Our Charter

For those who can afford them, cars have become the natural first choice for every journey in Northampton, even short journeys that most people could easily walk or cycle if it felt safe to do so.

This has resulted in a congested and polluted town, with rising CO2 emissions and high levels of pollution, of particular concern near the hospital and schools.  Northamptonians are more likely than others to have cardio-vascular disease; obesity and ill-health are on the rise; and the town is increasingly congested and unpleasant to live in.

Neighbouring urban areas like Leicester, Coventry, Birmingham, Nottingham and Oxford are taking steps to becoming much more friendly for walking and cycling, while West Northants continues to build new roads and to create new housing developments that are totally car-dependent.

We urgently need to start fixing this, not just for the people who live here (30% of whom do not own a car), but also for the young people we need to attract to our community to help grow our economy.

The government states that to meet our emissions targets we need to reduce surface transport emissions by a massive 58% by 2035 (page 110).  This is especially important for Northampton, bearing in mind that West Northamptonshire is the 2nd worst authority in the country for carbon emissions.

The government’s Decarbonising Transport states (page 29) “We cannot simply believe that zero emission cars and lorries will meet all our climate goals or solve all our problems. They will not… we must increase the share of trips taken by public transport, cycling and walking. We want to make these modes the natural first choice for all who can take them.”

We need to get started in Northampton to make this happen – the council’s own 2021 survey showed overwhelming support for this approach so the council should not be timid when vocal minorities object.

Reducing traffic also frees up space on our roads for those who have to drive.  People walking, cycling, or using public transport use a tiny fraction of the space required by the same number of people in cars.

Pavements

We need to:

  1. Start a prioritised program of pavement resurfacing to make them safe and convenient for wheelchair users, mobility scooters and pedestrians.
  2. Improve street lighting on key routes to enable everyone to use pavements safely after dark.
  3. For all existing shared-use pavements, change the priority so that cars give way at junctions, instead of the path users (in line with government guidelines LTN1/20)
  4. On footways and cycleways, remove all barriers that do not comply with accessibility legislation, so that people using wheelchairs, mobility scooters, or adapted bike/trikes have equal rights to use the routes, and to ensure that parents can transport children to school on cargo bikes, or in bike trailers.

Junctions and crossings

We need to:

  1. Start a prioritised program of pedestrian improvements to every road junction, so that the junction is at least as easy to cross on foot as it is by car.  For example, if a car can go through the junction after stopping just once, then someone walking should be able to do this too.
  2. Start a prioritised program to make all our junctions safe enough for a 10-year-old to use on foot or by bike.
  3. Establish a prioritised program to make junctions on side streets narrower to ensure a safer crossing.  
  4. Adjust signalised crossings to give more priority to pedestrians.
  5. Establish a prioritised program to install raised areas at all crossings and junctions, so that cars change levels, not pedestrians – this makes crossings much more usable for people using wheelchairs or pushing buggies.
  6. Repair and update signage.

See TfL programme: “safer, greener and more attractive streets and town centres, and safer conditions for cyclists and pedestrians – part of the Mayor of London’s commitment to the Healthy Streets Approach.”

Schools

The school run is often the worst rush hour of the day, creating more traffic than commuters.  Air pollution from traffic around schools is highly damaging to children’s lungs, and many UK authorities have taken decisive action to reduce the number of children being driven to school, ensuring that children learn good habits for life that reduce obesity and ill-health.  

We need to:

  1. Start a prioritised program of school streets, where the street is closed to motor traffic at pick-up and drop-off times, controlled with cameras (as implemented by many other authorities).  
  2. Engage with parents and headteachers to discover the infrastructure changes that are needed for more children to be able to safely walk, wheel or cycle to each school, and get these changes made.

Roads

We need to:

  1. In line with UN and WHO recommendations, implement 20mph limits on all residential streets. In addition to making streets safer, this has been proven to encourage more people to walk and cycle.
  2. Create more bus lanes and bus priority routes.
  3. Allow 2-way cycling on all one-way streets, unless there are very exceptional circumstances.
  4. Plan and implement an accelerated program of building safe cycle routes to schools, to Northampton Town Centre, and to the train station.
  5. On busy roads, keep bikes segregated from both pedestrian and motor traffic, so that a 10-year-old can safely cycle to school, and pavements become free of bikes and scooters.

Parking

We need to:

  1. Start a prioritised program to install bollards where necessary to prevent cars parking on the pavement.
  2. Add cycle parking at all locations where there are clusters of two or more shops.
  3. Disallow parking within 10 metres of all junctions.

Management

  • We need to appoint an active travel commissioner for Northampton who has the authority to oversee all pavements and cycle routes.  This would include a complete overhaul of the maintenance system (for overgrowth, sweeping, etc) that is currently not fit for purpose.