European
The European Spatial Development Perspective and the North West European Spatial Vision identify London and the South East of England as the most significant infrastructure bottleneck in north western Europe, hindering the movement of people and goods within a wider European context, with implications for all English regional economies.
National and regional
The Communities Plan - Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future sets out a number of actions to tackle existing problems in the quality and quantity of housing in England. This includes the introduction of a new approach to regional housing policy and the identification of the Milton Keynes/South Midlands as a growth area (discussed below). In providing for the planned growth the action plan identifies amongst other actions the need:
- To address public services and infrastructure needs to enable the new communities to function;
- For the Department for Transport to consider the longer-term transport infrastructure needs of the four growth areas, and
- For the Department for Transport and Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to consider how their strategic planning functions can take account of the potential role of transport infrastructure in promoting land use change.
For the Milton Keynes growth area the action plan also recognised that the technical studies had identified the opportunities to achieve greater growth residential and commercial expansion at a quicker rate with the appropriate east-west transport links.
Existing regional policy as set out in Regional Planning Guidance includes policy on transport. The adopted RPG9 specifically identifies East West Rail as a priority public transport improvement.
The Milton Keynes and South Midlands Sub-Regional Strategy develops policy for the growth area. In addiction to general support for building up east-west communications the strategy specifically includes policy to give priority to east-west links. Strategic Policy 2 includes the complete East-West scheme (Oxford - Stansted) for implementation by 2016.
Whilst the strategy includes proposals, such as a new station at Newton Longville and a Park & Ride at junction 13 on the M1, both of which will be connected to Milton Keynes Central by a mass transit system, they are not part of the core East West Rail service but are consistent and compatible with the proposal. In essence these additional facilities will bring even greater benefits to the scheme. The Strategy establishes that East West Rail would provide "a substantially improved service" and would open up "new commuting and non-business travel markets which can only currently be served by private car" and would be critical in delivering sustainable communities in the Region where public transport was seen as a "real alternative". However, to deliver this change of culture and mode shift, the infrastructure has to be in place before the communities are built.
Local planning
The adopted and draft Structure Plans for Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes require provision to be made for 36,500, 19,600, 36,450 and 28,600, houses respectively in the Region. The Milton Keynes and South Midlands Sub Regional Strategy takes this further for Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes and identifies substantially greater growth. In addition the growth is planned to continue at similar rates beyond 2016 up to 2031.
