2010 Progress Report

Local Transport Plan 2006–11 2010 Progress Report Cumbria Local Transport Plan 2006/7 – 2010/11 February 2011 Contents 2 Welcome 3 What we have achieved 4 What we have spent 6 What we have done 13 Appendix 1: LTP2 Targets 15 Appendix 2: Where the money goes 1 Welcome This report shows the progress the council has made working with other organisations and local communities in managing and improving roads, pavements, cycleways, rights of way and bus and train services during 2010. There have been significant transport challenges faced due Despite the need to direct most of our transport funding to the severe flooding which occurred in West Cumbria in towards the repair and maintenance of the County’s transport October 2009 and the extreme winter weather across the infrastructure we managed to undertake and support a number County in December 2009 and January 2010. of new improvement schemes over the last year which are highlighted in the section, What we have done, later in this During 2010 we introduced the Better Highways Programme, report. a new systems thinking approach to how we undertake the maintenance of our highways. This will allow us to ensure that Cumbria’s first Annual Transport Conference took place in in these difficult financial times money spent on maintaining and 2010 bringing together nearly 70 stakeholders from businesses, improving our transport infrastructure gives the greatest benefit community groups, charities, local authorities and transport and is focused on prolonging its use. operators to improve communication and to help the development of the new 3rd Local Transport Plan, Moving Cumbria Forward (2011-2026). 2 What we have achieved In the 2nd Cumbria Local Transport Plan we included a number of indicators to help us measure whether we were achieving the governments priorities namely improved accessibility, air quality, maintenance of the highway network, and road safety. Full details of our progress towards all our targets is set out in Appendix 1. Accessibility Maintenance Through the introduction of the Rural Wheels service across The maintenance of the County’s extensive highways network the County we continue to exceed our targets for accessibility continues to be a major challenge. We were on track to meet with 99% of households presently able to get to the 32 main our targets for maintaining the A. B and C roads until 2008. But towns (Key Service Centres) in Cumbria without use of a car. due to the damage caused to the highway network since then by the severe weather, particularly the flooding and snow during Air Quality the winter of 2009/10. we are presently not on track to meet each of the three maintenance targets by April 2011. There are two air quality management areas in Cumbria, one in Carlisle and one in Kendal. The nitrogen dioxide from traffic With this and against a background of cuts in government levels in the two air areas unfortunately remains above the funding for transport we will be carefully assessing how we best recommended government levels despite a number of actions look after our highways and ensure our resources are prioritised taken and the target has not been met. to areas of greatest benefit. In Carlisle the opening of the Carlisle Northern Development Road Safety Route will help reduce the levels of traffic using the roads affected by air quality problems and provide the opportunity to We are exceeding all our targets for road safety with the re-allocate road space for buses, bikes and pedestrians. number of killed or seriously injured people on our roads in 2010 down to 247, 26% below our target and 22 children killed In Kendal, the promotion of and improvements to the walking or seriously injured, 28% below our target. and cycling routes in the town centre together with the introduction of a car club should help reduce the amount of car journeys in the affected area. 3 What we have spent Transport improvements Maintenance programme The council delivers transport improvement schemes across the We invested over £50 million in highway maintenance during county,working with other organisations to maximise additional 2009/10. £9 million was used to deal with winter maintenance funding (third party contributions). Schemes are programmed and the severe weather, a 100% increase over the last two years. in accordance with LTP2 priorities and are broadly categorised into four headings, Passenger Transport, Walking/ Cycling, The extreme cold weather in December 2009 compounded Safety, and Road Improvements. In 2009/10 nearly £6.2 million the damage to the road surfaces and resulted in an additional was spent on such schemes with the detailed breakdown in £5 million of repairs needing to be carried out to rectify winter Appendix 2. damage brought about by the prolonged cold weather. To pay for this the council set aside an extra £3 million from its In addition we managed to obtain £2.75 million in third