying.
Mr Sanders
Can I ask each of you what you think the main purpose of the NPS should be?
John Rhodes
The main purpose of the NPS is clear: it is to provide a tool for the examination of development consent order applications for network projects, road and rail. The Planning Act, as you know, set up the infrastructure planning process. For the process to work properly, an essential component is an NPS against which applications can be examined. This NPS is overdue, but it will perform its function only if it is as clear as it can be and, having worked out what forms of development it wants to support, such as rail freight interchanges, by making sure that as a tool to be used in the examination of the applications it is as helpful to those projects as it reasonably can be.
Andrew Shaw
The purpose is to enable decision making and schemes to be examined in a way that ensures that the ones that meet policy and deliver the best outcomes are those that are carried forward, but it needs to be absolutely clear.
Jeremy Evans
I think the purpose of it has been explained. The question is whether it is fit for purpose.
Mr Sanders
Does FOE want to answer?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
I would agree with what Jeremy said. It has to be fit for purpose in order to work appropriately as a document that an examining authority is going to use to test the project.
Mr Sanders
Let me ask a similar but connected question. What do you hope the main outcome of the NPS will be?
Chair
Who would like to have a go? What do you hope it will achieve—the main purpose?
Mr Sanders
The main outcome.
John Rhodes
We should all hope the same thing. It should facilitate the delivery of the right nationally significant infrastructure projects. We may disagree about what those are, but its role as a tool in the planning process needs to be understood and distinguished from its role in policy terms. I do not think NPSs generally are intended to bring about a major shift in Government policy. The Government’s general policies are well known. The NPS distils those policies for the purposes of examining particular types of applications. There is some flexibility in the way the policy is worded to provide more or less support for particular types of development, but the overall NPS needs to be consistent with existing Government policy. As a practitioner, my main interest is in the clarity and usability of the document rather than the policy. I understand, I think, what the overall policy framework is. In relation to rail freight interchanges, we already have a supportive policy, but we want to see the NPS take a step forward and help with the actual implementation of something which I think is agreed as being nationally important.
Mr Sanders
Does anybody else want to comment?
Jeremy Evans
I concur with the statement of Mr Rhodes.
Chair
Should High Speed 2 be included in that?
Jeremy Evans
There should be a specific reference to it within NPS as it is clearly a fundamental part of the development of the national strategic network for rail, and how that impacts on developments that go through the DCO process for other rail projects on the classic network. It should be clearly stated how that impacts. The big issue about high-speed rail is what happens at the nodes. How do those stations integrate with the rest of the network in Manchester, Leeds and central London? That involves a lot more projects potentially to cope with the large numbers of people who would be carried on high-speed rail and were being delivered in large quantities at specific intervals.
Chair
Ms Luhde-Thompson, do you want to say any more about the outcomes?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
On the outcomes, we are building infrastructure for the long term. We want that to be a good consideration, because these are not short-term decisions but very long-term ones. Low-carbon infrastructure is very important. The Stern review looked at the economic costs of not dealing with decarbonising the economy, so we think that is a very important consideration that should be properly referenced in the national policy statement. I would agree with Jeremy about HS2; the problem is going to be at either end. It is also about what opportunities it has for freeing up capacity. You cannot consider schemes in isolation.
Chair
How do you think that new technologies, such as driverless vehicles, could shape the outcome of road and rail networks in future?
Jeremy Evans
We very much support the projects that are looking at the platooning of HGVs, for instance, on the national network, and autonomous vehicles. We are a long way away from that making a significant difference to how traffic moves around, but it is certainly something that we need to be investigating and testing, looking at how vehicles are connected with the infrastructure as well, particularly on roads. One of the big issues is how you can improve the performance of the road network by providing information to users about what is happening ahead on their route. It is not just planning before you start the journey. You need the information to be provided during the journey for a road user, so that you can take action and, if possible, divert. There are already satnav products around that can do that. That avoids people just getting a simple message saying there is a problem between junctions 35 and 36, but not telling them what to do as a result of that. What to do is dependent on each individual’s journey, where they are trying to get to and their best response to do that. It could be to stay in the traffic jam on the motorway rather than divert to an unsuitable local road, but that is an area where information could very much improve the performance of the road network and its usability, and users’ perception of the quality of the network. A lot of options could be developed.
