logo
planningHelpWebsite

Stay informed with CPRE E-updates


Transport

Campaign date: 10-01-2008

Transport

With traffic growth of more than 100% on Kent’s roads since 1980, and a predicted increase of a further 30% over the next 25 years, there is clearly an urgent need to address the issue of transport in our county.

Congestion is a nightmare on many of our roads, and most of the proposed solutions from various levels of government are founded on the tried-and-failed policy of trying to build ourselves out of the problem. New roads in rural Kent bring air pollution to the countryside, and exacerbate the loss of tranquillity already brought to our natural landscapes by the continuing rapid growth in air travel.

At the same time, public transport systems have failed to provide a high-quality and good-value alternative to private car travel,  and the siting of new housing all too often requires residents to travel large distances for essential services.

CPRE Kent believes the following would do much to ameliorate our county’s transport problems:

• A moratorium on airport expansion in south-east England (a policy favoured by the South East England Regional Assembly (Seera)).
• A radical improvement in public transport (with a focus on value and joined-up services).
• Road pricing to combat the rise in road traffic.
• The direction of funds for traffic-improvement funds to smaller-scale transport projects (such as bus priority schemes, traffic calming, workplace travel plans and measures for improving cycling) rather than large-scale road building. Major road-building schemes often take a terrible toll on our countryside, and tend to offer no more than a temporary improvement in traffic flows.
• The siting of essential services (such as doctors’ surgeries and hospitals) near communities, to reduce the need to travel; and the construction of new housing in places where a long trip is not necessarily required for work and shopping.

For a more detailed analysis of Kent’s transport problems and potential solutions, see the Kent Life article below.

Also worth looking at – and also below – is an article by our transport committee chairman Phil Sulley, from CPRE Kent Voice magazine, about the history of transport in Kent.

CPRE national policy on transport

A short analysis of rural traffic problems by Paul Hamblin, former CPRE Head of Policy (Transport and Natural Resources)

Attachments:

Campaign Issues