The 1990s paradigm shift - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 106

We begin this chapter by considering events following the 'Roads for Prosperity'
White Paper (7.2) and then describe the nature and origin of 'new realism' and
'sustainable development' concepts (7.3 and 7.4). A remarkably swift official response
was contained in the 1994 revision of PPG13 - the planning policy guidance note
relating to the transport aspects of development planning (7.5). A more general
response led by an EU directive was the formal introduction of environmental
assessment procedures (7.6). The UK Government's review of the appropriate
transport policy response was channelled through a consultation exercise presented as
'the Great Debate' (7.7).
Finally we report on the renaissance of interest in the planning process as reflected
in the arenas of development and local transport planning (7.8 and 7.9).
7.2 Climb-down over the National Roads Programme
Publication of the 1989 National Road Traffic Forecasts (NRTF) provoked a storm
of controversy. In public relations terms the DTp's use of headline figures for 35 years
hence seriously backfired. Although the forecasts contained nothing particularly novel
- merely carrying forward recent trends - they nevertheless imparted widespread
shock. Rather than provide convincing evidence of the need for a greatly expanded
roads programme they had the opposite effect of encouraging people to think whether
this was the kind of future they wanted to plan for. The Conservative's own Secretary
of State for the Environment after 1989, Chris Patten, gave public expression to
this anxiety when he described the projected traffic increase as 'unacceptable' and
emphasised that the NRTF figures were 'a forecast, not a target'.
For a while the Department of Transport pressed ahead with its planned expansion.
In 1991 it announced a programme of rapid investment in the M25 in order to relieve
congestion (just five years after its opening!). This involved widening 80% of its length
to dual four lanes plus new dual carriageway 'collector-distributor' roads alongside the
busiest sections to cater for local movements, thereby potentially creating a highway
corridor containing an unprecedented 12 lanes of traffic. Ramp metering (access
control) and variable message signing were also proposed. Surrey County Council
mounted a legal challenge to the DTp's plans on the basis of the parallel link roads being
presented as a series of separate schemes, thereby contravening the EC's 1985 directive
on environmental assessment. In fact the Council's stand was a device for focusing
opposition to the principle of increasing capacity, not least because of the consequences
for traffic levels on its local roads which acted as links to and from the motorway.
The roads programme ran into increasing opposition. Individual schemes, as ever,
were challenged by coalitions of local objectors and national environmental groups.
NIMBYism remained prominent but objectors were increasingly framing arguments in
terms of environmental issues more generally and the perception that road-building as
a solution to the problems of traffic growth was to a degree self-defeating.
Wider public opinion was influenced by the campaigns which were mounted to try
and prevent the construction of particularly controversial schemes at Solsbury Hill
(Bath), Twyford Down (Winchester) and the Newbury Bypass. These featured a new
breed of objectors who adopted tactics of direct action such as chaining themselves
to diggers, burying themselves in tunnels or living in trees which were due to be felled
along the route. The media naturally focused on these colourful elements and in
particular on a roving campaigner nick-named 'Swampy' who became something of
a folk-hero.