Epsom and Ewell Local Plan

Regulation 18 Transport Assessment

Transport Studies

10 October 2024

For Terms of Use, please see Epsom and Ewell Local Plan - Overview (arcgis.com)

Introduction

Surrey County Council has been commissioned by Epsom and Ewell Borough to provide a Regulation 18 Transport Assessment for their new Local Plan 2022 - 2040

This Transport Assessment aims to:

Discuss mobility and present the transport related issues within the Borough; and
To show which potential allocation sites minimise the need to travel by private car.

The assumption is that any new car trips generated by potential allocation sites will:

Increase congestion
Worsen safety for pedestrians and cyclists
Increase air pollution
Have a negative impact on resident and visitor health and well-being

Document Structure

This document has been split up into two sections:

1. Setting the scene

This section refers to Surrey County Council's Local Transport Plan 2022 - 2032 and Climate Change Strategy , and discusses the following topics in relation to the Borough:

Infrastructure and mobility
Pedestrian and cyclist safety
Air pollution, including carbon emissions
Vehicular congestion

These topics relate to those set out in the Planning Guidance for Transport Evidence Bases in Plan Making and Decision Taking .

2. A review of potential Allocation Sites based on minimising travel by private car

This section reviews the accessibility for residents travelling via foot, cycle or public transport to the following key amenities:

Primary school
Secondary school
General Practitioners (GPs)
Pharmacy
Town and secondary centres
Railway station
Green spaces

The review finishes with a multi-criteria analysis whereby sites have been scored and ranked based on their potential to minimise car trips.

Surrey's Local Transport Plan 2022 - 2032

Epsom and Ewell Borough Council are working towards publishing their new Local Plan which will set out the vision and delivery of future development in the borough for the years 2022 - 2040.

At a countywide level, Surrey County Council have developed a Local Transport Plan (LTP4) to shape transport for the period 2022 - 2032 and beyond. The aim of the Local Transport Plan is to significantly reduce carbon emissions from transport to meet Surrey County Council's commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, as set out in Surrey's Climate Change Strategy . It focuses on the principle of ‘avoid, shift and improve’ to achieve its objectives of:

Net zero carbon emissions
Sustainable growth
Well-connected communities
Clean air and excellent quality of life

The promotion and delivery of optimum allocation sites is thus very important in helping to meet these objectives, and there are two polices which are especially pertinent for this: ' Planning for Place ' and ' Active Travel and Personal Mobility ', summarised below.

Policy: Planning for Place

The policy ' Planning for Place ' is particularly relevant to the development of Local Plans as its principle is to avoid and reduce the number and length of trips needed through improved land use and travel planning.

This involves redesigning existing neighbourhoods and designing new ones to provide attractive local public spaces and more local community, educational, leisure and other facilities. These are termed 'Liveable Neighbourhoods' as they create great places for people to live and maximise their potential, increasing their health, wellbeing, and connection to their communities. Planning places for people and liveability leads to less travel overall and makes travel by non-car modes an easier, more attractive option. More local services within walking and cycling distance can help to reinvigorate local communities and achieve health benefits, whilst benefitting local economies.

Policy: Active Travel and Personal Mobility

Figure 1: Sustainability travel hierarchy

The principle of the policy ' Active Travel and Personal Mobility ' is to shift travel to more sustainable modes: public transport, walking, and cycling, away from car use.

The policy prioritises walking and cycling over less sustainable modes through the delivery of facilities which make active travel more convenient, pleasant and safe, as shown in the sustainable travel hierarchy presented in Figure 1. This will enable more active journeys, bringing many transport, health and environmental benefits.

1. Setting the Scene

Infrastructure and Mobility

To view the mobility and infrastructure discussed in this section on the map to the right, click on the relevant heading buttons below.

Public Transport

The borough of Epsom and Ewell is well connected with rail stations offering direct travel to central London, Sutton, West Croydon and the Surrey towns of Leatherhead, Dorking and Guildford. It also benefits from several high frequency bus services operated by Transport for London (TfL).

