Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I welcome James and Anthony from the Department for Infrastructure. I seek the Committee's agreement that the —

The Committee Clerk: We do not have a decision-making quorum, but we can take evidence.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): How many members do we need to take evidence?

The Committee Clerk: Four.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): No one else is allowed to leave the room, FYI. We are at our de minimis level here. When Sinéad comes back, we will retrospectively seek agreement that the evidence session is recorded by Hansard. We will hand over to James and Anthony to give us a presentation, and then you may expect some questions. It is over to you.

Mr James Redmond (Department for Infrastructure): Good morning, Chair and members. Thank you for the opportunity to brief the Committee today on the eastern transport plan (ETP). I am the director of transport planning, modelling and data. I am joined today by Tony Rafferty, principal transport planner and project manager for the ETP.

The eastern transport plan is a key element in shaping how our transport system will support economic growth, improve connectivity and contribute to wider environmental and social outcomes across the region. Just two weeks ago, we met the Committee to outline the transport strategy and its engagement. Today, we are here to brief you on the first transport plan — the eastern transport plan — which sets out that strategic direction and how it can be delivered in a local context.

The draft ETP has been prepared for an upcoming public consultation in which we hope to stimulate discussion and debate on the proposals presented. The documents provided to members include the background chapter, which has been through our graphics team, while the presentation of the companion documents is still being finalised ahead of the consultation. However, I reassure members that the detail and substance are all consistent across them.

In late 2023, we engaged with the public on the vision and objectives of the plan and received broad support. Across the full eastern transport plan engagement exercise, more than 500 responses were received, and the detailed engagement report is available on the Department's website for reference.

Building on that, we have worked closely with local councils, statutory bodies and other key stakeholders to develop a suite of proposals for the metropolitan area, including Belfast city centre. That has involved extensive stakeholder engagement with organisations, including local councils, Translink, the Inclusive Mobility and Transport Advisory Committee (IMTAC), cross-departmental colleagues, Belfast Chamber, the British-Irish Council, the National Transport Authority in the Republic of Ireland and Dublin City Council.

Engagement has taken place through a mix of face-to-face and online presentations, workshops and even the now well-known Tony's walking tours, to ground proposals in real-world experience and has proved very beneficial.

Members will have received copies of the draft eastern transport plan metropolitan area and the Belfast city centre plans. Today's session provides an opportunity to highlight the key elements and respond to any initial queries that you may have. With your agreement, Chair, I will now hand over to Tony, who will provide a short presentation. He will set out some of the background and context to the plan, outline the main proposals and explain how we intend to take it forward.

Mr Anthony Rafferty (Department for Infrastructure): Thank you, James. To begin with, I will outline how the transport plans provide a link between the transport strategy and individual projects and schemes. The transport strategy details the transport policy to 2035. It stands as a daughter document to the regional development strategy. The ETP adds geographical detail for the transport infrastructure elements of the strategy. Other policies, such as decarbonisation, public transport, community transport and so on, are managed separately through different means. Once a final transport plan is published, it will outline a series of schemes and projects to be taken forward by delivery teams. Those projects and schemes will be subject to funding and statutory processes.

The Department is preparing a suite of eight transport plans in total. There are seven local transport plans focusing on shorter local journeys. Each plan will follow the same methodology so that we can build up a complete plan for Northern Ireland. The strategic planning policy statement requires transport planning to be integrated with land-use planning, so the local transport plans will support the local development plans (LDPs) of each council.

The eastern transport plan is the local transport plan for five council areas: Antrim and Newtownabbey; Ards and North Down; Belfast; Lisburn and Castlereagh; and Mid and East Antrim. The eighth transport plan is the regional strategic transport plan. It focuses on the longer, interurban bus journeys, the entire railway network and the interurban road journeys. It also considers access to ports, airports and border crossings.

Given the advanced stages of the Belfast City Council local development plan, the first iteration of the ETP covers all of the Belfast City Council area. However, it is important to plan the entire Translink Metro network as a single entity. The first iteration of the plan has been expanded to cover metropolitan areas, including Newtownabbey, Castlereagh and Dundonald. The proposals for the remaining areas will be considered when the LDP zoning information becomes available from the other councils.

Hopefully, that has provided a bit of background to the plan. Three sections of the plan were shared with members last week. I invite questions on those.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): That is great; thank you, Anthony. I will start off with the final part of your contribution. You said that the ETP was going to be rolled out more widely. You shared a graphic that showed a blue line, which seemed to circle Belfast and some other areas. You said that it would be expanded once the LDPs were available from other councils. How close are those councils to getting those LDPs to you? What impact will they have?

