Help Shape: Draft Active Travel Strategy, Mobility Hub and Rail Action Plans

The draft Active Travel Strategy is our plan for walking, wheeling and cycling in West Northamptonshire.

We want to work with communities to make active modes the natural first choice for everyday local journeys to provide greater travel choice, reduce reliance on private cars and support residents and visitors in leading active, healthy lifestyles.

The draft Active Travel Strategy sets out our vision for active travel to 2045, with a focus on the actions needed in the next five years to support an increase in the number of walking, wheeling and cycling trips across West Northamptonshire.

The draft strategy has five broad aims:

• Providing greater travel choice
• Enabling sustainable growth
• Supporting active, healthy lifestyles
• Improving air quality, reducing congestion and improving the environment
• Supporting town and local centres to thrive

 The draft strategy seeks to achieve this through the following three key themes:

• Connecting people and places – creating the infrastructure
• Collaborating to unlock change – working in partnership, training and education
• Communicating and promoting – to influence travel behaviour.

The draft Mobility Hub Action Plan outlines the Council’s vision and objectives for mobility hubs, and sets out how we plan to design, implement, and operate mobility hubs across West Northamptonshire.

The action plan will provide a platform for the Council to develop our own design guidance for mobility hubs that fit into the local communities that they serve.

The action plan focuses on the actions needed in the next five years to deliver pilot mobility hubs and assess their effectiveness, before committing to delivering a widescale network of mobility hubs across West Northamptonshire.

What is a mobility hub?

A mobility hub is a strategically located transport interchange that facilities connections between multiple modes of sustainable transport, including public transport, walking and cycling, shared mobility options (like e-scooters), and electric vehicle infrastructure. The design of mobility hubs is intended to provide greater choice of transport modes, reducing congestion on our roads, improving our environment, and to improve accessibility for those with mobility challenges.

Mobility Hubs are most effective in areas where transport demand is high, such as town centres or large employment areas, or where there are gaps in connectivity between the current modes.

A Rail Action Plan establishes how we plan to work with the railway industry to deliver the improvements to the railway in West Northamptonshire that the Council would like to see. This action plan sets out the Council’s vision for railway improvements and focuses on a suite of actions needed in the short and longer term to support an increase in rail usage and the improvement of the railway infrastructure in West Northamptonshire.

This action plan will provide a platform for West Northamptonshire Council to proceed with engagement with train operators, Network Rail, and the future Great British Railways organisation on the railway interventions set out in both the action plan and the Local Transport Plan.

The action plan will provide a policy platform for the Council to proceed with industry engagement to deliver the rail interventions in this action plan and the Local transport Plan.

Overview of rail in West Northamptonshire

West Northamptonshire has three railway stations: Northampton and Long Buckby on the West Coast Main Line Northampton Loop, and King’s Sutton on the Chiltern Main Line. The West Coast Main Line stations are served by London Northwestern (part of West Midlands Trains), while King’s Sutton is served by Chiltern Railways and Great Western Railways. The Council area has extensive rail infrastructure, providing intercity passenger, and long-distance freight connections, between London and Scotland, including the future High Speed Two (HS2) line between London and Birmingham. However, there will be no local HS2 railway station.

Residents of West Northamptonshire benefit from the proximity of railway stations outside the Council's boundary, including Banbury, Bicester, Rugby, Market Harborough, Milton Keynes Central, Wolverton, Kettering, and Wellingborough.

West Northamptonshire also has two strategic freight interchanges with the major freight hub of  DIRFT (Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal) and the newly constructed Northampton Gateway.