party own budget with a further £2.3million being awarded by the contributions from other organisations and developers which Department for Transport (DfT). enabled us to undertake a number of schemes including the pedestrian improvements in Kirkland/Highgate in Kendal The roads selected across the County took into account the during 2010. severity of the damage and the volume of traffic using the routes. Flooding • In Penrith, areas in the north end of the town including Following the November 2009 floods, severe damage occurred Scotland Road and Duke Street have undergone major to the county’s highway network. The town of Workington resurfacing to improve the condition of the roads. was effectively cut in half due to the loss of the two main road • Extensive repairs have been carried out on roads such as bridges and two foot bridges. Many other bridges and roads the A686 and A689 towards Alston which lie on the eastern were damaged across Allerdale and South Lakeland leading to fells and were severely damaged. several roads being closed. • Carlisle has seen the St Nicholas, Eastern Way and Petteril Bank junctions on London Road repaired as well as the During 2009/10 we spent £2.8 million on roads at Newbiggin Bridge and at Brisco Crossroads. repairs to the damaged highway infrastructure. This included £1.3 million for the temporary road bridge across the River Derwent in Workington and £177,000 for the accommodation works for the temporary footbridge (Barkers Crossing) also in Workington. Destroyed Northside Bridge, Workington 4 • In South Lakeland resurfacing work has been undertaken at Rights of Way various locations on the A684, A683 and Appleby Road in Kendal. Cumbria has one of the most extensive and popular Public • Westnewton, New Cowper and at Thornthwaite are Rights of Way (PROW) network in England, which requires among the places where the roads have been resurfaced in significant resources to manage, protect and maintain. The total Allerdale. expenditure by us on these activities during 2009/10 amounted • In Copeland, Bransty Row in Whitehaven and Main Street in to about £1.2 million They comprise the following elements: St Bees have been repaired. • Enhancements in Barrow have been made to Cemetery Hill • Overall management of PROW in Cumbria £83k and Dalkeith Street • Asserting and protecting PROW network £240k • Routine maintenance of PROW network £764k • Improvement of PROW network £125k A number of organisations including the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Park Authorities, Carlisle City Council, Natural England, the National Trust, Forestry Commission, United Utilities, Friends of the Lake District, Sustrans and Nurture Lakeland make a significant contribution to the provision and management of access to the countryside in Cumbria. In 2009/10 this amounted to an investment of about £2.3 million. Passenger transport We spent about a net £1.7 million during 2009/10 supporting bus services. A further £306,000 was provided for community transport which includes Rural Wheels, Voluntary Car Schemes, Dial-A-Ride, and Community Bus Brokerage. Promotion,publicity and monitoring of the services and schemes accounted for an additional expenditure of £230, 000 during the year. In terms of home to school transport we spent £15.5 million on transporting college, secondary, primary, nursery and special needs pupils. 5 What we have done Addressing Flooding in West Cumbria The flooding in 2009 caused major damage to our transport infrastructure. In the immediate aftermath of the floods, 20 road bridges across Cumbria were destroyed or damaged. Workington and Cockermouth were particularly badly hit, including the tragic loss of PC Bill Barker in the Northside Bridge collapse. The destruction of the road and pedestrian/ cycle bridges across the River Derwent resulted in Northside in Workington and surrounding communities being cut off from the rest of the town. This resulted in significantly longer Temporary road bridge, Workington journeys to work, school and services. It was possible to repair the Calva road bridge. It is being Northside and Calva Road Bridges, carried out by Connect Roads the company responsible for Workington managing the bridge on behalf of the council. The bridge is expected to open in February 2011 meaning Workington will The two road bridges, Northside and Calva over the River once again have two working road bridges. Once this bridge Derwent in Workington were badly damaged in the floods and opens, new traffic management plans are being introduced could no longer be used. which will allow traffic to flow around Workington in the smoothest possible way. In a process that took only 72 days - believed to be one of the fastest temporary road bridge builds of this size ever in the UK - a direct road link was re-established between the two sides Barkers Footbridge, Workington of Workington.

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