Mr Rafferty: It varies. All of the councils are at different stages. Three or four of them have published their planned strategies, whereas Ards and North Down has just finished the consultation on its planned strategy and is a little further behind. Mid and East Antrim, for instance, has just completed a call for sites and is gathering up that information. I cannot comment on the councils' timelines, per se, but we are expecting that information for some of the councils relatively soon. We hope to be in a position to complete the remaining council areas over the next year or two.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Is it fair to say, Anthony, that the LDPs are important to completing what you are scoping out here?

Mr Rafferty: Very much so. We are looking at a 2035 time horizon. What we do not want to do is plan for today's network and miss opportunities or be unable to provide for the network to cope with the development that is needed over the next nine or 10 years.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): It is clear from the plan that there is an emphasis on reducing environmental impacts — something that everyone will want to see, obviously — by more sustainable travel options and a general reduction in private car use. We can see the benefit in that. You will probably be aware of evidence that the Committee received over the past couple of weeks. We had the major public transport body, Translink, stating that it was going to be reducing routes. You will possibly see a dichotomy there. I will tease out another point before asking you to comment on that. If you want to do this, the public infrastructure has to be there to facilitate it. In successful European cities and, for that matter, London, which has a substantial subway network, people do not have cars because they do not need them — they can simply jump on the subway. We do not have that. If you want to try to reduce environmental impacts, as part of this plan, surely the public transport options have to get better to encourage people to use them. In the context of the information that we have received in the last few weeks, which is that Translink is starting to pull routes, what are your comments?

Mr Rafferty: By providing the infrastructure that we are proposing within the plan, we can shorten journey times. That comes with operational savings for Translink. Those operational savings can be reinvested into higher frequency of services, for example, within the existing budget. We need to plan for the future. The city is going to grow, and we need to plan for that growth. I do not think that the budget situation today should stop us planning for growth in the future.

Mr Redmond: The last transport plan for the Belfast metropolitan area took us to 2015, so there has been a 10-year vacuum. Tony made the point about planning for the future and the ambitions of the council as well as where we want to be on a Northern Ireland basis, which is also important. A 10-year vacuum is a long time for a transport plan, and the draft transport plan today is very different in terms of getting back to the strategy and the direction of travel in which we need to go. We need a plan that shows what that looks like, and that is what the ETP version is trying to do. Even though there is uncertainty about the budget, that should not distract us from planning for the future.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I agree. Which plan have we not had since 2015, James?

Mr Redmond: The Belfast metropolitan transport plan.

Mr Rafferty: I think that it was published around 2002 and had a 2015 time horizon.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Is there a reason why that was never updated until now?

Mr Rafferty: After the plan was published, the transport planning team in the Department was wound down over subsequent years. It was only since about 2015-16 that the Department started to step it up to meet its requirement of integrating land use and transport planning through the strategic planning policy statement requirement.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): What scoping has been carried out on the cost estimate for this? Where is the Department with that?

Mr Rafferty: We have been working on indicative costs for the proposals, but until we go to public consultation, take public views on board and produce a final plan, we cannot finalise those costs.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I am guessing that you are going to public consultation on a range of options.

Mr Rafferty: We are going to public consultation to get views on the proposals in the documents provided.

Mr McHugh: Tá fáilte romhaibh.

I am sure that the previous plan of 10 years ago would have had objectives. To what extent were those objectives achieved?

Mr Rafferty: That plan was possibly the first attempt to deliver on the newer policy where we were moving away from a car-dominated plan. For the first time, it included such things as bus quality corridors, and of those corridors the one that we have provided is Belfast Rapid Transit phase 1 on the east-west corridor. There are definitely elements of the plan that were never completed.

Mr McHugh: Again, I ask the question: to what extent did you achieve the objectives that were outlined at that time? Was there, say, a modal shift for people travelling by rail, bus, car or just walking?

Mr Redmond: The Belfast metropolitan transport plan tried to point at things such as the Glider and Belfast on the Move projects in the city centre. That started the transformation to sustainable modes of travel in the city centre. Before that it was more car-dominant, and there was less bus priority in the city centre. That transformation can be seen with what the Glider has done to provide east-to-west connectivity between the main attractions and hospitals, as well as the city centre, reshaping bus priority in the city centre to move people. With this plan, we want to build on those successes and extend public transport with the north/south version of the Glider while recognising the ambitions of Belfast City Council for growth of the harbour and its aspirations for city centre living and the local development plan.