Bus Stops and Service Frequency

Bus stops located within the borough and at its boundary are shown on the map together with the average hourly frequency for a weekday between 0700 and 1900. For example, a bus stop marked in red has the highest frequency of between 6 and 12 buses per hour which is the equivalent of every 5 to 10 minutes but can be served by more than one route. Only bus stops which have at least one bus service per hour are shown.

The most frequent bus services are located at Epsom hospital, Epsom town centre, and along the A24 corridor between Epsom town centre and Ewell By-Pass. This corridor also holds key amenities including Rainbow Leisure Centre, Kiln Lane industrial and retail estates, and Glyn School, which benefit from this high public bus frequency.

Bus provision is poor in Langley Vale. Although not shown on the map, there are two bus routes which serve Langley Vale (E5 and 408), but these are infrequent with a frequency of less than once every two hours. Similarly in Worcester Park between the A2043 and A240. There is a service, but it only runs through this large residential area once every two hours.

There are no services operating along A240 Reigate Road between Ewell and Nork, and the residential area to the southwest of this which surrounds Wallace Fields School. Notably Nescot College is located off the A240, and although there are good rail links to the rear of the College, the nearest bus stop is approximately 800m away on the A24.

Public Footpaths and Cycle Links

Walking and cycling not only helps remove vehicles from the roads, it also provides a form of exercise which is beneficial to our health and well-being .

Epsom and Ewell benefits from foot and cycle paths which form a network within the urban areas and also provide access to green spaces. For example, footpath 71 which connects Epsom at Stamford Green to The Wells and Epsom and Ashtead Commons.

Although these can assist in providing good accessibility by foot and cycle, not all the paths are of a hard, smooth surface and/or lit for comfortable use during winter months. Any allocation site which assumes use of these paths to provide suitable access to local amenities, must review path condition and upgrade accordingly. This includes contribution to long term maintenance of these key paths to ensure longevity and successful use into the future.

Cycle parking is lacking across the Borough. Not every neighbourhood centre contains cycle parking spaces, and where cycle parking is provided these are mostly in poor state and/or too few. With the uptake in electric bikes, there is also an increasing need for users to be able to park their bikes in secure facilities. Additional and secure provision should be considered as part of the promotion of any site allocation, particularly focusing on local key amenities to encourage short trips to be cycled.

Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles eliminate emissions from engine exhaust and are key to help achieve both the county and national objective to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

However, electric vehicles still contribute to air pollution (e.g., particle pollution from brakes and tyres), collisions and vehicular congestion. Thus, reliance on all cars, however fuelled, should still be reduced. There is a need however to ensure for those trips which cannot be made by foot and cycle that suitable charging infrastructure is available at key attractions. The map shows the current publicly available charging points in the Borough sourced from Zap Map . With only 12 sites, much more infrastructure will be required to support the anticipated growth in electric cars in the near future.

Pedestrian and Cyclist Safety

Collisions involving pedestrians and cyclists for the years 2017 to 2019 can be viewed on the map by selecting the relevant button.

For the three years of 2017 to 2019, there were a total of 76 collisions involving 81 pedestrians in the Borough. 58 casualties were slight, 22 considered severe and 1 fatality. There are clusters of collisions involving pedestrians along A240 Kingston Road, Ewell Village and Epsom town centre.

For the same period, there were 94 collisions involving 95 cyclists. Out of these, 70 were slight, 25 serious and none were fatal. Unlike the collisions involving only pedestrians, the cyclist incidents are more spread out across the Borough and are along nearly all the main A and B roads. Notably there are three collisions involving cyclists along or in the vicinity of Manor Green Road which offers a route through residential roads between West Hill and Chase Road. It also acts as a local rat run.

The heatmap shows collisions involving pedestrians and/or cyclists are greatest in areas of high footfall, with the darkest colours signifying collision density present in Epsom town centre and Ewell High Street. This is where interaction between motorists and these modes are greatest. For example, people crossing the road to access shops and the rail station.

