Revised Development Strategy

Thank you for the opportunity of commenting on the Warwick Local Plan Revised Development Strategy.
Midland Red (South) Ltd trading as Stagecoach Midlands, is the leading commercial bus operator in Warwickshire. The company operates the vast majority of bus services in Warwick District, including Leamington Spa and Whitnash, where we operate a comprehensive network designed to offer both convenient local trips, but at least as important, services offering residents effective choices for longer journeys. The great majority of these routes are commercial, fully funded by our passengers
We also operate services supported by Warwickshire County Council, won following tenders for best value. We always strive through disciplined reliable operation, quality customer service and on-board experience, and effective marketing, to build revenue on such services as far as possible with a view to taking them on without public funding at a future date, where possible. These services to a great extent follow timetables and routes specified by WCC, as socially necessary services, where patronage today could not support a commercial operation by us or another bus company.
Stagecoach in particular has a national, independently assessed reputation for delivering among the highest levels of customer satisfaction. As well as offering reliable convenient services we are constantly investing both in existing services and our operational bus fleet, and developing new products and services aimed explicitly at providing greener smarter travel choices to the public, and especially those who do not yet regularly travel by bus.
Stagecoach proactively seeks to identify and pursue business development opportunities, and the company recognises the role it plays in delivering sustainable development. We welcome the opportunity to comment on, and help shape development proposals to the advantage of the community and the wider travelling public.
High-quality bus services are one of the most credible means of preventing car dependency, mitigating local highways impacts as far as possible, and achieving sustainable development. This includes not only environmental but also socio-economic goals.
We submit that there is a clear alignment of interests between stakeholders in the planning system, and ourselves and other commercial bus operators.

Stagecoach Midlands therefore wishes to generally support Warwick District Council's Strategic Vision, which is essential in setting the basis on which sustainable development can be realised, but has strong reservations about certain of the measures proposed, which we do not believe will deliver the vision. As this Vision is taken forward through robust policy-led prioritisation of actions, Stagecoach Midlands will be much better able to support the LPAs objectives while achieving our strategic goal to provide further high-quality greener smarter travel choices to the District's residents and visitors.
The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) makes clear in paragraph 7 that the "golden thread" of Sustainable Development that runs through it, includes economic, social and environmental goals. Stagecoach Midlands recognises not just its general responsibilities as a good corporate citizen, but the particular key role our business plays in securing these objectives at a local level.
Every day, Stagecoach buses:
* connect customers to markets and employees to businesses. Stagecoach Midlands itself is a locally-significant employer and customer of UK businesses
* connect people of all socio-economic groups to school, college, further and higher education; and of course to leisure and recreation opportunities
Our operations achieve all of this in a way that reduces congestion, and emissions. DECC statistics demonstrate that in the UK, personal transport use generates as many greenhouse gas emissions as the entire residential dwelling stock.
Not only do we reduce personal travel carbon footprints radically, but we are making strenuous efforts to reduce the carbon intensity of our own operations. Stagecoach Group announced in January 2013 that it has cut the carbon impact of its businesses in the UK and North America by more than 20% in the past four years. The transport group's absolute annual carbon footprint is now nearly 56,400 tonnes of CO2e lower than in 2007-08. The annual carbon saving is equivalent to the CO2e produced by powering nearly 11,000 homes for a year. Measured by carbon intensity (kg CO2 per £ of turnover), Stagecoach's carbon impact now is 22% less than four years ago.
As a result, Stagecoach Group is the first Transport Company to reach the Carbon Trust standard for emissions reductions.
Where land-use planning, and local transport policies align to facilitate high quality efficient commercial bus operation, then a full range of highways management, economic development, environmental sustainability and socio-economic inclusion objectives are all simultaneously met.
Where bus services are not effectively and positively planned for, and bus operators and their customers are marginalised, then unsustainable car-dependent development is the unavoidable result, contrary to the overarching intent of National Policy, and the explicit principles set out in paragraph 17 of the National Planning Policy Framework.
Stagecoach therefore regrets that connectivity is not given much priority in Warwick District Council's Strategic Vision, although we understand the preoccupation with meeting housing need.
Transport, to the extent that as it is addressed at all in the Strategic Vision, is largely considered in terms of lists of hard infrastructure projects, designed in response to the modelled impacts of the Revised Development Strategy. Transport measures therefore seem entirely to flow out of the Development Strategy, rather than the Strategy firstly taking account of "the opportunities for sustainable transport modes (to be) taken up, depending on the nature and location of the site, to reduce the need for major transport infrastructure" as required by NPPF paragraph 32.
This risks a strong misdirection of attention into physical highway works without looking at more creative and holistic approaches which better address the wider needs of communities, now and in the future. This is explicitly required by paragraph 17 of NPPF. Specifically, it states that plan-making and decision- taking should:
"actively manage patterns of growth to make the fullest possible use of public transport, walking and cycling, and focus significant development in locations which are or can be made sustainable."