Chair
Do you think that the statement as drafted takes enough account of those factors?
Jeremy Evans
No. I do not think it takes enough account of what new technology could potentially deliver over, say, the next 25 years. If you look back at what was available 10 years ago, people did not have smartphones. The way technology has developed means you can now have a smartphone that tells you what the best route is as you are travelling along. It is the same in the public transport network. The phone can tell you whether a bus is due to arrive at the bus stop you are standing at, or whether it is a good idea to get off a particular underground line, because of delays ahead with the signalling. It might be possible in London—it does not necessarily happen in lots of other places—to have some options to go by a different route, so long as you are providing real-time information to users as they are travelling along.
Chair
Does anyone else want to comment on whether new technologies have been registered enough in the draft report?
John Rhodes
New technology will inevitably help you squeeze more capacity out of the existing road network, but it will not change certain fundamentals, which are that areas that can achieve economic growth need good road and rail infrastructure. A growing economy needs an efficient distribution of goods, which requires a rail network and a network of interchanges. Technology will impact at the margin, but the need for an infrastructure network is still a bigger driver of where investment should be going.
Martin Vickers
Ms Luhde-Thompson, you are critical of the Government as regards what they say is the demand for an increase in the road network. You used the phrase that they had not adequately demonstrated the need. My experience is that Governments take endless amounts of time assessing need, with computer modelling and environmental considerations, to the point where often demand changed during the period they were considering a previous project. What additional evidence would you like to hear from Government that there is a need?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
On need, the figures project a huge growth in traffic on roads—they are looking at about a 40% increase—whereas there have been reports by both the Highways Agency and DFT showing that their previous predictions have been far above what has happened. That is why everybody on this panel—I think I am safe in saying—is expressing concern about that particular prediction. If you are examining a specific project, you are hoping that the promoter has gone through a process beforehand and looked at the hierarchy of transport interventions. Has there been sufficient action, say, on a particular problem that the project is trying to address? Has there been specific intervention on reducing the need to travel? Has there been specific intervention in offering alternative choices? Have there been specific interventions on using the roads more efficiently? You use a hierarchical approach so that the project coming forward has understood its particular need and is focused specifically on addressing that need, rather than a general assumption of need based on a large figure which covers the whole of England, and is looking at specific pinch points, such as are set out in Annex A. There are very specific drivers for the transport issues in those areas. I know from personal experience that, between Liverpool and Manchester, there are lots of specific drivers as to why there are issues on that road network which could be addressed through other means, such as public transport.
Martin Vickers
If having gone through that process a need had been proven, would Friends of the Earth support a road-building programme to deal with it?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
At the end of the day, Friends of the Earth is here to try to represent a public interest, I suppose, which is about tackling climate change and getting ourselves to a low-carbon infrastructure. Our assessment is that we do not need an increase in the strategic road network and that there has been insufficient investment in all the other ways of enabling people to get around and move goods and services.
Martin Vickers
But that seems a slightly contradictory argument. Having said there should be a process for making that assessment, you would still be opposed to the outcome.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
I suppose I cannot make an assumption. Our reading of the evidence and of the issues that are present in specific local areas like Liverpool and Manchester, or London, is that we need to look at other measures. London has serious air quality issues and it needs to address those. Increasing road traffic is not going to do that. People need to be getting around more in London, but you also have air quality issues. That is why we come to that conclusion. You can see that people need to travel around more, but there are different ways of doing it.
Mr Sanders
What if we get to an age where all motor vehicles are driven electrically by power that has been generated by non-fossil fuel means? Won’t we still need a road infrastructure?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson
Exactly. We think that the electrification of vehicles is a good thing. A lot of infrastructure needs to go with that, particularly if you are thinking about range—distance—and how and when you recharge. Do all our fuel stations need to change? That is quite a long-term change that needs to happen. London might be one of the places where we will see more of that in action. We are not in the business of predicting that a particular road is needed somewhere. That is why the national policy statement should not be assuming there is need but should be looking at what tests the projects need to go through.