It is important that any allocation site does not cause road safety to worsen for all users. The easiest way this can be achieved is if the location, walk/cycle connectivity, and design of allocation sites themselves are such that they minimise car travel. There is also an opportunity to address any barriers to residents reaching key amenities (such as schools, neighbourhood centres) by foot and cycle due to perceived or notable safety issues.

Vehicular Air Pollution

As shown in blue, the borough of Epsom and Ewell contains one Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) which encompasses Ewell High Street. It was first declared in 2007, and is due to annual mean levels of nitrogen dioxide exceeding the national objective of 40µg.mˉ³, sourced from road transport.

Health Impact

A collaborative study conducted by Oxford and Bath Universities in 2018 calculated the health damage from cars and vans is likely to be costing the NHS and society in general more than £6 billion per year, with health costs of diesel cars being significantly higher than petrol, electric and hybrid vehicles.

Exposure to PM2.5 and NOₓ is linked to an estimated 40,000 early deaths. The study also reported that swapping 1 in 4 car journeys in urban areas for walking and cycling could save over £1 billion in health damage costs per year, which further highlights the importance of reducing car travel at allocation sites.

Carbon and Climate Change

In 2019, when SCC declared a climate emergency and produced a Climate Change Strategy committing to taking action, transport accounted for 46% of Surrey’s carbon emissions. The strategy commits Surrey to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, in line with the Government’s national legal commitment to net zero carbon emissions in the UK by 2050.

Achieving net zero will mean a step change in how we think about, plan, deliver and maintain transport. Although electric vehicles have an important part to play, achieving net zero includes mitigating the impacts of Local Plan allocation sites by providing neighbourhoods which encourage walking and cycling and reduce the need to travel by car, rather than focusing on reducing highway congestion, which in turn maintains and strengthens car use at the detriment to sustainable modes. The same approach to reducing carbon, by reducing the need to travel and ensuring alternatives are attractive, will also reduce the other air pollutants produced by road vehicles.

Vehicular Congestion

The map on the right presents the additional delay per kilometre to vehicles travelling between 0700 and 1000 for an average weekday in 2019. It is determined by deducting the free flow travel time, observed between 0100 and 0500, from that of the AM peak period 0700 – 1000. The result is divided by the length of the stretch of road to convert to per kilometre and enable fair comparison across the analysed area. The observed travel times were sourced from Teltrac Navman's dataset of GPS tracked vehicles using Basemap's webtool Highways Analyst .

The resulting additional delay values are a proxy for congestion. Sections of road shown in dark red experience the worst congestion. Those in yellow show no or very little additional delay meaning the travel time during the morning peak is like that in the early hours of the morning. The calculated additional delay values can be viewed by clicking on a section of the road.

It can be seen that additional delay is greatest along the main roads of the A24 through Epsom, the A240 between Ewell and Worcester Park and B284 Chessington Road. Furthermore, delay is highest on the approaches to key junctions.

Epsom town centre and its approaches, and Ewell West outside its train station and in Ewell Village, also show as areas with high levels of vehicle delay. In these areas, key routes converge but also there is greater interaction with other modes of transport, as well as being destinations in their own right.

There are also pockets of high congestion on minor roads. Some of these surround schools and reflect the role of private cars in dropping children off at school. For example, the high delay shown on Chartwell Place next to St Christopher’s School. Increased congestion around schools has implications for road safety and public health (both in terms of air pollution and exercise).

What about the potential allocation sites?

It is not necessarily a problem if allocation sites are in places that experience the highest vehicular congestion. In fact, it is better for a site to be situated in a town centre for example, where congestion is often the highest compared to where there is no congestion in a rural location. In the rural location, amenities such as local shops, schools and frequent public transport services are often absent which can mean all new residents are reliant on the car. This in turns creates more car trips and exacerbates congestion in the town centres and other congested parts of the network, as well as all the other associated problems highlighted above which impact the health and well-being of people visiting and living in the Borough.

