In November Newcastle City Council consulted on its proposed Movement Strategy, setting out the Council’s vision, guiding principles and actions for a sustainable, inclusive and efficient transport network for Newcastle. This blog is SPACE for Gosforth’s response to that consultation.

While the Movement Strategy consultation is now closed, you can still comment on the NE Local Transport Plan up to 26 January 2025. We will write more about that in the coming weeks.

You can access the Council’s consultation material for the Movement Strategy on the Lets Talk Newcastle website.

Dear Newcastle City Council,

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Movement Strategy. This letter sets out our group’s response.

SPACE for Gosforth is a residents’ group with the aim of promoting healthy, liveable, accessible and safe neighbourhoods where walking and cycling are safe, practical and attractive travel options for residents of all ages and abilities. We are residents of Gosforth, most of us with families. We walk, cycle, use public transport and drive. SPACE stands for Safe Pedestrian and Cycling Environment.

Key Points

• Newcastle is being outcompeted and outperformed by other UK and European cities both in terms of vision for transport, and in pace of implementation. We hope this movement strategy will rectify this and place Newcastle as a leader in sustainable transport.
• Newcastle City Council need to demonstrate how the Movement Strategy will make a difference given the many consultations already completed and given adopted Council policy already contains many of the same objectives. For example, “Planning for the Future Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan” was adopted by Newcastle and Gateshead Council on 26 March 2015, and contains substantially similar objectives for transport including (i) make Gateshead and Newcastle accessible to all, (ii) achieve a shift to more sustainable modes of travel, and (iii) reduce carbon emissions from transport. What will the Movement Strategy allow the Council to do that it is not already able to?
• The strategy should be a strategy for streets rather than just movement. Roads aren’t only ed for movement. They are also used to shop, meet, play and socialise amongst other uses. The strategy also needs to set out how different uses will be prioritised on different types of street – not one size fits all.
• The strategy needs to set targets as well as direction to confirm the scale of ambition. This should include a target for zero deaths and serious injuries, and also set out how, for transport, the city will achieve its target of Net Zero by 2030.
• The Council needs an approach to consultation for individual schemes to ensure people understand the benefits and trade-offs, while countering misinformation.

Transport Priorities

We support the listed priorities with one proposed change and the following additional comments.

Improving public transport

We support improving public transport in the context of the hierarchy of sustainable modes of transport set out in the Future Core Strategy (paragraph 11.12), and The Greener Journeys ‘decision tree’ included in the NE Transport Plan (figure 1 page 8). To align with existing Council and regional policy we suggest both are included in the new Movement Strategy.

Improving walking and wheeling opportunities

This needs to include effective maintenance, including winter maintenance, and keeping pavements clear e.g. from pavement parking.

Expanding cycling infrastructure

Cycling is the mode of transport least catered for currently in Newcastle, and therefore has the greatest potential to enable more people to travel safely and sustainably with minimal cost outlay. To achieve this, routes need to be safe, direct and designed in accordance with LTN1/20 to be useable by all ages and abilities.

Expanding electric vehicle infrastructure

This should not reduce space for people walking or cycling, and should include electric bikes and electric public transport (e.g. Metro, buses, trams and scooters) as well as cars.

Replacing vehicle journeys with cycling or public transport will achieve a much fast rate of emissions reduction than replacing ICE vehicles with electric ones.

Improving air quality

UK Legal limits need to be achieved in the shortest possible timescales, with a further target date set to achieve WHO limits.

Improving safety for all road users

We support safe pedestrian and cycling environments. The Council should target zero deaths and serious injuries on the city’s roads.

Improving accessibility for disabled people

All modes of transport including walking, cycling and public transport, should be accessible and safe for all ages and abilities.

Reducing traffic congestion

We suggest ‘Reducing traffic congestion’ is replaced by ‘Reducing traffic’ to align with the proposed action to ‘reduce private vehicle use’. This will have the desired effect of reducing congestion, as well as reducing air pollution and carbon emissions.

Seeking to reduce congestion by adding capacity to roads or junctions will quickly lead to additional ‘induced traffic’ cancelling out any expected benefit.

Delays to people walking and cycling should also be minimised.

Our suggestions for additional priorities are “good quality places”, “enabling children to travel independently”, and ‘achieving the net zero target’.

The strategy should be a strategy for streets rather than just movement. Roads are not only used for movement. Gosforth High Street, for example, is a destination and should be designed as such and not as a traffic-thoroughfare. This aligns with the proposed action ‘enhancing Newcastle’s public spaces’.