Stagecoach also submits that the approach being taken, with its emphasis on hard engineering, is likely to prove more costly than one which identifies and takes up the existing opportunities presented by more sustainable modes of transport, in deciding the location for new development. This approach risks the delivery of that development, by imposing additional burdens on development viability than might strictly be necessary. We note that, just before this consultation closed, the promoters of the greater part of the Myton Garden Village site west of Europa Way, have tabled an application for up to 800 dwellings, of which only 20% are affordable, rather than the 40% sought in Warwick DC's emerging Local Plan policies. The applicants submit a full viability appraisal, by professional development economic specialists, that demonstrates that the cumulative burden on viability of planning requirements, including transport, does not permit the Council's target to be met.
NPPF is clear that planning should also ensure that:
"improvements can be undertaken within the transport network that cost-effectively limit the significant impacts of the development."

NPPF paragraph 31 also explicitly requires that plan-making bodies should
"...work with neighbouring authorities and transport providers to develop strategies for the provision of viable infrastructure necessary to support sustainable development."

We therefore are disappointed that the Revised Development Strategy and supporting Warwick Strategic Transport Assessment (WSTA) makes little or no provision for infrastructure to support delivery of high quality bus services, and in particular, bus priority at key points and on key corridors to the South and North of Leamington where congestion is already becoming a significant difficulty for us, and where future development proposals will greatly increase pressure on the highway network.
Stagecoach Midlands is very concerned that, based on the Warwick Strategic Transport Assessment Phase 3 modelling, undertaken in support of this strategy, the following effects arise, even with all the prioritised mitigation in place:
* A deterioration in traffic conditions in both Leamington and Warwick Town Centres
* A general decline in traffic speeds during peak hours, especially in the network south of the Avon
* That with all model runs, the biggest residual deterioration in road network performance occurs on the south and eastern flanks of Leamington Town Centre, on the one hand, where scope for engineering-driven mitigation is most limited; and on the Europa Way and Tachbrook Road corridors.
* A general increase in peak delays and queuing, in both town centres and on key arterial routes. The modelled increase in queues even at full mitigation at the Victoria Terrace/Spencer Street lights, and the Old Warwick Road/Princes Drive junction, through which a large number of our services must pass to serve the proposed southern focus of planned development, is especially worrying; and barely less so at the Tachbrook Road/Heathcote Lane junction. We are equally concerned, on the opposite side of the urban area, that a similar deterioration in traffic conditions is anticipated at the A46 Thickthorn Interchange.
The result is that each bus within our Leamington and Warwick network will cover less mileage in a given period of time, at the end of the Plan Period. Therefore, just to "stand still" in terms of journey frequency, Stagecoach Midlands will have to find additional resources: buses, drivers and overhead; to maintain the current timetable offer within the urban area and environs. Actual journey times will be slower, which ordinarily would be expected to produce a decline in overall patronage.
There is a real risk that, far from improving the conditions to deliver improved modal choice, in conformity with the requirements of NPPF, the Revised Development Strategy undermines it, because of the absence of specific targeted and comprehensive measures to deliver bus priority.
With regard to the developments themselves, while we do note WCC's preferred strategy on bus service specification to serve specific major development south of the towns in particular, the sense from the consultation document is these and all other bus services, will also have to fight for space on the existing network, alongside all other traffic, with negligible rebalancing of the highway network in favour of the bus as a more sustainable travel mode, as required by NPPF Paragraph 29.
WSTA Phases 2 and 3 modelling do assume certain very limited bus priority measures, though these are largely focused at the northern end of Europa Way. These mainly take the form of priority bus gates to allow buses to enjoy priority release from signals, but do not allocate dedicated lanes for bus services over any distance.
We also note that there is a considerable discrepancy between the Virtual Park and Ride frequency for which WCC are seeking developer funding, and that modelled in WSTA. The Revised Development Strategy sets out a 30-minute frequency service to Warwick, and a 20-minute frequency service to Leamington. WSTA Phase 3 assumes a 9-minute service frequency to Leamington, and 12-minute to Warwick throughout the day (WSTA Phase 3 section 9.2, p.95).
There is also some lack of clarity about the P&R routing and operating mode assumed by the WSTA models. It appears the WSTA Phase 3 modelled a dedicated direct Park and Ride bus service as it is not clear that any allowance is made in the journey time for the service to stop en-route to pick up and set down between the facilities and the town centres, as the "virtual P&R" concept envisaged in the Revised Development Strategy anticipates.