2. Allocation Site Assessment

Accessibility Review

Each residential site has had its accessibility assessed for residents travelling by foot, cycle or public transport to the following key amenities:

Primary Schools
Secondary schools
General Practitioners (GPs)
Pharmacies
Town and secondary centres
Railway station
Green spaces

The review aims to answer the following three questions:

Can key amenities be easily reached on foot, cycle and/or public transport?
Which amenities may be required at the allocation sites (or nearby) to ensure residents have appropriate access to key amenities on foot, and thus would make the sites suitable for allocation with regards to the County Council’s Local Transport Plan?
Will new or improved transport links, services or infrastructure be required so key amenities can more easily be reached by walk, cycle and/or public transport?

Assumptions

The accessibility assessment looks at the time it takes to travel from each site to each amenity using the existing transport infrastructure i.e., based on actual distance rather than as the crow flies. It has been calculated using the software TRACC developed by Basemap and Network Analyst by ESRI. The following parameters have been used in the calculations:

Walk speed of 4.8kph (800m = 10 minute walk)
Cycle speed of 16kph (2.67km = 10 minute cycle)
The speeds above are standardised and have not been adjusted to incorporate delays encountered to cross roads or at busy junctions, for example.
Public transport time includes the walk to bus stop or train station, a public transport travel time as timetabled, plus the walk from the alighting stop to the amenity. Wait time has not been included on the basis that real-time data is now available via mobile phones and as such, users can time their arrival at a bus stop or rail station based on this information to minimise wait time. Nevertheless, the availability of such data does vary by operator and service.

If a site is covered by more than one travel time band, then the travel time band which covers most of the site extent has been reported.

At this point in time, detail regarding site layout is unknown, and for fair evaluation all sites are assumed to have no on-site amenities. It is, however, recognised that some sites are likely to contain amenities, such as new schools and local shops.

For the same reason, this assessment reviews the connectivity of allocation sites with existing infrastructure only. The connectivity and infrastructure to promote sustainable travel within sites themselves is not considered as the detail is not known at this early planning stage. It is however assumed that potential sites will adopt the standards set out in the Healthy Streets for Surrey design code. Similarly, nor is transport-related mitigation on public highway considered, whether already identified or not. This will be evaluated once allocation sites have been confirmed. The information contained in this assessment, however, will help inform this process.

What is considered a good travel time which will minimise car use?

All the accessibility plots presented below have been coloured the same as follows:

Travel time coloured bands — Figure 2: Travel Time Coloured Bands

As set out by Sustrans , research shows that people are generally happy to walk for 20 minutes to travel to and from places they need to go, and 80% of journeys under a mile are walked. This 20-minute round trip journey time is thus considered to be the best way to ensure that it is it “easy for people to meet most of their everyday needs by a short, convenient and pleasant 20-minute walk” and is the ethos behind the 20-minute neighbourhood (Sustrans, 2020).

Therefore, those allocation sites which have less than a 10-minute one-way travel time by foot from the allocation site to the key amenity, situated in a colour band of green, are ideal and have the greatest chance of minimising car trips.

The yellow and orange bands denote a one-way travel time of between 10 and 20 minutes. Any allocation sites which fall in this category would thus be in a 40-minute neighbourhood for the amenity being assessed. Unfortunately, at this point reliance on the car becomes prevalent for most residents, and there is a need to either provide the amenity on site (or closer), and/or good infrastructure to promote use of active travel modes and/or public transport. This could be, for example, a new shared footpath which creates a more direct route, dedicated well-lit cycle paths, or even a new bus service if demand was sufficient.