The city centre's resilience needs to be improved and that cannot be done by building more roads. We are not going to start knocking down buildings to create capacity for the road network. We want to see how the existing road network can be used better, and we do that by shifting the movement of people with additional measures for the Glider, more public transport, active travel policies and the Belfast cycling network delivery plan and ensuring that they holistically sit together within a wider Belfast plan. It is about focusing on a people-centred approach: moving people rather than cars in the city centre.

Mr McHugh: I am sure that it is easier to assess urban areas such as Belfast, whereas the eastern transport plan might not be as easily assessed in relation to what is happening outside of the city. I am sure also that you require a lot of support and assistance from local councils and so on. There are plans within plans. To what extent have those been costed?

Mr Rafferty: The plans within the plans?

Mr McHugh: I assume that each council area has its own local development plan and would embrace the concept that you have talked about.

Mr Rafferty: They do, and that is a two-stage process. They set out their policies in their plan strategies. They are now moving on and adding geographical elements to that. That is similar to our approach to the transport strategy and the transport plan. From the councils' point of view, it is more that they are facilitating development rather than paying for it. I am not sure how they have costed that.

Mr McHugh: I get a wee bit concerned sometimes, when I hear presentations of this nature, that all of this is aspirational. To what extent will it be realised in, say, 10 years' time or whenever?

Mr Redmond: Yes, it is an ambitious plan, but it is also a credible plan. The development of the plan was underpinned by data modelling to understand what that future would look like. It is not just a wish list. The data and the evidence that we use is a common thread through all of the transport plans that we are developing. You have probably heard us talking about vision and validation — what do we want our towns and cities to look like? Currently, they are car-dominant and congested. We need to flip that around and be people-centred; that is about places where people want to move to and live in.

How do we achieve that transformation? It will not be done overnight. The measures that we have brought forward are in the draft plan and are packaged in stages, which will build incrementally. We already have commitments from the Minister in relation to the north-to-south element of the Belfast Rapid Transit (BRT) plan. Ten per cent of the transport budget goes to the cycle network, and schemes are in motion to determine what that will look like. The plan is designed to bring all those together in the streetscape and across the network, creating a cohesive rather than a fragmented network.

Over the past 10 years or so, people have been doing a lot of different things, but those have not been joined up. The plan brings all those together; it is a multi-modal plan. It is not necessarily saying that the car is dead and we are not having the car. It is about how we move people using active travel and public transport, incorporating vehicles as well but in a way that they are less dominant in the network over other modes.

Mr McHugh: I wish you a fair wind in achieving the objectives that you have laid out for yourselves. Go raibh míle maith agat.

Ms Ennis: I am not going to go over the questions that you have asked, Chair. However, I will reiterate a point that was well made. The mark of any modern city in Europe or throughout the world is how well its public transport network operates, including options for active travel such as walking or cycling. This is good and is welcome, and it will go a long way towards taking cars out of our city centres and encouraging people to use public transport.

It is right that those issues are linked to local development plans. As I said, Chair, I am not going to cover the questions that you asked. However, I noted a reference to monitoring, which is very welcome. Not all councils are at the same stage of their local development plans, and I know that you need to move forward with this, so things are a bit unwieldy. Are you able to go into more detail as to how that monitoring could work in real time, as the development plans start to come to fruition? If things are not working in a particular area, and you need to change to a different mode, is there any flexibility in the plan to change things in real time?

Mr Rafferty: Yes, we have tried to step up our data in the Department. We have established a data-modelling branch. We have, for instance, set up sensors around the edge of the city centre that can record the number of people who walk, cycle or use cars or buses as they are crossing into the city centre. Previously, we carried out a Belfast cordon survey every five years or so to identify movements into the city centre during a one-hour peak. We now have the ability to get that data 24/7, 365 days a year. That is a much richer dataset and means that, as schemes come forward, we will be able to assess their impact. Although it is a 10-year plan, if we are not achieving the goals that we want to achieve, we will have the ability, through that scheme design and implementation, to tweak or change. We also intend to put review periods into the plan so that we can identify how well we are performing and whether or not we need to change tack part way through the period, rather than having to wait for 10 years to do that.

Ms Ennis: Yes, that makes sense. Thank you.

Mr Redmond: On the matter of how the transport plan is being built, you will see reference in the plan to the place and movement framework (PMF). That framework essentially recognises that not every link or road will look the same with regard to constraints and width and things like that. The methodology is that a level of flexibility is built into that sort of place and movement framework. There is a set of guard rails in there for what that place and movement framework will look like for individual links, but there is also a set of tools for tweaking and changing the design to help to achieve what we need to achieve and the vision of the plan for that particular link, route or area of the network.

