Contact: John Buckett, ext 6599 email: [email protected]

1. Summary

1.1 Members' views are sought on key policy decisions for Hampshire County Council in its new Local Transport Plan (LTP), namely its approach to tackling congestion, balancing funding and priorities, and the desirability (or otherwise) of introducing themed approaches in specific areas.

2. Background - the Current Local Transport Plan Programmes

2.1 The County Council's approach to the last LTP round in 2000 was based on an understanding that wider car ownership and increasing car usage trends were going to produce traffic growth and more widespread and longer lasting traffic congestion.

2.2 The investment programme put forward then was largely based on widening travel choice to provide better facilities for alternative travel options and so mitigate the effects of this expected traffic growth.

2.3 Key investment priorities were the Light Rapid Transit project (Fareham-Gosport-Portsmouth), the A3 and Route 1 Bus Priority Corridors in Havant and Rushmoor respectively, Chandlers Ford Rail Station in Eastleigh and improved Park and Ride in Winchester, as well as a large number of other smaller schemes encouraging public transport, walking and cycling throughout the county.

2.4 There was an expanded casualty reduction programme and, latterly, a Safer Routes to Schools programme, again promoting modal change as well as providing safety and health benefits. At the same time there has been greatly increased maintenance investment, and capacity and efficiency improvements mostly through improved junctions and the use of intelligent transport systems.

2.5 Investment in integrated transport reached £14 million in 2003/04 (excluding developer funded schemes and major projects), compared with less than £5 million per year before LTP funding streams were introduced.

2.6 While much of this five year programme has now been delivered, traffic growth has continued at currently 2% annually on the motorway and trunk road network and nearer 1% on the county road network. Bus patronage and cycle usage has continued to fall, despite record investment in these areas (although the situation varies from area to area and cycling levels overall remain above the national average).

3. Congestion Policies

3.1 The national forecasts for traffic growth remain largely constant and congestion is set to spread in time and location, as people seek to avoid existing congestion problems.

3.2 The Government has developed new initiatives to `tackle' congestion, which has also been identified by Hampshire County Council as a `cabinet priority'.

3.3 The Traffic Management Act 2004 puts a new duty of care on transport authorities with respect to traffic movement and requires each one to appoint a `traffic manager ` to co-ordinate its approach to all causes of congestion (which include roadworks and incident response, as well as roads over capacity). The Highways Agency (which manages motorways and trunk roads) does not have this duty, though it is required to respond to Government policy and priorities in its operations.

3.4 Draft LTP guidance requires all urban authorities with populations over 250,000 to have congestion targets for the five year period; the Solent Area is expected to fall within this definition. Performance will be measured based on an index of routes using Geographical Positioning Systems (GPS).

3.5 Authorities are required to put forward their five year targets and plans for achieving them. Progress will be assessed annually. These plans must consider all possible practical approaches from road capacity improvements through to demand management, including parking management and forms of congestion charging.

3.6 Areas not covered by the `large urban area' criterion do not need to have targets and measures for congestion, but if they are declared not to have a congestion `problem' then the guidance makes it clear that there will be no support for measures in those areas where the justification is based on relieving congestion.

3.7 The County Council will need to determine which, if any, areas in addition to the Solent Area should be considered for `congestion' targets. Winchester, Basingstoke and North East Hampshire are possible contenders. There is also more local or seasonal congestion in other areas, with Lyndhurst for example suffering particularly on summer weekends (but this situation may not qualify in terms of Department for Transport (DfT) criteria which is based on weekday morning peak traffic conditions).

3.8 Perhaps the biggest dilemma with congestion is the potential conflict between measures designed to promote long-term modal change (eg bus priority schemes) and the need to achieve short term improvements in peak traffic flow speeds. There is a conflict between providing reasonable pedestrian crossing facilities at street level and the need to keep peak hour flows moving.

