It is all happening right now with transport issues here in Hazel Grove and across Greater Manchester.

As background there are a number of technological and social changes arriving for everyone in the coming years:

• National ban on sales of petrol and diesel vehicles from 2040
• Increased charges for dirty vehicles in London now and more cities may follow in the future
• Number of electric vehicle models due to expand rapidly in the next two years
• Driverless cars possibly appearing in numbers by 2021 according to some predictions
• Taxi, lift and car sharing services are quickly becoming more popular
• Autonomous vehicle trial right here in Stockport in the new year (2018)

Elon Musk, of Tesla fame, today released the first picture of a trial tunnel under LA – he predicts that tunnels will one day allow high speed travel between cities like London, Manchester and Edinburgh.

With more houses, more jobs and more people meaning more and more journeys across the whole country things are beginning to change and it is important that we plan, prepare and actually do what is needed to keep people moving effectively.

Locally everything seems to be happening at once:

• Stockport council is currently preparing its local plan – the blueprint for future direction in Stockport on most things that the Council is involved in.
• The Greater Manchester Spatial Framework is due to report back with updated proposals in June 2018 that take account of the huge feedback the initial proposals received.
• The SEMMMS refresh – the multi modal (joined up journeys across all transport methods) transport strategy review has reported back recently.  As before, the need for East West transport improvements still features heavily.
• The A6 to Bredbury link (to continue the A6MARR to the airport) study has just reported back that the need for this road is even greater than ever before. The report will go through council scrutiny this week and be considered by the Council Cabinet after that.  The Council leader says that the proposal will be judged on the evidence.

“The coming technology changes together with the demand for ever more journeys represent a perfect storm over the next few years.  South Manchester’s roads and trains are already used heavily and are crowded and congested far too often.  It is vital that Stockport Council plans for these big changes, supporting new services and routes that will allow people to share more journeys.

“If we get things right then it will gradually, over a number of years, become possible to use cheaper shared services and regular and rapid public transport to replace some of our private cars” said Cllr Jon Twigge.

If you have a strong opinion on the new A6 to Bredbury M60 road there are opposing petitions at change.org.

For: https://www.change.org/p/get-the-a6-m60-bypass-built-save-stockport-s-eastern-communities-from-dangerous-traffic

Against: https://www.change.org/p/alex-ganotis-stop-the-a6-m60-bypass-save-stockport-s-beautiful-goyt-valley-and-green-spaces