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Leicestershire Provisional Local Transport Plan 2006-2011Give us your views on the Leicestershire Local Transport PlanConsultation September - December 2005The following information is also available as an Adobe PDF file:
The Local Transport Plan (LTP) sets out our plans for traffic and transport in Leicestershire. We published a provisional LTP this July covering the years from 2006 to 2011. Now we want your views on it so that we can finalise it next spring.
This web page contains:
We consulted on the LTP strategy at the end of 2004 and adopted six transport objectives as a consequence. The Provisional LTP sets out our proposed spending programmes to meet these objectives, and the associated targets. We invite your views on these, and on the extent to which we should change the proposals in the Provisional LTP in the light of the Environmental Report.
At the end of the summary is a link to an on-line questionnaire, which we ask you to complete and submit. If you want more detail on the LTP and the Environmental Report, full versions of both are available on this website and at libraries and County Council service shops across Leicestershire. You can also print off and complete the questionnaire by printing it off from the PDF version of the consultation document (follow the link above), or you can request a printed copy of the document free of charge by e-mail from tpp@leics.gov.uk, or from our freephone number 0800 056 6765.
The consultation period has been extended to 12th December 2005.Questionnaire
The main purpose of the LTP is to set out our plans for investment in the transport system in the coming five years. This investment is designed both to tackle the immediate problems we face and to contribute towards the goals set out in the longer-term transport strategy, which itself forms part of the Plan. Many wider aims, such as a strong local economy and ready access to facilities for all, depend on an effective transport system, and the longer-term strategy shows how our sustained investment can make transport more effective in meeting those aims.
The LTP is designed to deliver on a set of six key transport objectives, and progress is monitored by setting targets. Much of the LTP is taken up with a description of the investments we can make, with partners, to bring about change. The more effective our measures, the more ambitious we can be with our targets within available funding.
After describing the measures, the LTP assesses how much investment we should make in each of them, and hence what relative weight is to be placed on meeting each of our objectives. Once that judgement is made, we can set out the overall spending programme and finalise our targets on the basis of that.
This web page describes the process outlined above. The LTP is provisional at this stage. Once we have completed this consultation, and heard from government what our final levels of funding will be, we will adjust the Plan accordingly and submit it as a final LTP to government in March 2006.
We start from a position of substantial progress, driven by the programmes of investment in our first LTP and by the implementation of two recent Best Value reviews covering most areas of the highways and transportation service. Against that, there are still significant problems.
Overall:
If these are the immediate transport issues, our future planning must be driven by the wider requirements of our Community Strategy, our Medium Term Corporate Strategy and the regional and national government transport strategies. Key themes from here point us towards helping to create ‘a vibrant county in which to live, work and play’, to a focus on access to quality services, and looking particularly to the needs of young people. Linked to this are important commitments to helping to meet the needs of new development, helping to promote economic development and regeneration both in the county and in Leicester, and helping people gain access to improving education and health facilities.
We derive our longer-term transport strategy from this context.
There is obvious difficulty in predicting conditions 20 years ahead with any accuracy but we believe that to meet local needs, and to be consistent with the government’s 2004 White Paper “The Future of Transport”, we need to progress on five broad themes:
From this longer-term transport strategy we have drawn out six objectives for the next five years. We consulted Leicestershire people and stakeholder groups on these and there was a strong consensus behind giving priority to them, with more than 70% support for each being a high or medium priority. We have therefore adopted these as our objectives, and set initial targets:
We will work with a variety of partners to meet our targets, using both our own resources and those that they can contribute. Leicester City Council is the most important of our partners, and we need to have fully integrated work programmes with them for the key measures in reducing congestion and improving access in Central Leicestershire, as well as working closely with them on other programmes.
Out of the many possible measures, some will offer good value for money and others not, while yet others are not realistically available. We have analysed all the measures on this basis, ascribing each to the objective it most helps to meet, but recognising that many measures will in practice contribute to success in more than one objective as well as contributing more widely to quality of life issues such as noise, crime reduction and climate change.
To reduce congestion, we will:
To improve access to facilities, we will:
To reduce road casualties, we will:
To improve air quality, we will:
To reduce the impact of traffic, we will:
To manage transport assets effectively, we will:
Our park and ride scheme will cost well over the £5m threshold for ‘major’ schemes but we will fund it from LTP block funds, on a 50/50 basis with Leicester City Council, so as to ensure that we can deliver this vital contribution to reducing congestion in Central Leicestershire as soon as possible.
Two other improvements will make similarly important contributions but, because of their cost, can only be afforded if separately funded by government as major schemes. The first is the Earl Shilton bypass, which will transform the town centre environment and greatly improve road safety. We have submitted a separate bid for this.
The second is the Loughborough Integrated Transport scheme. This will contribute greatly to town centre regeneration as well as removing the air quality problem from the town centre, helping to improve bus facilities and reducing road accident casualties. We are working closely with Charnwood Borough Council to develop the scheme and intend to submit a major scheme bid for it in 2006.
We will invest in all the delivery measures but we need to decide how much to spend on each measure to make us most successful overall in meeting our initial targets. We have tested different approaches and decided on the levels of spending shown in the table. Our funding from government is currently only ‘indicative’ so we will repeat the process when we know our final funding allocation.
