Annex 2 - Cornwall's Challenges and Concerns - The Evidence Base

There are 19 ,000 people who live in Cornwall but travel to work outside the County.  The destination and extent of this work migration is shown in the Figure below. Nearly 70% of these travel to work trips are to Devon, and in particular Plymouth.

TTW flows into Plymouth from Cornwall are shown in the Figure below.

Whilst there are around 9,700 Cornish residents who work in Plymouth, the sphere of influence that Plymouth has within Cornwall is fairly limited geographically.  90% of the TTW trips from Cornwall into Plymouth originate in the Caradon District area. The focus can be sharpened further still to Saltash and Torpoint, which account for nearly 50% of the TTW trips into Plymouth.

There is a reverse flow of TTW trips into Cornwall of 9,000, with the majority of these originating from Plymouth and Devon.  The existing profile of TTW trips in South East Cornwall is likely to be sustained with the ongoing economic pull of Plymouth, which should be increased through regeneration, growth and proximity.  Transport improvements have been carried out on the main links in to Plymouth, with recent improvements on the Tamar Bridge and the Torpoint Ferries for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport.  These schemes have been well targeted.

The number of people who work some distance from Cornwall is rising; outside the UK 7%, London 5% and Hampshire 2%.  This is illustrative of an increasing number of people who are willing to commute long distances or work away from home during the week in order to live in a particular location.

There are, on average, 200,000 TTW trips each day in Cornwall, which are all very different for the individuals involved, whether this is the origin, destination, route or mode.

However, to gain an understanding of travel to work patterns, it is possible to define three general forms of TTW trip within Cornwall:

Internal to 14 main urban centres/towns: where the TTW trip is undertaken entirely within one of the defined 14 main urban centres/towns within which a person is resident.

Internal within the Home Ward: where the TTW trip is undertaken entirely within the ward within which a person is resident - these trips exclude the defined 14 main urban centres/towns.

External: where the TTW trip involves travelling outside the ward or town in which a person is resident, to another ward or town, including the 14 main urban centres/towns.

Assigning the TTW trips in Cornwall into these three categories reveals that 61,000 (30%) of the trips are ‘Internal' to the 14 main urban centres/towns, 94,000 (47%) of the trips are ‘External’, and 45,000 (23%) of the trips are ‘Internal within Home Ward’. Of the ‘External’ trips, 52,000 are a trip to one of the 14 main urban centres/towns.

The 14 main urban centres/towns are the most important for TTW trips.  There are 150,000 TTW trips either within, to or from one of the 14 urban centres/towns - this accounts for 75% of all the TTW trips.  The importance is further highlighted by looking at TTW trips for the seven urban centres.   Here, there are 110,000 TTW trips either within, to or from one of the centres.  Figure 6.5 illustrates the flows between the seven urban centres where the arrows are proportional to the number of work trips from one town to another. This figure shows that the urban centres in Cornwall account for the majority of trips to work.  It clearly shows the significance of Truro, CPR and Falmouth/Penryn for travel to work, with these towns forming the main TTW triangle within Cornwall.  Over 30% of the TTW trips in Cornwall occur in this triangle.

In general terms, the 14 main urban centres/towns can be described by one of three designations given to TTW trips, based on the trip that occurs the most in each town. These designations are: inbound, internal or outbound:    

Truro is the most important centre for employment within Cornwall, with nearly 19,500 jobs, slightly more than CPR. However, of these jobs, only 5,500 are taken by people local to Truro - 14,000 people commute into Truro to work. This is by far the largest number of commuter trips into any of the Cornish conurbations, accounting for 16.7% of all ‘External’ trips.  Truro not only forms the major point of the TTW triangle, but is the main work attractor in Cornwall. It is the top commuter destination for people living in each of the other six  urban centres apart from Bodmin. The TTW trips in to Truro are illustrated in Figure 6.6.

CPR is the second most important centre for employment within Cornwall with 19,000 jobs. Unlike Truro, the majority of the TTW trips are internal trips made by people who live within CPR, with only 6,800 (35.6%) commuting into CPR. There is a large export of workers from CPR with 6,300 commuting to jobs in other areas of Cornwall. This is the highest number of outbound TTWTs in Cornwall, and establishes CPR as the conurbation with the highest total number of TTW trips. CPR has strong outbound links with Truro and Falmouth, but also exports labour to Newquay and Penzance.  A large proportion of CPR TTW trips are internal.

Falmouth/Penryn forms the third point of the main TTW triangle in Cornwall.  A large number of TTW trips are made by people who live in Falmouth/Penryn. There are 7,000 internal work trips, which accounts for 11.5% of all the internal TTW trips within Cornwall.  There are very strong TTW links to Truro and CPR, with a lot of Falmouth/Penryn residents working in those locations, and smaller but significant links to Helston and the Lizard for incoming commuters.

Together, the TTW triangle accounts for nearly a third of all the TTW trips within Cornwall. 

St Austell is the town with the third largest number of TTW trips in Cornwall.  The proportion of the type of trip is balanced with 5,600 internal trips, 6,400 inbound trips and 4,000 outbound trips.  The main destination for commuters from St Austell is Bodmin, then Truro, with lower numbers heading to Newquay and Plymouth.  The main commuter flows into St Austell are from Bodmin and Newquay.

The main form of Newquay’s TTW trips is internal, 6,700, and there are a significant number (2,900) of outbound TTW trips. There are few inbound TTW trips, with the majority of these emanating from CPR and St Austell.