Good levels of accessibility are crucial to enable people to participate fully in modern society - whether this involves access to shops or healthcare, schools or employment sites, community centres or Post Offices.  Improving accessibility for non-motorists will, hopefully, also encourage more walking and cycling, benefitting health and reducing obesity.

Levels of car ownership are lowest in the poorest communities.  So better accessibility is not only a "win" in transport terms, it helps to reduce social exclusion.

Of course, accessibility isn't just about travelling to reach services, it's about ensuring services are provided locally, are convenient for users and are in the right places.  It also means ensuring that new developments have good accessibility built in from day one.

The Delivery Plan

Accessibility is one of the four shared priorities for transport identified by the Local Government Association and central government.  The others are congestion, air quality and road safety.  This is one of four Delivery Plans outlining how we are addressing these shared priorities across Tyne and Wear. 

The plans are intended to be living documents that can be updated and modified as we take forward our strategies.  In the case of accessibility, it is hoped that this plan will be of relevance, not just to transport planners, but also to the health and education sectors, and to voluntary and community groups.  One key theme of the plan is the need for a holistic approach, recognising that accessibility is about more than bus stops or public transport timetables.

Comments about this plan are welcome and can be sent to info@tyneandwearltp.co.uk

The Plan

Chapters of the Accessibilty Delivery Plan are available here.

Action to improve accessibility

Through the Accessibility Delivery Plan, the Tyne and Wear LTP Partners are funding a number of measures to improve accessibility.  These include:

• Research into the accessibility issues associated with Nexus's proposed Smart Ticketing scheme
• Improving walking and cycling links to Cobalt Business Park
• Extending the Walkit.com urban walk route planner to Sunderland
• Improving signage to Quorum Business Park