Archived decisions

APPENDIX 1

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL - SECOND LOCAL TRANSPORT PLAN

PROVISIONAL LOCAL TRANSPORT PLAN 2006 TO 2011

SUMMARY

Introduction

This is Hampshire County Council's Local Transport Plan covering the period from 2006 to 2011. It is a provisional plan that has been designed to meet the Government's interim deadline of 29 July 2005. The full Local Transport Plan will be completed by the end of March 2006.

The Plan sets out the County Council's transport strategy for the next five years. It explains how the strategy has been designed to achieve wider policy objectives, such as improving quality of life, protecting the environment and securing economic prosperity. The strategy is rooted in a thorough examination of current and future problems and opportunities. It is also firmly set within the context of emerging regional and national policies.

The LTP has been written to meet all of the requirements in the Government's guidance on local transport plans. However, the primary goal has been to produce a strategy document that serves the needs of Hampshire's residents and visitors. This means the Government's requirements have been exceeded in a number of key areas.

This edition of the Local Transport Plan is necessarily incomplete. This is largely due to the late arrival of Government guidance and its computer modelling software package, and to uncertainties about funding of the Fareham-Gosport-Portsmouth Light Rail scheme and the emerging development options in the Regional Spatial Strategies. Many, if not all, of the missing sections will be completed for the full LTP in March 2006.

Vision - Chapter 2

The overall vision for the LTP is of a transport strategy that:

"enhances quality of life and economic prosperity by connecting people, communities, employment, goods, services and amenities."

This overarching vision is derived from the policies and aspirations of a large number of bodies, including:

· Hampshire County Council's corporate strategy

· Eleven district councils

· The Hampshire Strategic Partnership

· District Local Strategic Partnerships within Hampshire

· Neighbouring authorities

· The emerging Regional Transport Strategy, Regional Spatial Strategy, Regional Economic Strategy and Government policy documents

· The Hampshire Economic Partnership

· The outcome of ongoing consultation exercises with Hampshire residents and key organisations.

The main objectives of the LTP are:

1 To increase accessibility

2 To promote safety

3 To reduce the impact and effect of congestion

4 To widen travel choice

5 To improve air quality

6 To support wider quality of life objectives

7 To encourage value for money and efficient asset management.

These objectives will be achieved by a balanced strategy that seeks to meet the needs of all residents. The strategy includes measures to tackle existing and future problems. It aims to improve all modes of transport, in order to provide a wider choice for the public. It balances the need to protect the environment with the need for mobility. Environmental stewardship is an important corporate aim. Hampshire County Council is a signatory to the Aalborg Commitments and the Nottingham Declaration on climate change and a national leader in its approach to the management of natural resources. At the heart of the strategy is the need to improve accessibility in its widest sense.

The strategy also recognises that not all transport problems can be solved by traditional transport solutions. Congestion can be tackled by reducing the need to travel, for example through the development of more sustainable communities through local use of spatial planning policy. Some services can be delivered directly to the customer, instead of requiring the customer to travel.

The core philosophy of the LTP is that transport problems should be addressed by a process to reduce, manage and invest. Wherever possible, problems should be tackled or reduced at source - for example, tackling congestion by reducing the need for unnecessary journeys. If this approach is not sufficient on its own, transport should be improved by managing the existing networks to make best use of current road and public transport infrastructure. If neither of these approaches fully address the problems then investment may additionally be needed to provide new services or infrastructure.

Hampshire is a large and diverse county. It is clear that specifically tailored approaches are needed for different areas. The LTP therefore has separate strategies for the Solent area (jointly produced with Portsmouth City Council and Southampton City Council), New Forest, Central Hampshire and North Hampshire. Each area strategy has its own local objectives, programmes and targets, set within the context if the overarching Hampshire-wide LTP framework.

