The Reports have been available in the Printed Paper Office since 2.30 p.m.The statement is as follows.
We are all greatly indebted to the authors for their original and stimulating studies. They try to show what will happen in our towns when nearly every family owns a car. They examine ways of re-shaping towns over the next 50 years so that we can enjoy the benefits of the car and also civilised urban living. First, main traffic should be canalised into a primary road network. So planning of traffic and planning of land use must go together. This would make it possible in the smaller townsat a costto provide for the use of cars to whatever extent their owners are likely to want. But in the large towns, Buchanan says, this is just not physically possible, however much money is spent. The Buchanan Report lays down the principles; the next step is to translate them into practice in each area. We need to know, especially in the conurbations, the future demands for transport, its relation to land use, and the right balance between public and private transport. Government, local authorities and public transport operators must be in this together. Other surveys are in progress in Merseyside and Tyneside, and will soon begin in the conurbations of Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and Tees-side. Each area has its own distinctive problems and will have to make its own decisions about traffic and the quality of urban life. The organisation of local governmentalready well advanced in London, and in hand for the rest of the countrywill help to produce a structure better able to cope with major traffic and planning problems. To guide and advise local authorities the Government have created an Urban Planning Group. Public transport must offer an acceptable alternative to the private car, especially for travel to and from work. But in some areas suburban rail services play an important rle, and that is why the Beeching Plan, in the main, avoided suburban services in the list of closure proposals. But even those that are in the list cannot be closed without my consent. Before I reach a decision on any of them I shall secure the views of the local authorities and others concerned with the area transport surveys. I am sure that, with these Reports, we shall now be able to evolve a system of public transport by road and rail in our cities which will meet the needs of the travelling public. Obviously, the breadth and area covered by the statement just made means that we must have a good study of it, and I will not comment on it now. I do not know whether my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth has something to say. I admit that in that area there are some very good roads at the present time, but surely a survey ought at least to begin on future traffic needs in the Leeds-Bradford conurbation Why is this alone left out of paragraph 6.
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