Contact: Tim Cheesebrough, ext 7114 email: [email protected]

1. Summary

1.1 This report outlines progress on the Hampshire County Council and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Safety Camera Partnership casualty reduction programmes.

2. Casualty Reduction (Engineering) Programme

2.1 In the current 2004/05 financial year the County Council has budgeted a "starts value" of some £3.2 million of the Local Transport Plan integrated transport settlement towards casualty reduction highway engineering measures. This is the largest sum budgeted by the County Council for this programme to date and continues the enhanced programme level achieved part way through the 2003/04 financial year, as reported to Highway and Transport Advisory Panels at the spring 2004 meetings.

2.2 Of the 2004/05 programme, £1.2 million is being made available to support the now long established low cost/high yield casualty reduction engineering programme. This represents an increase of £200,000 from the initial programme value in 2003/04. The programme currently being implemented consists of 126 schemes throughout the county, aimed towards locations with a higher than expected rate of casualties and/or a predominant pattern of personal injury crashes thought likely to be treatable with engineering remedial measures. The attached appendix shows the list of schemes featuring in that programme for the Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council area, together with the current implementation/study position for each scheme.

2.3 In addition to the low cost/high yield schemes, the increase to the casualty reduction engineering programme is enabling the allocation of £250,000 for measures to treat additional sites identified through the Casualty Reduction Partnership investigations with Hampshire Constabulary. As reported to previous Panel meetings, such investigations (which commenced in 2003) are directed towards locations where there have recently been high severity injury collisions.

2.4 The treatments proposed are broadly similar to the well established low cost engineering programme and typically include measures such as improved signing, carriageway markings, carriageway surface retexturing or resurfacing. To date, 21 investigations have been undertaken in the current financial year, leading to the programmed installation of 16 schemes. The available funding will enable such investigations and the programming of resultant measures to continue throughout the remainder of the current financial year.

2.5 In addition, the enhanced funding is enabling an increased programme of £700,000 for casualty led surface dressing works to be undertaken across the county, on roads with a higher than expected occurrence of loss of control incidents.

2.6 The remainder of the £3.2 million programme enables more significant safety works to be implemented at a number of further locations in the current financial year, or supports early study work into locations which may be programmed for implementation in subsequent years. At present the following locations are expected to be treated with larger scale remedial works in the current financial year:

(i) A32 Fareham Road/Brockhurst Road/Forton Road, Gosport.

(ii) A339 Ramsdell Junction, Basingstoke Borough (treatment of a junction with a pattern of right turning collisions on this recently de-trunked route, with the provision of a new dedicated right turning facility).

(iii) Water Lane, Totton, New Forest area.

3. Casualty Reduction Progress

3.1 As Members may be aware, it is the County Council's intention to contribute to the Government's national casualty reduction targets by the year 2010, through the Hampshire Road Safety Strategy contained in the Hampshire Local Transport Plan (2001-06). The headline targets are as follows:

(i) A 40% reduction in all killed and serious injuries from the average baseline level for the years 1994-98. By the end of 2003 the reduction achieved in Hampshire was 18%, so Hampshire was at that point broadly ahead of target to meet the 2010 figure.

(ii) A 50% reduction in fatal and serious child casualties over the same period. By the end of 2003 Hampshire had recorded a 40% reduction in this figure. The 2003 figures were substantially better than previous years' results and, if this trend is maintained in subsequent years, represents very encouraging progress.

(iii) Additionally, the County Council, through its locally negotiated Public Service Agreement, has committed itself to achieving a more demanding local reduction in all fatal and serious casualties of 26% by the end of 2004. Monthly tracking of killed and serious casualties available so far for 2004 shows that, for the first half of the calendar year, both fatal and serious casualties have shown encouraging further reductions from the equivalent 2003 levels. There is currently some optimism, therefore, that this very challenging target may be at least partially met by the end of the year.

4. Hampshire Safety Camera Partnership

4.1 Installation of fixed safety (speed) cameras progressed well, following the last round of meetings of the Highway and Transport Advisory Panels in the spring of 2004. The following additional fixed cameras commenced enforcement in the spring/early summer of 2004:

(i) A3090 Crampmoor (Test Valley Borough); and

(ii) Marine Parade, Lee-on-the-Solent (Gosport Borough).

4.2 An additional fixed site camera on the de-trunked A339 north-east of Wootton St Lawrence has been installed and is currently being commissioned. Enforcement operations are expected to commence very shortly.

4.3 There are now 9 fixed camera and 18 mobile camera sites in Hampshire.

4.4 It has become evident at a number of locations on routes subject to speed camera enforcement that some drivers may not be aware of the speed limit. In order to raise the conspicuity of the speed limit at these locations, vehicle actuated signs will be installed which will be triggered by traffic exceeding the speed limit. These signs will be installed at the following sites:

(i) A32 Gosport Road, Fareham (Fareham Borough); and

(ii) A325 Farnborough (Rushmoor Borough).

4.5 A further pair of these signs will be installed on the A325 at Holt Pound (East Hampshire District) where technical considerations prevent the use of a fixed camera.

4.6 New camera locations put forward in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Safety Camera Partnership's annual submission to the Government's National Programme Board are only approved at sites or on routes where there has been a history of serious or fatal injury accidents, and where vehicle speed assessments have shown a significant percentage of drivers exceeding the posted speed limit. Fixed cameras are considered where the evidence shows speed related accidents on a short stretch of road, and mobile cameras are considered where accidents are distributed along a route.

4.7 The 2002/03 Annual Review report of the Hampshire Safety Camera Partnership was made available to Members with the spring Panel papers. The Partnership's latest public information literature, published in the early summer of 2004, will be available at the meeting.

4.8 For the 2004/05 Operational Case year, approval was sought and has been granted by the National Programme Board for the placement of a further fixed camera at Beaulieu Road, Hythe (New Forest District). Subject to final detailed analysis, it is expected this will be installed before the end of 2004.

Recommendation

That this report be noted.

9055/TLC