We are also very concerned at the journey time penalty suffered by Park and Ride users, compared with car users, that the model produced. We are therefore extremely sceptical that the mode shift assignment of travel demands to the bus service will occur at the level anticipated by the Plan. We do not see that motorists will see any advantage in parking, waiting up to 20 minutes for a bus to Leamington, and then suffer a slower journey than cars taking a parallel route into town (WSTA Phase 3 figure 30, page 101).
To re-iterate, the Park and Ride bus services are anticipated to operate as a conventional bus routes, and will therefore also act as the main bus links from the proposed development allocations to the Town centre. We do not believe that this service should make an initial journey first to the park and ride facility, before making its way into town, without enjoying any bus priority at any stage. In the absence of bus priority measures, the 15% mode shift target required by the Strategy would be much better achieved by those services serving the developments taking the most direct route into town.
The time disadvantage that WSTA assumes for bus passengers at peak times seriously undermines the credibility of the mode shift targets for bus use required by the Strategy. This time penalty can only be addressed by the introduction of comprehensive bus priority measures on the main affected corridors, and in the town centres of Warwick and Leamington.
We also note that the Leamington Park and Ride Route has been modelled to operate through the Myton Garden Suburb area, a parallel but not comparable route with Europa Way in terms of speed. In fact, depending on urban design approach, this route, with the potential for multiple accesses, side roads and on-street parking, is likely to be, and perceived to be, slower and more circuitous than a service running directly along Europa Way, if conventional urban and highways design approaches are used.
We are aware that a formal outline planning application for the bulk of this area was submitted just before this consultation closed (W13/1016/OUT). It is clear that the Master Plan and Movement Strategy is quite conventional.
We will be making our own submissions in response to the application. For now, in response to this Policy consultation, we would say that there are a number of ways to address this journey time disadvantage by Master Planning and highway design within the Myton Garden Suburb site, which we cover later in this submission. For the avoidance of doubt, we can see the considerable merits of combining a service through the Myton Garden Suburb with the "virtual" Park and Ride operation, BUT for this to work effectively and be attractive to potential passengers, great care needs to be taken in the overall design approach to the actual bus corridor within and adjoining the scheme, and the urban design of the proposals as a whole.
The approach taken within the modelling to the assignment of patronage to P&R is high-level and is therefore relatively inaccurate. Experience over many years demonstrates that park and ride delivers significant mode shift, and commercially-sustainable levels of patronage, only when parking at the destination is highly constrained, very frequent bus services are offered, and significant on-line bus priority exists, to allow motorists to see buses passing them while they sit in queuing traffic.
Looking both at the national experience of successful Park and Ride schemes, and then at a growing list of failed Park and Ride operations in some other towns, we consider that the virtual Park and Ride proposals need far more robust and nuanced operational and commercial modelling, based on a service design that offers very much clearer and more credible advantages for potential customers, if this part of the Revised Development Strategy is to achieve the necessary impacts.
To conclude and summarise, no bus operator can provide high quality mode choices when its costs are increased by operating in heavy congestion, while its customers face delays and unpredictable journey times. Real mode choice requires that the relative attractiveness of more sustainable travel modes needs to be enhanced. The Revised Development Strategy makes almost no explicit provision for such rebalancing, at least as far as bus services are concerned.
Indeed, the relative silence of the Development Strategy on the role of bus services in securing a sustainable form of development is quite notable, despite the weight attached to the effectiveness of certain bus-based elements in the WSTA.
The Councils' own retained specialist transport consultants conclude at the end of the WSTA Phase 3 Report that "further detailed assessment of the potential benefits of the P&R should be undertaken although it is imagined that such testing would be intended to compliment an over-arching feasibility study of the P&R site meaning allowances for mode share and interception could be included within the modelling to allow a better understanding of both the benefits and impacts of delivery." We strongly agree. In fact, we do not understand how the Revised Development Strategy can be considered robust without this work having informed the Strategy.
WDC/WCC's own highways technical consultant explicitly states that "it is critical that sustainable transport improvements form part of the mitigation package to support the housing and employment growth proposals within the District." (WSTA Phase 3 Appendix H Technical Note 21/5/13, page 1).
Stagecoach Midlands considers, having carefully reviewed the revised Plan proposals and the supporting evidence base, that a considerable amount of further work needs to be undertaken, in partnership with promoters, WCC and bus operators, as required by NPPF paragraph 31, to arrive at a deliverable, robust package of sustainable transport measures in support of a much more sustainable local Statutory Development Plan for Warwick.

