Missing the Train: How measuring access not time can get Britain’s growth back on track

Posted Posted in Transport, mobility, walking and cycling

You may have recently read about the newly opened Northumberland Line, where passenger numbers have exceeded five times the predicted number. It’s easy to attribute this to some local miscalculations or perhaps an underestimation of fans heading to St James’ Park.​ But this is more than just a local story. It’s a national narrative about […]

Lessons from the biggest tram network in the world

Posted Posted in Transport, mobility, walking and cycling

Create Streets and the Campaign for Better Transport are working together on a new mission ‘Tram Network’, which will support more cities to create tram lines and work with government and industry to reduce their cost. In this blog, Tram Network member Liam Wring brings us lessons from the world’s biggest tram network – Melbourne, […]

Move fast and make things

Posted Posted in Intensification, infill, and regeneration, Planning, land, and housing policy, Transport, mobility, walking and cycling

Nicholas Boys Smith explains what councils, particularly rural councils with greenbelt, need to do and do fast to avoid the risk of ugly and ill-located ‘housing by appeal’ If you live in England, particularly southern rural England in the green belt, then the weeks before Christmas 2024 witnessed the most important announcement for your neighbourhood’s […]

From housebuilding to town-building

Posted Posted in Planning, land, and housing policy, Sustainable development, Transport, mobility, walking and cycling

Report from our event at Labour Conference: New Towns. Old Challenges. How do we create new places which are popular and durable, viable and fair? ‘Be it enacted by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by […]

Why Coventry’s ring road needs to go on a diet

Posted Posted in Planning, land, and housing policy, Street design, Transport, mobility, walking and cycling

A Coventry public official writes anonymously about the restitched future he would like for his city. I often ask myself, what might have been had Coventry taken a different planning approach after World War II. Where might we be now? How might we reverse some of the twentieth century’s planning decisions? It is a question […]