Transport matters matter

Yesterday's announcement from National Rail of the proposed new high-speed rail link along the West Coast route, is an apt prompt to think about transport policy. This may bore many people senseless, but those that know me well enough will tell you that I have a little propellor on my head that goes round when the subject of transport comes up for debate and have written elsewhere on this before. I should stress that I am not a Lord Adonis-type, train spotting my way around the country for fun. It is just that I believe that as an area of public policy, whether it is about investing in national infrastructure as a key part of being a competitive economy or just at the human level of getting to work and to see family, transport really, really matters.

There is a need for better transport policies

Numerous surveys of the general public show this to be a general view. Transport regular ranks in the top-five most important issues for a large majority of voters, along with the NHS, the economy and education and generally ahead of immigration, Europe and seemingly more sexy topics, such as foreign affairs.

This matters more than it might, partly because politicians have surprisingly little to say on the subject that is really new or has the power to swing electoral votes. Calls for an "integrated transport policy" are common and fair enough, but it would be an idiot who didn't think that different modes of transport should be integrated if anyone is to make use of them. Rail stations and airports need car parks and roads to allow people to get there. Trying to get people to get people off over-crowded roads in urban centres means spending money on public transport. These examples of integration are from the school of the blindingly obvious but count for policy commitments in some quarters. Nor is it all about public transport; roads are a key part of any serious national transport strategy.

So why is it so hard for politicians to offer us anything genuinely radical in the transport department? 

There are two main reasons, neither of which are really the fault of transport ministers or their shadows.

The lack of cash

The first is that big transport projects cost money. That is a problem for politicians, particularly Conservative ones, even in good economic times and these are not good economic times. But sometimes money needs to be spent now to prevent much larger bills in the future. That is not to say it has to all come from government funds, but if it is required, then so be it. We tax drivers heavily enough already and they should be getting a decent deal for their money.

There are plenty of problems in the UK where lack of cash is the main issue, including areas where new roads are required. There need to be new road links into the Devon and Cornwall. At present, the one main road running south-west from Bristol is congested for 75% of everyday! The CEO of one major employer in Exeter has said that he may have to move his company to Italy, not because of a lack of skilled labour or customers, but because they cannot rely on valuable components arriving by road from their Midlands suppliers. The east of England suffers in a similar way. Every time there is a serious incident on the A11, Norwich and much of the rest of Norfolk is cut off. An additional artery into the region is sorely needed.

The road around Stonhenge is another problem in need of an expensive solution. Realistically, the only practical suggestion (the other ideas include moving the monument itself) is to build a tunnel underneath the stones. This will cost about £1bn, but every other solution costs more or will ruin one of the most important historic sites in the country. It needs a big investment, hence the political reticence, but every other medicine for the problem is even worse. 

Planning process prevents proper development

The second major factor is the UK's (ridiculous!) planning process, which makes every major transport initiative take vastly longer than it would ever do anywhere else, and time costs money, pushing the bill for big schemes ever higher. The Economist pointed out a number of years ago, that the cost of building a new, relatively minor, railway station for commuter use in Germany was about £500,000. Germany, it is worth noting, is not a country famed for skimping on consultation with its citizens or anything else that might make it a cheap place to build things. By comparison, the same station in the UK would cost close to £5,000,000! That's ten times more and the only real difference inflating that bill is the length of the planning process.

Heathrow provides a further example of the need a nationally important transport resource being beaten down by the heavy-handed, locally-focussed planning process. The UK will require ultimately more air passenger capacity, even as the economy makes many people think twice about flying. There is a popular belief that this will have to be at Heathrow, but fierce local opposition is preventing the discussion from even taking place at national level in any consistent form, and may ultimately prove to be self-defeating because the fear of future legal action is preventing a proper debate on the alternatives. 

