Transport
Priorities
Priority 1: Creating a resilient transport system that is used effectively and efficiently
It is possible to greatly increase the effectiveness of the existing transport system by concentrating on measures, on both the demand and supply side, that can lead to significant benefits at relatively low cost in short timescales. These will reduce congestion and increase network resilience, providing shorter and more reliable journey times.
On the demand side, it is critically important to introduce interventions that aim to bring about behavioural change in travelling habits in the region. In particular, we must reduce the need to travel where we can and reduce reliance on road-based private transport. The region needs to make best use of the wide range of hard and soft demand management techniques available, including digital technology and employer travel planning, to encourage behavioural change in business and personal travel. Furthermore, land-use planning decisions should be more ambitious in achieving sustainable travel objectives, and ensure that they contribute to effective operation of the local and strategic regional transport networks.
On the supply side, the region needs to deliver local solutions to smallscale bottlenecks or constraints on the existing transport network, in both rural and urban areas. Such solutions can offer a cost-effective means of reducing congestion at key pinchpoints.
Priority 2: Investing in transport to maximise economic growth
In addition to making the best use of the existing network and encouraging sustainable travel behaviour, new investment is required to enable the region’s transport system to support the planned increase in population, housing, employment and economic growth over the period to 2031. A significant funding deficit is restricting development of the region’s transport infrastructure to the standard required to compete with other comparator international regions.
A number of major transport schemes are expected to be completed in the lifetime of this strategy. These include Crossrail, Thameslink, the first stage of rail improvements to the Felixstowe-Nuneaton line and several regional transport schemes. However, the region needs long-term, sustained investment in the key strategic economic corridors.
These include:
- Felixstowe-Ipswich-Cambridge-Huntingdon-Kettering/Nuneaton (the A14 and Felixstowe-Nuneaton rail corridor)
- London-Basildon-Southend (A127, A13, London Tilbury and Southend rail route)
- London-Stansted-Cambridge (M11, West Anglia main line)
- London-Chelmsford-Colchester-Ipswich-Norwich (A12, Great Eastern main line)
- Cambridge-Norwich (A11, parallel rail route)
- London-Luton-Milton Keynes (M1, A5, rail corridor)
- Luton-Bedford (A5, Midland main line, Thameslink)
- Stansted-Colchester-Harwich (A120)
- London orbital (M25, A414, London Arc links)
- Cambridge-Bedford/Milton Keynes (A428/A421 corridor)
- London-Peterborough (A1, East Coast main line corridor)
- Peterborough-Norwich-Great Yarmouth/Lowestoft corridor (A47 and rail).
In taking forward specific scheme proposals to address the development needs of these corridors, regional partners will need to rigorously test the economic impacts of schemes using a consistent evidence base and appraisal methodology. This will be necessary to establish priorities and strong business cases for regional, national and EU investment.
The East of England Implementation Plan will publish specific transport priorities for economic growth, based on the results of the Transport Economic Evidence Study and sub-regional work including Integrated Development Programmes. This evidence will quantify the cost of existing constraints on the transport network to the economy, and identify those parts of the network where constraints are holding back economic growth. The subsequent identification of evidence-based solutions to the most severe constraints will form the small set of economic transport priorities most critical to the development of prosperity.
The region must find and agree new and innovative methods of funding, to ensure that the East of England can develop the transport infrastructure that it needs to support a world-class economy. This should include different models for public/private funding and rolling infrastructure funds, such as a Regional Infrastructure Fund, which should be fully developed and implemented within the early years of the RES.
Priority 3: Increasing economic benefit to the East of England from major international gateways
The East of England has a distinctive role as the UK’s gateway to global markets. Our ports currently account for 53 per cent of UK container capacity and more than 20 per cent of the UK port employment. With the planned expansions at Felixstowe South, Bathside Bay and London Gateway, this will rise to over 70 per cent of the UK's container capacity. Forecast growth in demand for aviation remains strong. International gateways provide significant employment, are hubs of wider economic activity and are vital to international trade and collaboration - the primary driver of global economic growth. The Channel Tunnel Rail Link to St Pancras gives the region easy access to Europe’s high-speed rail network.
Our major international airports and ports are of national economic importance, and decisions to increase capacity will be taken nationally. The principal roles of regional decision makers are to realise the economic benefits for local areas and the region from expansion, whilst addressing and mitigating global and local environmental impacts.
Proposals to develop gateways in the East of England will have significant benefits for the regional and national economy. GVA per employee is higher for the transport gateway sectors than the regional average. Work for the RES evidence base has predicted that, by 2030, between 115,000 and 131,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs would result from gatewayrelated activity if national government policy on gateway development is implemented. This would mean that transport gateways could account for between 4 and 5 per cent of total GVA, an increasing proportion of the regional economy. If a second runway is not developed at Stansted, overall gateway jobs would range between 96,000 and 108,000 by 2030. Under all possible scenarios, the region must ensure that it acts to optimise the economic benefits of gateway development.
The local, regional and national economic benefits arising from the expansion of our gateways will need to be balanced against the global and local environmental impacts of such development. At international level, this strategy strongly supports the proposed inclusion of aviation into the EU emissions trading scheme. In national policy terms, the RES advocates an element of tax revenues from gateway expansion being hypothecated to local and regional level to manage impacts and help finance regional strategic infrastructure.
The mitigation of local environmental impacts from gateway expansion should be addressed by the implementation of sustainable surface access plans and low-carbon development packages, incorporating significant use of rail and other public transport. In order to achieve this, international gateways in the East of England must be national exemplars of sustainable development - characterised by flourishing and internationally focused businesses, high and growing employment, increased productivity, with low-carbon footprints.
Priority 4: Reducing the environmental impact of moving goods and people
Transport is the fastest-growing contributor to carbon emissions, and the East of England has one of the highest household car ownership rates and percentage of workforce travelling to work by car of all English regions. Given our vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, it is in our own interests to be an exemplar region and to act to reduce the environmental footprint of the transport system and increase network resilience to future climate change impacts.
The region faces an enormous challenge in reducing the impact from transport on climate change. The East of England is a unique polycentric region. With its mix of rapidly growing urban areas, expanding transport gateways, sparsely populated rural areas and proximity to London, it is a challenging environment for the development of a sustainable transport system that meets both economic growth and carbon reduction targets. Solutions will need to reflect this context.
The region’s academic and private research institutes provide the expertise to put the region at the forefront of innovation to reduce the environmental impacts of travel, including the use of technology enhancements and alternative fuels. Some of the most promising technologies to bring about greener modes of transport are in early stages of development or are untested, and will need investment to ensure they can be successfully adopted.
Using our existing transport network more sustainably requires reducing the need to travel. Enabling greater use of alternatives to private car and lorry use will require major improvements to public transport and encouraging the modal shift of freight from road to rail. Other actions, such as employer travel planning and innovative accessibility planning need to be enhanced in urban and rural areas where locally supported. Demand management schemes could make a significant contribution. More work needs to be done to incorporate the environmental costs of transport into the pricing mechanisms for transport usage, to influence behaviour change through fiscal measures.
Implementation priorities
- an agreed set of regional strategic transport priorities to inform the East of England’s Regional Funding Advice submission progress in developing a Regional Infrastructure Fund to better leverage market investment
- increasing investment in the region’s transport system through the full range of national, EU and private sector funding streams increased national infrastructure investment and pricing incentives to enable a greater share of freight to be transported by rail and short sea shipping from our international gateways
- developing integrated transport planning and investment across all modes, and increased use of technology to improve the use of the system and reduce the environmental impact of the need to move people and goods.