Regional Planning Context

The LTP is being introduced at a critical time for the county and its neighbours. The South East Plan, the spatial strategy for the South East Region of England covering the period to 2026, is being prepared by the South East of England Regional Assembly (SEERA). The South East Plan is looking at options for higher levels of development (including additional housing and employment land), together with a series of regional policies.

The County Council is concerned that the levels of development envisaged in the South East Plan could damage the quality of life and environment of Hampshire, particularly if it is not accompanied by significant levels of new investment in services and infrastructure. The County Council has called on the Government to ensure that it provides the funding needed for investment in new roads and better public transport systems. This includes asking the Government to re-instate funding for the proposed Light Rapid Transit system for Fareham-Gosport-Portsmouth.

South Hampshire has been identified as a sub-region for potential growth, while much of the northern part of the county is included within the Western Corridor and Blackwater Valley sub-region. The County Council has played a full part in developing both area strategies, as well as providing advice on policies for Central Hampshire. The County Council has submitted advice on the overarching policies in the Regional Spatial Strategy, Regional Economic Strategy and Regional Transport Strategy. The provisional LTP takes full account of the latest conclusions from the emerging South East Plan. This element of the LTP will continue to develop within the context of the Regional Spatial Strategy, although final decisions on the shape of the Regional Spatial Strategy will not have been made before the March 2006 deadline for the full LTP.

Problems and opportunities - Chapter 3

Transport strategies should be based on evidence, not suppositions. The LTP is based on a thorough assessment of existing and future problems and opportunities. Wherever possible, this has involved the use of analytical and predictive tools, such as accessibility auditing, traffic data and transport modelling.

The assessment takes account of the international, national, county-wide and local problems and opportunities facing Hampshire. This includes establishing strategies to serve the international gateways of Southampton airport and the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth. These gateways are crucial for the economic success of the area, but also cause increased congestion and problems of poor air quality.

Although Hampshire's economy has been growing, it has not been growing at the same rate as in some neighbouring counties in the South East. Poor accessibility and congestion are key factors affecting the attractiveness of parts of Hampshire in terms of business competitiveness. There are also pockets of social deprivation in the county, where accessibility to services is a major problem.

Initial accessibility audits show that 18% of Hampshire households cannot get to major retail centres or 20% to food shops by public transport or walking in under 30 minutes. 17% of households cannot get to a hospital in less than an hour by public transport or walking. Some rural areas suffer from particularly acute problems of inaccessibility by public transport.

Congestion is an increasing problem. Parts of the M27 and M3 experience traffic flows of more than 100,000 vehicles per day. Motorway traffic is growing at 2% per annum. There are a number of congestion hot-spots on local roads, particularly Lyndhurst, A32 Gosport/ Fareham, A326 Waterside, Winchester city centre, A33 and Basingstoke town centre and junctions. Increasing private car use has been accompanied by a decline in the use of buses and in cycling.

Air quality problems are frequently caused by traffic congestion. Air Quality Management Areas have been declared or are imminent at Eastleigh, Winchester, Lyndhurst and Totton. These are areas where air quality is predicted to be below defined Government standards. The LTP describes how air quality action plans are being developed to tackle these problems.

Each of the four strategy areas within Hampshire experiences different problems and opportunities. These have been assessed by both analysing available data and also through consultation with local people and stakeholders.

The Solent Area suffers from the county's most acute problems of congestion, particularly on the motorway network (M27, M3 and A3(M)). Improvements to these transport links are vital for the continued success of the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth, together with Southampton International Airport. Southampton and Portsmouth have been identified as key regional hubs in the Regional Transport Strategy.

Congestion is also a growing problem on local roads, particularly along the A32 on the Fareham-Gosport peninsula. The impact of congestion is causing severance, environmental damage and air quality problems in a number of town centres, including Fareham, Eastleigh and Totton. The public transport network in the Solent area is limited. Less than 7% of journeys to work are made by bus or train.

Accessibility to services is reasonably good in the Solent Area, although the geography can cause problems of accessibility to some significant services, such as hospitals.