Stagecoach Midlands has no comment to make.

Stagecoach Midlands has no comment to make.

Stagecoach Midlands wishes to object to the proposed preferred option for the broad location of development, because of the difficulty in serving the sites on a sustainable commercially viable basis.
We strongly agree that a strategy of urban concentration makes best use of existing public transport infrastructure, and allows existing bus services to perform significantly better in terms of load factor. Such an approach also gives scope for a virtuous cycle of service enhancements to be delivered based on an overall larger quantum of demand from which to draw, by developing the network.
This supports travel mode shift not just from within the new developments, but across the improved network as a whole. It is likely, for example, that new or augmented routes serving development to the south of Warwick would continue, as today, across the town centres providing new direct links as well as enhanced frequency. This would improve the overall attractiveness of the service offer, subject to operating conditions being at least as supportive as today.
There is currently virtually no bus priority within the Warwick and Leamington urban area. Were measures to achieve bus priority to be introduced, then the positive effects outlined above would be greatly magnified.
We also concur with WDC and WCC that there is scope through a concentration of development south of the towns, to kick-start a radically improved level of service in an area in which historically it has proved very hard to offer frequent, direct bus services, not least because of car-dependent urban design, and a lack of critical mass of demand. In addition, the major local highway corridors, in particular Tachbrook Road and Europa Way, are already affected by peak-time congestion, even before any new development is constructed.
This opportunity to improve the public transport offer will only be realised, however, by positively planning for the bus to play a much enhanced role. While some of this is implicit in the intent of measures set out in the Revised Development Strategy, we are concerned that overall there is no clear agenda, nor specified measures, to ensure that the opportunities provided by the Strategy to deliver a much higher quality of public transport offer have been taken up, in the form of sufficiently well-developed actions required by Policy. We will address the opportunities we identify in more depth later in our responses.
As such we submit that the Strategy is not in conformity with NPPF.
Stagecoach Midlands OBJECTS to the location and distribution of the quantum around the south of Leamington and Whitnash.
In general, we consider that insufficient consideration has been given to achieving higher density development across the sites, or parts of them, sufficient to make best use of existing and credible future quality public transport provision. While we recognise the attractiveness and desirability of the Garden Suburb vision, the provision of effective high quality bus services is undermined by the relatively low housing densities involved, and the consequent likely impact on the dwelling stock mix.
The current Strategy, in proposing a relatively large development footprint also effectively gives rise to a much greater expanse of development south of Harbury Lane, than is easy to serve by a single high frequency bus route. Diverting existing service 68 through these areas will pull it away from existing development at Warwick Gates OR risk creating a circuitous service design that will be very unattractive to existing bus passengers, while being even less attractive to car owners.
Large parts of the development footprint in Myton Garden Suburb in particular, are much closer to existing local employment and amenities, and are also most closely related to the existing urban area. This development proposal is expected be within easy reach of the proposed high frequency bus corridor incorporating the "virtual Park and Ride". Depending on the master planning approach, higher densities might be justified in Myton Garden Suburb adjoining this bus corridor, either on the eastern flank if the service uses Europa Way, or, if a bus priority corridor were delivered within the scheme, within 250-300m of that. Higher densities, of up to 45 dwellings/Ha, would support much better patronage levels for the proposed bus service.
If it were possible to accommodate a larger development quantum at Myton Garden Suburb overall, which is the location best able to take advantage of sustainable transport measures, it might be possible to avoid the need for land releases elsewhere, which are currently very much less easy to access by sustainable transport modes.
In particular Stagecoach Midlands considers that several small-scale proposed land allocations east of Whitnash/South of Sydenham look to be difficult to serve on a sustainable basis, by attractive public transport services, without significant infrastructure measures being put in place, that are not anticipated by the Revised Development Strategy.