When the travel time for a one-way trip is above 20 minutes, nearly all journeys for that amenity will be made by car. These areas are shaded red. If this is true for most amenities, and suitable mitigation cannot be sought to significantly reduce the travel times, ideally to those of a 20-minute neighbourhood (10-minute one-way travel time), then it is recommended that these sites are not progressed. This is because residents of the site would be dependent on the car for their everyday needs and therefore would not meet the objectives and policies set out in the Local Transport Plan , and go against the target of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2035 set out in Surrey's Climate Change Strategy .

Thus this '20-minute neighbourhood' concept has been used in this Transport Assessment to show which of the potential allocation sites will have the greatest potential to become 'liveable neighbourhoods'. A Liveable Neighbourhood supports living, working, commerce and culture within its area and encourages use of sustainable transport to move around it ( Davies, 2018 ) . Such sites therefore have the potential to generate the least car trips. Conversely, using this method, sites which would house residents who will be entirely reliant on the car without intervention can be identified. Using the '20-minute neighbourhood' concept in this way provides a tool to assist Epsom and Ewell Borough Council in understanding the relative accessibility of the potential allocation sites that have been promoted and provides a benchmark for determining the most accessible sites.

Although information about travel times by public transport and cycling have also been presented, the ideal situation is for allocation sites to be within 20-minute neighbourhoods by foot. This is because walking is free and accessible to the majority and will have the greatest potential to minimise car use.

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Potential Allocation Sites

The map to the right shows the potential allocation sites which have been reviewed for this Regulation 18 Transport Assessment. The one-hundred and ninety-one sites, provided by Epsom and Ewell Borough Council, are referenced using the first three letters of the ward they reside in followed by a unique number for the ward.

Primary Schools

The travel time isochrones by mode of travel can be displayed by selecting the relevant button below, and results tables follow which list the travel times for all the reviewed allocation sites. The results have been split into five tables due to the large number of sites analysed. This is the same layout for all the key amenities which follow.

Table 2: Travel Times to Primary Schools for **Sites COU037 to NON008**

Table 3: Travel Times to Primary Schools for Sites NON011 to TOW007

Table 4: Travel Times to Primary Schools for **Sites TOW008 to WOO021**

All allocation sites are situated within a 10-minute cycle of a primary school, and the majority are within a 20-minute walk (one-way). Those sites listed as having more than a 15-minute walk to travel to their nearest primary school should seek to shorten this time if they are taken forward. At a large site, for example, it may be an additional school is required to cater for the growth in school aged children but also to meet access needs.

For , , and , where travel time to the nearest school is more than a 20-minute walk, the allocation of the site is discouraged without effective mitigation to shorten these travel times.

Secondary Schools

Table 7: Travel Times to Secondary Schools for **Sites NON011 to TOW007**

Table 8: Travel Times to Secondary Schools for **Sites TOW008 to WOO021**

Ideally for transport purposes, nearly all secondary school-aged children would attend their nearest school. However, with faith and single sex schools this is not the case, and it makes appraising access and reducing secondary related car trips more difficult for the Borough. For example, the is located within a 10-minute walk to Glyn School. But this is an all-boys’ comprehensive school and if a young girl living at the site were to attend secondary school her journey would be over a 10-minutes walk away. For this reason, it is important to couple these results with that of cycle and public transport provision and ensuring that suitable routes and services are available to any allocation site, and for a variety of schools.

General Practitioners (GPs)

Table 9: Travel Times to GPs for **Sites AUR001 to COU036**

Table 10: Travel Times to GPs for **Sites COU037 to NON008**

Table 11: Travel Times to GPs for **Sites NON011 to TOW007**

Table 12: Travel Times to GPs for **Sites TOW008 to WOO021**

GP access in the west, east and south of the Borough is poor, and because of this 25% of sites have more than a 20-minute walk to reach a GP (more than a 40-minute round journey). As a result, it is recommended that GP provision in these areas is improved should any of the affected allocation sites be taken forward, particularly in the vicinity of the Hospital Cluster sites to the northwest of Epsom where a large number of existing residents would benefit from a local GP too.

