Co-ordinating urban development, stations and railway services as a component of urban sustainability: an achievable planning goal in Britain?

The spatial relationship between stations and the ultimate origins and destinations of people's journeys has important implications for the relative competitiveness of rail transport. This relationship can be co-ordinated by the planning process but British practice in this respect has been erratic. This article reviews the functional and institutional arrangements for co-ordination between urban development and railway interests since railway nationalization and the creation of the modern planning system in 1947, and draws conclusions as to what factors influenced the good practice that occurred. It then goes on to consider the contemporary policy context which promotes the development of more sustainable patterns of urban growth which favour the rail mode, but wherein the British railway system has been privatized. This has thrown up a number of functional and institutional barriers to successful co-ordination. The article reviews these and concludes by making recommendations as to how things might be improved.