Chair
We thank all of you very much. Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses
Robert Goodwill MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport, and John Dowie, Director of Strategic Roads and Smart Ticketing, Department for Transport, gave evidence.
Chair
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Transport Select Committee. Minister, I understand you want to make an opening statement.
Mr Goodwill
Perhaps I could make a few comments. I am joined by John Dowie, who will be able to chip in if some of the more technical questions that you are bound to ask are beyond my knowledge. Although the consultation has finished, we are still considering responses to it. Indeed, we expect to be in a position to report in the autumn, so the timing of this Committee’s investigation is perfect. We look forward to reading your report and responding to the points in it. The draft national policy statement for national networks is a planning policy statement for schemes going through the development consent order process under the Planning Act. This is a planning statement; it is not intended to be an overarching transport strategy, or indeed an investment strategy. It provides in one place clarity and certainty on Government policy on the need for nationally significant infrastructure projects, and the way in which these developments will be assessed. Up until 2030, under central forecasts road traffic will increase by 30% and rail journeys by 40%, and rail freight has the potential nearly to double. Without action, this will mean slower and more congested journeys. The desire for growth is balanced by a significant package of measures to protect the environment and support sustainable transport. We believe that the clarity and certainty provided by the national policy statement for national networks addresses a key concern of scheme developers and promoters, and it demonstrates this Government’s commitment to deliver the infrastructure and investment the economy needs for continued growth, by making the planning system easier to navigate.
Chair
You say it will make the planning system easier to navigate, but what effect will this policy statement actually have? What difference will it make? Can you give me an example of things that struggle to happen now but that would be treated differently under this policy?
Mr Goodwill
In the same way, we already have statements in place for things like power station development, which is very important, where local issues in terms of the siting of the plant, the connections and all the other issues need to be considered, but that does not mean every single planning inquiry for a nuclear power station needs to consider the overarching global issues to do with CO2 reduction and the country’s energy mix. Let’s say we are going to build a bypass around a market town in north Lincolnshire, and a number of groups are against it. While it is absolutely important that local considerations about air quality and the effect on habitats are taken into account, there should not be an opportunity posed by the planning inquiry to open up the whole debate on the emissions strategy for trucks, the overall issues about how the country addresses its CO2 obligations and the forecasts that have been made for overall traffic and other demand for transport in the country. In my view, it means that you will be able to focus on the local planning considerations at that inquiry, and not allow a wider discussion. It is very important that we stop the ice caps melting and that we protect polar bears, but a planning inquiry on a bypass round a small market town in north Lincolnshire is not the place for it. That should be for this statement, which looks at our overarching planning considerations and our forecast for transport. Therefore, that can be taken out of the process to allow the local planning inquiry to look at the local issues that are most pertinent to that inquiry.
Chair
What difference would that make in terms of time taken to consider a decision? In the sort of scenario you have just described, what difference would it make in terms of time to secure support for, or maybe rejection of, a very significant scheme where there was local opposition?
Mr Goodwill
It will certainly enable the inquiry to carry out its work in a more timely way.
Chair
What is the difference in time? Are we talking about weeks, months, years?
Mr Goodwill
It would depend on whether you were considering something very big, like Heathrow terminal 5, or a bypass, but it would certainly mean you would not have a large influx of people using that inquiry as a route whereby they could exercise their views on more global or national issues in a way that I strongly believe would not be helpful to that local decision-making process. I believe it would greatly focus the planning inquiry on the local issues. Let’s look at the Newbury bypass as an example. It is a way back and I know that many of the delays were due to protests on the ground, but that inquiry looked at a whole range of issues that had nothing to do with Newbury, the traffic pressures and the need of local people to have their environment in the town improved and the bypass built. Increasingly, I get the impression that any opportunity is taken to visit an inquiry or process of this sort. There are some very well-funded organisations out there, who have every right to make their views known, but they should be doing that at the level at which it is important, not descending on a local planning inquiry to try to argue that we do not need any more cars on the road, as I think you have just heard, or that the forecasts the Government have made are not correct and we should be using different forecasts, and inviting the planning inquiry to visit the forecasts of demand for transport, population growth, the price of oil and all the other forecasts that the Government make, which are, quite rightfully, part of this statement and should not be part of the local planning inquiry.
