Message from the Chair: Thanks for supporting Transport Planning Day 2020 !

I am writing this looking back on another great Transport Planning Day campaign. Thank you to everyone who got involved in the activities this year, your support has really helped the campaign go from strength to strength, and its growing profile enables us to attract bigger and better contributors each year.

As I mentioned in my last message, we were honoured to hold an event with some key members of the Transport Select Committee in October to launch our fantastic ‘State of the Nations: Transport planning for a sustainable future’ report – do take a look if you have not yet seen it.

And then we had a smorgasbord of transport treats at the main TP Day event itself – this included a fireside chat with Will Norman, London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner, the results of our ‘Inspiring the Transport Planners of the Future’ children’s poster competition, a fascinating presentation on food deliveries from our Bursary winner Georgia Corr, an address from Rachel Maclean MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, and the findings of our joint research project with the Royal College of Art on reimagining community placemaking and transport planning. If you missed all that then don’t worry, you can watch the whole event here.

Thanks also to those who arranged and attended events across the country, both the official regional events in the North West, the North East and the South East, and those held by members in your (virtual) workplaces across the country.

Our theme this year was the role of transport planners in tackling climate change and creating a sustainable, healthy future – and I actually found myself feeling more optimistic on this front recently. From the government’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution with transport featuring strongly, to the acceleration of the phase-out date for the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans brought forward to 2030, the opportunity for significant change through the Planning White Paper, and more public support and positive media coverage on climate change – it seems that things are perhaps beginning to change. And as the profession that can deliver a lot of this change, we must all use these promises, commitments and public support to be bold and ambitious in our day-to-day work to create a low carbon transport system that supports an economic recovery and that benefits the communities we work in.

So after a very unusual and challenging year, I would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas, a relaxing holiday break, and a safe,healthy and hopefully happy ‘new normal’ new year.

Stephen Bennett

Chair, Transport Planning Society