Enabling children to travel independently and safely on foot or by cycling to school, especially High School children who are expected to travel independently over quite long distances, should also be a priority. The recent adjudication on Gosforth Academy admissions stated that “The youngest pupils at GA (Gosforth Academy) are in Year 9; they are 13 years old and therefore most, if not all should be able to travel to school unaccompanied”, also noting that the shortest walking route between Gosforth Academy and Great Park Academy is 2.6 miles.

Streets are also used by younger children for play, and it should be safe for them to do so ideally via permanent interventions to reduce traffic, or via “Play Streets”. If the Council will implement Play Streets again in future it will need to ensure that applying for Play Streets is as simple and as straightforward as possible. In the past, the Newcastle scheme compared poorly with the neighbouring North Tyneside scheme in this respect.

Achieving the net zero target is not in the Council’s list of priorities but should be. Achieving the Council’s 2030 net zero target will be a significant factor in deciding which schemes to prioritise.

Key Principles

We support the proposed principles with the following additional comments.

Net Zero Newcastle

This should explicitly refer to Newcastle City Council’s 2030 Net Zero target. This requires a reduction in fossil fuel powered vehicles as well as a range of sustainable options for how to travel.

Sustainable Growth

We suggest ‘sustainable access’ rather than ‘essential access’.

Healthier, Active and Safe

This should enable, rather than just encourage, active travel.

The Council should set a target to achieve zero deaths and serious injuries on the roads.

Inclusive, Connected and Efficient

Walking, cycling and public transport should be actively prioritised because they are the most efficient forms of transport for urban areas as they require the least space per road user. Council design standards should ensure that pavements and cycle routes are usable by all ages and abilities.

Our suggestion for an additional Principle is “Vision Zero”.

One of the proposed principles is ‘healthier, active and safe’ but we think safety is sufficiently important that it should be a separate principle to apply to all modes of transport, not just active travel.

Vision Zero is based on the principle that “it can never be ethically acceptable that people are killed or seriously injured when moving within the road transport system”, or in other words “Life and health can never be exchanged for other benefits within the society”.

To be most effective, this should focus on addressing, and ideally removing, the sources of danger, e.g. using the hierarchy of hazard controls. It should emphasise that responsibility for safety is shared by transport planners and road users, rather than being solely the responsibility of road users.

It should also involve a commitment to the consistent use of best practice standards such as LTN1/20 on all road schemes, not just those with specific active travel funding.

Actions

We support the proposed actions with the following additional comments.

Net Zero Newcastle – Making our transport system climate-resilient

We suggest adding “Ensuring the winter maintenance plan enables people to continue to walk and cycle safely during bad weather.”

Net Zero Newcastle – Promoting low-emission vehicles

“Ensuring freight and delivery services use ultra-low emission vehicles” should also include enabling the use of cargo bikes for freight as an alternative to small vans.

Net Zero Newcastle – Encouraging alternatives to driving

This should refer to the hierarchy of sustainable transport and include planning for micro-mobility e.g. eScooters, to anticipate future trends that may emerge between now and 2030.

We support the use of bus lanes in the context of that hierarchy. I.e. to enable buses to bypass queues caused by high traffic volumes, but not where this would cause a conflict with or safety issue for people walking or cycling.

If the purpose is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then this also needs to include specific measures to reduce private vehicle use e.g. by reducing or removing vehicular traffic travelling through residential areas, as more use of public transport, walking or cycling is not sufficient by itself to reduce carbon emissions.

Sustainable Growth – Improving access to opportunities

“Creating a high-quality walking and cycling network connecting neighbourhoods and shopping areas” should include maintenance i.e. “Creating and maintaining a high-quality walking and cycling network connecting neighbourhoods and shopping areas”.

For shopping areas like Gosforth High Street that are made up of multiple destinations (the individual shops and services), this should include the best possible access to each individual shop/destination.

Walking and cycling networks should also connect to schools, parks and workplaces as committed to in the Reframing Transport report, including “hard-to-reach” workplaces.

The Council will need to maintain its Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) to ensure that space on main roads planned to be used for walking and cycling is reserved for that purposed and not used for alternative purposes.

The networks will also need to link with neighbouring authorities to achieve the NE-wide regional active travel network referred to in the draft NE Transport Plan.

