Written evidence from the Local Government Association (SRN 014)
1.1. The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national voice of local government. We work with councils to support, promote and improve local government.
1.2. We are a politically-led, cross party organisation which works on behalf of councils to ensure local government has a strong, credible voice with national government. We aim to influence and set the political agenda on the issues that matter to councils so they are able to deliver local solutions to national problems.
2.1. The Strategic Roads Network (SRN) should not be considered in isolation from the local roads network or from transport provision as a whole. For instance, roads policy should be considered alongside, and integrated with, rail policy. This reflects an underlying principle running through the LGA’s campaign, Rewiring Public Services[1], which argues for a joined up approach to infrastructure investment.
2.2. Route based assessments need to be a genuine coproduction between local authorities and the Highways Agency and need to consider all modes of transport and the local road network.
2.3. Investment in the SRN needs to be coordinated with the Strategic Economic Plans produced by Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), as well as existing City Deal agreements.
2.4. To avoid gridlock on our roads, including the SRN, councils need greater influence over local transport provision.
2.5. The Department for Transport’s (DfT) traffic estimates do not represent guaranteed futures which must be accommodated. Future traffic levels depend on the policies pursued today.
6.1. Action for Roads concerns itself chiefly with the SRN. However it recognises that ‘almost every journey starts or ends’ on the 98 per cent of the road network for which councils are responsible.
6.2. The SRN cannot therefore be considered in isolation from the local roads network or local transport as a whole (since traffic on the local network is influenced by the provision of alternative transport).
6.3. This is true in three ways in particular:
6.3.1. The tendency of new roads to generate ‘induced traffic’ is a well-established fact and has led previous road building schemes to fail to deliver anticipated benefits. Indeed as Action for Roads points out “roads support job creation and unlock new development”. This is good news when the traffic generated as a result can be accommodated (and when the developments are genuinely new rather than relocated). However, where the intention behind investment in the SRN is to encourage development, the ability of the local roads network to handle more traffic will have to be carefully considered as part of the investment plan.
6.3.2. Where the aim of increasing SRN capacity is to relieve congestion investment needs to be planned in a manner that avoids creating substantial new traffic. Ignoring local transport provision while expanding the capacity of the SRN to meet a 46 per cent traffic increase by 2040 will simply move people more quickly between gridlocked local roads.
6.3.3. Many of the current journeys on the SRN are relatively short-distance journeys which could be diverted from it by changes to local transport arrangements – either local road improvements or public transport alternatives.
6.4. The tasks above cannot be performed by central government alone but will require effective coordination between central and local government.
6.5. In practical terms we think three developments are required:
6.5.1. Councils need to be equal partners in devising the route based strategies that will provide the basis of investment in the SRN
6.5.2. The programme of investment in the SRN needs to be combined with investment in local major schemes via the Local Growth Fund and agreements reached through the City Deal process.
6.5.3. Councils need to be able to manage traffic effectively both through direct traffic management means and indirectly via the provision of alternative means of transport.
7.1. The Government has spoken encouragingly of involving local authorities in devising the route based strategies which are intended to shape the programme of investment in the SRN. These discussions are supposed to be completed in time to feed into a Roads Investment Strategy, to be published by 2015.
7.2. The route-based strategy approach offers an opportunity to make investment in roads more effective and is one the LGA supports. However, it remains to be seen how effectively the Highways Agency will engage with councils on this programme of work.
8.1. The development of the Roads Investment Strategy needs to be combined with transport investment through the LGF.
8.2. Action for Roads refers to the Government’s efforts: “to free up other money that local authorities use to fund larger projects…reduce the strings attached to local funding for major schemes”, and decentralise “decision-making to reduce the number of situations where councils need to get approval from Whitehall before starting work”[2]
8.3. However, it is now clear that central control of spending has not been abolished and that, instead of the original DfT proposal to allocate money to Local Transport Boards, LEPs will now have to compete for funds through their Strategic Economic Plans.
8.4. At the time of writing it is unclear on what basis these plans will be judged, but it does seem that the timetable for their production means that work on them needs to be completed before anyone knows the order of priority in the roads programme. We believe that drafting a plan for transport in a LEP area with no knowledge of the timetable for improving the SRN in that area, or even knowledge of what measures might be used, adds to the complexity of the task and makes it more likely that the conclusions reached will be open to question. This problem is exacerbated if an effective relationship has not developed between the Highways Agency and the relevant LEP(s).
8.5. Officials at the Department for Transport and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills are working hard with local authorities and LEPs to bring clarity to these processes and address these issues. However, we struggle to see how it will be possible to sensibly align the roads programme and local transport investment plans within the Government’s timetable. In any case, this process is not devolution. If the sums in the LGF were truly devolved, councils would be better placed to manage the uncertainty over the Roads Investment Strategy because they would not have to commit themselves on other investment according to a centrally-determined political timetable (based on the dates of general elections).
9.1. If these investment programmes are to deliver best value they need to be accompanied by effective traffic management at local level and the provision of alternative transport facilities, including encouragement for cycling and walking. However, councils currently lack the tools to do this.
9.2. Action for Roads is right to recognise the “need to give local authorities the freedom, the flexibility and the capacity” to “shape the future of their local transport – especially the roles to be played by roads, by different types of public transport and by cycling”. To date however, the current government has not lived up to its initial promises of devolution in transport.
