Vision-led planning in practice: Reflections for Local Authorities 

Darren Kirkman, Associate Director for Strategy, Funding & Appraisal, considers what new guidance on the Integrated National Transport Strategy will mean for Local Authorities, giving his insights and recent experience on how vision-led planning can be effectively developed. 

Vision-led planning isn’t difficult to describe, but it is difficult to do well. 

Over the past year I’ve facilitated a number of workshops on vision-led planning and scenario development. With guidance on the Integrated National Transport Strategy (INTS) expected shortly, it feels like a timely moment to reflect on what works in practice — and where vision-led approaches can fall short if not handled carefully. 

1. Format makes a difference

Visioning sessions often work well online. Participants understand what a “vision” is, and digital tools can help structure contributions and widen participation. However, scenario planning is different. Asking people to think in terms of multiple plausible futures rather than a single forecast can feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable, so in-person sessions where interaction can flow freely often help build confidence and shared understanding. 

 Technology can support engagement; through polling, written comments and Q&As; but it should enhance dialogue, not replace it.

2. Cast your net wide

Transport is a means to an end; ease of accessibility underpins wider social and economic outcomes, so the quality of a vision improves when the room broadens to more than transport specialists. Bringing together colleagues from transport, planning, public health, environment, youth services, regeneration and economic development leads to more grounded discussions that bring benefits to life. Including different career stages and backgrounds also matters. Some of the most insightful comments I’ve heard have come from more junior colleagues, often querying assumptions others hadn’t questioned. 

Care must be taken though to ensure all voices have space to speak. Some voices can dominate while others hesitate. Groupthink can arise particularly when the room is senior or time pressured. Facilitation design is critical; during in-person sessions, small breakout groups or exercises can change the dynamic of the room. Online, the use of the chat function can help less confident participants. Anonymous inputs can encourage dissent and spark new conversations.

3. Involve your political leadership

Vision-led planning cannot sit solely with officers. Elected members are ultimately responsible for delivery, and if they aren’t involved in shaping the vision, two risks emerge: it lacks political ownership, and it unravels when difficult trade-offs arise. Engaging political leadership early helps ensure that even the most aspirational vision has buy-in. Bold ambitions require political commitment, and that ownership can’t be added at the end. 

Too often, we ask officers to be bold while keeping political leaders at arm’s length. That rarely ends in success.

4. Make trade-offs explicit

Values – such as equity, safety, growth and climate resilience – can sound universally aligned. In practice, they can conflict. 
• Equity may impact on growth. 
• Safety measures can reduce capacity. 
• Climate ambitions rarely make schemes cheaper. 

These tensions need open discussion during the vision-setting process — particularly with those responsible for delivery. If trade-offs aren’t acknowledged early and addressed, choices will be made later, at the implementation stage, which can mean they are not always the best decisions. A vision ultimately says what a place values most – if those values aren’t interrogated explicitly at the planning stage, they will be revealed implicitly later.

5. Avoid ‘good’ and ‘bad’ futures

Scenario planning helps authorities explore uncertainty by identifying critical drivers and constructing plausible future contexts. But a common trap is to see scenarios as all or nothing; either positive or negative, when the truth is more nuanced. 

Every scenario contains winners and losers. A high-growth future may create prosperity for some while widening inequality for others. A digitally enabled future may improve access for many yet exclude those without confidence or connectivity. A climate-driven future may accelerate decarbonisation but create affordability pressures in the short term. 

If we label one scenario as ‘positive’ and another as ‘negative’, we stop interrogating them properly. The discipline is to ask, in every future: 
• Who benefits? 
• Who struggles? 
• What improves? 
• What becomes harder? 

Only by exploring the full range of consequences — positive and negative — can scenarios genuinely inform strategy. Otherwise, they risk reinforcing preferences rather than stress-testing them. 

It is sometimes the facilitator’s role to challenge assumptions and make the room slightly uncomfortable. Constructive tension strengthens the exercise. Without it, scenarios risk becoming interesting narratives rather than decision tools. 

6. Delivery depends on data

Vision-led planning doesn’t end with a workshop or even with a strategy. Successful delivery requires clear, measurable targets, reliable and regular data, and the flexibility for course correction. Strategies must be amendable; if real-world performance is going in the opposite direction to your target, then implementation needs to change. That’s only possible with high-quality information and a willingness to adjust. 

Final reflection

Vision-led planning and scenario development aren’t simply techniques. They require: 
• Broad, carefully designed participation 
• Political leadership and ownership 
• Honest engagement with trade-offs 
• Robust monitoring and adaptive governance

Done well; they help local authorities shape the future rather than simply respond to forecasts. Done poorly, they risk becoming aspirational language layered on to business as usual. The challenge isn’t whether to adopt vision-led approaches — but whether we are prepared to embed them with enough confidence and rigour to make them meaningful.

Contact Darren to find out about incorporating  vision-led planning and scenario development in your strategies, or read more about our strategy, funding and appraisal expertise.

• News

18 March 2024

Darren Kirkman appointed to Transport Planning Society Board

Darren Kirkman, Associate Director Transport Strategy, Funding and Appraisal at SYSTRA, has been appointed to the Board of the Transport Planning Society.

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