The proposed legislation covered a variety of areas that are high on the government’s agenda including levelling up, supporting economic growth, education reforms, transport and decarbonisation.

Below we outline some of the main legislation that is being proposed that is of relevance to the highways, transportation and infrastructure sector. We will add more detail to these pages as it becomes available.

Transport Bill

Great British Railways

The Government intends to provide legislation to change the structure and operation of the railways in Britain. As part of the Great British Railways: The Williams–Shapps Plan for Rail they plan to create a new governing body – The Great British Railways to control and manage all aspects of the railways.

The legislation (hoped to be in place by early 2024) would enable franchising powers to be transferred from the Department for Transport to Great British Railways.

Great British Railways will:

•    Own the infrastructure, receive the fare revenue, run and plan the network and set most fares and timetables
•    Deliver a better experience for passengers and freight customers with more punctual and reliable services.
•    Absorb Network Rail, which currently owns the railways infrastructure
•    Contract private companies to operate trains to the timetable and fares it specifies – it will not operate the trains directly  

CIHT responded to the Great British Railways Consultation in February this year (2022). Here, the CIHT highlighted the need for a National Transport Strategy (NTS) and for Great British Railways to be a key component of this. On meeting customer needs, CIHT suggested including an objective to make the network fully accessible to all. The roll-out of digital train control and other technologies can reduce the noise on a very congested system and deliver a positive impact on performance. To view this consultation response, follow this link. 

E-Scooters
 
The Government plans to introduce legislation to regulate e-scooters.  

This means that the Government will be able to:
•    Ensure all e-scooters sold met certain standards (such as speed, power and lights) and “crack down on the private market and make it illegal to sell e-scooters which don’t meet the regulatory standards”

Many trials have taken place which allows those with a driver’s license to use rental e-scooters.

However, the increasing number of e-scooter-related-incidents calls into question the benefits of e-scooters, despite them being an accessible ‘green’ option of transport.  
 
Self-Driving Vehicles  

In April 2022 the Government announced proposed revisions to the Highway Code with respect to self-driving vehicles. The new rules would mean that:
•    Only vehicles listed by the secretary of state as self-driving would qualify as self-driving
•    If a self-driving vehicle were driving itself in the driver would not be responsible for how it drives (so long as it’s driving in a ‘valid situation’ i.e. depending on the weather / type of road)  
•    The driver would be allowed to turn their attention away from the road and view content on the vehicle’s inbuilt screen (but must still follow relevant laws such as being fit to drive and not using a hand-held mobile device).

High Speed Rail (Crewe-Manchester) Bill

The HS2 line from Crewe to Manchester was added to the statue book in the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill.

Background:
•    Work is currently underway for completion of the London to Birmingham line and Birmingham to Crewe line (both expected to be completed by 2035-2041) in accordance with the  High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Act 2017 and the  High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Act 2021
•    Phase “2b” of the project has been split into two elements “HS2 west” and “HS2 east”. HS2 west will run from Crewe to Manchester and is the subject of the bill being carried over into the 2022–23 session 

Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will look to drive growth at a local level by empowering local leaders enabling them to regenerate their areas. Additionally, the planning system will be reformed to enable residents more say in local development. 

In the CIHT Publication, Better Planning Better Transport Better Places, it was made clear that "Planning for people will result in places for people; planning for cars will result in places dominated by cars". Currently, the planning system fails to cater to the needs of residents by producing unfit developments that promote car use and have little to no provision of sustainable transport modes. Ultimately, this prevents residents form easily accessing work and leisure activities due to poor locations of developments and being disconnected from the wider network. 

Building on this publication and the wider issue of integrating planning and transport, the CIHT released a survey in collaboration with the RTPI and TPS to get the views of professionals in our sector; the results of which will go on to influence Government policy. This highlights the importance of this issue to the institutions and is an example of their continued efforts to influence.  

Therefore the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill is a step in the right direction in terms of planning reform, and one that the CIHT can support. However, much is still to be done here and the need for better integration of planning and transport disciplines needs to be seen across Government.