EB1412 West Essex and East Hertfordshire Local Plans Modelling Essex County Council Technical Note 4: Emerging Option (September 2016) Technical Note 22 March 2017 Spati al O pti ons A t o E Essex County Council EB1412 West Essex and East Hertfordshire Local Plans Modelling Technical Note 4: WEEH Emerging Option (September 2016) Project no: B3553R0U Document title: Technical Note 4: WEEH Emerging Option (September 2016) Document No.: 4 Revision: 5 Date: 22 March 2017 Client name: Essex County Council Client no: Project manager: Chris Hook Author: Vanessa Alvarez, Martin Whittles File name: \\uk-lon-FAS02\Projects\UNIF\Projects\B3553R0U Harlow Local Plan Modelling\Reports and Technical Notes\Forecast Technical Notes\TN4\2017-03 WEEH TN4 issue v2.docx Jacobs U.K. Limited New City Court 20 St Thomas Street London SE1 9RS United Kingdom T +44 (0)20 7939 6100 F +44 (0)20 7939 6103 www.jacobs.com © Copyright 2017 Jacobs U.K. Limited. The concepts and information contained in this document are the property of Jacobs. Use or copying of this document in whole or in part without the written permission of Jacobs constitutes an infringement of copyright. Document history and status Revision Date Description By Check Review Approved 1 22/02/17 Draft for MY final comments VA MW CH 2 17/03/17 Revised report MW WR 3 17/3/17 Following MY comments MY WR.MW 4 17/3/17 Revised draft for issue WR MW CH/MW 5 22/3/17 Final issue WR MW CH/MW EB1412 Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 5 1.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 5 1.2 Objectives .................................................................................................................................................... 5 2. Development Assumptions ...................................................................................................................... 7 3. Model Strategic Outputs and Results ................................................................................................... 10 3.1 Area of Analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 10 3.2 2033 Reference Case vs 2014 Base Year ................................................................................................ 10 3.3 2033 Emerging Option vs 2033 Reference Case ...................................................................................... 12 3.4 Network Statistics ...................................................................................................................................... 13 4. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................. 15 EB1412 Figures Figure 1-1 Local Authorities in the Vicinity of Harlow ..............................................................................................5 Figure 3-1 Area of modelling analysis for Harlow ................................................................................................. 10 Figure 3-2 Flow Differences 2033 Reference Case vs 2014 Base Year - AM ..................................................... 11 Figure 3-3 Flow differences 2033 Reference Case vs 2014 Base Year - PM ...................................................... 11 Figure 3-4 Flow differences 2033 Emerging Option vs 2033 Reference Case - AM ........................................... 12 Figure 3-5 Flow differences 2033 Emerging Option vs 2033 Reference Case – PM .......................................... 13 Figure 4-1 Locations Identified for additional improvements and/or study ........................................................... 16 Tables Table 2.1 Distribution of housing developments across the SHMA districts ...........................................................7 Table 2.2 Distribution of wider Harlow area housing development across districts and sites (rounded) ................8 Table 2.3 Development Assumptions – SHMA Employment Sites .........................................................................8 Table 2.4 Development Assumptions – Number of jobs Wider Harlow Area Employment Sites ............................9 Table 3.1 Aggregate Harlow Area Network Statistics in Harlow Area for Base and Forecast Models during Morning Peak AM ................................................................................................................................................. 13 Table 4.1 Key issues arising from Spatial Options A-E (Technical Note 2) ......................................................... 15 EB1412 Limitation Statement This report has been prepared on behalf of, and for the exclusive use of, Essex County Council by Jacobs and is subject to, and issued in accordance with, the provisions of the contract between Jacobs and Essex County Council. Jacobs accepts no liability or responsibility whatsoever for, or in respect of, any use of, or reliance upon, this report by any third party. This report is part of a suite of technical notes on the WEEH Local Plans modelling project and should be read in conjunction with these other technical notes. The analysis and forecasts contained in this report make use of information and input assumptions made available to Jacobs at a point in time. As conditions change the analysis and forecasts would be expected to change. Hence the findings set out in this report should be understood as relevant to that point in time when the information and assumptions were made. The WEEH transport model is focussed on the Harlow district but covers adjacent districts in West Essex and East Hertfordshire. The WEEH model contributes to the understanding of strategic impacts between the districts but does not intend to replace local transport models used in the districts surrounding Harlow. EB1412 1. Introduction 1.1 Introduction Essex County Council (ECC) have been providing ongoing traffic modelling support through Essex Highways and Jacobs in relation to the emerging Local Plan proposals for the four districts which comprise the West Essex and East Hertfordshire (WEEH) Strategic Housing Market Area (SHMA). This has been conducted through the Co-operation for Sustainable Development Board, which comprises officers and Members from East Hertfordshire, Epping Forest, Harlow and Uttlesford District Councils, Hertfordshire and Essex County Councils, and Highways England. Figure 1-1 Local Authorities in the Vicinity of Harlow Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights [2016] The WEEH Transport Model, which has been built using VISUM software, is being used to assess the likely impact on the highway network of the SHMA emerging Local Plan strategic development sites around Harlow and associated infrastructure requirements that may result. The methodology used to build the Visum forecast models is set out in Technical Note 1. 1.2 Objectives The WEEH modelling project has produced the following technical notes reflecting its scope of work: • Technical Note 1: Forecasting methodology • Technical Note 2: Spatial Options A-E Results • Technical Note 3: Spatial Option A1 Stort Crossing/Northern Bypass • Technical Note 4: Emerging Option • Technical Note 5: East Harlow VISSIM model • Technical Note 6: Latton Priory and Southern Way Impacts EB1412 Technical Note 2 described how five spatial development scenarios were tested using the VISUM transport model – Spatial Options A-E. In particular, this note identified parts of the Harlow local road network which were likely to be adversely affected by the development scenarios. This included Edinburgh Way, First Avenue, A414, A1025 and Third Avenue. As reported in Technical Note 2, Option A had the least impact on the wider Harlow area network, despite it not being the lowest growth option. Accordingly, a variation of spatial Option A was defined, scenario A1, to enable testing of a slightly different spatial configuration of development around Harlow. Option A1 was then used as the development option on which to test the effects of providing a second Stort crossing and Northern Bypass, which was reported in Technical Note 3. As a consequence of feedback on the likely impacts of the various spatial options and the need to include higher levels of housing, the districts further refined their proposals and identified the Emerging or Preferred Option. This technical note, Technical Note 4, reports on a comparison between this Emerging Option and a Reference Case which represents a 2033 minimum growth forecast scenario. This technical note presents the results arising from the analysis of the 2033 Reference Case and 2033 Emerging Option for the SHMA area, and is compared with the validated and calibrated 2014 base year model . Section 2 of this report describes the quantum and spread of developments in the Emerging Option. Section 3 discusses significant changes in predicted future year flows on the local road network. Section 4 concludes the report by suggesting possible mitigation measures at locations where the road network could be put under particular strain by developments. EB1412 2. Development Assumptions This section details the development assumptions for the Emerging Option as provided by ECC on behalf of Harlow and its neighbouring district councils which form the