Local Transport Plan
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Click to enter Local Transport Planning in Leicestershire 2011-2026 Leicestershire Local Transport Plan 3 Introduction Leicestershire County Council Local Transport Plan 3 Foreword, Contents, Preamble & Executive Summary 1 FOREWORD I have great pleasure in presenting Leicestershire County Council’s third Local Transport Plan (LTP3). Leicestershire is a prosperous, diverse and attractive County. Working with partners, including through the Leicestershire Together Strategic Partnership and the Leicester and Leicestershire Local Enterprise Partnership, we, the County Council, have a key role to play in ensuring that it remains so. Essential to achieving wider economic, social and environmental aims is a transport system that enables the efficient movement of people, materials and goods. Building on good progress during LTP2, our LTP3 long-term transport strategy sets out how we will manage and develop the County’s transport system in the future, focusing on the strategic approach that we will take, rather than identifying specific schemes and standards. Our separate LTP3 Implementation Plan is the key delivery framework for the strategy (the ‘how’ bit) – and more details about the Implementation Plan can be found later in this document. It is proper and important that we have high aspirations for the quality of Leicestershire’s transport system, but in going forward we face many complex financial, social and environmental challenges. In particular, balancing the challenges of delivering growth and sustainability alongside those of affordability and climate change is a complex issue. I am sure, however, that by working with our partners, and with the support of our residents and businesses, we will be well placed to address the transport challenges that arise from such issues. In doing so, I am confident that we will be able to ensure that our transport system continues to play its part in helping Leicestershire to remain a safe and attractive place to live, work and visit. Peter Osborne CC Cabinet Member for Environment & Transport Introduction Leicestershire County Council Local Transport Plan 3 Foreword, Contents, Preamble & Executive Summary 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preamble: This explains the geographical area that our LTP3 covers, which differs from that of previous LTP’s in Leicester and Leicestershire. It also explains the extent of the review that was undertaken in 2013 to prepare the updated version of our strategy published in April 2014. Executive summary Chapter 1: An introduction to Leicestershire’s third Local Transport Plan (LTP3) The first chapter of our long-term transport strategy outlines our long-term vision for transport in Leicestershire and provides details of the context in which LTP3 has been prepared. It also provides details of how the rest of our long-term transport strategy is structured and an outline of our performance monitoring framework. Chapter 2: Where we are now: a look at Leicestershire This chapter helps to set the scene for our long-term transport strategy by providing a description of Leicestershire and summarising the wider issues and challenges that the County faces, and that we therefore need to consider when developing our long-term transport strategy. Chapter 3: Where we are now: transport in Leicestershire This chapter helps to further set the scene for our long-term transport strategy by describing Leicestershire’s transport system and assessing how it is performing. Chapter 4: Our strategic transport goals, outcomes and activities This chapter sets out our response to the issues and challenges identified in Chapters 2 and 3. It presents the long-term strategic transport goals we have set ourselves to realise our vision, the long-term strategic outcomes we want our strategy to deliver for the people of Leicestershire and the broad areas of activity around which our LTP3 efforts will be grouped. It also introduces the strategic principles that we have put in place to govern the approach that we take to delivering our strategy. Chapter 5: Supporting the economy and population growth This chapter describes the importance of transport in supporting economic growth and looks in detail at Leicester and Leicestershire’s economy and its key transport links. It also identifies the issues on which our approach to supporting the economy and population growth will focus; and sets out our approach to tackling these issues. Introduction Leicestershire County Council Local Transport Plan 3 Foreword, Contents, Preamble & Executive Summary 3 Chapter 6: Encouraging active and sustainable travel This chapter reviews the strategic drivers influencing the role that encouraging more active and sustainable travel will play in our transport strategy. After looking briefly at what we achieved in LTP2, it identifies the issues and challenges we will need to tackle if we are to encourage more active and sustainable travel and sets out our approach to tackling these issues. Chapter 7: Improving the connectivity and accessibility of our transport system The focus of this chapter