Archived decisions

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

Graham Flatt, ext 6089 email: [email protected]

1. Summary

1.1 In 1999 the County Surveyor with the County Planning Officer presented a report to the former Planning and Transportation Resources Sub-Committee dealing with a "Review of Road Signs Provision" (copy attached). The report had been prepared in acknowledgement that the cumulative effects of road signing were beginning to have a potentially damaging effect on the rural highway environment. It dealt with the careful balance needing to be struck between the County Council's statutory responsibilities for road signing provision in accordance with regulating traffic and road safety, and the pressure this could place on the protection of the highway environment, particularly in sensitive landscape areas and village locations. Much of the content of that report remains relevant today in the context of the latest edition of the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions (2002).

1.2 The purpose of this report is to review the County Council's current position with regard to this complex matter, acknowledging the positive actions that arose from the previous report, such as the removal of most "Clearways" and their attendant signing across Hampshire and ongoing programmes for restoring Hampshire's historic "fingerpost" direction signs in rural areas.

1.3 This review is seen to be necessary as there is growing concern from some sectors of the community over the potentially damaging cumulative effects of highway signing and unsympathetic highway design features, particularly in the rural highway environment. In addition recent national practice guidance publications from the Department for Transport (DfT), English Heritage and the Countryside Agency highlight the need for sensitive highway design practice in both the rural and urban highway environments.

2. Corporate Strategy

2.1 This report supports the following Aims of the Corporate Strategy:

(i) Aim 2 (Stewardship of the Environment) by better protecting the Hampshire highway environment from any adverse effects arising from highway maintenance and management functions; and

(ii) Aim 5 (Improving Services) as associated with the County Council's highway management and environmental protection responsibilities and activities.

3. The Issues

3.1 Potentially adverse impacts on the highway environment can arise in many different ways from the delivery of the County Council's statutory functions for the regulation of traffic and for promoting road safety. At times these objectives can create a tension with the need to preserve and enhance the highway environment in sensitive landscape areas, within villages and in historic streetscapes within our towns and cities. The potential for a decline in the character and quality of the highway environment or "streetscape" can most often arise as a consequence of small but cumulative changes over time in highway signing, street "furniture" provision and general highway design features, such as carriageway and footway surfacing treatments. These individual schemes delivered through the Highway Authority's functions may not in themselves appear to result in significant erosion of landscape character or historic streetscape. Therefore the problems are not always recognised within the delivery of day to day highway maintenance and management activities, or indeed in the details of individual highway improvements.

3.2 The DfT, in partnership with English Heritage, has produced a series of regionally based "Streets for All" design practice guides which it is commending to local highway authorities across the United Kingdom as the basis for returning quality and local distinctiveness to the highway public realm in urban areas. This may in turn have a bearing on the Local Transport Plan shared transportation objectives of accessibility improvements, safety and air quality. An improved quality of highway environment in urban and rural areas may assist the wider objectives of greater levels of non-motorised activity in preference to the car.

3.3 Similar best practice design guidance for rural roads and villages, where much of the debate has centred thus far in Hampshire, has been published by the Countryside Agency, in partnership with the Institution of Civil Engineers, in its publication `Rural Routes and Networks'.

4. Raising Awareness and Promoting Best Practice

4.1 Many agencies and individuals have a responsibility for changes within the highway environment in Hampshire. There is a need for greater awareness therefore of the cumulative impacts on local highway character at all levels within the Environment Department and in the work of District and Parish Councils.

4.2 Stakeholder consultation has recently concluded on the County Council Service Improvement Review of its Speed Management Service. This revealed that it is not unusual for additional speed limit, regulatory and warning signs to be added to the rural road network, including rural settlements, in order to satisfy local community concerns over the adverse effects of vehicle speeds, flows and traffic composition on the rural communities of Hampshire. Some of these measures, which can have an urbanising effect and result in a loss of rural character, have been promoted and funded by the Parish Councils themselves through the provisions of the Local Government Act 1997.

4.3 Conservation of the rural highway environment therefore needs to be carefully balanced with the objectives of improved safety and the continued effective management of traffic and the highway network. The delivery of efficient and effective highway proposals that meet the County Council's statutory obligations and community concerns over traffic, whilst responding to the need to protect and enhance the highway environment, will therefore depend in part upon an improved awareness by local communities of the difficult balance to be struck by the County Council and its partners.