The Central Hampshire area consists of the larger settlements of Winchester and Andover, together with a number of market or smaller towns within a rural area. Congestion is generally limited to Winchester city centre, which also has poor air quality. There are relatively low levels of bus use in the smaller towns, with limited or incomplete walking and cycling routes. Some rural areas experience high levels of inaccessibility to services. There is a generally good road network in Andover which had resulted in high levels of car usage.

The North Hampshire area features long-distance commuting by car, with corresponding problems of congestion and air quality, particularly on the M3. Some long-distance traffic is diverting to local roads, which is reducing the quality of life for smaller settlements. Rail services are over-crowded. Walking and cycling movements within the towns are constrained by the road network.

The New Forest is Britain's newest National Park. Public transport services are limited, with resulting high dependence on the car. There are seasonal problems of congestion and poor air quality especially at the A35/A337 junction in Lyndhurst. The A326 is also congested, which in turn provides a barrier to access to the New Forest by Waterside residents. Some remote rural areas experience poor levels of accessibility due to limited public transport and lack of local services. Residents are concerned about the noise and environmental damage caused by heavy goods vehicles on unsuitable roads. There are problems of safety for more vulnerable road users, including children, pedestrians, cyclists and animals.

Long-term strategy - Chapter 4

The primary focus of this LTP is the five years from 2006 to 2011. The programmes for these years are described in chapters 5, 6 and 7.

It is vital that the short-term five year programme is set in the context of an effective long-term strategy. This is described in chapter 4.

The long-term strategy is evolving. It will need to take into account decisions made about the scale and location of development as part of the South East Plan. The Government's decision on the Fareham-Gosport-Portsmouth light rail scheme is also critical. The long-term strategy will also be informed by a number of ongoing studies into accessibility, congestion, town centre plans and route hierarchies. The full LTP, submitted in March 2006, will give more detail of these initiatives.

The core of the long-term strategy will remain the County Council's commitment to a balanced transport strategy based on policies to reduce, manage and invest. These are essential values that will remain valid in the long-term.

It is clear that transport problems will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. Increasing car ownership and use will cause more congestion, which will in turn lead to reduced quality of life. Worsening congestion could also damage the economy of the area, by making it more difficult to transport goods and by discouraging businesses from locating in Hampshire.

At the same time, problems of poor accessibility could increase for some communities and some groups of people. As more people are living longer, there is a growing number of older people who may no longer have access to a car. Some of these people live in areas not well served by public transport, such as rural villages. At the same time, increasing bus costs and uncertainty over Government revenue funding for bus support is undermining the County Council's ability to improve public transport in areas of relatively low population. Declining bus use is likely to lead to a downwards spiral, as falling patronage reduces the commercial viability of services.

The County Council's long-term transport strategy can be summarised as:

As funds are likely to be limited, priority will need to be given to measures that deal with the most severe problems and/or that benefit the greatest number of people, with particular weighting applied to disadvantaged groups.

More specific long-term strategies are included for the four transport areas. The current strategies are under revision to reflect external developments, such as the development of the South East Plan, the Government's decision on light rail and the establishment of the National Park Authority for the New Forest. Chapter 4 of this provisional LTP describes the latest versions of these strategies, which are subject to further changes and elaboration.

The Solent Area long-term strategy is being developed by the Solent Transport Partnership on behalf of the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire. In addition to the overarching themes of the LTP, its main features are:

· A land-use strategy to encourage shorter journeys and sustainable communities by focusing development in and around the two cities of Southampton and Portsmouth.

· A series of targeted marketing campaigns to encourage better travel planning by businesses in the area, including more flexible working patterns.

· Improved management of the motorways and trunk roads, to make most effective use of existing road space.

· Strategies to tackle problems of accessibility caused by geography, especially on the Fareham-Gosport peninsula.

· An emerging public transport strategy that is based on cost-effective bus priority measures and park and rides around each of the two cities. More expensive measures to improve the linkages between the two centres would be deferred to the longer term.