Access by cycle and public transport is better, apart from 14 sites (7%) which have a journey time for travel by public transport in excess of 20-minutes one way and are mostly situated in the wards of Nonsuch and Ruxley.

Pharmacies

Table 15: Travel Times to Pharmacies for **Sites NON011 to TOW007**

Table 16: Travel Times to Pharmacies for **Sites TOW008 to WOO021**

19 sites (10%) have a walk time of more than 20-minutes to reach their nearest pharmacy. These sites are located in the wards of College, Nonsuch, Stamford, and Woodcote. In particular, site is the worst performing, with a walk time of more than 30-minutes.

Additional pharmacy provision is recommended for these sites if they are progressed, although it is acknowledged that uptake of free delivery services for pharmaceutical needs is increasing.

Access by cycle and public transport is much better to all sites, with all being within a 20-minute journey one-way.

Town and Secondary Centres

Table 19: Travel Times to Town and Secondary Centres for **Sites NON011 to TOW007**

Table 20: Travel Times to Town and Secondary Centres for **Sites TOW008 to WOO021**

More than two thirds of the sites (72%) are situated within a 20-minute walk to their nearest town or secondary centre. Those sites which have more than a 20-minute walk (40-minute round trip) are most in need of a review of their transport links to see if there is potential to shorten the travel time and/or improve the quality of the journey. Where times cannot be shortened, ideally to a less than 10-minute walk, access to tertiary centres should be reviewed both in terms of distance and services they contain to determine whether an additional centre is required at or close to the allocation site.

Cycle times to town and secondary centres are within a 10-minute one-way journey from all allocation sites, apart from . To encourage this potential high cycle usage for access to town and secondary centres, a detailed review of the routes taken is required from any allocation site to make sure they are suitable for cycle use, safe, and that destinations have sufficient secure parking. Any measures identified to encourage cycle use should be addressed as part of the site’s mitigation.

The only public transport travel times greater than 20-minutes to town and secondary centres is from the following 6 sites located within the wards of Nonsuch and Ruxley.

Rail Stations

Accessibility to rail stations in the weekday morning commute:

Table 22: Travel Times to Rail Stations for **Sites COU037 to NON008**

Table 23: Travel Times to Rail Stations for **Sites NON011 to TOW007**

Table 24: Travel Times to Rail Stations for **Sites TOW008 to WOO021**

Results for travel to rail stations are similar to town and secondary centres.

Nearly all potential allocation sites are situated within a 10-minute cycle of a rail station. At a glance this is good in terms of connecting with local towns and London for employment and leisure needs. It also shows the importance of ensuring routes to rail stations are of good standard to encourage cycle use, as well as sufficient provision of secure cycle parking.

The worst performing sites, where travel to their nearest railway station is more than a 30-minute walk, are as follows:

Assuming people return home, this would be more than an hour’s round-trip excluding the rail travel time. This makes these sites heavily dependent on the car, and it could be argued the site more so given the topography reaching the rail station and bus frequency is less than one service per hour with a travel time of more than 20-minutes. For these reasons, as well as ensuring cycling is a viable option to residents through route design and good cycle parking facilities, serious consideration of improved public transport services to these sites is required if they are to be allocated, particularly for . Measures to both increase frequency and shorten bus travel times should be considered to make bus travel more attractive. Investment required will be substantial and it will also need to prove that any service improvements are viable and profitable to ensure they operate into the future.

Green Spaces

Table 27: Travel Times to Green Spaces for **Sites NON011 to TOW007**

Table 28: Travel Times to Green Spaces for **Sites TOW008 to WOO021**

Epsom and Ewell benefits from being surrounded by large green spaces, such as Epsom Common, Epsom Downs, Horton Country Park, Nonsuch Park and Hogsmill Riverside Open Space. It also benefits from some smaller urban parks and playgrounds spread throughout the Borough. It is thus no surprise that most of the potential allocation sites can reach green space within a 10-minute walk, cycle or by public transport.