Chair
Specifically in relation to forecasts, we have had a lot of representations saying that the forecasts are inadequate. Are you going to revisit that?
Mr Goodwill
Forecasting road traffic and rail passenger demand is very difficult given the challenges in predicting growth in the population, travel behaviour, the economy and oil prices. Our view is that we should not focus on a single prediction but plan and invest for the future based on a range of scenarios. Our lowest forecast for road and rail growth is based on low population and on economic growth, and suggests a substantial increase in traffic and rail over the coming years. Forecasts from such strategic models are not used in justifying individual schemes; these are assessed more by using mode or location-specific models designed specifically for that purpose. In terms of the reliability of forecasts, we believe that the Department’s national transport model has not systematically overestimated traffic; it has over and under-forecasted traffic, and this reflects past over and under-forecasting of the key underlying drivers of traffic, for example, GDP, population growth and fuel prices, which are themselves uncertain. While forecasting road traffic demand over decades is difficult, our forecasts perform well when the trends in those underlying drivers are accurately captured. There is a chart on page 11 of the national policy statement for national networks which illustrates this point. The NTM has successfully forecast the trends in traffic since 2003, and the forecast for 2010 was within 1.3% of observed traffic data. I understand that traffic in London is not representative, but even our lowest forecast for traffic growth suggests a substantial increase in traffic levels over the next 25 years, and we have made similar forecasts for rail demand and rail freight.
Chair
I think that means you are not going to change how you do it.
Mr Goodwill
We are not going to write these forecasts in stone and not respond to events that may change. If the price of oil were to double or population growth did not follow the trend we expected, or if for some reason older people no longer used their cars into their ripe old age because of insurance issues, we could certainly revisit that. Mr Dowie might want to come in to explain how we do that. This is a 20-year forecast, but we are not going to leave it on the table for 20 years without revisiting it.
John Dowie
As an ongoing process, we keep looking at the traffic forecast and the various assumptions we use and how the model works. It is an ongoing learning process. Some groups have rightly flagged up that the model’s accuracy in terms of what is going on in London looks weaker than at a national aggregate level. Clearly, that is something we will be looking at. We are not freezing the traffic forecast and the numbers once and for all in this document.
Chair
It is an ongoing process.
John Dowie
Yes, but we are just trying to avoid spending weeks at a public inquiry debating the inner workings of the model.
Mr Sanders
Minister, can I get this right? From what you are saying, carbon emissions, for example, will play no part in any local planning inquiry.
Mr Goodwill
CO2 emissions do not present a localised issue. CO2 is a diffuse level of pollution. It is of great concern that we have rising levels of CO2, and that is something that Government at national level can address, but whether or not you build a road or railway, or whether you electrify a railway, has no impact on local people in terms of CO2 emissions. That is not the case with nitrogen oxides or particulates where there are very real concerns that the planning inquiry needs to revisit. There are important issues in connection with air quality that will need to be addressed at a local level in relation to a road improvement scheme. Going back to the bypass in north Lincolnshire I was talking about, I suspect that people in the middle of town who will not have heavy trucks thundering by will want to make particular points about air quality, because the localised air quality in the middle of town will be very much improved by that scheme. CO2 is a matter that I believe rightly rests with the statement and national Government policy to take steps to address all means of reducing it.
Mr Sanders
There is a report out today by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change II. I would like to know if you will take into consideration the conclusions of that report, and that you will actually change your NPS if it is clear that the evidence is that there is a need for change, because what happens locally directly impacts what happens nationally. You cannot opt out of climate change at a local level.