For example, Mayor Boris Johnson is apparently keen on a a new airport built on an artificial island off the Kent coast, but this is being rubbished by those that fear the idea of it looking credible in case that is used against them by opponents of Heathrow's development. 

There might be other, better, solutions, too. The late economist, Carol Kennedy, once wrote an article for the Institute of Director's "Director" magazine, where she suggested the development of a new air freight terminal at Bristol airport to take all of the non-passenger traffic from Heathrow. This would have had the advantage of freeing up enough space for people at Heathrow that no new terminal would be needed for 30-40 years, while cutting the average length of road journeys to deliver freight (by volume) which still tends to come from the Midland areas that are closer to Bristol, so lower net carbon emissions. As an added bonus, the extra flights needed would mostly go in and out over the Solent, lessening the noise pollution impact on residents and making it less likely that anyone would be hurt if a there was a plan disaster shortly after take off. But the planning process makes such debates impossible because local consultations allow no space for national needs.

So what for Conservatives?

The good news is that the Conservative Party actually has a very good track record on transport. During the Thatcher and Major years, it was Conservatives who brought in the Jubilee line extension to London's underground, approved the Heathrow Express, delivered the Docklands Light Railway, brought it the first toll roads to help motorway congestion, initiated terminal five at Heathrow and prompted the development of Stanstead as an alternative site, ensured the electrification of major commuter rail lines, built the M25, opened the trans-Atlantic air routes to competition, agreed the building of the Channel Tunnel and the high-speed lines that serve it, privatised British Airways, the ports and the then British Rail and started the process that led to CrossRail. 

And what have Labour done in the twelve years since? They have taken us backwards. They have re-nationalised the railways despite a record of safety and punctuality that was improving every year under private ownership. They first cancelled CrossRail, then brought it back, then cancelled it again and then approved it for a third time. With all the changes, and ten years of rising property prices, the cost of the scheme went up so much that buying the land for the new stations and the consultants fees alone are now more than the original cost of the whole project when it was first proposed to the Conservative government. It is a good thing to be building now, but the cost could have been a fraction of what it will now be and it would have been ready years ago instead of not even being in place for the Olympics in 2012.

Indeed, the most significant transport development of the Labour years was the introduction of the congestion charge by, the then independent, Mayor Ken Livingstone. As a scheme it was (and is) disliked by many Conservatives, but at least it was an attempt to resolve a problem that the national Labour government was too cowardly or confused to tackle. As Ken said at the time of its introduction, it was the best idea put forward in the absence of any alternatives.  

Transport is also key to economic growth and other areas of policy. In the last Conservative government, for example, Sir George Young, then Transport Minister, and Michael Heseltine who was looking at urban renewal, understood the value of urban transport schemes such as light rail, in opening up depressed inner city areas and there is much that we could still learn from them. 

Lessons for policy makers

The lessons of all this? The Conservative Party has a good track record on initiating, investing in and delivering, major transport schemes. We should make a series of positive policy statements on transport issues, starting with a no-extra-cash commitment to sorting out the planning process. For example, we could lay down in statute a consultation process that would be dramatically shorter than it is today and with fewer expensive lawyers involved. The aim does not need to be to reduce the number of applications turned-down or make it harder for local people to get involved, on the contrary, their views are extremely valuable (particularly when Whitehall has spotted an opportunity for development that locals will tell you will not work for reasons such as flooding), but just cutting the time from years to months will save millions of pounds to the public purse and to private businesses. 

Labour has made a febrile nod in this direction with a stated intention to declare some projects of strategic national interest to overcome local objections, but it is the length of the process, not the outcomes of the consultations, that is the real hurdle.

Transport matters matter and Conservatives should have the courage to say so and sign the big cheques now that will eventually deliver better economic development (and tax income) in the future. We made them work before, unlike Labour, and we should have the self-belief to undertake new schemes in the future.

High speed trains are probably as good a place to start as any but there is a lot more room for creative, and positive, policy making for Conservatives to work on.