The sites which performed the least well with a walk time of more than 20-minutes to reach green space are:

These sites are all within the ward of Nonsuch. Additional provision for green space is recommended for these sites, although it is recognised that it can be accessed by a 10-minute cycle.

Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA)

The accessibility plots and tables above present the estimated travel times by foot, cycle, and public transport to key amenities for all of the potential allocation sites.

To help inform which of the potential residential allocation sites are most likely to minimise car trips, and which of those are least likely without mitigation, a multi-criteria analysis has been performed on the walk travel times. This is based on walk times only as walking is free and accessible to the majority. Also, the infrastructure is more likely to be present, of a suitable standard and considered safe for use by pedestrians, compared with public transport which cannot guarantee the services, frequency and/or capacity will exist in the future, or cycling where there is uncertainty about the quality and safety (including perceived safety) of routes between allocation sites and the amenities. Furthermore, the details of any required mitigation and the feasibility of delivering it are unknown at this initial high-level stage.

Scoring

In order to draw out how the sites perform across all of the assessed amenities, the travel time values have be scored as follows:

0 to 10 minutes walk (20-minute neighbourhood) = 3
10 to 20 minutes walk (40-minute neighbourhood) = 2
20 to 30 minutes walk = 1
>30 minutes walk = 0

Good access, however, is more important to some amenities than others for minimising car travel. For example, having a short walk time to travel to town and secondary centres is more influential in reducing car trips than to access GP surgeries. The town and secondary centres contain a variety of services, and most residents will visit these more frequently than their GP. Furthermore, having a short walk to primary schools will reduce car trips more than to secondary schools, because most primary aged children are escorted to school.

As a result, weightings have been developed for each amenity. The amenity weightings are:

Primary schools = 1.5
Secondary schools = 1.0
GPs = 1.0
Pharmacies = 1.0
Town and secondary centres = 1.5
Rail stations = 1.0
Green spaces = 1.5

This gives a combined scoring table shown below.

Table of scores for Multi-Criteria Analysis — Table 29: Scoring for MCA

The Results

A quantitative value for each site and amenity has been totalled to provide a ranking order of performance, using the scores above. The overall results in rank order are shown in the five tables below. The first table shows those ranked from 1 to 33, the second table is for those ranked 51 to 87, the third table is for those ranked 98 to 141, and lastly the fourth table is for those ranked 146 onwards.

The sites ranked 1^st have the highest total score and thus the greatest potential of minimising car travel with residents most likely to walk to access amenities for their daily needs. The sites ranked last have the lowest total score and thus the least opportunity to minimise car travel without substantial intervention and investment.

Table 30: Multi-Criteria Analysis Results in Rank Order including **Ranks 1 to 33**

Table 31: Multi-Criteria Analysis Results in Rank Order including **Ranks 51 to 87**

Table 32: Multi-Criteria Analysis Results in Rank Order including **Ranks 98 to 141**

Table 33: Multi-Criteria Analysis Results in Rank Order including **Ranks 146 to 191**

The only sites which are within a 10-minute walk of all the assessed amenities are TOW008 Land R/O The Albion Public House, TOW034 Garages east of 19 Rosebank, and TOW038 Manor House Court garages. They all score the highest with a total of 25.5. Several other sites closely follow, ranked fourth with a score of 24.5. They are all located in the vicinity of Epsom town centre and Ewell Village, and apart from site EWE005 Homebase, they only fall short of a 20-minute neighbourhood classification for access to secondary schools. However, these sites are located less than a 10-minute cycle away from their nearest secondary school and thus it is recommended that the routes to the secondary schools are evaluated in detail to ensure they are fit for cycling purpose and improvements are made where needed, if these sites are developed.

As an overview, it is considered that any of the sites marked within a 40-minute neighbourhood have the potential to minimise car trips if accompanied by effective mitigation to bring amenities to within as close to a 20-minute neighbourhood as possible. Similarly, for sites falling short by just one amenity, it is likely that providing facilities close by (where possible) or improving transport links will deem the site suitable for allocation. It is recognised the provision of secondary schools in suitable locations is particularly problematic, however many current secondary school trips are made by public transport and as such the focus could be more on improving that coupled with cycle routes, if walking is not realistic.

