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Introduction to guidance on full local transport plans

The Guidance document and it's annexes available from these pages replace Guidance on Provisional Local Transport Plans, issued in April last year. It advises local authorities on producing full local transport plans (LTPs) which are due to be submitted to Government Offices by 31 July 2000. Separate guidance will be issued for Scotland and Wales. London Boroughs are not required to produce LTPs (see paragraph 4).

What is an LTP?

LTPs have replaced the Transport Policies and Programme (TPP) system of bidding for capital resources, which was no longer delivering efficiently. Under TPP, authorities were allocated funding for individual schemes. This meant the Government took decisions on very small schemes, often costing as little as a few thousand pounds. It wasted time and resources and meant decisions were taken in isolation, often on purely financial grounds, rather than on their contribution to a wider strategy. LTPs change that. Instead of an annual bidding round, the LTP system is built round 5-year integrated transport strategies, devised at local level in partnership with the community. Local authorities will have more discretion and certainty than before, in keeping with the wider moves to give local authorities more freedom and responsibility (set out in the Local Government White Paper In Touch With The People).

The main differences between the two systems are set out in the table below: The new freedom and responsibility will allow authorities to tailor solutions better to local needs.

Transport Policies and Programme (TPP)

Local Transport Plans (LTP)

Produced annually

5 year plans; greater certainty of future funding for authorities

Primarily a bidding document for central Government funds

Partly a bidding document, but also a strategic planning document for a local audience

Programme of capital investment

Consideration of both capital and revenue spending

Resources tightly ring-fenced to particular areas of expenditure

Greater local discretion over allocation of resources

Limited input from operators and other local partners

Inclusive approach, involving operators, greater public and local business participation

Broad objectives (except under package approach)

Greater emphasis on targets, performance indicators and monitoring in areas not previously covered by packages

Historic emphasis on road schemes, although shift in recent years to measures encouraging use of non-car modes.

Emphasise integrated transport solutions to encourage public transport, cycling and walking.

The new freedom and responsibility will allow authorities to tailor solutions better to local needs.

What will LTPs deliver?

Integrated transport is not an end in itself. It is a means to wider objectives. One of the keys to a plan's success will be the extent to which it meets the local vision of where a community wants to be in the future and how transport will contribute.

Local people know the problems that their communities face better than anyone. By working with a wide range of partners, authorities can produce the strategies to tackle the problems causing local people and businesses most concern, and produce a LTP that commands widespread support.

It will need a clear sense of local priorities; it cannot tackle everything at once. But plans which are built around a vision, with coherent themes will make it easier to set priorities which reflect the needs and wishes of local people.

This does not require detailed lists of schemes, but rather indications of where the main problems are and how they will be tackled at the strategic level. Plans will be assessed on the quality of the strategies they contain, not the merits of individual minor schemes. Local strategies will need to support national strategies, where we have them. Road safety is an example; authorities need to support the national strategy, Tomorrow's Roads - Safer For Everyone. One of the biggest changes concerns public participation. To be effective, authorities cannot work in isolation. The involvement and support of interest groups, businesses, neighbouring authorities, and local people is essential at all stages of transport planning and delivery. Transport and freight operators and users, the police and healthcare providers must also be involved. Lack of access to safe, affordable transport can contribute to social exclsuion. Local transport plans must tackle these issues. So it is important that public consultation reaches out to groups such as older people, women, disabled people and people from ethnic minorities who may face particular problems. Plans also need to follow the principles of sustainable development; balancing environmental, economic and social considerations.

What should LTPs contain?

There should be five key elements:

  • objectives consistent with our overarching objectives for transport. These are: to improve safety, to promote accessibility, to contribute to an efficient economy, to promote integration and to protect the environment. The LTPs objectives should command widespread local support. The different types of objectives are discussed at paragraph 31;
  • an analysis of problems and opportunities (see paragraph 35);
  • a long-term strategy to tackle the problems and deliver the LTP objectives. Potential solutions will need to be tested to establish the best combination of measures (see paragraph 38);
  • a costed and affordable 5-year implementation programme of schemes and policy measures (see paragraph 41); and
  • a set of targets and performance indicators and other outputs which can be used to assess whether the plan is delivering its objectives (see paragraph 45). Each of these elements should feature as discrete sections or chapters, along with an executive summary and list of contents. Part I of this guidance outlines what we will be looking for from each element.