Sustainable Growth – Enhancing Newcastle’s public spaces

It should be possible to travel to and access public spaces on foot, by bike and by public transport.

We note that the 2015 Future Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan already has a developed policy for walking and cycling in the city centre.

In line with the local plan, further pedestrianisation should be planned for the city centre specifically, but this should not be implemented in a way that causes severance for people who need to travel across the city by bike or eScooter.

Roads that function as public spaces should be specifically designated in the Local Plan. This should include all District Centres including Gosforth High Street.

Guidelines for accessibility should cover walking, cycling and public transport, and the Council should adopt national or regional guidance where available (as it has already done with LTN1/20) rather than expend limited resources creating new guidance specifically for Newcastle.

Sustainable Growth – Ensuring sustainable growth

“Promoting car-free lifestyles and reducing car ownership” should be rewritten as “Enabling car-free lifestyles and reducing car dependency”, as there is no point promoting something without it first being enabled.

Any review of roadside space should take account of future plans for Newcastle’s cycle network.

Rather than “reviewing vehicle access in high pedestrian or cycling areas” the Council should be proactively looking for opportunities to remove barriers to walking and cycling. This should include action to substantially reduce the number of vehicles using roads that are not part of the distributor network.

Healthier, Active and Safe – Making streets safer

The first bullet point should be rewritten as “Implementing schemes to make streets safer and reduce the number and severity of collisions”.

In the second bullet replace “access” with “accessibility” i.e. “Ensuring all street investments improve safety and accessibility”.

We support road safety training for school children, but training and education should, in line with the updated Highway Code, also focus on those most likely to cause danger to others.
Residential streets i.e. roads not defined as primary or secondary distributors, should be sufficiently safe for younger children to travel around their local area, meet friends and play outside.

Add “Working with the Police and Crime Commissioner to target the most dangerous behaviours.”

This should also include reference to proven safety approaches such as lowering speed limits, low-traffic neighbourhoods and school-streets.

Healthier, Active and Safe – Encouraging daily physical activity

“Connecting communities, schools, and shopping areas with a network of walking and cycling routes” should not be limited to “low-traffic areas.” The greatest protection is needed in areas with high levels of traffic. Routes should also be safe for all ages and abilities, direct, and for cycling meet the standards set out in LTN1/20.
Streets also have an important use to enable younger children to play and be active. This is currently not the case.

According to the Director of Public Health Report 2023 fewer than 4 in 10 (39%) children and young people in Newcastle aged 5 to 18 years meet the UK Chief Medical Officers’ physical activity guidelines while 8% of children in Reception and 42% of children in Year 6 are classed as overweight or obese.

Healthier, Active and Safe – Prioritising clean air

Electric vehicles do not have tailpipe emissions, but they do not eliminate pollution. Not least, they still cause air and water pollution from tyre and brake dust.

Air pollution limits should be achieved in the shortest possible timescales (as required by UK law), with a target date set to achieve more stringent WHO limits.

Inclusive, Connected and Efficient – Designing for all

This should include ensuring pavements and the cycle network are usable by all ages and abilities.

Also add “Well maintained pavements and cycle lanes clear of obstructions such as EV charge points and pavement parking”.

Narrowing junctions is a relatively cheap way to improve safety and reduce crossing distances for people walking. We would welcome the Council’s reconsideration of pedestrian priority on side street crossings on Gosforth High Street.

Crossings should minimise wait time for pedestrians, especially during poor weather.

Inclusive, Connected and Efficient – Improving local connections

Add “Reducing severance” e.g. by improving pedestrian and cycle crossings over the Urban Motorway, Metro, River Tyne and the A1 Western bypass.

“Implementing traffic reduction schemes in neighbourhoods” should include the use of low traffic neighbourhoods to prevent non-local traffic using neighbourhood streets as a short cut to avoid queues on the main road network.

Inclusive, Connected and Efficient – Reducing private vehicle use

This is likely to be a significant challenge given widespread EV adoption is likely to reduce the cost of driving substantially and therefore lead to a substantial increase in traffic.

This should include the most effective measures to reduce vehicle use: removing through traffic in residential areas; and reallocating road space on main roads to provide protected cycling facilities and no-car lanes.