Provisional five-year LTP capital programmeOutturn prices (£000), LTP period from 2006/07 to 2009/10
The analysis to determine the proposed funding split between measures leads us to conclude that against our initial targets:
Tackling congestion: We will not be able to prevent congestion getting worse without spending far more than we have available. We can check its growth, however, and have set targets to do so in Central Leicestershire (with Leicester City) and in Loughborough.
Improving access to facilities: We can secure a marginal improvement in access times by public transport to main centres, but the percentages of people within given access times are already very high and it would not be value for money to seek significant improvement.
Reducing road casualties: We do not believe we can quite reach a 50% reduction in killed and seriously injured casualties but, at 46%, we can come close to it and will bring about an improvement well above the government’s national 40% target.
Improving air quality: We believe we can meet the target everywhere except in central Loughborough, where we need the major scheme to secure the necessary reduction.
Reducing the impact of traffic: The initial target was highly aspirational and we do not believe we can justify spending a high proportion of available funds in attempting to meet it. We will instead target a continued rolling out of individual schemes for local communities.
Managing transport assets: There is a mixed picture here, with some confidence that we can remove the maintenance backlog for principal roads, the busiest footways, bridges and traffic signals, but less certainty for other roads and footways, and rights of way. Even with the addition of extra County Council funding, it seems clear that we will not be able to invest enough to make up the backlog on street lighting column replacement.
It is not surprising that we cannot fully meet our initial aspirational targets which were set deliberately high, but the final headline targets above will still represent a very substantial move forward in meeting our objectives over the five year period. We have backed these up with a series of subsidiary targets designed to ensure that all the main aspects of our progress can be properly measured. These subsidiary targets include, for example:
A 1% annual increase in bus passenger journeys
An annual increase in cycling of just over 1%
A 2.5% annual increase in travel by disabled people on our special transport services
Reversing the trend in motorcycle casualties and reducing the 2002 to 2004 annual average of 64 killed or seriously injured to 61 average in 2008 to 2010
Completing 20 schemes to reduce the impact of traffic
To achieve all this, from a provisional allocation of LTP capital funding of £81m for the five years, we plan to spend
Most capital spend affecting air quality comes under the heading of reducing congestion. Of these totals, £11m will be spent on linked programmes with Leicester City Council for reducing congestion and improving access in Central Leicestershire, and there will be substantial further expenditure in Central Leicestershire on programmes which do not need to be linked. We also plan to spend approximately £5m of the Council’s own capital resources over the five year period, as well as approximately £23m a year of the County Council’s revenue funds.
The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) assesses the impact on the environment of the measures set out in the LTP. The SEA was carried out by the Environmental Action Team in the Community Services Department of the County Council.
MethodologyIn order to focus on the priority issues raised by the implementation of the LTP, a scoping exercise was carried out to establish the current state of the Leicestershire environment, to identify environmental objectives of existing plans and programmes and to determine the existing problems in the area.
Within this context, the team then assessed the effects of the transport alternatives against the identified environmental objectives. This assessment, coupled with other considerations, informed the choice of options included in the Provisional LTP.
Further detailed assessment of each of the plan options against environmental objectives was completed, including consideration of how other plans and policies could affect the outcomes.
Mitigation has been recommended for any negative effects that were identified and for significant effects a monitoring framework has been proposed.
Alternatives to the plan measuresFor many of the measures in the LTP there are no real alternatives. For tackling congestion, however, a number of alternatives were considered, although significant road building was ruled out due to negative environmental implications. Options that were not taken forward include:
None of these options will be progressed during this LTP period as they do not currently represent value for money in terms of the improvements they offer. However, in most cases these options have not been abandoned completely and they are likely to be reconsidered in the future subject to national and local policy development.
The LTP includes three proposals for major schemes:
Planning for and consultation on the Earl Shilton Bypass has been ongoing since the mid-1980s and alternatives have been considered during this period. The scheme has been subject to a detailed Environmental Impact Assessment and has therefore only been given cursory attention in the SEA to avoid duplication.
The Loughborough Integrated Transport Scheme will be subject to a detailed Environmental Impact Assessment. As the scheme is still under development it presents problems for evaluation at this stage; however, where possible, a broad assessment has been made to influence the final scheme.
Traffic modelling has shown that park and ride is the most effective way to reduce car use and therefore congestion on radial routes into Leicester. A review of potential park and ride sites is under way and will have a major bearing on the environmental effects of this proposal.
Findings and recommendationsDue to the nature of the majority of the proposals contained in the LTP, few significant effects on the environment have been identified. Environmental Impact Assessments are required for the major scheme proposals and should identify and mitigate negative effects.
Based on the key findings of the SEA, the recommendations are:
MonitoringIn order to examine the Plan’s performance against priority environmental objectives and to allow remedial action, the following monitoring framework is suggested:
Tell us what you thinkNow you have read about our proposals, it is very important for us to know what you think of them. Please spare a few moments to complete a short questionnaire.
The on-line questionnaire
This information is available as a PDF leaflet online, and if you have questions about anything in it, please contact:
The LTP Team,
Leicestershire County Council, Environment and Transport Department, County Hall, Glenfield Leicestershire, LE3 8RJ Telephone: 0116 305 8249 E-mail: tpp@leics.gov.uk
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