Conversely, at of the bottom of the ranked list are sites which have poor access to the majority of the assessed amenities. Without substantial intervention and investment by providing amenities on-site or nearby, coupled with transport infrastructure and service improvements, it is not recommended that these are taken forward. It is almost certain that residents of these sites will be entirely reliant on their cars to meet daily needs, at a detriment to the health and well-being of visitors and residents of the Borough.

Caveats

A poor performing site should not be progressed without adequate mitigation to ensure residents do not have to rely on the car to access key amenities. Similarly, those sites which performed well in this assessment should not assume that no or few improvements are required to ensure the potential for high levels of sustainable trips are achieved. There could be barriers that need to be addressed, such as having to cross a high trafficked road or a poorly lit, narrow, and uneven path, which could prevent people walking. Walk and cycle routes need to be suitable and well-designed, and tools such as PERS and Pedestrian Comfort Guidance can assist with this. The exact need and detail of such improvements will be required at the later planning stages, including at the next stage of Local Plan preparation where Epsom and Ewell Borough Council will be making decisions around which sites to select for allocation.

Furthermore, the provision for amenities is not just governed by transport access. For example, a school may be required at an allocation site due to the rise in school age children and surrounding schools being full.

Conclusion

The aim of Surrey County Council's Local Transport Plan is to significantly reduce carbon emissions from transport to meet its commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. It's policies 'Planning for Place' and 'Active Travel and Personal Mobility', are particularly relevant for the development of Local Plans. They provide a great opportunity to avoid and reduce the number and length of trips needed through improved land use and travel planning, and shift travel to more sustainable modes and away from car use.

The first part of this Regulation 18 Transport Assessment provided an overview of transport for the Borough of Epsom and Ewell. This included infrastructure and mobility, pedestrian and cyclist road safety, air pollution and vehicular congestion. The review highlights strategic issues but also the importance of minimising car trips from potential allocation sites to gain the interlinked benefits of health, wellbeing, safety, and the environment. Furthermore, for those sites which end up being taken forward and allocated, this presentation and discussion of the strategic issues provides an initial basis to develop suitable mitigation.

The second part of the assessment reviewed the accessibility by foot, cycle, and public transport for all the potential allocation sites to the key amenity sites of primary schools, secondary schools, GPs, pharmacies, town and secondary centres, and green spaces. Using the ethos of a 20-minute neighbourhood, a multi-criteria analysis was performed for access to the key amenities by foot. The travel time for each residential site was scored and weighted by its influence to reduce travel by car. This gave a total score for each site which was ranked from most likely to minimise car trips, to least likely, and enabled the best performing sites with regards to meeting the objectives and policies of the Local Transport Plan to clearly be depicted. The review assumes that sites do not contain key amenities or mitigation at this stage. Thus the review also highlights what needs to be done to improve a site should it be allocated. This could be improved transport infrastructure and/or ensuring the site contains or has the necessary amenities nearby and is required to ensure the allocation site minimises car travel and offers a good place to live.

A full table of the multi-criteria results has been provided in the previous section. In summary, sites with the lowest scores at the bottom of the table performed extremely poorly and residents would be reliant on the car for their daily needs. If suitable mitigation cannot be provided to successfully remove the barriers to travel by foot, then if transport is considered in isolation these sites should not be progressed and will be at risk of not being supported by Surrey County Council as the highway authority.

There are however a large number of well-performing sites, starting from the top of the table, that appear suitable for allocation on accessibility grounds alone at this early stage of Plan preparation. These allocation sites show good potential for providing a neighbourhood which minimises the need to travel by car, offering an opportunity for residents to enjoy the health and well-being benefits that this will bring, as well as lessening the sites' impact to all visitors and residents of the Borough.