Final Comments or Suggestions

• The strategy needs to prioritise urgent action now rather than blue-sky policy making with no real-world impact. Although substantial progress has been made with the implementation of the CAZ, the city is long-overdue to meet legal air quality targets and only has five years left before the Council’s 2030 Net Zero target.
• A strategy needs leadership willing to implement the strategy, not give up at the first sign of disagreement. There’s no political choice that has unanimous backing, and that is as true for transport as every other domain.
• The strategy should include a plan for engaging with residents in a way that allows for views to be sought but also ensures schemes can be implemented quickly so the benefits are achieved as soon as possible. This should include rapidly challenging false narratives and incorrect information e.g. false claims such as LTNs causing substantial extra traffic on main roads or increasing emergency vehicle response times (neither of which have happened).
• Likewise, the strategy needs to include a plan for how residents’ comments will be assessed and acted on to enable policy outcomes to be achieved. This should ensure comments with good evidence are weighted more highly than spurious claims, and it should minimise status quo and sampling biases.
• If the plan is to replace existing policy, e.g. in the DAP or Reframing transport, it should ensure the new strategy is even more ambitious and include any actions from the DAP and other policy documents that are still relevant. If applicable, it should also explicitly state which policies it replaces. A list of existing Council transport-related policy is provided in Appendix A.
• Road safety should be non-negotiable, and not tradeable for other benefits (Vision Zero). The Council should consider how both Councillors and Council officers can increase residents’ understanding of Vision Zero and why it is important.
• The strategy should commit meeting and exceeding the objectives set out in the Government’s Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) guidance, including the aim for cycling that adjacent routes within the network should not be any more than 400m apart.
• Actions that support all principles should be given the highest priority, for example a safe accessible, all age and ability cycle network would improve safety, improve health, cut emissions and pollution. Likewise, actions that have a negative impact on multiple objectives e.g. increasing road capacity for vehicles, should not be pursued.
• The strategy needs to include firm metrics for how progress will be measured and reported, with time-bound targets. The consultation should take account of polling and consultations already completed. Some examples are given in Appendix B.

Thank you again for this opportunity to provide input to the Movement Strategy and we look forward to the final report.

Yours faithfully,

SPACE for Gosforth

Appendix A Existing Council Policy on Transport

Approved City Council Motions
• Climate Emergency – City Council 3 April 2019
• Greater Focus on Cycling – City Council 2 October 2019
• School No Idling Zones – City Council 5 February 2020
• Use of E-Cargo Bikes – City Council 6 October 2021
• Investment in Roads and Pavements – City Council 12 January 2022
• Promoting Active Travel All Year Round – City Council 12 January 2022
• Gosforth High Street – City Council 2 November 2022
• Pavement Parking – City Council 1 November 2023

Local Plan
• Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan policies including CS13, UC5 to UC12 and Newcastle Sub-Areas and Site-Specific Policies
• Development and Allocations Plan policies DM10 – DM14
• Addendum to 2015 NCC adoptable design standards to include amended cycling infrastructure to comply with LTN 1/20

Council approved plans and targets
• Transport changes to help make neighbourhoods clean, green, and safe (June 2021) including the Transport Vision for a Healthy Newcastle, the Draft Newcastle LTN Plan and the Newcastle Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan
• Reframing Transport (October 2022) including adoption of LTN1/20
• The Net Zero Action Plan, 2030 target, transport policies and actions
• World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended air pollution limits for PM2.5 to be achieved by 2030 (adopted by Newcastle City Council March 2019).
• The Clean Air Zone and other transport-related actions set out in the annual Air Quality Annual Status Reports
• The Winter Maintenance Plan
• Blue Green Newcastle
• The Ouseburn initiative, including the Ouse Burn Way

Regional Policy approved / adopted by Newcastle City Council via NECA.
• NE Transport Plan (2021) including the target for no deaths or serious injuries by 2025
• NE Active Travel Strategy (2023)
• NE Bus Service Improvement Plan (2023)
• NE Rail and Metro Strategy (2022)
• Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy (2022)

 
Appendix B Examples of representative surveys and already completed consultations

• Active Travel England recently confirmed 85% of people in England support active travel and would like to do more.
• The Bikelife Tyneside survey that showed “72% think that more cycle tracks along roads physically separated from traffic and pedestrians would be useful to help them cycle more” and the same number also think “space should be increased for people socialising, cycling and walking on their local high street”.
• The Council’s Local Plan 2040 consultation where ‘developing a sustainable transport network’ was the ambition that mattered to the most people, and the top answer to what would make it easier to use more active travel options was ‘make active travel routes safer’.
• Newcastle City Council’s 2019 LCWIP consultation, and Streets for People consultations.