Mr Goodwill
No, but, for example, the move we have agreed at a European level in terms of the introduction of biofuels has meant that you improve the performance of your vehicle fleet across the board, which is not a local issue. We are putting serious amounts of money into ultra-low emission vehicles. My officials tell me I should not say that the uptake of electric vehicles has been disappointing, but it has been disappointing, and I am keen that we should make further progress. There are a number of reasons, which I will not go into, why that may be, but the more electrically charged vehicles we can have, the better. In parallel, the more sustainable we can make our electricity generating system in this country, the more it will contribute to that. I do not believe it would be helpful at the planning inquiry for the north Lincolnshire bypass if we have Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other organisations, who have a very useful role to play and whose message is one that Government listen to, arguing that that bypass should not be built because it may adversely impact on CO2 and therefore on global warming. I believe that is not the level at which that debate should be carried out. There are many external factors, such as biofuels, the efficiency of vehicles with conventional engines, ultra-low emission vehicles and the impact of the electrification of the rail network, for example. The Government are doing all sorts of things. We are determined to reduce our CO2 emissions and meet the targets we have agreed to, but arguing on the floor of the public inquiry in that little town in north Lincolnshire is not the place where that debate should take place. I think it would detract from the importance of that inquiry in listening to local views and taking decisions.
Mr Sanders
There are people who take a completely contrary point of view. Locally is exactly where the debate needs to happen.
Mr Goodwill
There are, but I would not agree with them.
Mr Sanders
And I don’t agree with you.
Graham Stringer
I agree with you, Minister. I do not think that at every small public inquiry the future of the earth should be discussed; it should discuss local issues. However, the Balfour Beatty evidence indicates that they think you have got it wrong, because various European directives, in particular the environmental impact assessment and the habitats and water framework directives, mean you will have to look at alternatives and therefore get into that more universal debate. Have you considered that? What is your answer to the Balfour Beatty point?
Mr Goodwill
In the planning decision-making process on a local transport scheme, or even a slightly larger transport scheme like the widening of a major lump of road, or the A14 Huntingdon bypass that we are embarking on, all the European directives would apply. If important habitats were along the line of route, there should be a debate on the impact that development would have on that particular habitat. Therefore, I do not believe that going about our business in this way would detract in any way from those directives having to be applied. I am not really sure how that could be seen as undermining any of the environmental considerations that need to be taken into account. It would mean that you would not want to revisit the whole area of how sites are designated and how the directives are being applied in the UK or other member states. If Balfour Beatty are trying to say that we are undermining the application of these directives by going about it in this way, I do not agree with them. Maybe Mr Dowie can come in.
Graham Stringer
Before you bring in Mr Dowie, I am just trying to interpret what Balfour Beatty are saying. I think they are saying that you would not necessarily ignore the protection given by these particular European directives, but that the process you are supposed to go through in dealing with them would essentially open up the whole universal debate again and, if you did not, you would be subject to legal challenge. I suppose the core of the question is: will this policy statement protect you from legal challenge on that basis?
Mr Goodwill
Anything we do is open to legal challenge, as we have seen from the High Speed 2 project. Not all those legal challenges are successful. We are not in any way suggesting that none of the EU directives, whether it be the water framework directive, the habitats directive or the designation of Natura 2000, would be applicable where a scheme impinged upon them and they were applicable. What we are saying is that there should not be an opportunity at the planning inquiry to revisit the whole directive and have a blue skies debate about those issues.
Graham Stringer
Mr Dowie, does that cover it?
John Dowie
There is perhaps a distinction that has caused a bit of confusion in looking at strategic alternatives: for example, whether there should be a completely different transport policy at national level. That, we are explicitly saying, is not the proper subject matter of a local public inquiry, but, consistent with EU and other national requirements, it is right that a local inquiry should think of local alternatives: for example, different route alignments and why they have been discarded as part of the development of a scheme. That is rightly the subject matter. In the light of comments received, we will need to reflect on the extent to which, if at all, carbon features at that very local level. If it does—that is an open question—we need to be very careful that it does not do what Balfour Beatty are talking about, which is providing a back door into national policy and international debate, which is clearly not appropriate.
Graham Stringer
Can I suggest that you do not refer to carbon dioxide as a pollutant? It is essential to life.
