England’s Economic Heartland has launched a long term transport strategy for consultation which focuses on a green recovery from Coronavirus and supports sustainable economic growth.

The sub national transport body’s draft strategy includes measures to trial cleaner and smarter connectivity, champion investment in digital systems to reduce the need to travel and boost opportunities for freight and logistics.

It also looks to use delivery of East West Rail as a catalyst for improving public transport more broadly across the region and encourage a shift towards enhanced walking and cycling infrastructure. Views on the Heartland’s plans to become a statutory body with strategic powers are also being sought.

“If we can get the commitment and buy in that this is the right direction of travel for us, we will have momentum to be able to transform our transport systems and help us to shape tomorrow today,” says the Heartland’s programme director and CIHT President Martin Tugwell.

A series of technical studies has been produced to inform the transport strategy, including one titled ‘Pathways to Decarbonisation’ that uses advanced modelling to show different ways in which the region can look to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Martin explains that the region is a driver of economic success but faces problems with carbon emissions generated from transport, which are said to be growing faster in the region than across the country as a whole. He adds there is a need to “start thinking seriously about how we deliver the energy supplies that will allow us to decarbonise the transport system”.

Further technical studies cover passenger rail, freight and first / last mile journeys. An integrated sustainability appraisal has been introduced to test policies against social, environmental and economic needs.

For rail passengers, there is the prospect of not only a new connection from Oxford to Cambridge, but improved corridors elsewhere including from north to south. Freight line upgrades identified include from Felixstowe to Nuneaton. Plans for rail electrification across the region, mass transit systems in Cambridge and Milton Keynes and targeted highway upgrades to routes including the A47 and A1 are also detailed.

Last summer, England’s Economic Heartland unveiled an outline transport strategy which, Martin explains, represented a “very open conversation to engage with people, understand what they thought we should be doing and what their aspirations and ambitions for the region were.

“We had some powerful messages come back: to do things differently and to be bold.”

Consultation on the new draft transport strategy closes on 6 October and can be viewed here.

(Photograph: Highways England)