PRESS RELEASE

Planning reforms could fail unless transport unblocked

Despite transport being one of the most common reasons for housing developments stalling or facing local objections, the Government’s misguided focus on nature is getting in the way of long overdue change. That is the warning from Transport Action Network (TAN) in response to planning reforms announced today¹, which it called too little, too late.

In 2019, the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission found that “we have to seriously tackle car dominance when designing places…Every sector of the industry has told us, and our wider research has firmly agreed, that overly car-dominated places tend to be less attractive or popular.”² Then in 2021, the government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan promised change, after finding that “[d]evelopments often do little or nothing meaningful to enable cycling and walking, or to be properly and efficiently accessible by public transport. Sometimes they make cycling and walking provision worse. We can and must do better.”³ Yet since then transport policies in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) have barely changed.

Chris Todd Director of TAN, said:

“While ministers complain about bats and newts, it’s more often a lack of buses and networks for walking and cycling holding up new homes. Better transport policies are fundamental if we want to see more homes on more sites, offering more appealing places to live. Yet consecutive governments have done little about this. Too many new developments are ending up dependent on driving, with green space and play areas squeezed out and pavements captured by car parking. After years of problems, the small changes announced today on transport are a timid step forward. The good news is the consultation provides an opportunity to call for real change.”

The campaign group is calling for five major changes to the policies announced today, which are being consulted on until 10 March 2026.

1. Redefine what sustainable travel means – as walking, cycling, public transport and car sharing. The definition was changed in 2012 when the NPPF was first introduced, to include “[a]ny efficient, safe and accessible means of transport with overall low impact on the environment”, explicitly including low emission cars. That results in too much focus on providing space for cars, and undermines other policies throughout the NPPF.
2. Require developments to improve road safety – as developments can only be rejected where an “unacceptable impact” on road safety can be proved. This makes it hard for authorities to insist on measures to increase walking and cycling or make streets safer, at a time when progress in England has been stalling.
3. Stop wasting so much space on parking – Make maximum car parking levels the norm rather than the exception and encourage car free housing in accessible sites like near railway stations. Ensure effective parking controls prevent pavements and bike lanes in all new developments becoming blocked.
4. Make vision-led credible – The new vision-led policies could mean all things to all people. Unlocking higher densities of homes requires bold action to cut traffic coordinated across wider areas, not simply within a development site. Otherwise national ambitions to reduce air, noise and water pollution, carbon emissions and congestion risk going nowhere as local concerns rise.
5. Build in long-term upgrades to sustainable travel – The lack of long-term upgrade plans for public transport and for active travel (current plans only look to five or ten years), mean that larger developments are often planned around road schemes. While changing this requires coordination between different levels of government, transport operators and a shift in funding, further planning reform is crucial to deliver safer and healthier travel.

– ENDS –

Notes for editors

1. National Planning Policy Framework: proposed reforms and other changes to the planning system, MHCLG (2025) ↩︎
2. Creating space for beauty: interim report of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, MHCLG (2019) ↩︎
3. Page 157 in Transport Decarbonisation Plan, DfT (2021). ↩︎

See NPPF glossary.