Gardiner V., Matthews H. The changing geography of the United Kingdom

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Bowler, I.R. (1982) ‘The agricultural pattern’, in R.J.Johnston and J.C.Doornkamp (eds) The Changing

Geography of the United Kingdom, 75–104, London: Methuen.

Bowler, I.R. (1985) Agriculture under the Common Agricultural Policy: a Geography, Manchester:

Manchester University Press.

Bowler, I.R. (1996) Agricultural Change in Developed Countries, Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Clark, G.L. (1992) ‘“Real” regulation: the administrative state’, Environment and Planning A 24: 615–

27.

Le Heron, R.B. (1993) Globalized Agriculture: Political Choice, Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Lowe, P., Murdoch, J., Marsden, T., Munton, R. and Flynn, A. (1993) ‘Regulating the new rural

spaces: the uneven development of land’, Journal of Rural Studies 9: 205–22.

Marsden, T. (1997) ‘Theoretical approaches to rural restructuring: economic perspectives’, in B. Ilbery

(ed.) The Geography of Rural Change, 13–30, Harlow: Longman.

Munton, R. (1997) ‘Sustainable development: a critical review of rural land-use policy in the UK’, in

B.Ilbery, Q.Chiotti and T.Rickard (eds) Agricultural Restructuring and Sustainability: a

Geographical Perspective, 11–24, Wallingford: CAB International.

Potter, C. (1997) ‘Environmental change and farm restructuring in Britain’, in B.Ilbery, Q.Chiotti and

T.Rickard (eds) Agricultural Restructuring and Sustainability: a Geographical Perspective, 73–

87, Wallingford: CAB International.

Redclift, M. (1984) Development and the Environmental Crisis: Red or Green Alternatives?, London:

Methuen.

Wrigley, N. (1987) ‘The concentration of capital in UK grocery retailing’, Environment and Planning

A 19, 1283–8.

Further reading

Early surveys of productionist agriculture are provided in J.T.Coppock (1976) An Agricultural

Atlas of England and Wales (London: Faber and Faber) and (1976) An Agricultural Atlas of

Scotland (Edinburgh: Donald); later interpretations can be found in G.M.Robinson (1988)

Agricultural Change —Geographical Studies of British Agriculture (Edinburgh: North British

Publishing); I.R.Bowler (1991) ‘The agricultural pattern’, in R.J.Johnston, and V.Gardiner

(eds) The Changing Geography of the United Kingdom, (London: Routledge, 83–114); I.

R.Bowler (ed.) (1992) The Geography of Agriculture in Developed Market Economies

(London: Longman); and D.Britton (ed.) Agriculture in Britain: Changing Pressures and

Policies (Wallingford: CAB International).

The restructuring of agriculture, including agri-environmental policy, is considered

by different authors in various chapters of the following edited books: B.Ilbery (ed.) (1997)

The Geography of Rural Change (London: Longman); B.Ilbery, Q.Chiotti and T.Rickard

(eds) (1997) Agricultural Restructuring and Sustainability: a Geographical Perspective

(Wallingford: CAB International); N.Curry and S.Owen (eds) (1996) Changing Rural Policy

in Britain (Cheltenham: Countryside & Community Press); and I.Bowler, C.Bryant and

M.D.Nellis (eds) (1992) Contemporary Rural Systems in Transition: Agriculture and

Environment (Wallingford: CAB International).

More specific topics are covered by individual papers in journals, such as: A.Flynn

and T. Marsden (1992) ‘Food regulation in a period of agricultural retreat: the British

experience’, Geoforum 23, 85–93; T.Marsden, R.Munton, N.Ward and S.Whatmore (1996)

‘Agricultural geography and the political economy approach: a review’, Economic

Geography 72, 361–75; I.Bowler and B.Ilbery (1989) ‘The spatial restructuring of agriculture

in the English counties’, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 80: 302–11;

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A.Errington and R.Gasson (1996) ‘The increasing flexibility of the farm and horticultural

workforce in England and Wales’, Journal of Agricultural Economics 12, 127–41; H.Edmond

and R.Crabtree (1994) ‘Regional variation in Scottish pluriactivity: the socio-economic

context for different types of non-farming activity’, Scottish Geographical Magazine 110:

6–84; and C.Potter (1986) ‘Processes of countryside change in lowland England’, Journal

of Rural Studies 2: 187–95.

