news: Project win at the Planning Awards 2020
Thursday 17th September 2020
David Lock Associates and Milton Keynes Council scooped the Plan-Making Award at the UK Planning Awards last week for the MK2050 Milton Keynes Strategic Growth Study. ITP is proud to have supported the study by advising on how large-scale and long-term growth in Milton Keynes could both deliver, and be supported by, Mass Rapid Transit services.
Milton Keynes Council has an aspiration to double the city's population to 500,000 by 2050 - effectively delivering another New-Town scale of growth while updating its original movement networks.
We developed proposals for a new cross-city Mass Rapid Transit network, drawing on precedents from the UK and Europe. Our work scoped feasible route options, vehicle types, service patterns, demand forecasts, outline costs and viability. Alongside David Lock Associates’ team, we helped to identify spatial growth options for future growth that could deliver transformational change to existing communities and unlock ‘good growth’ through enhanced mobility services and community facilities.
The resulting Mobility and Mass Rapid Transit Study Report defined a potential Mass Rapid Transit network that served new and existing communities. It included a high-level cost:benefit appraisal and recommendations on delivery phasing, supporting infrastructure and policies. Alongside DLA’s recommendations on strategic growth options, it has informed the Milton Keynes Strategy for 2050.
In light of the ongoing COVID19 pandemic we have subsequently reviewed the original strategy in order to ‘stress-test’ the cost:benefit assessment in relation to a range of possible post-pandemic scenarios.
“It was a genuine pleasure for our team to collaborate with colleagues at Milton Keynes Council and David Lock Associates on this award-winning study. The resulting Strategy for 2050 demonstrates how integrated land-use and transport planning studies like this can help plan making authorities take a positive, proactive, and long-term view on allocating land for new homes, jobs and community facilities. Critically, it demonstrates how prioritising high-quality sustainable transport connections – and considering them as a benefit rather than a cost of development – can fundamentally alter the locations for growth and the types of new communities we can deliver.” - Neil Taylor, Director, ITP
For more information on the specialist transport support we can provide on the Local Plan and Strategic Planning process, click here or please get in touch.