Barrett Byrd Associates

Consultants and local authorities are trying to increase and adapt their transport planning skills to meet the challenge of major infrastructure developments and changes to UK planning procedure.

Transport planning needs more transport planners and more specifically, recruits with a broader range of skills. Development planning procedure is changing, just as demand for professionals able to develop transport plans that match policy to practicable end product is becoming acute.

Consultants and local authorities in the South East, which employ most of the UK’s 10,000 transport planners, are trying to increase and develop their transport planning recruits. Links with academia are being strengthened to boost skills and transport planners are being encouraged to obtain a broad knowledge of Government policy and changes to planning procedure.

“The transport planning profession is missing people that have worked in both sectors and have a good knowledge of policy,” says the head of consultant Gifford’s transportation division David Tarrant. “There is a new political dimension to planning because it is now being carried out at levels of regional and local development. Authorities, acknowledging that extra development is needed, will generally allow it, providing the development is linked to transport policy.

“Developments have to be linked to transport improvement, whether it be major new infrastructure or travel planning. Our transport planners need to have knowledge of a whole range of issues related to managing travel and where people choose to live and work. We do a lot of work in this area and are actively recruiting and training our transport planners to have a broad overview of the issues.”

Gifford is working for a range of public and private sector clients: developers, housebuilders and local authorities developing major plans in the South East region. Award of the Olympics to London has boosted development prospects in the South East, which was already likely to receive substantial housing growth and economic development along the Thames corridor and elsewhere. The aim of the South East England Regional Assembly (SEERA) is to develop an additional 28,000 houses per year from 2006 to 2026.

On top of this, planning procedure generally, and transport planning specifically, has changed significantly following introduction of the Planning & Compulsory Purchase Order Act in September last year which introduced statutory regional planning.

Each of the eight regional assemblies in England and Wales are now obliged to produce Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS), which are statutory and include a Regional Transport Strategy (RTS) linked to regional development and housing plans. All local authorities’ development plans will have to comply with their relevant RSS and RTS.

This should not cause too much angst among local authorities as virtually all of them are stakeholders in their regional assemblies, and a late amendment to last year’s planning act made county council involvement in RSS mandatory. The point is, there is a lot of transport planning to be done by public and private sectors and it’s carrying a lot more political weight and importance for regional and local development

“Planning of high level strategic policy and local development is already good, but we need to join it all up and make it work,” Tarrant says. “That is now a vital skill requirement for seeing plans through to practical conclusion, and it is equally important that the planners work closely with engineers and so are not divorced from the issues surrounding scheme delivery.”

Tarrant switched from public to private sector employment in 2004, leaving his previous position of deputy director of environment at Hampshire County Council to head up Gifford’s transportation division. The firm has been working hard to build its transport planning skills, recruiting and training graduates and experienced professionals.

Gifford is a corporate member of the Transport Planning Society which launched the Transport Planning Skills Initiative (TPSI), with the support of industry, to investigate the extent of an apparent shortage of transport planning skills, following publication of the Government’s 10 Year Transport Plan in 2000. According to the 2004 final TPSI report, the profession is falling short to the tune of some 900 recruits per year. Impetus towards meeting the 10 Year Plan’s targets appears to have waned, but demand for planning has not, particularly in the South East of England.

“We are looking for experienced people and recruiting graduates from links with universities and TPSI,” says Gifford’s human resources manager Samantha Andrews. Gifford has links with Southampton University, the University of the West of England and Imperial College London. These are three of around a dozen universities currently offering Masters degree programmes in transport planning and being promoted by the efforts of TPS and the TPSI.

“Sponsoring students through MSc and Phd programmes is a useful recruitment method as is being able to offer accredited training,” adds Andrews. “We are including specific transport planning training to complement the Gifford core training objectives, in conjunction with the Institution of Highways & Transportation which is able to assess candidates for Incorporated and Chartered Engineer status.”

BOX

South East plans progressing

The South East England Regional Transport Board (RTB) met this month to agree the projects it will recommend for £135M of funding for transport investment in the South East in 2005/06. This is the latest in the Government’s plans for devolved decision making with the regions advising where money should be spent for transport as well as housing and regional development.

Given opportunity to provide transport spending advice, the South East England Regional Assembly (SEERA), Development Agency (SEEDA) and Government Office for the South East (GOSE) decided to set up a partnership and pilot a transport board for prioritising schemes. The secretariat of the South East RTB transferred from GOSE to SEERA earlier this year, and the next step, now transport priorities are decided, is a joint workshop in December. The RTB, Regional Housing Board, SEERA, SEEDA and GOSE will agree a joint document of transport, housing and economic development advice for presentation to Government in January next year.

SEERA’s head of regional transport planning is Martin Tugwell. He says: “We tend to see the transport planning skills shortage issue second hand because we mostly employ consultants and use the skills in constituents such as local authority stakeholders in SEERA. It is good for local authority officers to get involved in regional transport planning, for them to take ownership of the plans and it is important that consultants have the right skills.

“Transport planning is going through dramatic change with regional spending allocations, spatial planning and RTBs. Skills must stay relevant to the way we are working.”

The current changes emphasise the need for transport planners to maintain continuous professional development, says Tugwell. Engaging communities and building consensus of views are becoming important, he says, so that decision makers can address the wishes of stakeholders including business and environmental groups.

Transport planners are good at being adaptable, but we must be sure education and training is maintained and refreshed so that informed decisions can be made,” Tugwell adds. “The ability to communicate technical issues to the lay person is very important, so that that person can join in the debate.”

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