Local transport plans - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 329

December 2004 for plans which had to be submitted formally at the end of the following
July (DfT 2004c). Such a timescale pays insufficient regard to the formal consultation
and internal approval procedures which authorities need to follow and which themselves
can take several months. In the event further delay by the Government in establishing
funding guidelines and in making available software for the new element of accessibility
planning meant that the versions submitted in July 2005 had to be regarded as
'provisional' with authorities submitting 'final' plans in March 2006.
The uncertainty surrounding the funding to be received in the immediate future
as a result of the assessment of LTP material created difficulties for authorities in
managing their capital programmes. It also hampered stakeholder involvement at
more than a generalised level and the value of LTP documentation as an information
source for the general public. This is because the submitted plan is not a 'draft' and
the LTP itself is not revised when the Government response is known. In practice
however the authority would need to review its policies and programmes when it
received the DfT's formal response and funding settlement. There were no formalised
arrangements for consulting or informing on these changes. Fortunately because of
new funding arrangements (below) this shortcoming is now much diminished.
When LTPs were introduced the requirement that they should incorporate public
consultation was a notable innovation. The Government stated that it attached a
'high priority' to effective public involvement and that plans should include a section
which reported on this in the process of strategy development. In practice this proved
problematic:
Authorities found that the majority of the public were difficult to engage at the
strategic level and tended to be interested in their own local issues. They often
raised priorities or proposals which conflicted with the Government's national
objectives, raising expectations and leading to questions over the validity of
consultation …. Consultation exercises often focused on informing the public
about proposals, but authorities were less clear about how the results would be fed
back into strategy development.
(Atkins Transport Planning 2005 para 3.3.1)
Evidence since suggests that authorities have become more successful in 'managing'
the process - principally by adopting a more focused approach and working with
stakeholder groups rather than the general public. Whether this fulfils the original aim
is doubtful although arguably this was over-ambitious anyway. More disturbing is the
idea put forward in the LTP2 guidance that 'involvement' should be justified on the
basis of serving the interests of LTP authorities!
It is in the interests of LTP authorities to involve local people, the local business
community, those delivering other public services and other key stakeholders
in the development and maintenance of local transport strategies as this will
help maximise local support for LTP proposals . The Department does not intend
to prescribe the nature of partnership or consultation arrangements but invites
authorities to describe these arrangements briefly in the LTP.
(DfT 2004c Part 2 para 9; emphasis added)
In practice the volume and complexity of material which LTPs needed to include
deterred involvement from all but immediately affected stakeholders and the most