9.3. Councils understand better than anyone that there is no bottomless pit of cash to solve our transport (or other) problems. If local transport networks are to be improved we need to innovate, rather than simply spend more. If we are to get best value from transport investment, councils need to be positioned to consider local transport as a whole. This would allow them to encourage the use of alternative modes where this is effective while increasing capacity to the local road network through intelligent interventions, both to accommodate increased traffic arriving from the SRN and to reduce the impact of local traffic on the SRN. If councils are to take the measures necessary to avoid gridlock in the next two decades they will need:
9.3.1. Powers in Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004 to enforce moving traffic offences;
9.3.2. Effective leverage to influence bus and train operating companies to ensure a local transport network that serves the needs of businesses and communities;
9.3.3. Adequate funding to maintain the local road network; and
9.3.4. Meaningful devolution of investment funds
10.1. In answering this question it is important to bear in mind what the Government itself says about these forecasts: “The NTM Road Traffic Forecasts should not be viewed as what we think will actually happen in the future, or what we want the future to look like. The forecasts are what may happen, based on: Our current understanding of how people make travel choices; The expected path of key drivers of travel demand; Assuming no change in government policy beyond that already announced”.[3]
10.2. In other words, the forecasts are not a given around which policy must be constructed, but the likely outcome of existing policy. Uncertainty around that outcome merely highlights the opportunity for a different set of outcomes to be achieved by different policies.
10.3. The LGA does not advocate a particular national policy. However, the prospect of pursuing a policy of ‘predict and provide’ along the mid-range estimate of a 46 per cent increase in traffic on the SRN over the next 25 years (as suggested by the Government’s forecast) poses the question of what will happen to this additional traffic when it leaves the SRN?
10.4. The DfT’s estimates suggest an increase in traffic outside the SRN of 23-64% leading to an increase in non-SRN congestion of 25-101%. However, the real picture will be much worse for councils than this suggests, as that congestion will be concentrated in particular areas, implying an increase in traffic in main urban centres which they would struggle to accommodate.
10.5. Action for Roads appears to gloss over this prospect by claiming that: “Strategic roads may be under more pressure than their local counterparts. Between 2000 and 2012, the last year for which there is confirmed data, motorists drove an extra ten billion miles on strategic roads, while traffic was steady on the rest of the network”.
10.6. This is misleading since between 2000 and 2007 traffic actually grew on both SRN and local networks. Since then, SRN traffic levels have stabilised while traffic on the local roads network has fallen to 2000 levels. In other words when the economy was doing well local traffic was increasing and we suspect that pressure on local roads will increase by more than DfT predicts as the economy recovers.[4]
10.7. A 46 per cent increase in traffic is not inevitable. Nor is it desirable on an across the board basis. It is clear that road freight transport will be the essential carrier of economic growth in the next quarter of a century and that the car will remain essential for many journeys, especially in rural areas. This makes it all the more important to provide alternative forms of transport where possible, so that the essential car and lorry journeys are not made impossible or inefficient by congestion.
10.8. This reinforces the points we have made previously about the need for local authorities to be empowered to deliver better transport and free up the local road network.
11.1. We have already set out the reasons why we think a localist approach is necessary to deliver improved reliability and efficiency on the SRN.
11.2. Councils are continuing to invest in, and innovate with, the use of new technology when it comes to their management of the local road network. Deeper engagement between local authorities and the Highways Agency could provide further opportunities for improving and sharing respective expertise and technologies across the SRN and the local network.
12.1. The LGA has already called for the Government to boost investment in infrastructure by re-creating the thriving market in municipal bonds which England once had and most other countries still have.[5]
12.2. Transport is a prime example of where such measures could help lever in private funding and have a significant impact on the ability of local councils to address local transport problems, as well as contribute to the solution of national ones as a consequence.
13.1. The LGA believes that the key reform to the Highways Agency, which in itself is long overdue, must be to ensure that it engages effectively with local authorities. This must happen not only when it comes to devising route based strategies, but also in respect to devising and developing the Strategic Economic Plans which LEPs have been asked to deliver as bids for local growth funds.
13.2. For too long the Highways Agency has been seen, and has seen itself, as an organisation that only deals with the SRN and this has led to that network being treated as something that exists in isolation from local transport networks. In reality, strategic routes are at the heart of an area’s transport picture.
13.3. If the country at large, and local areas, are to maximise the benefit from our SRN, then it is critical that businesses and local leaders are at the heart of decision making for all our strategic routes. The Highways Agency must become more holistic in its approach, and consider its impact on housing delivery and other local services.
October 2013
6
[1] More information on the campaign is available on the LGA website: http://www.local.gov.uk/publications/-/journal_content/56/10180/4047947/PUBLICATION
[2] ‘Action for Roads’ is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/212590/action-for-roads.pdf . This reference is taken from paragraph 21
[4] Action for Roads paragraph 1.24 and table 1.2. Growth on the local roads network between 2000-7 was at a lower rate than growth on the SRN, but it must be emphasised that the LRN contains a wide variety of routes and one would expect growth to be concentrated on particular routes.
[5] See http://www.local.gov.uk/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=fb4998d8-626e-47a7-bf8c-46db971d356e&groupId=10180 for more information.