How the UK government should fix transport

A new report sets out an ambitious vision to transform rail and urban transport in the UK.

It follows a review commissioned by the Labour Party before the general election to inform its transport policy.

The Urban Transport Group and Arup led engagement with stakeholders across the transport sector.

The ICE’s evidence to the review emphasised the benefits of a national transport strategy for England to align investment and wider objectives.

Challenge and opportunity

The report highlights three clear messages from the evidence:

• Public transport’s ability to drive growth, decarbonisation and social mobility is “massively underestimated”.
• The lack of long-term transport planning has raised costs and held back investment.
• Passenger and investor confidence is low – but there’s a strong desire in the transport sector to do better.

There are huge differences across the UK in workforce productivity, living standards and educational achievement.

Better rail and urban transport for all regions will help close those gaps.

What needs to happen

1. An integrated transport strategy for England

Transport in England needs clear objectives linked to the UK’s wider goals, particularly a new Industrial Strategy, climate targets and social inclusion.

A new transport strategy should be part of a 10-year infrastructure plan and be debated in Parliament.

The ICE has been pushing for an overarching transport strategy to guide investment for some time.

The report says it should be backed by a pipeline of priority projects. This would be published annually and include planned funding sources.

There should also be a framework for improving cross-border links between nations in the UK and with Europe.

Specific transport goals the new government should commit to include:

• new targets for journeys by public transport, walking and cycling by 2035
• doubling the share of journeys by rail in a decade
• a fair and pragmatic shift from road travel to public transport

Delivery agencies, like National Highways and the new Great British Railways, can then develop plans to implement the overarching strategy.

2. “Greener, faster, cheaper” delivery

The UK has an infrastructure delivery challenge.

In rail, the average cost-per-mile of the 10 most expensive projects was £397m in the UK. In Italy it was £306m and in France just £221m.

The report examines how to align priorities, planning consents and investment to streamline delivery.

The government should continue ongoing reforms to the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) regime. This should include:

• making it easier for critical projects to be classified as NSIPs;
• requiring updates of National Policy Statements (NPS) every five years; and
• following the approach to planning being taken in the energy sector to close the gap between transport policy and economic and spatial development.

New fast-track routes for Development Consent Orders (DCOs) should be put in place.

The report suggests making fast-track DCOs, not Hybrid Bills, the default process for developing new railway NSIPs would speed up planning – and ultimately delivery.

Increasing accountability

The report endorses Labour’s plan for a new National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA).

This would merge the National Infrastructure Commission and Infrastructure Projects Authority to improve major project delivery.

To do so, NISTA should have a clear “arbitrator role” for holding government, national and regional partners accountable for transport infrastructure delivery.

The newly proposed Industrial Strategy Council should be expanded to cover the supply chains and workforce required for key national infrastructure.

3. Locking in transport devolution

Transport devolution is a huge opportunity to drive growth – but subnational bodies need clearer roles, more powers and funding certainty.

A national transport strategy can provide the strategic direction.

Beyond that, England’s Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs) should receive:

• more consistent powers to integrate transport and planning – similar to the London model,
• more multi-year funding settlements, with enough flexibility, including for London,
• a review of how other funding sources could increase fiscal devolution, including business rates retention and land value capture.

Below MCA level, more needs-based, long-term and integrated transport settlements that combine revenue and capital funding should be extended to other authorities.

Reforming England’s subnational transport bodies would give them more influence. Their work should combine transport and spatial planning and be informed by local growth plans.

4. Harnessing public-private partnerships

With limited public spending, future transport infrastructure projects will need public and private investment.

However, building investor confidence will depend on government policy being more stable than it has recently been.

There will also need to be a change in mindset in HM Treasury towards partnering with the private sector.

The report says Public Private Partnerships (PPP) should be one approach.

Private sector funding can also come from capturing the economic benefits of new transport infrastructure, such as increased land values. This has been used on Crossrail, for example, but could be extended.

The new British Infrastructure Council can help bring the sectors together to develop these approaches.

And the government should develop a new infrastructure investment playbook as a guide. This would set out available options, clarify roles and help assess the suitability of infrastructure schemes for private investment.

In case you missed it

• A year on from the ICE’s Next Steps programme on financing net zero, we examine three things that need to happen next.
• Guest blogger Gemma Tetlow explores how smarter infrastructure spending could mean better value for the UK government.
• ICE Policy Fellow Stephen O’Malley outlines the new government’s proposed planning reforms for England.