How should LTPs be presented?

LTPs are strategy documents and do not require comprehensive coverage of individual schemes. As far as possible, schemes should be grouped into appropriate programmes. But there should be enough information for those people assessing plans to understand how they will translate into action. One way of doing this without adding excessive detail is to illustrate with examples of measures intended for wider application.

As well as being bidding documents, LTPs are also the vehicle for engaging local communities and other partners in the transport planning process. So the plans therefore need to be in a style accessible to a wide and non-specialist audience. Clear and well-structured LTPs can help explain complicated issues. In addition to plain language, there are devices that can make the content more accessible and easier to understand. Essentials include a contents page and maps showing the LTP area and the location of key proposals. The good practice guide, a companion document to this guidance, offers examples of other innovative ideas from provisional plans.

Centres of Excellence in Transport Planning

We want to encourage good practice and acknowledge aspirations to excellence in transport.

A number of authorities attained Centre of Excellence (COE) status for their work in developing integrated public transport. We now intend to extend the initiative. All authorities submitting LTPs can apply to be COEs for the development of a full range of integrated transport functions. They should set out their case succinctly (no more than 1 or 2 pages) in the LTP and include a brief outline of proposals to spread good practice.

Ministers will be looking for evidence that a local transport plan is of a high standard across the board, as assessed against the criteria in Annex D.

Authorities can identify particular criteria against which they consider they show excellence, and from which others could learn. But they must also demonstrate high standards against the other criteria.

Spreading good practice is a vital element of the initiative. We would expect successful authorities to carry out some promotional activities for around 12 months. Revenue resources may be made available for those successful candidates in order for such work to go ahead. The amount of revenue funding would be depend on the level of dissemination proposed and the nature of the proposals.

Ministers will be keen to see that COEs are delivering improvements in transport. COEs will have robust targets and indicators and rigorous monitoring to measure progress against them, based on the annual LTP progress reports. We will expect the targets and performance indicators to reflect national priorities, such as for road casualty reduction.

It is a condition for any authority bidding for COE status to include an indicator of bus punctuality and to have adopted (or be in the process of developing) a target for the proportion of services running to time. This is because we believe improving local bus services is fundamental to providing genuine travel choices. Targets could be set in the context of a bus Quality Partnership, and could be specific to one route or area.

We plan to announce the first designations around the same time as the local transport capital settlement. We will be considering whether to make further designations on the basis of informal submissions in annual progress reports, and will issue further guidance as necessary.

What is the context for preparing LTPs?

LTPs should not be prepared in isolation, but reflect the context of national and regional policies. National transport policy is set out in A New Deal for Transport: Better for Everyone and its subsequent 'daughter' documents.

Investment

The Deputy Prime Minister has asked Lord Macdonald to produce a 10-year plan to complement the white paper and set out a long-term investment programme for modernising transport to 2010.

The plan will summarise, as far as is possible, both public and private investment in transport over the next 10 years. It will identify the broad outcomes we should be aiming for and a strategy for bringing them about, including:

  • Improving the experience for, and widening the choice of, the traveller;
  • Recognising the importance of public and private sectors working together;
  • Using technology to improve journeys, increase the speed and reliability of freight transport, and to benefit safety and the environment.

It will cover DETR responsibilities for roads and local transport in England and railways in Great Britain, and will build on the Government's achievements so far, but will not be a checklist of projects or pre-empt LTPs.

The strategy will help to provide a clear focus to all transport activities for the next decade. It will also provide a more stable climate for investment in transport for both public and private sectors. We aim to publish in the summer, around the same time as the outcome of the 2000 spending review, which will provide public spending plans until 2003-04.

Road safety

We have already published the new road safety strategy, Tomorrow's Roads - Safer for Everyone. It includes new targets to reduce road casualties by 2010, with particular emphasis on child pedestrians, and our policies for achieving them. Local authorities will have a key role to play in helping us achieve these targets.

Regional planning

Regional Transport Strategies will be a link between local transport plans and the national framework provided by the white paper and the 10-year plan. They are being drafted now by regional planning bodies, working with the Regional Development Agencies and other partners representing a broad range of interests.

They will set the regional priorities for transport investment and management across all modes, including demand management measures such as road user charging and levies on workplace car parking.