As stated above, the Strategy proposes that the development footprint extends much more than 300m south of Harbury Lane. The development quantum on land allocated beyond this threshold would be equally hard to serve with a bus service sufficiently frequent and direct to be attractive. In addition the wider public concerns expressed about incipient coalescence with Bishops Tachbrook could also be mitigated by a revised approach that reduced the development quantum that needs to be accommodated here by achieving a higher-density more compact urban form on development sites better related to existing and future sustainable transport opportunities.
We particularly object to the smaller scale releases of land south of Sydenham/east of Whitnash. These areas are well beyond 400m of existing bus services. Extending services into this area will require an additional vehicle resource, even at a modest half-hourly frequency. We do not consider that the potential patronage that would be generated by the proposals would sustain a credible commercial service in the long term. In fact, the need to split access to land south of Sydenham with a second access across the current Campion School site, makes this problem much worse, with only an additional 300 dwellings available to support the operating additional operating costs involved, which are likely to be between £130-140,000 per year at current prices.
However, were direct bus-only vehicular access provided across the railway between Whitnash and the land South of Sydenham, we see much greater potential to incorporate these areas into a high-quality commercial bus network, subject to appropriate pump-priming funding being available during the build out period to deliver this service appropriately early. This would require a bus gate incorporating a pedestrian and cycle link; and a high-quality bus circulation facilitated through the site, also picking up the proposals at Fieldgate Lane west of the railway.
Such an approach would lead to Sydenham potentially being directly connected to employment both existing and proposed south of Leamington. We consider that this would significantly enhance its connectivity to these opportunities and greatly improving the socio-economic sustainability of the Strategy. A dedicated transport crossing would also give public transport and other sustainable modes a major advantage over private car use from all the development east of the railway, and as a result these additional measures would offer a much more sustainable location compared with further development south of Harbury Lane.
We support the proposals at Redhouse Farm Lillington where the whole proposal falls within easy reach of an existing commercial high frequency service. It is the one proposed allocation that best makes use of existing public transport services and infrastructure in a location that is already sustainable.
We note the current proposed approach at Kenilworth. We recognise the need to meet the housing requirements of the town, and can see the landscape and other factors that favour Thickthorn. However we object to the current proposals because:
* We see that with the main access being proposed on to the A46 interchange, it will prove to be an exceptionally attractive location for car-based commuting, causing additional peak time congestion and undermining the effectiveness of the Strategic Highway Network, and potentially delaying our existing services, not least those offering fast links to Coventry and Warwick University via A46.
* When evaluating how we might serve the development, it is unclear that the quantum of development proposed there, and that existing adjacent, is sufficient to support a dedicated high-quality bus service longer term. Were we to divert existing routes it would in effect lead to other large parts of Kenilworth which currently enjoy frequent services, being either unserved or much more poorly served.
We also strongly support the additional development envisaged outside the main towns, particularly in larger villages. Bus services to these villages already typically offer hourly services, or better, but the longer-term sustainability of the current level of service does depend in most cases on higher levels of demand. We submit that, at a time when Warwickshire County Council is faced with ever increasing pressure on its budget for socially necessary but uneconomic bus services in rural areas, the approach taken by the Revised Development Strategy outside the main urban areas, is a prudent one to maintain and indeed possible allow some enhancement of bus services to outlying settlements. Walking and cycling do not present as credible a sustainable travel choice in these locations.
We would suggest there is likely to be scope for the kick-start of improved service patterns in certain rural corridors, facilitated by limited developer funding sought across multiple developments served by a rural bus route corridor. This may not only involve added frequency, but also more direct services, making elapsed journey times much more competitive with other modes such as car or scooter.

