Stepping up a gear? Understanding why active travel has difficulty gaining traction in urban planning decision making in northern England’s rustbelt

Walking and cycling (active travel) are an important carbon neutral means for accessing new development which improves public health and maximises the opportunities created for all of society. Across northern England’s rustbelt, local authorities seek to reinvigorate their economies, but it is presently unclear how active travel supports these efforts. This article explores these issues by evaluating how promises of active travel improvements have been taken up by planners in two contrasting local authorities in northern England; one an economically vibrant metropolitan city and the other a struggling deindustrialised town. Drawing on testimony of planners and evaluation using the delivery = context, intelligence and behaviour (D=CIB) framework, we find considerable variation in how active travel is regarded and prioritised while planners in both areas grapple with common problems on resourcing planning and design of planning instruments. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/ .