Great Western Coffee Shop

Yesterday, the Transport Knowledge Hub held a South West event which considered "transport investment in a time of fast-paced technological change". Around 40 to 50 senior people present, and a packed program of presentations with six listed speakers, four of whom showed up. A room full of shirts - the dark grey suit, blue shirt and sober tie bsing uniform.  Billed as an exchanged of thoughts / views / ideas, it was much more one way - an imparting of thoughts and ideas by the speakers, a futher one who had to leave even before the completion of the "panel" on which he was seated.  Yet I found the few hours inspirational.

Big changes are afoot in the transport business; considerations of congestion, clear air and how we get people around and continue to get people around in geneartions to come.  The council portfolio holder for transportation in BaNES and the chair of councils from across the South West both looking not only at the next years up to the next elections, but the next decades.  The coming of autonomous vehicles, the switching of fuels which may just move us from dirty congestion to clean congestion, the need to review mass transit to take a look at where people need to go and set up a network designed for the future and not merely modified from the present where it needs to be.  Highways England spoke about the strategic road nework and their schemes to give good vehicle access to major developments, and connectivity that didn't rely on a single key road into the South West peninsular.

Dealing with these longer term matters versus election cycles where interests of groups align and then differ for advantage of their own supporters, asking the question "how do we get there from here?", engaging the young with their fresh minds and as the main users in the future and even today, and helping to ensure that development takes only appropriate note, and in line with strategy, of the noisy NIMBY or IMBY ... all interesting issues raised by the two main speakers I have highlighted - I came away heartened that at least these two gentlemen have a vision to look far ahead, whatever situations and actions lever them to do in the shorter term.

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The Transport Knowledge Hub was a name that I had missed prior to yesterday ... their web site is at https://transportknowledgehub.org.uk ; my conclusion / view from attending the even is that it's one of these things for the senior great and good ... a very senior gathering where I was frankly out of my depth - uncomfortable yet worthwhile.   And if I feel that way, then perhaps that starts to explain why others who haven't been around for so many years (i.e. are younger) would feel that even more, and are not engaging?

Please, Sir, permission to get confused Sir?

The Transport Knowledge Hub is one of a number of subject-based activites run by Local Partnerships. They explain themselves as:


"Ah" - I hear you cry - "you mean those LEP things I've heard about?" Well, there is a network of Local Enterprise Partnerships covering the country. (Except Essex. No, I don't know either.) They too have a central support organisation called The LEP Network.

So I can see these are locally funded, with a network supported from the bottom up, while the other one is organised top-down from central government. Other than that, they work to promote much the same objectives but concentrate on studiously ignoring each other. I wonder what they say when they bump into each other at some event, which must happen pretty often.

Please allow me to join you in elements of that confusion.    I found it an interesting day couple of hours with some good inspiration, but I'm confused as to much ... whether it's my confusion that's projected and confused you in my original post, or whether the situation is generally confusing and overlapped, I'm too confused to make out.