Funding

Authorities should base their plans and bids on a realistic assessment of likely resources. The 2000-01 local transport settlement totalled £754.9 million. The last comprehensive spending review provided for £1,016 million in 2001-02.

A further spending review, covering 2001/02-2003/04 is currently underway. The results of this and the 10-year plan will be announced in the summer.

Local transport plans will be submitted before the announcement. We cannot make assumptions about future funding levels at this stage, but the guidance asks authorities to indicate how they would expand the investment programme in the LTP if more resources were to become available.

Authorities are also asked to indicate proposals that might be brought forward in their second LTPs for the second half of the period covered by the 10-year plan.

How will plans be assessed?

Guidance on appraisal and monitoring can be found at paras 60 and 50. We will assess LTPs and allocate resources according to:

  • needs and priorities; and
  • the extent to which the LTP is likely to provide value for money in delivering integrated transport objectives.

What does this guidance cover?

Part I of this document provides advice on the availability and allocation of resources and the procedures authorities should follow. Part II provides advice for authorities on the principal policy measures they should consider in the preparation of LTPs. Part III constitutes the statutory guidance issued under section 2(6) of the Road Traffic Reduction Act 1997 to advise and assist authorities on the production of a report of current and forecast road traffic levels.

How does this guidance differ from the provisional version?

This new introductory section was the main recommendation of the Commission for Integrated Transport report on the provisional guidance (the report can be found at http://www.cfit.gov.uk). The order of the sections of the guidance has been altered. Parts I and II have changed place so that the process of preparing LTPs is followed by guidance on the scope and content of plans. The other principal changes from the draft guidance are summarised below.

Part 1 - the process of local transport plan preparation

The Transport Bill currently before Parliament includes provisions to put LTPs on a statutory footing and paragraph 3 explains how we propose to handle this. The sections on allocations and the level of available resources have been amended to reflect the development of the Government's 10-year transport plan and the possibility of additional resources for local transport. There is more guidance on the scope and nature of annual progress reports (para 85). The guidance also includes a new requirement for authorities to consider whether any major schemes in their programmes or packages of smaller schemes might be suitable for procurement through the private finance initiative (PFI) and provides advice on how authorities should make such an assessment.

Part 2 - the coverage of local transport plans

Apart from some restructuring, the changes to this section are generally minor, reflecting in the main developments in policy since the previous guidance - in particular the Transport Bill that is currently before Parliament. Authorities should also be particularly aware of the strengthened requirements in the road safety section. The Government has set a specific casualty reduction target for children, and Ministers will want to see proposals and local targets to support this level of reduction, paying particular attention to child pedestrian deaths and serious injuries. Monitoring to establish the success of local strategies will be vital.

Part 3 - statutory guidance on the road traffic reduction act 1997

This new part contains the statutory guidance for the Road Traffic Reduction Act 1997. Authorities will be required to submit their first statutory reports under the Act as part of their full LTPs. The substance of the guidance is largely unchanged from the consultation draft issued in 1998, and the guidance we issued on 'non-statutory' interim road traffic reduction reports as part of the provisional guidance. Local authorities have wide discretion over the data they use (although the guidance encourages the use of national road traffic forecasts definitions and standards) and the nature of their forecasts and targets, in particular.

Assessing existing traffic levels. Authorities do not have to produce an aggregate assessment. They can present selective data related to the objectives and measures contained in their LTP strategy. Authorities can use either data from the national traffic census, local surveys or a combination of both.
Producing forecasts. In selecting a base year, authorities can take account of the availability of local data. They are free to determine forecast years, although they are encouraged to produce a forecast for the end of the LTP period (2006).
Setting Targets. The guidance confirms the wide discretion available to local authorities in determining targets (and, of course, having considered the issue, the right not to set a target). Authorities are encouraged to set a target (or targets) which relate to the LTP period.

Annexes

The annexes have changed somewhat since the previous guidance. Annexes A and B relate to the Road Traffic Reduction Act guidance. Annex C contains a list of references. Annex D on assessment criteria contains a limited number of changes which are highlighted at the start. Annex E has been updated with new advice on the application of the New Approach to Appraisal to LTPs. Annex F contains the finance forms. Annex G is new and sets out how authorities can reach a view on whether a scheme is a potential candidate for procurement through the private finance initiative. If authorities have any queries about the contents of this guidance they should in the first instance contact the relevant Government Office.