Sharing your car can ease the jams

Apr 11 2006 By Ross Smith, The Journal

Workers will be urged to change the way they commute to help North roads support new business developments.

Highways Agency boss John Bagley revealed a travel plan for the whole of the Team Valley industrial estate is being drawn up to ease pressure on the A1.

The estate's 17,000 workers will be encouraged to share lifts to work to cut congestion on the Western bypass.

Businesses will also be urged to allow flexible working times to prevent rush-hour gridlock.

It is hoped the plan - one of 100 the agency wants to introduce by 2010 across the country - will create "headroom" at Team Valley, reducing the need to impose Article 14 notices on planning applications at the site.

The strategy has been proposed after a survey of the 100 biggest employers on the site, in which just four told the agency they had a travel plan in place.

Highways Agency research also found that 84% of cars on the A1 close to Team Valley contained just a driver.

Mr Bagley, the director of the agency's network strategy North, said: "There's probably a huge potential there to create some headroom by getting the existing companies to produce travel plans.

"You could probably fill a coach from most of the villages in the North-East to get to the Team Valley."

While companies who apply for planning permission for new buildings are asked to produce a travel plan showing how their staff will get to work, there is little incentive for firms to do this on existing sites.

Mr Bagley said: "I think we would have to sell it on the financial benefit to the individual by sharing transport to work. Even if it's just two of you, you're halving the cost."

Even relatively small developments on Team Valley have recently been held up because of concerns the A1 would not cope with extra commuters.

An Article 14 order was placed on a development proposed by Priority Sites for a 36,000 sq ft office complex, while a plan by UK Land Estates for warehouses on the site of the derelict Jockey factory was delayed by two months. Business leaders claimed the effect was to render the site "closed to new business."

Mr Bagley said traffic on the estate is getting worse because of a shift away from industrial plants to office developments, where more workers have cars and usually work nine to five.

TUC Northern secretary Kevin Rowan said: "We've got to be creative in how we manage demand.

"It will be an interesting challenge to see what methods they can use to persuade commuters to change cars.

"But we ought not to be deflected from the fact that congestion is being used as an argument for stopping economic development, and what we actually need to see is greater investment in our transport infrastructure."

Mr Bagley, however, said the A1 would be full "on day one" if it was widened without other measures to restrict traffic.

Page 2: Developers are 'not motivated to find solution'