· Improved access to the key international gateways of Southampton International airport and the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth. Development of Southampton and Portsmouth as regional hubs.

· Improvements to town centres suffering from problems of congestion and poor air quality, particularly in the Air Quality Management Areas of Eastleigh and Totton.

The long-term strategy for the Central Hampshire area is being developed in the context of proposals in the South East Plan. Although the area is not one of the sub-regional study areas in the South East Plan, it is still likely to be affected by the Plan's proposals for increased levels of housing development. The long-term strategy for Central Hampshire is focused on improving transport within the towns and villages in this largely rural area:

· Managing problems of localised congestion and poor air quality in Winchester, whilst still maintaining the city's character. This is likely to include construction of an additional park and ride within the plan period. Car sharing and car club initiatives would also be explored. Winchester has been identified as a pilot area for an urban masterplan approach.

· Improving accessibility within other towns, especially Andover, Petersfield, Alton and Whitehill-Bordon, with a particular focus on improvements for pedestrians and better signage.

· Improving and enlarging Andover bus station, complemented by a programme of Quality Bus Partnership measures to improve journey reliability and provide real-time passenger information at bus stops and other locations.

· Tackling problems of rural accessibility outside the main towns. This could include measures to improve community transport, more flexible taxi services and other demand responsive services, as well as non-transport improvements such as increased provision of services directly to residents. This would need to be considered as part of the overall public transport strategy as the costs of supporting uneconomic bus services can be disproportionately high.

The North Hampshire area is part of the Western Corridor and Blackwater Valley sub-region, that has been identified as an area for growth in the South East Plan. The long-term strategy for this area will depend crucially on decisions in the South East Plan about the size and location of new development. The main features of the interim long-term strategy are:

· Reducing future problems of congestion and air quality by land-use planning decisions that encourage shorter journeys in and around Basingstoke, reducing the amount of long-distance car and rail commuting.

· Tackling problems of congestion between the two main Regional Transport Hubs of Reading and Basingstoke, and also on the M4 and M3.

· Developing an effective and prioritised public transport network within Basingstoke, Fleet and Rushmoor urban centres to encourage self-containment by providing an alternative to the current high level of car dependency. This will be an increasing need as congestion on the network increases.

· To enhance Basingstoke's role as a Regional Transport Hub through improved public transport access and development of proposals for park and ride sites around Basingstoke.

· Improving accessibility within Basingstoke, particularly to tackle the severance caused to pedestrians and cyclists by the road network.

· Further developing the current cross border working between neighbouring authorities to make the best use of the existing transport networks and promote the use of public transport.

· To develop a strong evidence base and analytical tools such as land-use and transport models for evaluating schemes that deliver value for money.

The New Forest Area long-term strategy will be developed in partnership with the New Forest National Park Authority, as it assumes its full powers and responsibilities. The current strategy is based on the New Forest Transport Strategy, which was published in November 2003, with amendments based on more recent consultation events. It is assumed that the New Forest strategy will be relatively unaffected by the development of the South East Plan.

The interim long term strategy for the New Forest includes:

· Continued improvements to walking, cycling and public transport facilities to provide alternatives to the car for essential travel.

· Continuation of policies to improve safety of more vulnerable groups, including children, pedestrians, cyclists, horse-riders and animals.

· Action to reduce congestion and improve air quality in the New Forest, especially in Lyndhurst (A35/A337 junction) and the severance caused by the A326 at Waterside.

· Policies to manage the impact of heavy goods vehicles on settlements and minor roads.

· Marketing campaigns and other initiatives to encourage car-free tourism.

The County Council is developing a number of policy tools to help implement its long-term transport strategy. The first of these is a process of urban master-planning. The intention is that specific long-term plans would be drawn up for each of the larger settlements within Hampshire. These plans would be developed in full consultation with the district council, local strategic partnership, parish or town council (where applicable) and other local stakeholders. They would complement and be consistent with community strategies and local development documents. The masterplans would tackle problems of accessibility and congestion for all modes of transport, as well as measures to tackle poor air quality and safety.