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Chapter 6

Transport

Brian Turton

Introduction

During the 1990s the main developments in transport have been concerned with policy (in

particular the privatisation of large sectors of the industry), with attempts to stem car

ownership and ridership and to promote public transport, and with an acceptance of the

need to take the environmental impact of transport activities more fully into account.

Additions and improvements to the national road and rail networks were largely completed

with the opening in 1991 of the last section of the M40 motorway between Oxford and

Birmingham and the electrification of the final section of the London to Edinburgh trunk

railway in 1994. The most significant individual development of the 1990s, however, was

the Channel Tunnel link, opened in 1994 between Folkestone and Calais to provide through

rail facilities between the United Kingdom and the Continent and a shuttle service between

the two tunnel terminals for road traffic.

Between 1945 and the late 1970s much of the transport sector was in public ownership,

but since 1980 components of this state-owned system have been progressively dismantled and

transferred to the private sector. This process was largely completed in the mid-1990s with the

break-up of British Rail, one of the last survivors of the nationalised enterprises established in

the early post-war period. Privatisation and deregulation of major transport enterprises were two

of the principal objectives in the former Conservative administration’s free market policy initiated

in 1980, and although the present Labour government has retained some of its predecessor’s

privatisation plans it has also introduced a new transport policy which is directed much more

towards the integration and co-ordination of the various inland modes (Transport Policy 1998).

Both Conservative and Labour governments have attempted to stem the ever-growing

tide of private car ownership, and the increasing use of road transport in general, by attempting

to create a more attractive public transport system coupled with restraint upon car drivers,

especially within inner towns and cities. However, despite massive investment in inter- and

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intra-urban public transport the imbalance between road and rail traffic remains (Tables

6.1, 6.2 and 6.3). Serious congestion on many sections of the principal road network indicates

that the demands of road transport for additional capacity have still to be adequately satisfied,

but the policy of continual road construction has been recognised as one that will not achieve

the desired objective of providing a transport system that is efficient and capable of meeting

the needs of all sections of society.

During the last two decades there has also emerged a growing concern for the effects

of the existing and proposed elements of the transport infrastructure upon the environment,

coupled with the recognition that sustainable transport is also an essential issue to be

considered in future planning exercises. The strength of public concern over new road

construction schemes which have damaged or threatened many tracts of high-quality

TABLE 6.1 Passenger traffic in Great Britain by

mode of transport (percentage distribution of total

passenger km by mode)

Sources: HMSO, Transport Statistics Great Britain

(London, 1997); HMSO, 1993–95 National Travel

Survey (London, 1996).

TABLE 6.3 Passenger journeys by mode and purpose, 1993–5 (percentage of total journey

distance per person per year)

Sources: As Table 6.1.

Note: *Includes air transport.

TABLE 6.2 Freight traffic in Great Britain

by mode of transport (percentage distribution

of total freight tonne km by mode)

Sources: As Table 6.1.

Note: *Includes coastal shipping until 1975 and

also pipelines.

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landscape has been demonstrated both by action groups dedicated to halting or at least

delaying controversial new road projects and by wider campaigns which have succeeded in

their aim of securing environmental impact assessments as an integral part of transport

planning processes.

This chapter discusses these various policy and related issues in the context of rail,

road, urban, air and maritime transport, identifying the extent to which specific transport

improvement programmes have been successful and, where appropriate, drawing

comparisons between policy and planning in the United Kingdom and other European Union

countries.

The railway system

Since the mid-twentieth century the railway industry has adopted a variety of strategies to

meet the challenge of road transport and to adapt its services to suit the changing demands

of its freight and passenger markets. This section outlines recent trends in rail traffic and

then reviews the various organisational, structural and technological changes made in an

attempt to regain increased shares of traffic.

