Young adults’ attitudes to car dependency and the implications for planning

Exploring Planners’ and Developers’ perspectives on young adults’ attitudes towards car dependency and emerging impacts on Housebuilding and Planning policy

Having completed his research project, Charles Goode - recipient of a RTPI Early Career Research Grant in 2023 - reflects on his experience and summarises the research findings.

The RTPI’s Early Career Research Grant funds research which is directly relevant to the profession, and supports development of the research profile of early career academics. It supports PhD students or researchers within five years of receiving their PhDs to gain experience of leading research projects that have an impact on planning practice and/or policy. The 2025 round of RTPI ECR Grants will open for applications in the summer.

Charles Goode, 2025

You can read Charles' full report here or an overview of key findings below:

Charles Goode (Lead Researcher) and Audrey Chan (Research Assistant) presenting findings of their research
at the Birmingham and Midland Institute in November 2024 (Goode, 2024)

With the Government’s target of 1.5 million new homes over the present Parliament and its new towns programme, now more than ever it is vital to reflect on the location of new housing development. My RTPI Early Career Research Grant project, funded by RTPI London and RTPI West Midlands, explored young adults’ attitudes towards car dependency and residential development.

Key takeaways:

1. Collaboration needed between developers, government and transport companies: the research highlighted the need for stronger collaboration between housebuilders, government bodies, local authorities and transport companies to improve the quality and timing of public transport infrastructure alongside new housing development.
   
   
2. Improving public transport accessibility: more broadly, there needs to be a focus on making public transport more accessible and reliable to provide a viable alternative to car use.
   
   
3. Considering parking standards in local and national policy: this needs to be carefully reflected on, especially the potential role for national policy in relation to parking standards, perhaps through the National Development Management Policies.
   
   
4. Housebuilders need to respond to changing societal trends: this report presents evidence on the changing perspectives of young adults towards car dependency. This change needs to be considered more during the design, consenting and build-out of new housing developments to ensure these are fit for the future in terms of car parking.
   
   
5. There are new opportunities for local authorities now with the scale of housebuilding proposed and the possibility of a ‘vision-led approach’ in relation to transport outlined in the NPPF (MHCLG, 2024, p. 80).

Project summary – the research focussed on three key themes:

• young adults’ perspectives on car dependency,
• how this was affecting their housing preferences, and
• examining the emerging impacts of all this on development practice and planning policy.

Data was collected through:

• questionnaires completed by young adults,
• expert group meetings and interviews with planners, transport professionals and housebuilders, and
• site visits to case study locations: Grand Union and Meridian Water (London) and Langley Sustainable Urban Extension and Birmingham-Smethwick Canal Corridor (Birmingham).

Young adults’ perspectives on car dependency

Key factors identified as influencing young adults’ attitudes towards driving included:

1. Cost: many young adults are increasingly deterred from becoming drivers at a young age due to the high costs of driving lessons, insurance, fuel etc.
   
   
2. Public transport availability: variability in public transport quality and availability in the West Midlands constrains choices – e.g. buses in the West Midlands, the Underground in London. Bus services are widely perceived as less reliable than other public transport modes in the West Midlands due to congestion (Goode, 2023).
   
   
3. A cultural ‘dilemma’: young adults were trying to balance a commitment to address climate change through sustainable travel, and their need for affordability plus their desire for a house and garden, especially post-Covid, but the latter are often located in suburban areas with less public transport.

Site visit to Meridian Water in London (Goode, 2024)

Emerging implications for residential development and planning policy

1. Lower demand for car parking: developers are sometimes seeing lower demand for parking spaces, reflecting young adults’ preferences, but this varies significantly between Birmingham/West Midlands and London. For example, the two developments in London had a parking requirement of only 0.4, whilst in the West Midlands, one developer argued that apartments without parking did not sell and were worth less, though this was widely debated.
   
   
2. Shift towards sustainable transport: a growing emphasis on creating new residential areas that support walking, cycling, and public transport is challenged by societal preferences, lack of public transport integration, and parking standards that keep car dependency high. Young adults, particularly in the West Midlands, said they liked the flexibility of car ownership, and also liked good quality public transport and active travel options. These can be seen as incompatible policy objectives, at least in terms of moving beyond car dependency. The typical demand-driven approach to public transport provision in new developments, with it usually being provided only after a certain number of houses are built and demand for it has grown enough, e.g. Sprint Bus route at Langley Sustainable Urban Extension, also arguably bakes in car dependency (Goode, 2023).
   
   
3. Stricter parking policies in London and Birmingham city centre: London’s dense public transport network and Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) was seen to lead to widespread agreement on restricted car parking in new developments, whilst in Birmingham there was broad agreement on the need for car-free development in the city centre whereas restricting car parking in the suburbs and rural-urban fringe was more contentious.
   
   
4. Key challenge for local authorities - inadequate parking: building new developments with insufficient parking spaces and limited public transport can lead to street congestion and overspill parking onto surrounding roads. Local authorities must then pay for expensive mitigation measures.
   
   
5. Key challenge for housebuilders - a market not yet ready for car parking restrictions: developers feared that the current social preference for driving means that housing built with insufficient car parking would not sell.
   
   

Site visit to Grand Union, Brent in London (Goode, 2024)