CORNWALL FRIENDS OF THE EARTH

Transport Campaign Group

Sustainable Transport

Perhaps more than any other area of potential expenditure, transport provokes the greatest disquiet. There are plentiful examples of regions using Objective 1 funding for new roads based on little more than the outmoded view that roads bring jobs. In Ireland £700 million was spent on road building out of a total Structural Funds allotment for transport of £900 million. This is just the sort of practice that Cornwall must avoid. Road building is not the way to improve the well-being of the people of Cornwall. Nor is it a rational technique for reducing congestion; providing more road space will just increase the number of journeys made. Reducing the volume of traffic is the only way this will be achieved. Even if only conventional GDP were to be considered, roads come out as a very poor investment; in terms of price-per-job, sustainable transport infrastructure development is far more productive than road building [1].

The arguments against creating new roadspace are now well recognised and are endorsed by government - that, as well as being in contradiction of commitments to reduce CO2 emissions, they tend to redistribute jobs not create them; that faster access to so-called peripheral regions means that companies can centralize their operations elsewhere; that transportation represents such a small part of business costs that minutes of savings have a negligible impact on profits.

"The days of predict and provide are over - we will give top priority to improving the maintenance and management of existing roads before building new ones"
A New Deal for Transport: Better for Everyone
Government White Paper, 1998

"While in certain circumstances transport schemes may bring added economic benefits to an area needing regeneration, in other circumstances the opposite might occur. Better communications will enlarge markets for goods, services and workers: the area may gain or lose from this depending on the structure and competitiveness of the local economy. It follows that there is no simple, unambiguous link between transport provision and local regeneration"
(DETR, SACTRA - Transport Investment, Transport Intensity and Economic Growth: Interim Report, 1998)

Instead Cornwall should focus on its particular geographical constraints and opportunities:

LOCAL CONNECTIONS
Cornwall's singular population distribution of many medium-sized towns, each with it's own rural hinterland provides considerable opportunities for sound land-use planning. They are still reasonably compact and most cross-town journeys can be undertaken by walking or cycling. When considering projects for Objective 1 funding it should be a prerequisite that the project serves the local community and vicinity - both in terms of its users and employees. To build more grandiose out-of-town hospitals, further education or local authority facilities is to run counter to a fundamental precept of sustainable land-use planning which seeks to reduce CO2 emissions and congestion through reducing journey lengths and numbers. Whilst widely accepted as common sense in government, regional and local planning documents, inappropriate ventures of this type are still being built in Cornwall - the most evident example being the Eden Project, built in a non-urban area and which will incorporate space for over 3,000 cars. Non-urban developments are also particularily unsuitable in an area where so many are very low or unwaged, making sites either inaccessible or reached only at a high cost to disadvantaged sections of the community.

Large companies may well seek openings to site businesses in Cornwall in consequence of Objective 1 status. Any development must serve an existing employee base and should have good access to public transport facilities and not lead to long distance commuting. And if village communities are to fight back from their gradual metamorphosis into dormitory towns, they also need businesses which match their scale and skill base.

Green commuting schemes are also more feasible within a framework of relatively sufficient communities. Many planning authorities and large businesses across the country are now experimenting with central telecommunication systems and websites which can offer car share, car club and commuter transport schemes. Cornwall does not have an operating system as yet and would benefit from piloting a scheme, for instance, for some of the light industrial parks which ring many towns (Penryn has one and Falmouth has two, but neither are easily accessible by public transport from the other town). Specialist workbuses and car share/pool schemes, bike pools etc could lead to reduced provision - and cost - of car parking spaces. Many other parts of UK are now instituting central electronic systems to facilitate schemes like these.

Utilizing modern telecommunication technology is a key means to refining our transport systems. Cornwall County Council wishes to attract quality knowledge-based industries, which need not impact so heavily on the built or natural environment and which provide full-time fair wage employment. If this is to be achieved, Cornwall must first ensure that the telecommunication and cable companies which provide the service to businesses are encouraged into the area. The current monopoly of one company in this sector keeps prices much higher than in other parts of Britain and reduces the quantity of telecommunication equipment that can be installed and the time which this can take.

Telecommunication companies are also an important means to reduce car mileage by simply lessening the need to travel. In particular much of the need for long-distance business travel is negated through communicating via modern technology such as teleconferencing.

REMOTE CHANCES
The historic preoccupation with notional 'peripherality' has done much to retard sustainable transport strategies developing in Cornwall. The "considerable emphasis throughout the draft regulations on the value of using ERDF to further cross-border, trans-national and inter-regional co-operation" [2] provides an opportunity to put an end to this attitude. Instead of focussing on the potential for maritime-based economic links to other Atlantic Arc regions and nations and on the socio-economic advantages of local economic sufficiency, local government and business have, for long, concentrated their efforts on upgrading the road system to other parts of the British Isles.

Consequently there is still no Cornwall-wide strategy for sea transport or for modal transfer from road to sea and rail transportation. Additionally, more effort to speed up road access (and increases in air capacity) equals greater undermining of the already neglected rail system. Emphasis in Structural Funds guidelines on using funds to develop 'transport infrastructure generally' furnishes a one-off opportunity to rectify these mistakes.

FREIGHT
Deciding on a system for Cornish rail freight transfer and giving one body overall control of port facilities must be the first steps. A Cornish Port and Harbour Authority would have a long-term remit, and could work to diversify the business both of individual ports' and Cornwall as a whole. It would enable the pooling of resources and ensure that competition and duplication within Cornwall was offset. Above all, a body acting on behalf of all Cornish ports and harbours would have the resources and the muscle to compete with larger entities (Plymouth, Bristol, Poole) in the south west 'region'.

Harbour/port activities can have significant knock-on effects on employment in their hinterlands, and need to be seen as part of a wider development strategy. This is, in any case, in the interests of sustainable planning - past practice has tended to impose infrastructure and individual projects with little regard for traffic or wider consequences.