Meeting documents

1 THE ISSUE

1.1 The Provisional Joint Local Transport Plan for the Greater Bristol sub-region was submitted to Government in July 2005 and has been assessed as being promising. The Executive is now being asked to recommend the full plan for approval by Council.

2 RECOMMENDATION

2.1 The Joint Local Transport Plan 2006-11 for the Greater Bristol Sub Region is submitted to full Council on 30th March 2006 for approval.

3 FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

3.1 A successful Joint Local Transport Plan will ensure capital funding for transport for 2006-11. The provisional plan was assessed as promising by the Department for Transport and Government Office South West. If the final plan achieves a rating of excellent this would be likely to result in an increase in funding of up to 12.5%.

4 THE REPORT

4.1 The four Councils of Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol City, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire have joined forces to plan and deliver transport improvements in this area through a Joint Local Transport Plan (JLTP).

4.2 The Provisional Joint Local Transport Plan for the Greater Bristol sub-region was submitted to Government in July 2005 and has been assessed as being promising. The settlement letter describes it as setting "transport in the wider context in a succinct and convincing way. Its aims and objectives are clearly stated and the role of transport in facilitating economic development and high growth comes across clearly." Praise is given to the four authorities approach to working together, "A real effort has been made to integrate approaches from the four individual Local Authorities and come up with a vision for the full LTP." The letter also notes that "there has been significant engagement with stakeholders during the development of the JLTP".

4.3 The four councils also submitted a major scheme bid for the Greater Bristol Bus Network. The first Gateway review into that bid has been completed and the results are awaited later this year. A Gateway Review is an independent assessment carried out at crucial junctures in the development of a project to provide assurance to Government that it can progress successfully to the next stage. A major bid is also to be submitted containing a package of measures designed to provide further public transport improvements in Bath, specific public realm enhancements and a reduction in the impact of lorries. This is the subject of a separate report to this Executive Meeting.

4.4 Work has since been progressing on preparing the final plan for submission by the end of March 2006. Although most elements of the plan are unchanged since the July approval any comments made by the assessors have been addressed in this version. In particular further consultation has been carried out regarding the accessibility action plan resulting in a new chapter on accessibility. The chapter detailing targets and indicators has also been largely revised following the recent publication of Government guidance.

4.5 The sub region has been awarded Transport Innovation Fund pump priming funding of £1.495m. The fund was established to support the development of transport schemes that feature demand management as part of efforts to tackle local congestion and public transport. The pump priming funding will be used to build on work previously undertaken by both Bristol and Bath and will focus on identifying options and developing a sub-regional package scheme to cover the whole area.

5 RISK MANAGEMENT

6 RATIONALE

6.1 The Local Transport Plan is a statutory document and its submission is an essential requirement in obtaining transportation funding for the period 2006-2011.

7 OTHER OPTIONS CONSIDERED

7.1 none

8 CONSULTATION

8.1 Extensive public and stakeholder consultation was carried out to inform the provisional plan. This was built on during Autumn 2005 with further public exhibitions and forums undertaken. In this period the consultation was focused on the potential for further major bids and developing the Accessibility Action Plan.

8.2 A joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee has also been established drawing from the individual Overview and Scrutiny Committees of the four authorities to oversee the development of the plan.