Mr Goodwill
That is true. In the context of global warming, it is a difficult one.
Chair
Could you clarify what you are saying about national issues and local concern? There are legally enforceable limits, are there not, on carbon? It could be that local decisions are very relevant to national cumulative emissions. How would that be dealt with?
Mr Goodwill
It could be argued that, for example, the bypass we are building round that north Lincolnshire town could take the most direct route through ancient woodland, or it could take a longer route around that woodland but therefore result in more CO2 being emitted by the vehicles taking that longer route. Similarly, there could be a suggestion that a tunnel could be built under the ancient woodland, which would in itself create a lot of CO2, because digging tunnels and having a lot of embedded steel and concrete in the tunnel would increase CO2. Maybe what Mr Dowie is saying is that, as far as the CO2 impact of the project can have a local effect, that would be a local effect, and I suspect that would be the type of consideration that should be within the remit of the planning inquiry, but not necessarily revisiting the whole Government transport strategy in terms of increases in vehicles and suggesting, for example, that we should have a road charging policy that would be an alternative to the bypass; we could reduce the number of cars going through that market town by making it more expensive, and therefore poor people would not use their cars. I do not believe that is what should be discussed at that planning inquiry, but I know there are plenty of people who would love the opportunity at dozens of locations around the country to open up that debate and bring those factors into play.
Chair
We are just trying to clarify what has been said.
Martin Vickers
I do not know where this mythical north Lincolnshire village is. Is it in my constituency?
Mr Goodwill
I think Liverpool and Manchester have bypasses of a sort already, so I picked on that.
Martin Vickers
I can think of many villages in my constituency that would like a bypass, one of which has been debated since 1935. Can I go back to the time scales and continue the debate about the habitats regulations and so on? Would you like to see the whole process time-limited, because we get endless re-hearings: first, there is a planning committee, then a planning inquiry, then it could come to the Minister, and so on. Should there be one forum in which people can put their case and then it can be determined?
Mr Goodwill
Local authorities do have a time scale on which they have to consider applications, and the time taken to consider an application and get it to appeal can depend on a whole variety of issues. I am rather reluctant to mention the Mottram-Tintwistle bypass, but that was a very long inquiry, in large part due to the lack of effective communication and research from the Department. That took a lot longer than was thought. By focusing these inquiries on issues pertinent to the particular case we will see a shorter process. Many local people who have been campaigning for their bypass for many years will not take very kindly to being descended upon—I am tempted to say—by every Swampy in the world. That is not the way I would view environmental groups, who do a good job, but they would view them possibly in that way. They would find that the inquiry into their bypass that they had been campaigning for for years had been delayed by people wanting to discuss a whole variety of issues that were nothing to do with the particular bypass under consideration. This should ensure a more timely decision-making process, but we certainly would not want to limit the capacity of the inspector at the appeal to allow local people to make their points.
Chair
Mr Dowie, you said earlier that the Department would be looking again at road traffic in London. Could you tell us what you mean, and what is going to happen?
John Dowie
This is part of the ongoing work of the Department on traffic forecasts. It is not fixed in time. We look at a range of issues in terms of—to be technical—the elasticities within the model and how economic growth, population growth, changes in fuel efficiency and other factors all feed in to produce traffic growth. It is a bit like painting—or it used to be—the Forth road bridge; it never really stops. One issue that has been flagged up by critics of the model outputs is that, although we do a pretty good job of getting national traffic growth in aggregate, in terms of what we say should be happening in London we are a bit distant from what is actually happening in London. That is one issue that we will pick up in our forward work programme.
Chair
When will that be? Will that be by the time the statement is due for designation?
John Dowie
It is no easy matter. It is going to take some time to resolve.
Chair
What does that mean—months, years?
John Dowie
It is not a primary issue for this statement, because the importance of this statement is in terms of the national traffic forecast—the aggregate forecast. There are very few major Highways Agency roads within the M25, or roads that would be covered by the national planning statement, within the terms of the—I am sorry. Could you repeat your question?
Chair
When is this work going to be done?
