The Department for Transport's (DfT's) head of environment strategy has argued for stronger government intervention in new housing developments to prevent car dependency, sparking Whitehall wranglings with communities department MHCLG.
Bob Moran is part of a team working on the Government's transport decarbonisation strategy, which he said was on track to meet its scheduled publication before 2021.
One of the issues behind the scenes appears to be around new housing developments and how to ensure sustainable travel options, an issue which also feeds into ongoing planning reform plans from MHCLG.
The Planning for the future consultation ends on 29 October and proposes streamlining the planning process, reforming the system of developer contributions to infrastructure, and ensuring more land is available where needed.
Speaking to members of council directors' body ADEPT at its annual traffic managers conference this month, Mr Moran said: 'We are working with MHCLG on the planning reforms that are coming through. We really want to make it a requirement to make these new developments take into account sustainable travel right from the outset. There are no targets or requirements to do it and I think there should be.'
Mr Moran stressed the need for major changes in transport strategy as part of its decarbonisation plans: 'What we were doing previously wasn't working. Transport is the worst performing sector of the economy for CO2 emissions. The trend has been flat for decades.'
He also suggested local government will have a major role to play in the new plans and called for 'place-based decarbonisation'.
'A single solution that we can just roll-out and apply that is fit for purpose across the UK is a myth and it has long been busted.'
After outlining the challenge in March, the DfT team working on the decarbonisation plans held over 700 virtual stakeholder engagement events and received more than 10,000 responses; 'the vast majority were about place based solutions', Mr Moran said.
'That will be the real test for the plan,' he added.
Mr Moran also argued that changes to home working and commuting behaviour brought about by COVID look set in some form to be for the long term 'and this is going to have a profound impact on places in particular'.
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