Winchester City Council has agreed to work with the County Council to produce a masterplan for Winchester. This will also act as a pilot for extension of the approach to other settlements see s3. A rolling programme of master-planning is being developed for the period of the LTP.

To complement this approach, the County Council is also reviewing its strategic road network and route hierarchy. This will clarify the roles of different routes. The hierarchy will be used to identify and prioritise the need for improvements for individual roads, including whether a route primarily serves strategic or local traffic. In line with the Network Management Duty, this will include all road users. The hierarchy will also be used to coordinate asset management and maintenance. The hierarchy will also be used as a basis for making decisions on:

· Asset management and maintenance

· Role of public transport routes

· Quality bus priority measures

· Freight routes

· Traffic management measures.

This provisional LTP includes an interim hierarchy based on the Hampshire County Structure Plan 1996-2011. A revised hierarchy will be produced for the full LTP in March 2006.

Both of these policy tools will be informed by thorough analysis of existing and future transport issues, including through the use of traffic modelling and accessibility auditing.

Five year strategy - Chapter 5

Accessibility

Improvement to accessibility is one of the key themes and priorities of this LTP. This recognises that transport is a means to an end and is not an end in itself. Extensive consultation has shown that Hampshire residents want an effective transport system that gets them to the services and destinations they need.

This LTP aims to exceed the Government's requirements for accessibility planning by a considerable margin, through:

· Assessing and improving accessibility to a wider range of services and destinations than required by the Government.

· Assessing and improving non-transport accessibility - ways to bring services to people rather than requiring people to travel to them.

· Integrating accessibility planning into settlement masterplans and travel planning. Town centre access programmes will be implemented throughout the five year LTP period and beyond to improve the pedestrian environment and improve access for all road users with particular emphasis on removing physical and psychological barriers (including upgrading subways, improving pedestrian bridges, improved lighting for security).

· Analysing actual accessibility as well as the theoretical accessibility required by the Government and derived from its software model. This includes ways to provide more information to the public so that they are aware of the existence of travel choices.

The strategy comprises a wide range of practical measures to improve accessibility which will be implemented over the five years of the LTP. This includes:

· Revisions to bus services to create a better match between need and supply, based on accessibility audits.

· Footpath improvements in town centres, particularly to tackle problems of severance.

· Improvement to lighting and CCTV to tackle fear of crime.

· Better road signs for motorists and pedestrians.

· Improved information at bus stops through bus quality partnerships.

· Real-time bus information.

· Bus display information systems.

· Variable message signing to car parks.

Congestion

An interim strategy on congestion is presented in this LTP, pending the arrival of further guidance from the Government. As part of the development of the long-term strategy and the South East Plan, the County Council and its partners are conducting a congestion and transport study of the South Hampshire area. This study is assessing all different options to tackle congestion, including both demand management measures and providing additional capacity. Full details of the study will be provided in the full LTP in March 2006. It is likely that the congestion strategy will be based around the principles of reduce, manage and invest.

The five year programme of measures will include:

· Workplace and school travel planning, with the objective that all schools in Hampshire should have agreed school travel plans ahead of the Government's target of 2010. The use of dedicated school buses will be investigated.

· Improvements to traffic management, including extending the use of Intelligent Transport Systems.

· Marketing initiatives to encourage the use of alternatives to the car, including extension of the successful Infomotion programme to promote bus patronage.

· Specific capital investment schemes to tackle congestion hot-spots.

· Prompt handling of incidents that cause severe congestion, such as poor weather, roadworks, crashes, and events.

Safety

The LTP continues Hampshire County Council's successful road safety programme, focusing on:

· Casualty reduction

· Safety and road user auditing

· Child safety, including the link to deprivation

· Safer routes to schools

· Road safety awareness

· Education, training and publicity

· Speed management and enforcement

· Safety through asset management.