John Dowie
In terms of the national planning statement, this is focused primarily on aggregate forecasts; it is not going to be particularly in London. Any road scheme coming forward would have its own local forecast, which the sponsoring authority would do specific to that scheme.
Chair
Is this everywhere, not just London?
John Dowie
A normal Highways Agency scheme or a rail scheme coming forward to the planning authorities would be backed up by a lot of analysis in terms of the effects of the scheme, including a local traffic forecast. There will be relevant local information coming forward reflecting local circumstances. I do not see the limitations of the traffic model in London, for example, being material in our progressing this national policy statement.
Chair
What is the proposed timetable for designating the statement?
John Dowie
We are aiming to do that this year.
Chair
This parliamentary year.
Mr Goodwill
Yes. I said in my opening statement that we are hoping to finish the process in the autumn, and this Committee’s report is very timely in that regard.
Chair
Are you anticipating any changes?
Mr Goodwill
There are a number of issues we need to look at. One of them is in connection with the resilience of our national networks. The Highways agency network has stood up very well to the recent bad winter. Generally, it proves particularly resilient; even when we have bad winters, we are now much better at clearing roads and having enough salt in stock, but events such as the recent flooding could generate requirements for investment to enable reliable and safe journeys. I am thinking particularly about the south-west of the country, not only in terms of the resilience of the rail network but ensuring that the road network, which may be pressed into service should we have a problem with the rail network, is also there. We will be considering whether any changes in the draft national policy statement for national networks are needed to clarify that particular issue. Similarly, we have talked about the whole area of CO2. We need to see how we can clarify, and understand better, the difference between the national CO2 targets and what we do nationally in terms of power generation, alternative fuels, cleaner vehicles and so on, and maybe the effects on a more localised basis. But that would not be done in a way that would open up the whole debate in every planning inquiry around the country as to whether we have the right mix of energy between nuclear, coal and renewables, so that vehicles running on that new bypass using electricity would be able to improve their performance in terms of CO2. The whole point of having consultation, if it is done properly, is not that you make up your mind, you have a consultation, then you tell the people you have listened to them but you don’t change it. This is a genuine consultation, and Committees like this will feed in their views and we will take them into account, as indeed the points made by Balfour Beatty that were referred to; we need to look carefully at those to ensure that they are correctly responded to. If we do not do that, we open ourselves up to all sorts of judicial reviews and challenges, with people going to the European Court and everything else, which is not to anyone’s benefit unless you are a lawyer.
Chair
One point that has been made to us by a number of respondents is an allegation that you have not taken into account the potential of new technologies to affect traffic flows. Is that something you accept?
Mr Goodwill
There are some very exciting new technologies in the pipeline. As was mentioned in the previous evidence session, lorries travelling very close together can increase the capacity of a road; driverless cars can ensure more reliable journeys; and there can be better utilisation of the network. On the railway network, we already have new technology. We have better signalling systems with automatic train protection, which means that trains can travel more closely together. The High Speed 2 network will enable trains to travel at great speed substantially closer together than they would have in years gone by. In other ways, technology has increased demand for transport. We were told that the internet and the possibility of video-conferencing would mean that nobody would ever need to go to a business meeting; we would all sit in a room and look at our colleagues on screens. That has not been the case. People still want to do face-to-face business. People still come in to have meetings. The internet has also created a tremendous amount of demand for both business and leisure travel. In the past you booked your holiday six months in advance. You phoned up the tourist information centre in Torquay; they gave you a hotel number and you rang it and made a booking. Now you can go online on a Thursday evening, after seeing the weather forecast for Torquay—although I would suggest that a resort in Yorkshire would be more appropriate—and in an instant you can book a hotel and your rail journey.
Chair
But have you taken account of these sorts of phenomena in the forecasts?
Mr Goodwill
The projections we make for transport demand look at trends and how they may continue. Everything we have seen shows that our forecast of increasing demand for rail, road use and rail freight, despite—or maybe because of in some cases—the new technologies coming into play, will continue to rise.
Chair
Are there any other questions from members? Thank you very much. Oral evidence: Draft National Policy Statement for national Networks, HC 1135 2