New mass transit systems for our cities need to reach out to their hinterlands where we are building hundreds of thousands of new homes
It’s encouraging to see government funding for metro and tram extensions and improvements for the combined authorities that cover our major urban areas in the North, Midlands and Bristol, particularly as some of the projects are specifically about reaching out to new homes and other development being built. But its interesting to look at the Local Transport Grant capital funding allocations for more rural areas that are adjacent to the combined authorities, but not actually in them. These get surprisingly little.
Perhaps this is reasonable, after all investing in long-needed public transport for our cities is important. However, given that the Government has decided on a new algorithm that allocates hundreds of thousands of the 1.5 million new homes to rural local authorities without metro or tram extensions that would then connect the burgeoning new estates to jobs, services and education, they are surely missing a trick. As vast new estates are built on the other side of the green belt in rural counties, there is an unsaid assumption that these will be car based. Indeed research by the New Economics Foundation—see their report Trapped Behind the Wheel—has shown that this is the case.
Lack of joined up thinking
We need the new homes, but there appears to be little joined up thinking that says ‘lets invest in this Metro and take it right out to where the housing targets are especially high’. Giant housing estates are currently being orientated around bypasses and distributor roads, not metros and trams.
This quite simple idea of funding future mass transit to serve areas of very high housing targets is not enshrined yet in government thinking, but it could be. There is no better way to demonstrate how it might work, than with a practical example that is actually making progress.
The map gives a somewhat rosy impression of the area that straddles Wiltshire, Somerset, and Bath and North East Somerset. The latter is part of the West of England Combined Authority, but of course Wiltshire and Somerset are not: they are rural authorities and as such, are struggling when it comes to good public transport.
Series of large housing estates around the towns
What the map doesn’t show are the layers of sprawling new housing estates that surround the centres of these historic towns, many of which are currenly under construction or proposed for the future.
As new estates are built in places like Melksham, Frome, Trowbridge, Warminster and so on, it is a challenge for new occupants who have moved there for the cheaper housing but cannot, or don’t want to drive. Simple things like getting to work, to college, going out for an evening or watching a match in Bath, require very tight planning and a lot of time in travel. Trains are infrequent and subject to delays because they come from a long way away (Portsmouth, Weymouth, Cardiff, Gloucester…).
Buses are slow because of the distances and traffic, and because they stop multiple times to serve many communities on their routes. Changing between bus and train is precarious. Days need to be planned about the public transport that exists, rather than the other way round; and journeys that should be fast and easy to make, can become adventures.
The Bath sub-region or ‘travel to work area’ is growing very fast. It has done so for the past couple of decades and the building goes on. With higher and higher annual housing targets for the local authorities in the area, the current population of roughly 350,000 is likely to increase to well over 400,000.
It is with all this in mind that a combination of campaigners, including from Connected Cities and Transport for New Homes, have teamed up with a rail company to put forward a proposal for a metro. Since the rail infrastructure is largely there already, Amey rail has shown that with comparatively little investment in passing loops, platform extensions and stabling of trains overnight at Westbury, that metro-like frequencies of local trains could be run. New stations could also be added at a later date to futher expand the network.
After an initial conference in March 2025 attended by councillors from both Wiltshire and Bath, Amey explained the more technical aspects of the idea at a second conference in Chippenham in March 2025. The interest was so great that future events are now being organised in July, with funding from the Foundation for Integrated Transport.
There are many barriers to building metros, but the hope is that all the local authorities will push forward together, working with councillors, officers and MPs across the area, and with the West of England Combined Authority and others to make progress.
It is early days yet, but the need is great and increasing. With buses to take people to and from stations, as well as European-style cycle links, not only will the existing and new population be able to have the freedom of an entire area by using the train, but brownfield sites in town centres will increase in viability, helping regeneration.