Stagecoach Midlands would point out that a substantial portion of this site is our existing operational depot for the area. The depot provides the bus services for Leamington, Warwick and most of the surrounding area. No suitable or cost-effective alternative location for a replacement facility has yet been identified. Therefore the site is not available and is thus not currently deliverable or achievable.

If it were possible to create a greater allocation here, this would offer a larger population and a wider socio-economic mix that would be much better able to support the ongoing commercial operation of a bus service in this location, and one that is less circuitous than the present route, which given existing levels of patronage, requires Local Authority financial support.

If it were possible to create a greater allocation in this area, this would offer a larger population and a wider socio-economic mix that would be much better able to support the ongoing commercial operation of a bus service in this location, and one that is less circuitous than the present route, which given existing levels of patronage, requires Local Authority financial support.
The current design of internal roads also makes the existing development exceptionally difficult for bus services to penetrate, owing to the detailed design of traffic calming features. Any traffic calming measures introduced must be low floor bus friendly and very minor works within the highway could address this as part of future development proposals, and should be required to do so.

Stagecoach Midlands has no comment to make.

Stagecoach Midlands supports the provision of employment land at the western end of Thickthorn, which could be served by our existing services; and also and allocation adjoining Warwick Technology Park (WTP).
The augmentation of employment at WTP could help create greater critical mass of demand for existing and future augmented services here, as well as reducing the average distances residents in the locality will need to travel to work from the new development overall. Shorter travel to work distances give scope for more sustainable modes, including bus services, to offer attractive options compared with personal car use.
It should be possible to address the current very unsatisfactory bus circulation and stopping arrangements within the existing Technology Park site, and the problems associated with on-carriageway and other inappropriate parking. Rigorous Travel Planning formulation and delivery should accompany proposals for this location to avoid exacerbating existing car-dependency and congestion. If a direct bus-only link could be provided from the north or north-east of WTP, through a Technology Park extension sited north of Harbury Lane, and into the wider Myton Garden Village beyond, this would make the resulting bus journey quicker than the car for many trips at peak times.