The Transport Committee has published its analysis of the Government’s proposals to revamp planning policies for nationally significant road and rail infrastructure projects.
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Inquiry: National Networks National Policy Statement
Transport Committee
The policies are contained in a draft revised National Networks National Policy Statement (NNNPS), published by the Department for Transport (DfT) earlier this year. In its report, the cross-party Committee urges ministers to redraft sections that would be used to determine whether major new projects are compatible with Net Zero legislation, based on the carbon emissions that would be produced during and after their construction. The Government said it wants to revise the NNNPS to avoid legal challenges that have delayed new projects by clarifying how planning policies would interact with climate legislation. But the Committee warns that the draft NNNPS wouldn’t achieve this in its current form. MPs also make recommendations on the way DfT looks at different options for projects and road-traffic demand forecasts, and how to make its decision-making more transparent. There are also recommendations on biodiversity, active travel, and restructuring the various national policy statements for transport.
Transport Committee Chair Iain Stewart MP said:
“Flaws in the current NNNPS are partly to blame for the perennial problem of why major infrastructure projects become delayed by legal challenges, so there is a lot riding on this work to produce a new set of planning policies.
“But a number of witnesses, including some who themselves launched legal challenges against such projects, told us the current draft won’t provide the legal certainty that DfT needs. One of the Government’s objectives in revising the NNNPS is to balance the Net Zero goals with infrastructure projects that could increase greenhouse gas emissions. Given the concerns we heard, we urge the Government to amend the draft NNNPS to provide a definition of ‘residual’ emissions and to state explicitly its understanding of the legal precedent for permitting major infrastructure schemes which result in increases in emissions.
“The draft NNNPS should also promote more scrutiny of the way the Government examines the options for building new road or rail schemes, and shows the evidence behind its forecasts that more congestion is inevitable if we don’t build more motorways and A roads.” Aligning new infrastructure with Net Zero The Committee recommends that DfT should be more transparent and open to scrutiny in the way it judges the need for major new infrastructure projects.
Witnesses argued that the Department is overly led by a “predict and provide” approach, where it seeks to deliver new road projects based on forecasts that congestion and demand from motorists will increase. There is insufficient transparency on how these demand calculations are made, or whether DfT models alternative options such as rail connections, and if doing so would reduce or reverse those increases in demand for road transport that are forecast. Exploring such alternative options would ensure the draft NNNPS is consistent with goals to cut emissions.
The Department should publish its National Transport Model – used for forecasting how development options impact congestion – so that it can be independently tested and verified. It should also model and report on a wider range of scenarios where traffic levels on the strategic road network are a) reduced and b) maintained at current levels and ambition for rail patronage is increased.
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