A particular emphasis in the LTP period will be to tackle accidents caused by excessive speed and/or driver error. In line with the principle of reduce, manage and invest, the LTP strategy prioritises measures to reduce these problems through driver training and awareness of the needs of cyclists and pedestrians, especially children.

The main safety programme for the LTP will be focused on engineering programmes to tackle sites with existing safety problems. These measures deliver very good value for money and have helped to achieve a considerable reduction in casualties. The highly successful safety camera partnership will be continued.

There were fewer people killed on Hampshire's roads in 2004 than in any other year. If these improvements can be maintained, the County Council is on course to meet national road safety targets ahead of the Government's deadline of 2010.

Air quality

Five areas in Hampshire have air quality predicted to be of sufficiently poor standards to require them to be declared as Air Quality Management Areas:

· Winchester

· Eastleigh

· Totton

· Lyndhurst

· M3 (near Farnborough).

The LTP describes the Air Quality Action Plans that the County Council and the relevant district councils are developing to tackle these problems.

Five year programme - Chapter 6

The five year investment programme in this LTP includes funding from the County Council's own resources, revenue funding, developer contributions and capital allocations provided by the Government. A key underlying theme of the LTP will be to combine revenue and capital, and also add value by making best use of this funding to lever in additional funding from other sources.

As required by the Government, the LTP is based on Government allocations over the five year period of £69 million for integrated transport and £79 million for highways maintenance and bridges. These are the figures set by the Government for the provisional LTP but these will change for the final LTP when new formula funding is introduced together with `reward' funding. The interim programme in this provisional LTP will be determined in more detail following further consultation and announcement of the funding formula later in the year.

Detailed programmes will be considered by the Area Transport Strategy Panels later in 2005 and early in 2006. While some programmes, such as casualty reduction, will be county-wide, most programmes will be determined on an area basis and the four areas will have different emphases. Each area will have town centre and other access programmes. In Solent there is immediate accent on tackling congestion (linked to air quality) and developing long term road and public transport strategies across the sub-region. The north of the county will see investment to improve access to and within Aldershot and Basingstoke, linked to development. Central Hampshire priorities will focus on access to Winchester (linked to air quality issues) and other towns as well as rural access. New Forest has particular tourism related traffic and access issues which require sensitive management in a special environment.

The proposed LTP capital investment programme for the five year period is:

Integrated Transport

Safety (including safer routes to schools) £20 million

Access - Town centres/Barriers £15 million

Access - Others, inc Countryside £ 5 million

Public Transport inc Park and Ride £15 million

Tackling Congestion/Air Quality £ 7 million

Street lighting improvements £ 5 million

Others, inc Innovation and Environment £ 2 million

Total £69 million

Maintenance and Bridges

Structural Maintenance £79 million.

The funding available may change as a result of the new formula arrangement being introduced by the Department for Transport. The County Council is currently considering how to fund much needed replacement of its aged street lighting columns. On the advice of the Department for Transport, this includes the possibility of funding this work through a combination of integrated transport block funding and use of the Private Finance Initiative.

The capital programme will be supplemented by developer funding expected to be of the order of £6 million per year and revenue funding to support services, publicity for public transport and travel planning, road safety education and training. Opportunities for partnership funding will continue to be explored wherever possible. The LTP maintenance allocation is also supplemented from local resources and revenue.

A realistic approach to funding has been taken through the formation of this LTP and the long term strategy. It is not a bidding document but a plan containing indicative funding levels. All schemes that have been developed or are in development, regardless of the funding source, are assessed against a set of criteria that considers their value for money, costs and benefits, contribution to LTP targets and scheme outcomes. The methodology used is consistent with the New Approach to Transport Appraisal (NATA) framework. For all schemes, not just larger schemes, a mechanism for pre and post monitoring of outcomes exists and relates to the targets contained within the LTP and other locally significant targets. A system is also in place to monitor budget and spend through the year on a quarterly basis. This ensures that budgets are effectively managed and costs are controlled.

