Local transport plans - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 328

• authorities have developed their LTPs through close cooperation with
local authority colleagues dealing with spatial planning, local economic
development, regeneration, education, health and social services, housing,
environmental services, rights of way and tourism/leisure
• these local authority colleagues are therefore fully committed to their part in
delivering LTP targets and objectives
• plans, targets, policies and objectives delivered by other areas of local
government, including the Community Plans (sic) and Local Development
Documents of affected authorities, will in future be drawn up in a way which is
broadly consistent with the LTP and its targets and objectives.
(ibid. para 7)
The guidance makes clear the DfT's concern that local transport planning should
not be seen simply as a means of overcoming problems generated by other decision-
areas as a result of their transport impacts not having been properly considered. On
the other hand it does not dwell on the implications of transport planning serving their
objectives and whether this is consistent with the very specific agenda that the DfT
sets for transport authorities themselves.
20.3 Procedures for preparing LTPs
To date LTPs have been prepared for each shire county and unitary authority, except
that in the metropolitan areas a single LTP has to be prepared jointly by the constituent
metropolitan councils and the Passenger Transport Authority. Administratively the
first round of LTPs continued to serve the function of TPPs in providing the basis
for central government to assess authorities' capital programmes and determine grant
allocation and borrowing approvals. The preparation of Annual Progress Reports
(APRs) maintained a formalised cycle for structuring the dialogue between individual
authorities and Government Offices which operated (in writing and in person) on
an almost continuous basis. An elaborate assessment regime was established (which
changed from year to year), the results of which determined the funding each authority
received in the following year.
For the LTP2 period the arrangements for progress reporting have been altered
radically. However the nature of the LTP documents themselves and the procedures
for their preparation followed similar lines in both rounds. The plans were prepared
for a five-year period uniformly throughout the country. In the case of LTP2s this had
to overlay the annual progress reporting for LTP1s described above - a particularly
onerous combination. In place of an annual report for the fifth year a one-off 'Delivery
Report' had to be produced reviewing progress over the whole LTP1 period (DfT
2005b). Submission of this was required at the end of July 2006 and its assessment
influenced the funding authorities received subsequently during the LTP2 period.
Unlike local development plans there were no requirements for LTPs to publish a
timetable for plan preparation or to follow a prescribed process of public consultation. In
practice the preparation of LTPs covered a period of two years or so prior to submission.
However work on the documents themselves only tended to begin in earnest when the
Government published its guidance since, from the local authority's perspective, this
identified the hoops through which they were required to jump. These publications
tended to be delayed with the result that preparation of the documents was squeezed
into an undesirably short time. In the case of LTP2s, final guidance was only published in