The national bus strategy for England will radically change the landscape for bus operations, but what does it mean for developers?

Buses form the key mode of sustainable transport for the majority of new developments and remains by far the most used type of public transport in the UK.  New ‘Enhanced Partnerships’ or in some cases franchising arrangements between local authorities and bus operators will be driven forward with a significant prize of £3billion in discretionary funding being available only for those who succeed. Just what the £3billion will buy is unclear at this stage; lower fares, increased frequencies, investment in new carbon free buses and the latest information and ticketing systems all seem possibilities. An annual local Bus Service Improvement Plan will be requirement of these partnerships, setting targets for journey times, reliability improvements, and identifying where bus priority is needed.

For the land developers this means that the current day approaches of negotiating a section 106 payment to the local highway authority or alternatively firming up a direct agreement with the pro-active local bus operator to provide a diverted or new service will have to change. The local transport authority, in most cases also the highway authority, will gain far greater influence over bus planning and operations but will be challenged due to the level of upskilling that will be necessary after many years of commercially-led and reducing bus networks. Equally, local planning authorities will retain strong influence over site layouts and access given the proposed reforms to the planning system with the intended emphasis on design guide led masterplanning. In partnership areas the bus operators will still be driven by commercial imperatives overall but with a recognition that management of road space by the local authorities is central to success of their business model. Where franchising is introduced the local transport authority will take the lead in planning the network.

The real challenge for developers will be to negotiate this new framework with confidence that their mode share aspirations can be met by the partnership or franchise networks and that the necessary supporting bus infrastructure requirements can be delivered.

This will place greater emphasis on internal site layouts to allow direct access for buses and also levels of permeability within developments to allow easy access to bus stops; the established concept of ‘within 400m of a bus stop’ for access to the network is likely to come under pressure with a reduction being seen as a straightforward way to drive improved access to the bus network. This will change the masterplanning context and challenge how the latest approaches to masterplan can achieve this without unduly sterilising land.

The developer financial proposition for bus services will remain broadly as is; there is no evidence that the £3billion seeks to replace section 106 monies or the proposed replacement planning infrastructure tariff funding system. What will occur is that the developer will have two increasingly active actors to deal with, each with an eye on the £3billion prize but both seeking slightly different but worthwhile goals. There is of course the potential that the increased quality of bus networks will aid developers hit with increasingly stringent mode share requirements and trigger reductions in levels of general highway mitigation required for development to be acceptable.

What the developers will be led towards is frontloading the planning of bus services and network access proposals for development in greater detail at earlier stages of the land promotion process. This will enable the level of developer influence over the partnership players to be increased and for the proposed more detailed local plan making process to be navigated successfully.

PJA has developed a number of tools to aid this front-loaded approach to bus network planning for new development and has the capability to assess the role bus can play in the transport mix for sites, including in the area of financial analysis. Our team has experience of providing leadership in both local authority bus operations and at senior levels for bus operators to enable the formulation of meaningful proposals for a development’s bus service offer.

For further information, please contact [email protected]

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