As a largely rural nation, there are many opportunities for improving mobility across England. Up to 90% of everyday journeys are car dependent in rural areas and public transport access tends to be limited. This means that improving infrastructure for active travel (walking, wheeling and cycling) could help address several connectivity issues in rural areas, as well as helping to improve road safety, public health and accessibility. However, few of these connections exist due to many complicating factors in planning for new infrastructure.
This was challenge that Jonathan Fuller, a Principal Transport Strategy Officer at Buckinghamshire Council decided to tackle with Felicity Heathcote-Marcz of Bare Analysis.
“I wanted to particularly focus on the dynamic between landowners and local authorities in enabling the delivery of rural active travel infrastructure”, explains Jonathan, “Rural local authorities rarely own the land to enable new infrastructure, which means that they may have to negotiate with or go through a series of complicated processes to secure the land from third parties. These third parties can range from individual landowners to large organisations”
Jonathan’s believes this process is challenging for resource-constrained local authorities, hindering delivery of their ambitions and preventing the benefits of active travel from being realised in rural areas. However, there may be opportunities to work more collaboratively with landowners to achieve positive outcomes.
This led to the beginning of a toolkit for Collaboration Of Landowners and Local Authorities in the Building Of Rural Active Travel Infrastructure (COLLABORATIV).
The aim of the toolkit was to create a guide for local authorities that showcased good examples of landowner engagement and signposted to support and guidance. It would be underpinned by research and engagement with over 20 stakeholders to draw out best practice;
“What was exciting for me about this project was taking the time to speak to people in rural areas and understanding the number of parties involved”, says Felicity, “It was inspiring to meet with individuals who have dedicated their time to supporting and facilitating the delivery of active travel routes; not just as local authority officers, or landowners, but also long-term volunteers, charities and residents groups.”
The interviews gave the group a rich insight into experiences and perspectives of rural active travel, and highlighted perceptions of land ownership issues across several local authorities and the variety of approaches taken to address them. The team also visited examples of successful rural active travel schemes, such as Strawberry Line in Somerset and the St Peter’s Greenway in Buckinghamshire.
Jonathan believes that these visits were key to the delivery of the project;
“Visiting these routes enabled us to speak with relevant parties involved in the delivery of these routes, giving them the chance to explain how they got there and the challenges they faced”, he added.
Felicity also noted; “We met some landowners who said they wanted to engage the local authority to agree a solution but struggled to establish contact!”
As the project progressed, the team began to draw together common themes and experiences into the toolkit, creating an output that explains the common challenges of building new rural active travel routes, shares best practice for landowner negotiation and explains where there may be opportunities for win-win situation, using previous examples as evidence.
It was clear from the research that the legal complexities of infrastructure and land ownership were not fully understood, but Felicity hopes that the outputs can help overcome this gap;
“Hearing from those involved in both successful and unsuccessful active travel projects, and getting a balance of local authority, landowner, charity and institutional views has helped us to understand differing perspectives and produce a balanced toolkit”, she commented.
The final toolkit provides 5 key messages for rural local authorities;
It is underpinned by an interactive guide for each step of the negotiation process, and links to evidence for future case-making.
The toolkit is primarily aimed at local authority officers and other interested parties, and is intended to provide accessible guidance and links to further information. The project team aim to share the toolkit more widely and gather more feedback to refine the process now that the first phase is complete.
“I think that further research could explore the role of political actors in the process”, explained Felicity, “It would also be great to be able to offer training and support to local authorities to use the toolkit.”
“It sometimes proved challenging to access the right expertise in larger institutions”, Jonathan reflected, “Perhaps this illustrates some of the challenges others face when seeking to deliver rural active travel infrastructure, but it would be good to expand the study to explore these networks further.”
The team are due to present on their work at the Active City conference in York this July. They have also shared their toolkit with Active Travel England who have welcomed it as part of their work to produce rural active travel guidance.
A copy of the full toolkit is available here:
Negotiating successful rural active travel routes: A Local Authority Toolkit