Brent Cycling Campaign Response to the draft Borough Plan

This is the response of Brent Cycling Campaign to the Brent Draft Borough Plan. The plan identifies appropriate priorities, but completely fails to propose adequate actions. 

It would have been good to have access to the RAS 2021 results and updated the relevant page on the data portal.

 In the introduction, Council Leader, Cllr Muhammed Butt states that: “Brent Council will always take tough decisions in seeking to ensure that no one is left behind.” We are concerned that Brent Council are failing to take “tough decisions”, and are therefore failing current and future Brent residents.

Brent Council’s recent record with respect to cycling infrastructure has been abysmal, caving to any opposition to proposed schemes.

Brent Council has realised that physical activity is at very low levels and to tackle this has installed 20 open space gyms, but the council leadership, and this plan, is missing the elephant in the room. By making walking and cycling integrated into residents’ daily routines for local journeys, would largely alleviate the inactivity levels in Brent.

The aim to make Brent carbon neutral by 2030 is commendable, but this simply cannot happen without a seismic shift away from car use towards active travel. It is disappointing that on page 2, the fitting of EV charging points has been mentioned, but Brent’s failure to build new cycling infrastructure is ignored. 

Increasing active travel and reducing car use was a Brent Labour election manifesto pledge, but we have seen very little progress and this document overall disappoints with this ambition.

Strategic Priority 1: Prosperity, Pride and Belonging in Brent

1: Easing the Cost of Living Crisis - owning, maintaining and having to rely on motor vehicles is increasingly adding unnecessary financial burden on households. Brent should support residents with alternatives.  The 2021 census data showed that 44% of Brent households do not have access to a car, so this large group needs much better support.

2: Brent for Business - Brent should support local high streets by making them a destination where it is pleasant to stay, browse and spend rather than the car parks they currently are. For a few years now, data collected by TfL show that for shopping trips, over 65% of Brent residents use walking, cycling or public transport [TfL, Travel in London Survey]. Furthermore, there is a wealth of data that shows that making local businesses conveniently accessible by active travel boosts turnover. Why is no more done to support them? 

Strategic Priority 2 – A Cleaner, Greener Future

It is bizarre that the first paragraph in this section mentions crime and anti-social behaviour. This surely belongs under a different priority. This adds to the impression that the plan has been drafted without adequate oversight and joined-up thinking.

1: A Cleaner and Safer Borough - The Draft Borough Plan cannot be taken seriously if it does not acknowledge the negative impact motor traffic has on air quality and road danger. Your own Joint Health and Wellbeing board when discussing the strategy over the Healthy Places theme showed what people want: “ what officers had heard from the community, which was a need expressed for safe, clean places that were near to people where they could meet up, relax and exercise”. Streets outside their homes are the obvious places for that, and this is made impossible as long as motor traffic is prioritised over people and their movement. You chose to cite the 44% stats from the RAS 21 (which may or may not include a sense of safety out of harm from road danger by the way) but what was the stat for ‘safe streets’? In 2018 it was 42%. Quite significant.

2: Empowering our Communities - Plenty of community groups and individuals are engaged and ready to work with the council to create a cleaner and greener future. But time and time again we found ourselves in situations where mistakes are made because you only listen to well established groups that are not necessarily representatives. Residents’ associations are great but there is a danger of over-relying on their lived experience or worldview which is only representative of a minority of Brent residents (usually retired men and women). This leads to poor investment, requiring costly revision. For example, the recent changes on Keslake Road: removing the dropped kerb access between a new and an established cycle route which must now be reinstated. Brent Council needs to listen to ALL our lived experiences. When it comes to the built environment you must listen to seldom heard voices and those most at risk first. This means children, Disabled people (representatives as many disabilities as possible and modes of transport, so Disabled pedestrians, Disabled cyclists, Disabled wheelers and Disabled drivers or car passengers) and older people. It would help if you could include regular data collection for the Brent Resident Attitudes Survey on the subject of how we use our streets.

Brent engaged with Living Streets during the LTN trials in 2021 but their conclusions have been largely ignored.  This appears to have been a pointless and expensive exercise.

Strategic Priority 3: Respect and Renewal in Brent

Sustainability in transport is central to tackling many of the local and global challenges. This must include a significant reduction in motor vehicle use with a larger uptake of active travel.

1: Safe, Secure and Decent Housing 

All new housing must have adequate secure cycle parking to accommodate the wide range of cycles available including adapted cycles used by Disabled cyclists as part of the provision for Disabled people (the majority of whom do not actually own a motor vehicle).

2: A Sustainable Borough and a Greener Economy

Cycle manufacture, sales and maintenance are integral to a sustainable borough and the green economy. These are currently lacking in Brent, but if uptake of cycling is enabled, many of these will follow. Many jobs to be had too in companies embracing cycle logistics (Amazon, IKEA and other smaller companies as you must know through the recent cargo bike trials ran).

3: Keeping Brent on the Move

It is very confusing that recycling, waste landfill and incinerators are mentioned in this section. Surely this must be an error. It is good to see that the Healthy Streets programme is mentioned, but enabling more walking and cycling is what makes a difference. Encouraging is missing the point entirely and the latest guidance and good practice. The progress on enabling active travel in Brent has been very poor and the promising Covid Recovery Transport Plan appears to have been largely forgotten despite clearly making the case beyond the pandemic.

(The section on workforce appears to have been copied and pasted into this section by mistake in the Draft Plan).

4: A Representative Workforce. A major barrier to employment opportunities is the lack of affordable and accessible commuting options. Although extremely well served with public transport, many could commute by cycling if it was made attractive and safe.  The latest Census reveals only 20% of Brent residents commute by car, there is so much potential! Brent does not currently have any healthy street officers so this needs addressing.

You have rightly stated that success would be seen in residents walking and cycling, but your track record has been poor.

Strategic Priority 4: The Best Start in Life

1: Raised Aspirations, Achievement and Attainment - there is a well established correlation between active travel and cognitive functions, particularly for school children. Benefits from active travel taken up early on in life will last all throughout life and support healthy lives and ageing well.   

2: Young People are Seen and Heard - current transport options for Brent residents are very heavily car-dependent, depriving those too young to drive of their independence. Enabling safe cycling routes for children will empower them.  The Netherlands has some of the happiest children in the world, due to childhood independence enabled by a dense, high-quality active travel network. You are not demonstrating how you are going to include children's voices when discussing their built environment.

Strategic Priority 5 – A Healthier Brent

You have highlighted that health inequalities exist but must emphasise many of these are due to physical inactivity, poor air quality, and excess noise.  

1: Tackling Health Inequalities - “Only 59% of residents feel there are enough opportunities to improve their health through exercise, down from 69% in 2018 (RAS).” Your own data from the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment 2019/20 recommended implementing measures to enable residents to travel actively. The latest Chief Medical Officer report concurred. Active travel has by far a more equitable outcome than continuing to support driving and car use, Why are we still discussing this? 

2. Localised Services for Local Needs - As discussed above 69% of Brent residents use sustainable transport for shopping trips. Brent must commit to making these local services accessible to people without a car.

As we have shown, the Draft Plan is littered with insufficiencies and errors.  The corrected and revised plan must be reconsulted upon