Positive community engagement

Wide-reaching community engagement is important in making new sustainable travel measures a success. An important lesson from Leicester’s work has been to use pop-up travel measures such as cycle lanes to win over the public, who can then experience first-hand the benefits change can bring.

The authority has also worked with external organisations to create a broader cycling culture across the local area. It’s joined forces with partners such as Sustrans, British Cycling and Living Streets to deliver important engagement initiatives. These include the £300 bike challenge, a fund for city-based groups to promote a cycling culture more widely.

Open Streets is a monthly event bringing communities together for walks, guided tours, bike try-outs, art and entertainment around the city’s streets. Open Streets has helped to connect local residents and improve cycling safety, alongside the annual Walk Leicester and Ride Leicester festivals.

Political leadership

Strong political leadership was essential to Leicester’s approach, ensuring that there was a commitment to the significant planning and engagement that was needed.

Political leaders and officers throughout the council must really buy into the project and back its implementation, to enable the significant benefits to be realised. Leicester has benefited from the resolutely pro-bus stance of several key councillors.

Councillor Adam Clarke, Deputy City Mayor

Workplace parking levy: controversial in a cost-of-living crisis

In 2019 Leicester’s Labour council made a commitment to consult on a workplace parking levy, a fundraising mechanism that investigated the potential to charge employers with more than 10 parking spaces, with the money ringfenced for public transport improvements. A workplace parking levy can boost business by easing congestion, improve air quality and improve transport for residents who don’t have cars, as has been demonstrated in Nottingham. However, in November 2022 Leicester decided not to go ahead with the levy due to the current national cost-of-living crisis.

The Campaign Against Leicester’s Workplace Parking Levy brought together unions, some community groups and residents in a visible, well-organised campaign, which included film screenings, door-knocking, local radio appearances and mass leafleting at sites like the King Power football stadium and Leicester Royal Infirmary. Although campaigners agreed with the need to take climate action, they opposed the possibility of workers being charged an extra £550 annually during a cost-of-living crisis without an immediate improvement in the usability of local buses as an alternative travel option.

Climate Action Leicester and Leicestershire, a group which campaigned in support of the levy, also echoed the need to put social justice at the forefront of fighting the climate crisis. Workplace parking levies can be a tool to address inequality, especially for those who can’t afford a car like a third of households in Leicester, and for those suffering from poor health due to poor air quality. Leicester has statutory obligations to reduce air pollution and, while the city became fully compliant with EU air quality standards in 2020, partially due to the COVID-19 lockdowns, a parking levy would have helped to maintain this. Although Leicester decided against the levy, other councils can learn from the campaign in Leicester and design their levies to address residents’ concerns. For example, Nottingham made healthcare workers exempt from its workplace parking levy. Levy charges could be adjusted to income levels, or people on low incomes could be exempt until buses are improved.

Other cities will be in a similar situation. See some top tips for developing a successful levy  that engages the community and addresses equity issues.

Leicester experienced a number of unforeseen circumstances in the development of its proposed workplace parking levy. This included COVID-19, the cost-of-living crisis, and national and local economic challenges, which made it difficult to progress the levy. However, a number of reflections can be drawn from the process to assist other local authorities considering a levy. These include:

• Engage with known/potential opponents early to establish issues and potential ways to mitigate them. Support from stakeholders and partnerships can change over time. Identify strong ambassadors who are prepared to visibly support the scheme. Trade unions should be contacted at a regional or national level and asked to mediate where local unions are opposed.
• The importance of face-to-face consultation. Unfortunately in Leicester’s case, COVID-19 prevented many face-to-face meetings from happening. Although these were replaced by virtual meetings, these may not have had the same communication benefits.
• Marketing and communications. Ensuring that employers, residents and others are completely aware of and familiar with the transport vision for the workplace parking levy is vitally important. Everyone should know how the levy might affect them, what it pays for, and how these improvements might benefit them.

Government must reform funding

Although Leicester has had several successful bids, the patchwork nature of central government funding means it has no consistent revenue stream to finance all of its transport commitments. In April 2022 Leicester missed out on £41 million from government under the Bus Service Improvement Plan scheme. The council was also frustrated by the lack of constructive feedback from the Department for Transport on why Leicester was unsuccessful.

In the absence of reliable funding from national government and without a workplace parking levy to generate its own money, Deputy City Mayor Councillor Adam Clarke has warned it’s possible that Leicester won’t have the funding necessary to fulfil its radical ambitions . Ideally, multi-year capital funding would transform the landscape of public transport in the UK, encouraging private operators to invest long-term and dramatically improve bus ridership.

-Paresh Patel, Unite Union regional secretary