Demand Management Study

3.9 What is very clear from the guidance is that, if an authority considers congestion to be a problem in a particular area, then it must develop an approach which looks seriously at the possibility of introducing demand management measures, including charging for road use and/or workplace parking.

3.10 The proposed course of action is to develop a model which looks at all transport in the Solent Area, including the motorways and trunk roads and also potential development scenarios arising from the sub-regional planning strategy. It is also proposed to continue dialogue with the DfT and the Government Office for the South East on what might be appropriate for Hampshire in terms of congestion and other indicators.

4. Accessibility Planning

4.1 The new draft LTP guidance introduces the concept of Accessibility Planning. The work of the Government's Social Exclusion Unit, published in 2002, identified lack of transport as a major factor affecting the ability of people to access jobs, education, health and shopping facilities, particularly for areas with high scores on deprivation indices.

4.2 The Government is about to issue computer software packages to enable transport authorities to carry out Accessibility Audits, mapping their areas and identifying where there are accessibility problems.

4.3 Authorities will then be required to produce accessibility plans, including identifying action areas in consultation with local community interests (particularly Local Strategic Partnerships).

4.4 It is anticipated that on some occasions the `solution' may be to relocate a facility rather than provide a transport improvement. On other occasions a new or revised bus route may help, or new pedestrian or cycle links. It is difficult at this stage to anticipate the likely demand on revenue and capital budgets (both transport and non-transport) but at least there will be, for the first time, an objective measure of problems.

4.5 The large amount of technical and consultation work involved means that detailed proposals will not be required by the Government until the end of 2005, but in terms of priorities it should be noted that there may be a substantial call on budgets for initiatives that spring from this work.

4.6 There are other accessibility related measures not directly related to the computer audits, namely severance caused by transport (eg busy roads and railways with poor crossing facilities), access to the countryside and Rights of Way improvement plans, poor pedestrian links and interchanges, and particular problems of access for people with mobility impairments. These will all need to be addressed in the LTP.

5. Themed Approaches and Urban Transport Master Planning

5.1 The first LTP programme has seen a mixed programme of investment in most areas, with traffic management, public transport, walking and cycling featuring in most strategy area programmes.

5.2 As part of the preparation for the next LTP it is perhaps appropriate to consider whether it might be more effective to concentrate on certain types of investment in certain areas, to complete some strategies rather than make a little progress everywhere.

5.3 Such an approach would concentrate investment in certain priority areas which would inevitably mean that parts of the county could have relatively little investment in the early years of the next LTP.

5.4 A transport master plan for each urban area is also being considered which would look at the long term transport requirements, taking into account emerging development scenarios. While this process will take longer than the preparation time available for the LTP, views are sought on the principle.

6. Investment Priority

6.1 The County Council will need to decide how much of its integrated transport investment it dedicates to accessibility compared to the other priority areas of congestion, safety and air quality.

6.2 There is also a question of the split in investment between integrated transport and structural maintenance of highways and investment in bridges. Some of the County Council's recent consultations have shown more support for increased maintenance investment rather than for integrated transport measures (eg to widen travel choice), but again opinions vary.

6.3 It has been County Council practice to allocate the respective funding from the LTP process roughly in the same proportion as the DfT awards it (currently about £15million per year to each integrated transport and maintenance/bridges). Clearly, any significant departure from this practice will need a clear justification to be set out in the new LTP.

Recommendation

That the Panel advise the Executive Member for Environment that in preparing the Local Transport Plan the Transport Strategy Panels be invited to give their views on whether:

(i) the County Council should put forward congestion targets for the Solent Area;

(ii) accessibility planning consultation should be primarily through Local Strategic Partnerships, as set out in section 4 above;

(iii) themed approaches with investment concentrated on specific areas should be promoted;

(iv) the idea of long term urban transport master plans should be progressed; and

(v) investment should continue to be broadly in line with Department for Transport indicative allocations between integrated transport and maintenance/bridges.

8941/JWB