As you may know, councils have very little power when it comes to ensuring that non-catchment schools do as much as they can to reduce driving rates. One area where they have a bit of leverage is planning permission. But it's hard for them to withold it, and usually planning permission is granted, but with the requisite that the school provides additional cycle storage for example.
However, recently we heard of a council (Wandsworth) tying planning permission to the provision of a school's (Putney High) coach service.
This was interesting. It felt like a big step up. So we FOI'd it, and discovered this seminal piece of action happened in 2017! We've since discovered that there are some live planning applications from non-catchment schools in our area at the moment, so we're hoping we can use this precedent to create some real change. Watch this space!