Ms Ennis: No, that makes sense. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I get the concept of there being no costings, but I will pick up on a theme that Maolíosa started. Has any consideration been given to where the funding for the plan will come from in general terms?

Mr Rafferty: Yes. We have established a delivery team. Once we have a final published plan, part of the delivery team's functions will be to try to secure funding. We previously made bids to the investment strategy for Northern Ireland (ISNI) just to put on the radar the fact that these transport plans are coming forward and that funding will be required for them.

In the shorter term, as James has mentioned, we already have some committed schemes such as BRT phase 2 and the Belfast cycle network. Early work on the ETP, over maybe the first year or two following its publication, will focus on how we embed more ETP measures into schemes that already exist and are on the ground. That comes with a couple of advantages: we might be able to do quite a lot with a smaller initial budget, but it would also save multiple disruptions to particular areas of the city centre if we can deliver in a single phase.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): BRT2 is the north to south Belfast Glider, is that right?

Mr Rafferty: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): OK. I mean, I get why we need a plan. It is important, because we need to take Belfast forward, and we definitely do not want to be left with a large gap, with no planning having been done, such that, if capital were to be realised, we would not be able to deliver on anything because we did not have a plan. I sort of get that. This has been well rehearsed at the Committee, and I do not want to be unfair, but is a lot of the north-south Glider project — BRT2 — behind where you would have wanted it to be by this stage?

Mr Rafferty: We are not part of that delivery team. It might be more appropriate for someone from the delivery team to comment on that. My understanding is that it is on track with the current programme.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): OK.

Mr Redmond: I will add to that point — not necessarily on the north-south Glider but on the funding element. The purpose of the plan is not to give us an understanding of what Belfast should look like, but when the new developments come forward, with developer contributions and things like that, the Department will not be funding all of the interventions. You will see the common theme that runs through the strategy and the plan. There is a public-private partnership in relation to the private development. From the extensive engagement that we have had to date, we know that stakeholders are on board with this plan and vision. This is what they want. Belfast Chamber, Belfast City Council and a lot of stakeholders have an interest in what Belfast city centre looks like and how we can make it better. Yes, the Department will have funding opportunities, but as the private developments come forward, they will help support, fund and provide an input into the vision for the city centre. One of the issues to date has been that when we operate without a plan, we get fragmented development where we get a bit over here, nothing there and another bit here — nothing is connected.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I get that, James; it is not a criticism of the plan. It is important to have a plan — I get that. The defence line on BRT2 is, "Phase 1 is happening", but my understanding on BRT2 is that we do not yet have the full north Belfast corridor or the full south Belfast corridor, the Glengormley extension or the Carryduff extension. All of those things that you mention are important — I get that. I will give you one more example: the York Street interchange, which was specified in the confidence-and-supply agreement. Some £27 million has been spent. The programme has rolled for eight years and all that has happened is that we seem to have spent money on it and have not been able to deliver. Even if we wanted to deliver the project now, it would take five or six years to deliver it, for a host of reasons.

I do not want you going away thinking that we have given you a hard time or that we do not like your plan. That is not the case. The plan is important. It is the Committee's job to ask difficult questions. This follows on from what Maolíosa said: there is an aspirational aspect to some of the plans that we see. That is fine — I like that. It is good that we have plans in place, but funding is tight. When we look at other projects that the Department has been asked to deliver, or for which it has the vires to deliver, we see that there are big problems. When you speak to people about BRT2, they say, "Why are we behind?". I do not ask a question that I do not know the answer to. It is behind, and people are frustrated about that. The York Street interchange is another example. There is a host of reasons for the situation, many of which are not the fault of the Department for Infrastructure. That does not matter. It is about what we can deliver for everybody in Northern Ireland or, in the case of the eastern transport plan, Belfast.

We are voicing the frustrations. There will be people looking in and, perhaps, saying, "We have this amazing plan that is going to do x, y and z and could cut routes" — I do not doubt any of that — but there will be others saying, "Here's something else. Why haven't they done this?", or "Why haven't they finished this?" or "Why haven't they started this?". I will not ask you to comment on that, unless you wish to. We are voicing some level of public frustration.

Mr Rafferty: All that we can say is that it will be good to have a plan in place —

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I agree.

Mr Rafferty: — so that we can point to our top priorities and focus our expense on that.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Nobody doubts that. I agree completely; it is important. It is about how that becomes operational, the timescales involved and things that impact all of the issues that are outside your role in DFI.

There are no other indications from members. Thank you for your time, gentlemen, and for sharing your evidence.