Although the proportions of national passenger and freight traffic carried by rail have

continued to decline in the 1990s a distinction can be drawn between the passenger sector,

where the amount of traffic has increased, and freight haulage, which is still falling in both

absolute and relative terms. Passenger traffic has been the leading source of railway revenue

since 1975. Receipts between 1986–96, using the 1996–7 price base, rose by 14.8 per cent,

with an increase overall of 4.5 per cent in passenger km. The length of route open to passenger

train services was increased by 5 per cent to 15,034 km, the highest total since 1969, and

110 new or reopened stations have been added since 1986 (Table 6.4). These positive

developments have largely been jointly financed by British Rail and local authorities in

urban areas where rail commuter services have been improved. Passenger journeys on local

and inter-urban routes also rose to 788 million in 1996–7, the highest total recorded since

1971 (Table 6.5). In 1998 31 per cent of the national network is electrified, although some

of the earlier routes, notably the heavily used west coast main line where electrification

dates from the mid-1960s, are in urgent need of upgrading. Despite these improvements in

TABLE 6.4 Railways open for traffic in Great Britain, 1965–96

Source: HMSO, Transport Statistics Great Britain (London, 1997).

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passenger services and the absolute increases in the numbers carried, in 1996 the railways

still accounted for only 5 per cent of all passenger travel, whereas a decade ago the proportion

was 7 per cent (Table 6.1).

Changes since 1986 in the freight traffic situation have been less promising, with a

decline of 31 per cent in the length of routes open to freight trains and a fall of 27 per cent

in the amount of goods hauled. Coal traffic fell by one-third in the 1986–96 decade with the

continued contraction of the mining industry, although rail is still the dominant means of

transport for this commodity. The rail market for petroleum and its products also contracted

by 22 per cent, and in terms of the transport of all basic energy sources pipelines now carry

three and a half times as much as the railways. Only 5 per cent of all freight by tonnage is

now carried by rail, compared to a proportion of 8 per cent in 1986.

During the period between 1948 and 1993, when the railway system was state-owned,

various changes in organisation were made within the overall framework of British Rail to

establish a trunk route network (the InterCity), a provincial or regional sector incorporating

many of the subsidised routes, a south-east England commuter zone and a freight sector. In

early 1993 the government decided to transfer the railways to the private sector, and the

Railways Act passed in December 1993 enabled the process of dismantling British Rail and

awarding franchises for specific areas of passenger and freight operations to come into

effect. The current situation of the railways must be examined in the light of these far-

reaching changes, which are the most significant in British railway history since the

amalgamations of 1923.

The principal aims of the 1993 Act were to secure both an improvement in rail passenger

services and in the financial performance of the train operators. In turn it was hoped that

these changes would create a more attractive market for travellers. These objectives were to

be achieved by franchising passenger and freight operations to a group of private sector

companies and establishing other new companies responsible for the track, supporting

infrastructure, rolling stock provision and maintenance. Subsidies would be provided to

those companies electing to operate loss-making passenger services, and franchisees were

required to guarantee specified levels of service or be subject to financial penalties (Eaton

TABLE 6.5 Changes in rail traffic in Great Britain

Source: HMSO, Transport Statistics Great Britain (London, 1997).

Note: *Period of national coal industry dispute.

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1997). An initial aim was to transfer 51 per cent of the national network by revenue to the

new private train operating companies by April 1996. The actual process took much longer

and was not completed until 1997. The first set of franchises were for three small units (the

Gatwick Airport Express, the Isle of Wight, and the London and Southend line), two large

sectors (Scotrail and part of the Network Southeast system), and two trunk routes (Intercity

East Coast and Intercity Great Western); others covering the rest of the passenger network

were awarded later.

By 1998 services had been franchised to twenty-five principal train operating

companies (TOCs), with the largest, in terms of their share of total passenger km, being the

Great North East Railway, South West Trains, West Coast Trains and Connex South Eastern

(Table 6.6). The first three of these provide services over sections of the former Intercity

network whereas Connex has a mainly suburban traffic in the South East. The eight TOCs

awarded franchises covering inter-urban routes now generate 53 per cent of all passenger

traffic, and about one-quarter of all passenger km are accounted for by the seven companies

operating in and around Greater London. The highest total of passenger journeys per annum

in 1997–8 was recorded by Connex South Eastern, reflecting its intensive commuter traffic

in Kent and parts of Surrey and Sussex.