Indicators, Targets and Monitoring

The LTP contains the full set of mandatory targets as required by the Department for Transport covering road and footway condition, casualties, bus patronage, bus punctuality, bus satisfaction, overall traffic levels, school travel modes, cycle usage and air quality targets for each air quality management area. Monitoring of performance will involve a robust system for reviewing targets.

Annual trajectories and an analysis of the risks to each target as well as details of the methodology for each are included in the relevant appendix.

Hampshire County Council's LTP also includes a number of optional indicators of particular relevance to the County Council's aspirations covering public transport patronage (ie including rail and ferry use), satisfaction with public transport information, crossings with facilities to help people with disabilities, workplace and school travel plan coverage. Some of these indicators are best value performance indicators.

New access related indicators are being developed relating to access to services and to town centres and public satisfaction and these will feature in the final LTP in March 2006 together with Solent wide indicators which may cover congestion monitoring (subject to further Department for Transport guidance).

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APPENDIX 2

LOCAL TRANSPORT PLAN - STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT SCOPING REPORT CONSULTATION

The principal role of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of the Local transport Plan (LTP) is to ensure that the environmental impacts of the transport policies and consequent capital investment programmes are given proper consideration during the Plan development and implementation.

The first stage of this process was the production of a Scoping Report that sets the context for the Environment Report, identifies objectives, problems and opportunities and establishes a baseline of environmental data. The Scoping Report also develops alternatives to the main objectives and defines the overall scope of the SEA.

Hampshire County Council's Scoping Report for the SEA of the LTP, was issued in March 2005 for consultation. The consultation was sent to 30 external organisations, the Directors of all County Council Departments and a range of other internal individuals with a particular interest in environmental matters.

The consultation period ran until 9 May, although a number of responses that arrived shortly after this date have also been considered. In total 19 responses were received, with eight from external organisations including two of the four statutory consultees, English Nature and the Environment Agency. A detailed analysis of the responses has been undertaken which will help to shape both the LTP itself and the accompanying Environmental Report.

Overall the vast majority of the respondents supported the direction of the SEA outlined in the Scoping Report and considered it was both comprehensive and thorough and met the requirements of the SEA Guidance. Responses tended to focus on individual topic areas, although those consultees who commented on the options and objectives supported the approach being suggested. A commentary on all the responses will be included in the Environment Report, however the principal points raised were:

(i) The LTP should only assess factors which are likely to have a significant environmental effect, especially when setting objectives, targets and indicators.

(ii) Objectives should be SMART.

(iii) The level of data to be monitored needs to be manageable.

(iv) There is an over reliance placed on higher level plans and insufficient reference to the environmental objectives of LDFs and district level community strategies

(v) There is a lack of indicators for some of the objectives identified

(vi) Further explanation of the compatibility testing of the SEA Objectives is required

(vii) General support for the alternative LTP strategies identified, but with a need for more detailed evaluation of the different options.

(viii) A wider range of outcome targets need to be included, particularly for climate change and air quality.

(ix) Maps and keys need to be clearer.

(x) There is concern that the baseline information in the report lacks detail.

(xi) Biodiversity should be given greater emphasis.

(xii) Greater reference to the wider built environment, settlement character is needed.

(xiii) Consideration for identifying noise as a separate topic, rather than as part of material assets.

(xiv) There should be a greater focus on locally relevant targets.

(xv) LTP objectives should be tested against SEA objectives rather than the other way round.

(xvi) Incorporation of a behavioural change model into the Plan.

The next major stage of the SEA process will be the production of a draft Environmental Report, which will be published for further consultation, in parallel with the consultation on the Provisional LTP which will take place in September/October 2005. Feedback on the Provisional LTP and the Environment Report will then be fed into the final LTP in March 2006.

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