Archived decisions

Agenda Item 11

Report to the

Transport for South Hampshire Joint Committee

Date: 30 September 2009

Report by: John Slater, Head of Planning Services, Portsmouth City Council

tel: 02392 834297 email: [email protected]

Subject: Local Transport Plan 3

Purpose of the Report

The purpose of the report is to agree that there should be a single Local Transport Plan (LTP) produced to cover the Transport for South Hampshire (TfSH) area for adoption by April 2011

Recommendation

That the Joint Committee agrees to the preparation of a Joint Strategy Statement to form the Local Transport Plan for the South Hampshire sub region but notes that the Implementation Plans element of the Local Transport Plan will be the responsibility of the individual constituent authorities.

Background

1. At the last meeting of the Joint Committee an item was taken looking at options on how Local Transport Plans could be prepared in the light of the then draft advice published for consultation by the Department for Transport.

2. Since that meeting the Government has published the final version of the Guidance and essentially the document has not materially changed in terms of the options available to the constituent authorities. Furthermore, discussions have taken place between the three partner authorities and it has been accepted that there are significant benefits arising from the production of a single Strategy Statement covering the whole TfSH area but that each highway authority would then produce its own implementation Plan. These would reflect specific priorities and the amount of resources available to each council. Such an approach will ensure that the transport strategy will reflect more closely the travel patterns of the area and enable the current policy of TfSH, as set out in the "Towards Delivery" document, to be further developed as an LTP but also reflecting the different emphasis arising from the DaSTS work.

3. There is a consequence of this approach in that it requires the County Council to produce a separate strategy for the remainder of the County. Indeed it is understood that there will be two strategies covering Mid Hampshire and North Hampshire which, along with the South Hampshire Strategy, will form the County LTP Strategy.

4. Officers of the three authorities have already started discussions on how joint working on the LTP will be taken forward and progress reports will be brought to future meetings. It will be important that consultation on the Plan will have to reflect the sub regional approach whilst at the same time being sensitive to the local issues associated with transport matters.

Consideration of Options

5. It would be possible for each council to produce its own strategy with or without reference to an overall TfSH strategy. This is not recommended, as it would not reflect the transport patterns in the area and the need to respond to the sub regional growth requirement. At the other extreme one option could be to have a single LTP covering all of Hampshire, as well as the two cities of Southampton and Portsmouth. Whilst this would allow the county of Hampshire to have a single Transport Strategy, it would not reflect the difference characteristics of the various parts of the area with the two cities and their hinterland.

969/Rpt/JS