Reducing the need to travel : A new planning objective in the UK?

New policy guidance from the UK government (PPG13) promotes the integration of land use and transport planning at the local level in order to reduce the need to travel and reliance on the private car. This paper explores the background to this policy in terms of historical and contemporary debates about transport, planning and the environment, and discusses its prospects in relation to shifts in the ideology of nonintervention visible since the end of the 1980s. It concludes that successful implementation will require wider policy aims, re-regulation of public transport, and better strategic and regional planning.