is on how our transport system can help to play a part in encouraging economic growth and promoting social inclusion and equality. It looks briefly at how we sought to improve accessibility during LTP2 before setting out our LTP3 approach to improving connectivity and accessibility. Chapter 8: Improving road safety This chapter looks in detail at the progress we have made in reducing road casualties in Leicestershire, identifies the issues on which our approach to improving road safety in LTP3 will need to focus and sets out the approach we will take to tackling these issues. Chapter 9: Managing the condition and resilience of our transport system This chapter looks in detail at the progress we have made in managing and maintaining the condition of our transport system and sets out how we will continue to do this in LTP3. Chapter 10: Managing the impact of our transport system on quality of life This chapter summarises the key issues in respect of how travel and transport can impact on our lives and the environment, and highlights how, through other elements of our long-term transport strategy, we are seeking to minimise the impact of our transport system on quality of life in Leicestershire. Chapter 11: Turning our strategy into reality This chapter sets out the link between our long-term transport strategy and our LTP3 Implementation Plan. It describes the context for our Implementation Plan and details how we will develop future versions of our Implementation Plan. Glossary Introduction Leicestershire County Council Local Transport Plan 3 Foreword, Contents, Preamble & Executive Summary 4 PREAMBLE What is a Local Transport Plan? First announced in the 1998 White Paper: A New Deal for Transport: Better for Everyone, the Transport Act 2000 required strategic transport authorities in England, including county councils, to produce a Local Transport Plan (LTP) for their area. Since this announcement, three LTP’s have been produced in Leicestershire: LTP1, which ran from 2000 to 2006, LTP2, which ran from 2006 to 2011 and this, the third LTP, which runs from 2011 to 2026. Local Transport Plans are the key mechanism for delivering integrated transport at a local level, and they help to promote transport as an enabler of other things. During both LTP1 and LTP2 we made significant progress in developing and improving our transport system. LTP3 will build on this success. What geographical area does this LTP cover? Leicestershire County Council and Leicester City Council worked together during the development of both LTP1 and LTP2, producing one plan for central Leicestershire. This Plan covered the geographical area of Leicester City and parts of the surrounding County. The Leicestershire Local Transport Plan 2006 – 2011 (LTP2) covered the whole of the County. Whilst ensuring a joined-up approach, this also resulted in some overlap and duplication and, in some cases, issues around responsibilities for taking matters forward were uncertain. Therefore, for the third round of LTP’s (LTP3), there will be a slightly different approach in Leicester and Leicestershire. We, the County Council, have produced a plan that covers the whole of Leicestershire, not including Leicester City. Leicester City Council has produced a separate plan that covers Leicester City, the area for which it is responsible. Thus, no area is covered by more than one LTP3. To ensure that our LTPs align we have worked closely with Leicester City Council on the development of our respective LTP3’s. We will continue to do so over the plan period, as we implement our LTP3’s. This work will include building on current joint working arrangements for scheme development, delivery and monitoring. How has the updated version of LTP3 (published in 2014) changed? We conducted a review of our long-term transport strategy in 2013 to ensure that it remained robust and relevant in the light of changing circumstances since its publication in 2011. Following the review, the fundamental focus of our strategy and our policy direction remains unchanged. We believe that our strategy remains fit for purpose, focusing as it does on efforts to support low carbon economic growth in Leicestershire. However, some changes have been made to reflect new evidence (particularly emerging information from the 2011 Census), the changing financial position (particularly new national government spending policies), changes to the planning system and changes in our own policies (particularly in relation to our spending priorities and to public transport provision). We have also taken the opportunity to review and update our LTP3 Performance Framework. Introduction Leicestershire County Council Local Transport Plan 3 Foreword, Contents, Preamble & Executive Summary 5 Looking ahead, we envisage undertaking a more comprehensive review of our strategy in 2016. At this time we will have more evidence about the impacts of the measures that we are delivering, as well as improved understanding of future transport conditions. Following the General Election in 2015 we should also have a clearer understanding of what money we will have available to us as we head towards the 2020’s.