5. Existing and Proposed Action

5.1 The broad approach taken by the Environment Department so far in addressing these issues has been to raise awareness of the growing difficulties associated with current practices with Environment Department staff. This has identified that to be truly effective any radical change in approach would need to be fully shared with both District and Parish Councils and understood by the Hampshire community as a whole.

5.2 In response to the recent national best practice guidelines publications, the Landscape Planning and Heritage Group within the Environment Department has been tasked with developing approaches to good highway environment practice. A cross departmental working group has been established to consider the issues. To commence the process and to build a common ownership of the issues across the Department a series of pilot awareness raising workshops have been delivered for a cross section of staff, including senior managers. The workshops served as a way of not only raising awareness, but also informing the development of good practice.

5.3 Three workshops involving over 50 staff were held in autumn 2005 and spring 2006 and were used to explore the issues and inform the way forward. There was an overwhelming consensus among staff that the issues were real and growing and would need to result in some adaptations to existing practice for highway management and design functions. Key outcomes were:

(i) the Second Local Transport Plan (LTP2) (2006-11) should highlight the issue and propose funding for highway signing audit and "anti-clutter" pilot projects in rural and urban areas;

(ii) produce a detailed and prioritised action plan to process the detailed findings of the workshops and to set a basis for future Environment Department policies and working practices;

(iii) continue to raise awareness of the issues by rolling out the workshops to more staff involved in commissioning, designing and maintaining the highway infrastructure, but importantly also raising awareness of the issues with Members, District and Parish Councils; and

(iv) prepare guidelines for good practice based upon recent national best practice guidance and taking account of innovation elsewhere as related to the Hampshire situation. This in turn should be used as a framework for future learning and development.

6. The Way Forward

6.1 Work has commenced on producing draft good practice highway environment design guidelines for rural and urban highways in Hampshire. These guidelines will be tested and refined through consultation involving Environment Department staff, other local authorities and District and Parish Councils in Hampshire, together with the Council for Protection of Rural England (CPRE).

6.2 Further involvement and feedback from stakeholders, particularly local communities and interest groups such as CPRE, will be essential to the success of future approaches and to ensure that a correct balance is struck between the County Council's potentially conflicting objectives and responsibilities. A key benefit of the recently improved dialogue with CPRE for instance has been the gaining of a much improved level of mutual understanding of the scale of the problem and the difficulty of achieving an appropriate balance.

6.3 CPRE's particular involvement in the LTP2 rural roads "anti-clutter" pilot initiative will be valuable therefore for further improving mutual understanding and to provide the opportunity to trial new approaches and models of good practice. Efforts will be made to ensure that the lessons of the pilot projects inform the further development of those best practice guidelines.

6.4 There is £150,000 allocated within the LTP2 Transport Capital Programme for 2006/07 for pilot projects. It is proposed that part of this allocation will be used (in consultation with the CPRE and other interested parties) to fund small-scale sign clutter audit and removal projects to demonstrate improvements that can be made; again these can help inform the best practice guidelines.

7. Conclusions

7.1 There is growing recognition of a requirement to review current approaches to the management and design of rural and urban highways in order to meet the following objectives:

(i) the need to address growing community concern, particularly in rural areas, over the potentially damaging effects on the rural highway environment of urbanising features;

(ii) a number of key Local Transport Plan and Corporate Strategy objectives may be best met by improvements to the quality of the streetscape, particularly in towns and villages, and through a raised awareness by all of the wider functions Hampshire's highways play in the quality of people's lives;

(iii) the need to reconcile the continued maintenance costs of highway features with the pressures on the new Hampshire Transport Asset Management Plan, and an acknowledgement that in some cases benefits may well arise from seeking simpler quality designs from the outset of scheme inception;

(iv) there is a need for the County Council as local Highway Authority to continue to lead on the preservation of historic roadside features, including fingerposts and milestones, in order to preserve them for future generations; and

(v) the greatest impact on the appearance of our highways is likely to arise from the cumulative impact of day-to-day network management functions, rather than location specific designs.

7.2 The highways environment cross-departmental working group has therefore proposed an action plan to address these concerns featuring raised awareness of the issues with Environment Department staff, adapted as appropriate for Hampshire District Councils, Parish Councils and County Councillors. This will be accompanied by the development of best practice guidance.

8. Impact Assessments

8.1 Assessment of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act has been considered in relation to the points raised in this report but no adverse impact has been identified in terms of race, creed or gender.

Recommendation

That the report be noted.

968Rpt/TLC