Archived decisions

Item 9

Report to the

Transport for South Hampshire Joint Committee

Date: 8 January 2008

Report by: Paul Denyer, Portsmouth City Council

tel: 023 9283 4615 email: [email protected]

Subject: Partnership for Urban South Hampshire Local Development Frameworks - Transport Studies

Purpose of the Report:

This report updates Members on progress on the transport aspects of the preparation of the Core Strategies of the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire authorities Local Development Frameworks.

Recommendation

That the report be noted.

Background

1. Every local planning authority in England and Wales, outside London, is required by the Secretary of State to prepare, in accordance with a prescribed process and agreed timetable, a Local Development Framework (LDF) setting out its policies and proposals in respect of land use planning. LDFs are the vehicles through which many of the policies of Regional Economic Strategy and Regional Spatial Strategy will be delivered. The LDFs are replacing Local Plans and look forward 15-20 years.

LDFs and Transport

2. A number of the councils more advanced in their programmes than the Hampshire authorities have received a setback at their Public Examination because the transport strategy has been found "unsound" by the Inspector, often on the advice of the Highways Agency.

3. Fareham, Gosport and Havant Borough Council, together with Portsmouth City Council (the "Harbour authorities"), have addressed this concern through a jointly funded transport study covering substantially the Portsmouth travel to work area. This approach recognised the inter-relationship between the four authorities' development proposals and the challenges and opportunities that this implies.

4. Southampton, Eastleigh, Test Valley, Winchester and the New Forest Councils, reflecting the Southampton travel-to work area, are also working together, although in a less formal way.

The Study Brief

5. As part of the process of refreshing the Regional Funding Allocation for the regional assembly, Transport for South Hampshire has engaged Peter Brett Associates (PBA) to review the transport interventions in South East Hampshire. In view of this consultant's experience with this work, PBA was invited to undertake the transport study on behalf of the four Harbour authorities.

6. Gosport Borough Council is the lead authority, preparing the Brief and coordinating the input from the other three planning authorities, together with Hampshire County Council as the local highway authority and the Highways Agency. The study is being managed by a Steering Group including representatives of all these organisations.

7. The agreed methodology for the study is for the Steering Group to "sign off" the project at key stages, ensuring that there is a clear audit trail for the report and ensuring as far as practicable that any challenge at future public inquiries will be focused on the outcomes and conclusions of the study rather than on conflicting views of the methodology of the study or the data and assumptions used. The transport study for the Harbour authorities area includes a simple transport model of the Strategic Road Network and (M27, M275, A27(T) and A3(M)) for the sub-region, together with a small number of link roads to this. This model has been run for anticipated traffic conditions at 2006, 2016 and 2026.

8. The authorities in south-west Hampshire have considered taking a similar approach but, as their LDFs are generally at a more advanced stage and they have more in-house resources to draw on, they have decided that, whilst they will continue to co-ordinate the preparation of their LDFs to ensure consistency, they do not, at this stage, need to bring in external support.

9. In addition to the studies, a series of workshops has been arranged by PUSH for local planning authorities to appraise staff producing Local Development Documents on a range of relevant issues. A workshop, specifically on Transport, has been arranged for mid-February, which will be supported by Transport for South Hampshire staff, together with officials from the Highways Agency, the Government Office for the South East and a local planning authority from elsewhere that has already satisfied an Inspector on transport grounds.

10. A verbal update will be given to the Joint Committee on the progress with these two studies as it becomes available and reported to the commissioning local planning authorities.

1536/PD