Vision-led transport planning is gathering momentum

But without MHCLG and National Highways at the table, we’re heading for trouble, says Colin Black, Director, Mayer Brown

The transport development planning profession has heard the call for vision-led planning and it’s running toward it with enthusiasm. At this year’s Transport Development Planning Conference, the energy in the room was unmistakable.

Practitioners want to design places around people, not traffic flow; they want to challenge “motor normality”; they want to escape a system that rewards predict-and-provide highway expansion and penalises sustainable alternatives.

But the very professionals trying hardest to deliver the new agenda are worried about something else entirely:?Where are MHCLG and National Highways?

Because without their engagement, and without a coordinated effort to reset the legislative and policy environment that sits beneath the planning system, vision-led planning risks becoming exactly what its detractors fear: a slogan built on contradictions, destined to slow planning down even further.

The profession is ready for change – but the system is not

Practitioners are not resisting the shift. In fact, they are embracing it more quickly than expected. Consultants, local authority teams and public-sector agencies at the conference made it clear: they know what “good” looks like, and they’re eager to deliver it.

The problem isn’t mindset anymore.?It’s institutional alignment.

The statutory framework that underpins development planning still pulls us back to a world where:

• road capacity is the assumed baseline for “good planning”
• the movement of vehicles is prioritised over the movement of people
• traffic modelling trumps place quality
• access = car access

While the NPPF now flags the need for more sustainable, vision-led approaches, it sits awkwardly alongside the Highways Act, Traffic Management Act, and Circular 01/2022, all of which still tilt the system towards car dependency. This leaves practitioners stuck between two policy worlds: one looking forward, one looking backwards.

MHCLG must help rewrite the rules or we will sink back into delay and dispute

Vision-led planning demands clarity.?At present, the planning system delivers the opposite.

Planning Inspectors receive inconsistent evidence. Local Plans adopt different standards. Developers hedge their bets with traditional modelling because they fear appeal risk. Highway authorities default to capacity concerns because they are judged against them. No one is confident where the centre of gravity really lies.

Without MHCLG actively reconciling planning policy with transport legislation, we will face:

• more appeals

• slower Local Plans

• contradictory guidance

• battles over modelling

• and frustrated developers unsure how to design for the future

The profession cannot solve this mismatch alone. The rules of engagement must be reset at source.

National Highways must articulate its role in a vision-led world

National Highways is central to unlocking sustainable development. Yet much of its operating framework remains anchored in traffic-flow protection and strategic capacity safeguarding. Circular 01/2022 signals a default stance that major development equates to major road mitigation.

This approach is fundamentally incompatible with:

• compact, walkable new towns

• decarbonisation pathways

• bus-first and transit-oriented masterplans

• site layouts designed to suppress car use rather than accommodate it

To its credit, there are signs that National Highways recognises this tension. But recognition is not the same as commitment. The development sector needs clarity – how will National Highways support vision-led development on the basis of no new strategic road capacity?

Until this is answered, uncertainty will continue to choke the planning system.

Meanwhile, local authorities are ready but exposed

Many local authorities left the conference energised. They want to lead. Some are already rewriting street-design guidance, rethinking TA requirements, or reframing “expeditious movement” around people, not traffic.

But they face an uncomfortable truth: the system punishes them for doing the right thing.

If they prioritise active travel and bus movement over general traffic, they risk challenge under the Traffic Management Act.

If they demand vision-led masterplanning, they face pushback referencing Circular 01/2022 or outdated design standards.

If they set traffic-reduction targets (even though they’re empowered by the Road Traffic Reduction Act) they face the headwinds of a national system that still rewards throughput.

Local authorities cannot fight this battle alone. They need national policy alignment that protects, not undermines, their ambitions.

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity and we must not waste it

AI, new accessibility metrics, evolving developer expectations, and the urgency of decarbonisation all mean that change is inevitable. The question is whether the change will be intentional, or whether it will be delivered by a messy collision of contradictory standards, litigation risk, outdated guidance and overworked planning teams.

The profession is doing everything it can.?But without MHCLG and National Highways stepping up, the system will remain fragmented and slow.

Vision-led planning is achievable - we saw that clearly at the conference. What practitioners now need is a government willing to remove the structural obstacles in their way.

We need:

• alignment of NPPF with transport legislation

• replacement of Circular 01/2022

• clarity on National Highways’ expectations

• support for traffic reduction where it helps deliver sustainable places

• a reset of appraisal frameworks that currently default to traffic flow

Because if we get this right, planning becomes faster, clearer, more predictable and more productive.?If we ignore it, we lock ourselves into another decade of disputes, delays and dysfunctional outcomes.

The message from the profession is simple

We’re ready. Developers are ready. Local authorities are ready.

But unless MHCLG and National Highways join this conversation and help redesign the system around the places we want to create, vision-led transport planning will remain a brilliant idea trapped inside a broken framework.

The moment is now. Don’t let it pass.