Comment

Representation ID: 45893

Received: 11/10/2021

Respondent: Transport for West Midlands

When looking at trips at peak times, only 15% of all travel is to or from the key strategic centres of the Black Country, with 85% of people travelling elsewhere across the region. So while we want to maintain the role of such centres, especially for shopping and leisure trips we also see the relevance of smaller, neighbourhood centres and how improvements to these, and the development of ‘15 minute neighbourhoods,’ may help encourage more active travel and more localised access to key services. Tier 2 and 3 centres especially may lend themselves well to being ‘15 minute neighbourhoods’, especially where new development is taking place and this should be explored as a potential policy in the Black Country Plan.

Around 80% of travel to key centres is also for retail and leisure purposes, and we feel the economic benefits of footfall generated by public transport and active travel modes is often underestimated in such centres and needs to be more strongly emphasised in the policies.