Archived decisions

Contact: Iain Reeve, ext 5301 email: [email protected]

1. Summary

1.1 This report provides an update on the development of the full Local Transport Plan, which is required to be completed by 31 March 2006.

2. Local Transport Plan Update

2.1 The County Council's provisional Local Transport Plan (LTP) was submitted to Government on 29 July 2005. Copies have been placed in the Members' rooms to replace earlier draft versions. Further copies of the document are currently being printed and will be circulated once available. The LTP will shortly be placed on the County Council website.

3. Production of Full Local Transport Plan

3.1 The next stage now is to produce a full LTP, which needs to be submitted to Government by 31 March 2006. The main differences between the full and provisional LTPs are:

(i) The provisional LTP concentrated largely on the overall transport policies for the five year period from 2006-11. The full LTP will have more details of individual schemes and measures to be delivered in this period.

(ii) The full LTP will have more precise targets and performance indicators.

(iii) The full LTP will have to be based on a revised funding allocation, announced by the Government in July. This is described in Section 5 below.

(iv) The full LTP will incorporate research results in a number of key areas, especially accessibility and congestion.

4. Funding Allocations

4.1 The Government is changing the way that financial allocations are calculated for LTPs. Allocations as part of the LTP are made for three different purposes:

(i) major schemes costing more than £5 million are assessed and funded on a case-by-case basis;

(ii) maintenance expenditure: allocations are calculated by a formula which takes into account the length and condition of roads in each authority's area; and

(iii) integrated transport allocations are made for all other transport capital schemes costing less than £5 million. This includes new roads, junctions, footpaths, cycleways, bus stops, bus lanes, bus stations, etc. Up to now, allocations for this type of expenditure have been based on bids from authorities.

4.2 The Government now proposes that integrated transport allocations should be calculated by a formula rather than by the assessment of bids. LTPs must be written to show how the allocations produced by the formula would be used.

4.3 The Government is currently consulting on the formula and how it should be phased in. Two options for phasing-in are proposed - over three years or five years. As the following table shows, the proposed formula would lead to a reduced allocation for Hampshire County Council of up to £8.2 million over the five years.

Possible integrated transport allocations: £ million

Notes: "LTP1 proportion" shows the allocation that Hampshire County Council would have received in the LTP2 period if its share of the LTP1 allocations were applied to national totals. This is the basis on which the provisional LTP has been written, in accordance with Government requirements.

4.4 The impact of the formula varies considerably from authority to authority. Within the South East region, the biggest winner is Kent County Council, which sees its allocation rise from £6.7 million in LTP1 to as much as £17 million in 2010-11. Other authorities, notably Reading Borough Council and the Isle of Wight Council, face a 40% to 47% reduction in their allocations over the same period.

4.5 Allocations may be increased or decreased by as much as 25% depending on the strength of the LTP. Authorities rated as excellent under the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) the amount produced by the formula. However, it is not clear whether there will be scope for many authorities to receive 25% increases in their allocations. Any reward funding will have to be taken as reductions from poor performing authorities, excluding CPA excellent authorities. As poor performing authorities tend to be the smaller authorities, this suggests that there will be less to allocate to larger authorities than the 25% proposed.

4.6 Therefore Hampshire County Council is guaranteed to receive the formula allocation by virtue of its CPA excellent status. There is a possibility of reward funding for a good LTP, although it is unlikely to be as high as the 25% that is theoretically possible. Reward funding will be recalculated each year according to how well authorities deliver their LTP programmes and meet their targets.

5. Timetable

5.1 The full LTP has to be submitted to the Government by 31 March 2006. This suggests the following timetable:

August-October Consultation on the provisional LTP

September-November Transport Strategy Panels

December Government announce decisions on provisional LTPs

LTP largely drafted

12 January 2006 LTP considered by Environment Policy Review Committee

23 January LTP considered by Cabinet

23 February LTP considered by Council

March Printing and final preparation

31 March LTP submitted to Government

5.2 The intention is that drafts of the full LTP will be made available to Members in January 2006, to allow time for consideration by the Environment Policy Review Committee, Cabinet and Council in January and February. Where possible, draft sections of the full LTP and key decisions will be submitted to the Environment Policy Review Committee in advance of its meeting on 12 January.

5.3 The timetable is tight. In particular, there is little time to react to the Government's expected announcements in mid-December. These announcements are expected to include feedback on the provisional LTP and decisions on the funding levels that the full LTP will be required to follow. It is not known when a decision on the Fareham-Gosport-Portsmouth Light Rapid Transit Scheme will be announced.

6. Consultation

6.1 It is proposed to carry out a relatively low-key consultation on the provisional LTP. Copies of the document will be sent to Members, key stakeholders, district councils and neighbouring authorities with a deadline of mid-October. During the weeks beginning 17 and 24 October representatives from each of the 11 Local Strategic Partnerships will be invited to attend an evening meeting to discuss the relevant LTP area strategy. On 24 November an LTP workshop is being organised to which all County and District Members will be invited.

6.2 All the comments received will then be collated and taken into account in the production of the full LTP in November and December.

7. Revisions to the Provisional Local Transport Plan

7.1 The provisional LTP will need to be amended to reflect consultation comments, changes in the funding levels and any Government decision on the Light Rapid Transit scheme. There will also be a number of other changes and additions, to reflect ongoing developments since the provisional LTP was produced.

7.2 The full LTP will include an update on the South East Plan, especially how levels and location of growth impact on long-term transport strategies. More information is becoming available through transport modelling about the likely impact that growth will have on travel patterns and congestion. This will also enable more specific information to be given about major scheme bids.

7.3 The intention is that the full LTP will include a number of technical annexes to provide more detail of strategies for individual service areas, such as passenger transport, Intelligent Transport Systems and smarter choices (travel planning and marketing). The Transport Asset Management Plan will be further refined, to help make the best use of existing assets.

7.4 The full LTP will also describe the latest position on pilot exercises, including sign-clutter audits, smarter choices, school buses, transport master-planning and accessibility. Although none of these will have been completed by the time that the full LTP has been submitted, they will have moved on considerably since the provisional LTP.

7.5 The full LTP will contain more details of individual schemes and interventions. An assessment framework is being developed to allow individual schemes to be assessed and prioritised for their value for money and policy effectiveness. This will also allow the full LTP to contain more precise targets about the outcomes that will be delivered from the schemes.

8. The Local Transport Plan as the Overarching Transport Policy Document

8.1 A further change proposed is that the full LTP should become the single overarching transport policy document for the County Council. This entails reviewing all existing transport policy documents and translating them into either annexes of the LTP or sections within the LTP's main text. This would then allow all other policy statements to be superseded.

8.2 This is especially important for the Structure Plan, which will be superseded once the South East Plan is approved by the Government. This is expected to be in spring 2008. At that point the LTP will become the single authoritative transport statement for the County Council. As such, it will influence both the formulation of Local Development Frameworks by district councils and individual development control decisions.

8.3 It is proposed that the full LTP should assume the role of the Structure Plan in setting the transport policy framework for the county. This would be effective from the date on which the Structure Plan is superseded by the South East Plan. This would entail reproducing transport policy elements from the Structure Plan and also amending the language of the LTP to present policy statements in the style of the Structure Plan. It should be noted, however, that the new policies will be non-statutory and may therefore carry less weight with planning authorities than the Structure Plan.

8.4 Further details of this proposal will be given in subsequent updates.

9. Impact Assessments

9.1 This will relate to the funding of transport measures affecting all communities and groups.

Recommendation

That the Panel notes the timetable and details for the development of the full Local Transport Plan.

612/IR