A Connected Peninsula

 

Enhancing transport connectivity within the peninsula will make travel safer, more reliable, resilient and sustainable to and throughout the peninsula.

Our work is focused on developing safe, resilient, and reliable road and rail links throughout the peninsula, including better connections to ports and airports. We want to make sustainable travel options the preferred choice for private journeys. For freight transport, our work looks at creating reliable intermodal connections, enabling efficient movement of goods with predictable journey times. Additionally, we are seeking improvements to HGV parking and driver facilities across the network.

 

Freight

South West Freight Strategy 

Our freight strategy has been jointly developed with Western Gateway Sub-national Transport Body, and by engaging with, freight sector and wider business community and local authority stakeholders. Working together we have been able to identify and prioritise solutions that will help to improve freight efficiency and modal shift, reduce freight journey times, congestion, carbon emissions and support economic growth across the South West region.

Read the strategy

Implementation Phase

The strategy developed 46 interventions across different modes of transport including aviation, maritime, rail and road. It also goes one step further in developing a series of ‘other’ interventions which include connecting and bringing stakeholders together in sharing the learnings from the freight strategy work. Progress on delivering the freight strategy is reported on an annual basis and can be accessed below.

South West Freight Forum

The freight strategy depends on collaboration for its delivery and at the heart of the strategy is the South West Freight Forum. The forum now has over 150 stakeholders involved and over 20 speakers contributing. Together, we are driving sustainable and efficient freight solutions for the South West.

Road and rail connectivity

We are working with local authorities, the Department of Transport, National Highways and Network Rail to prioritise enhancements to improve journey safety and efficiency of strategic road and rail links to and through the peninsula. This includes major road network project, large local major road projects as well as work on our two rail mainlines in the peninsula. We are currently working on a Strategic Implementation Plan which will create a programme of prioritised strategic road and rail schemes to set the path to a safer, better connected and more resilient peninsula.