Freight haulage has also been franchised to the private sector and plans have been

announced to invest in new rolling stock and improved operating methods. One of the more

important initiatives involves upgrading the trunk route between the Channel Tunnel terminal,

TABLE 6.6 Principal train operating companies (TOCs) in 1998

Source: Office of Passenger Rail Franchising, Annual Report 1996–7 (1997).

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London and Scotland by raising bridges and lowering some sections of track to enable road

trailers to be carried on low-loader rail wagons in the ‘piggyback’ intermodal system.

Competition between the train-operating companies is governed and moderated by

an independent Rail Regulator, whilst the Office for Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF)

is responsible for contracts between each company and Railtrack, the new undertaking

which owns and maintains the track, passenger stations and freight depots and signalling

equipment. OPRAF also administers the subsidies, currently about £1.45 billion, to

companies which have taken over loss-making regional services, and oversees the

maintenance of the agreed performance levels. Railtrack plays a significant role in the

newly privatised structure of rail services as it is responsible for investment in the

infrastructure, using revenue from the franchisees to benefit both passenger and freight

operators.

The acquisition by several major bus companies of some of the rail passenger franchises

has raised the issue of restricted competition over intercity corridors where both bus and

rail services are controlled by the same undertaking. Such a situation arose in the East

Midlands, where National Express has the Midland Mainline franchise for trains between

London, Nottingham and South Yorkshire, and also runs coaches in the same area (Harnden

1997). Potential monopolies of this nature are issues for the Rail Regulator to resolve and at

this early stage of the privatisation exercise it is not possible to provide a full picture of the

eventual benefits and disadvantages of this railway reorganisation.

Structural changes, principally the closure of many loss-making passenger lines, date

from the recommendations of the Beeching Report in 1963, and between 1960 and 1968

the total length of railways in Britain was reduced by 32 per cent. After 1968, following the

government’s decsion to subsidise lines which were acknowledged to be uneconomic but

which were identified as worthy of retention on social grounds (Department of Transport

1963, 1965), far fewer closures were authorised and since 1986 the network has been

stabilised at about 16,600 km (Table 6.4).

Technological changes have been based upon the electrification of heavily used

passenger trunk lines, the introduction of diesel traction through the network and the

use of improved rolling stock. The electrification programme was begun in the 1960s

and finally completed with the opening of the east coast route between London, the

North East and Edinburgh (Figure 6.1). Diesel power is employed for freight haulage

and trunk and local passenger services, with the replacement of the original stock by

more efficient ‘Sprinter’ trains. There are also plans to upgrade the west coast main line

services with the introduction of new tilting high-speed trains to be purchased by the

franchisee.

The opening of the Channel Tunnel to through rail passenger and freight trains in

1994 has to date had only a limited impact upon the British system, as the projected high-

speed rail link between London and Folkestone has still to be built. The Eurostar passenger

expresses to Paris and Brussels currently terminate at Waterloo station in London and have

to make use of the conventional railway to Folkestone, whereas in France and Belgium

high-speed lines are available for much of the route between the Tunnel terminus, Paris and

Belgium. With privatisation of the railways the new British link is to be built by London and

Continental Railways, a consortium which includes National Express and Virgin, but a start

date depends upon revenue from the Eurostar service and final agreement upon the amount

of financial aid from the UK government.

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FIGURE 6.1 The railway network in 1998

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The current status of the United Kingdom’s railway system as a complex mosaic in

which train services, rolling stock, track, and maintenance facilities are all owned by

different undertakings is in marked contrast to systems in Europe, where state ownership

with large subsidies from the government is still the most common situation.

Roads and road traffic

During the 1990s road traffic has continued to increase, with a consequent rise in levels of

congestion on the road network. A demand-led approach to new road construction is no

longer seen as the most appropriate or effective solution to congestion, however, and where

road schemes have been agreed the government is actively encouraging private finance

intitiatives to contribute to the considerable costs involved.

TABLE 6.7 Changes in road passenger traffic in Great Britain, 1965–96

Source: HMSO, Transport Statistics Great Britain (London, 1997).

TABLE 6.8 Changes in numbers of principal types of vehicles, 1986 and 1996

Source: HMSO, Transport Statistics Great Britain (London, 1997).