Local transport plans - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 327

surfaced relatively infrequently - for example the urban land use transport studies of
the 1960s and the package approach and multi-modal corridor studies of the mid and
late 1990s respectively.
The introduction of Local Transport Plans signified a broader approach to transport
planning in several ways. This reflected the 'integration' aims of the New Deal White
Paper (8.3) for which LTPs were intended as the key delivery mechanism at the local
level. As well as replacing the annual TPP system as a means of allocating resources
for local transport capital expenditure, their remit was extended to cover all forms
of transport and the full range of delivery mechanisms available for pursuing a
comprehensive set of objectives.
Initially the Government saw advantages in making LTPs a statutory requirement
(as was subsequently enacted in the Transport Act 2000). This was so that they could
be linked with legal provisions surrounding road user charging or changes in the
regulation of local bus services and allow for stronger linkages with development plans.
This highlights the intended role of LTPs in setting the strategic context for local
transport generally in an area and not merely being focused on the specific activities
for which local highway authorities were responsible. This broader remit required LTPs
to be set in the context of wider objectives for the economic, social and environmental
well-being of the area and for its proposals to be integrated with policies in these other
fields.
However the Guidance produced for the second round of LTPs put a rather
different complexion on the role of an LTP by making a distinction between it and the
'local transport strategy':
All local transport authorities should maintain, review and update an identifiable
local transport strategy. These strategies are not the same as LTPs - they deal
with principles and objectives rather than schemes and targets and should look
forward over a longer timescale than the five year LTP period. A local transport
strategy need not be a stand-alone strategy, but may be encompassed within other
local strategies. The purpose of the LTP is to set out how the local transport
strategy translates to a policy implementation programme, and a set of targets and
objectives, over a particular period.
There is no requirement to include local transport strategies in full in LTPs.
However the Department will, in its LTP quality assessment, look for evidence
that a well-considered strategy exists.
(DfT 2004c Part 2 paras 4 and 6; emphasis added)
This is a good example of the 'chopping and changing' which has been a feature
of the New Labour era and of the muddle which can result. Clearly there is little
point in making the LTP a statutory document so that it can present the strategic
context for an area if in fact the strategy is to be found somewhere else! However the
Government has offered no guidance on the form and content of such a strategy and
its production has certainly not been made a statutory requirement. An even greater
anomaly would seem to be that, irrespective of what is contained in an authority's
strategy, the substance of its LTP is to be strongly conditioned by what the DfT has
determined itself in the way of objectives and targets.
DfT commented that in the first round of LTPs the link between them and the
wider planning and policy framework had been identified as a relatively weak area. In
LTP2s it would therefore look for evidence that: