SUSTAINABILITY AND TRANSPORT APPRAISAL: THE CASE OF THE "ACCESS TO HASTINGS" MULTI-MODAL STUDY

Abstract

Despite recent reforms intended to restore confidence in them, appraisal practices used to develop and assess the desirability of interventions in the UK transport sector remain contested, constituting arenas where competing problem definitions are likely to come into conflict. Through a detailed case study of the first of a new generation of "multi-modal transport studies", this paper explores the politics of the "new approach to appraisal" and subsequent decision-making, examining a number of factors that contributed to the failure in this case, and more widely, to reach consensual decisions. Ambiguities in guidance documents and government policy, and mismatches in the timescales of important policy and plan development processes, combined with inherent uncertainties, are shown to have contributed to a climate in which conflicting local discourses could not be reconciled. Finally, the ultimate outcome of the Hastings study — rejection by central government of a series of bypass proposals — is discussed in terms of its implications for current debates over sustainability appraisal.