City of York Council (Logo)

Meeting:

Economy, Place, Access & Transport Scrutiny

Meeting date:

24/10/2023

Report of:

Director of Environment, Transport and Planning

Portfolio of:

Executive Members Cllr Pete Kilbane, Cllr Kate Ravilious


Scrutiny (or Audit and Governance Committee) Report: York’s new Local Transport Strategy & Plan


Subject of Report

 

1.           City of York Council needs to prepare a new Local Transport Plan, which sets the strategy for the management, maintenance and development of the city’s transport system. It will cover the entire CYC area, including York’s city centre, suburbs, villages and rural areas. This will be York’s plan and inform the statutory Local Transport Plan for York and North Yorkshire, which will be the responsibility of the new Mayoral Combined Authority. York’s Plan will therefore inform decisions to be made by the new Combined Authority.  It will be submitted to the Department for Transport (DfT) and will comply with the anticipated new guidance for preparation of ‘pipelines of major future transport schemes’.

 

2.           In addition to the LTP, there are a number of other statutory or required documents which are due to be drafted and need a programme of public consultation, namely Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) and Air Quality Action Plan 4 (AQAP4). Transport is a central consideration in these documents, so they are all to some extent interlinked.  They are also key to delivering the new Council Plan’s priorities for transport, and important in associated areas, such as health, economy, housing etc.

 

3.           Because of the high level of consultation activity required in York as these strategies are taken forward, officers have recognised that there is potential for ‘consultation fatigue’ if the overarching principles for each of these documents are represented independently of each other, and so proposes that they be consulted on as one – a Local Transport Strategy, with the public consultation being called ‘Our Big Transport Conversation’.

 

4.           Consulting and engaging on a wider Local Transport Strategy offers an opportunity to gather a wide range of views about transport in York, something which has not been done since Spring 2021, when the information gathered form members of the public was inevitably skewed by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which was still presenting at the time in terms of large numbers of people working from home, suppressed levels of public transport demand and in many other areas.

 

5.           The high-level Vision, Objectives and Policy Focus Areas of a proposed new Local Transport Strategy for York was decided by Executive on 12 October 2023 where it was agreed that the set of transport principles making up the Local Transport Strategy would become the basis of the public consultation.

 

6.           In this paper we present more detail upon:

a)   the proposed targets for York’s Local Transport Strategy (Annex A)

b)   detailed policies in each of the Policy Focus Areas in the Transport Strategy (Annex B)

c)   Detailed proposals for consultation on the Local Transport Strategy (Annex C)

d)   York’s Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan – which is in development (Annex D)

e)   York’s Fourth Air Quality Management Action Plan (Annex E)

 

7.           This information is presented to enable Scrutiny to refine the various plans and policies may be improved before they proceed to full consultation in November 2023, following an Executive Member Decision Session on November 14th.

 

8.   For any of the strategies to be deliverable there needs to be an appropriate balance between the aspirations and targets of the strategies and the strengths of the policies and principles to achieve those targets.  A strategy which sets challenging stretch targets but does not set out a framework for change is unlikely to be effective.  Without change the targets and challenges will not be met.  This is of course a feedback loop as the level of change may in turn inform the targets, pace and level of aspiration that members feel is appropriate. On that basis Scrutiny are asked to engage and inform the information contained within the annexes.

Consultation Analysis

 

9.           This paper is presented in order to enable a large consultation exercise.  No public consultation has taken place in advance of this paper, although:

a)   The detailed transport policies are the product of workshops with a range of members and officers and remain a work in progress

b)   The Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan proposals have been overseen by a steering group which included representatives of a number of stakeholder groups in the transport area

 

Risks and Mitigations

 

10.        Consultation wise, the risk is that the amount of material being made available reduces the likelihood of a range of residents responding to the questions. This will be mitigated by ensuring the language and visual materials are all accessible and engaging, written in a way that makes the technical information interesting.

 

11.        In order to maximise the response rate from parts of the communities who do not traditionally engage with transport consultations, we will not rely on just online delivery, instead going out to those communities and meet with them. This will be done several ways but will include dedicated drop-in sessions (and associated comms to ensure people know about them); attending Local Area Forums and parish meetings; and by attending existing network meetings, such as being put on the agenda for the Bus Forum and Older People’s Forum.

 

12.        We will also ensure that if residents wish to only read and answer one of the themes (Policy Focus Areas), they can do this and not have to answer all questions for all nine themes.

 

13.        The Council will also make available accessible versions of the materials, including Braille, Easy Read and in other languages, where requested.

 

14.        For full transparency, officers will also ensure that a fully anonymised version of all data will be published following the closing date of the consultation; and that a summary report will be made available.

 

 

Wards Impacted (optional section)

 

15.        All 21 wards of York are impacted by the development of York’s new Local Transport Strategy, Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan and Air Quality Action Plan.

 

Contact details

 

For further information please contact the author of this Report.

 

Author

 

Name:

Julian Ridge

Job Title:

Sustainable Transport Manager

Service Area:

Transport

Telephone:

552435

Report approved:

Yes

Date:

16/10/23


Background papers

 

All relevant background papers must be listed.

A ‘background paper’ is any document which, in the Chief Officer’s opinion, discloses any facts on which the report is based, and which has been relied upon to a material extent in preparing the report. See page 5:3:2 of The Constitution.

 

Executive October 2023 – Consultation on Yorks New Local Transport Plan and Strategy (https://democracy.york.gov.uk/documents/s170247/Yorks%20new%20Local%20Transport%20Strategy%20and%20Plan.pdf)

 

Executive February 2023 – York Local Transport Consultation

(https://democracy.york.gov.uk/documents/s170247/Yorks%20new%20Local%20Transport%20Strategy%20and%20Plan.pdf)

 


Annexes

 

·        Annex A: Local Transport Strategy proposed objectives and targets

·        Annex B: proposed detailed transport policies

·        Annex C: Local Transport Strategy Communications Plan

·        Annex D: LCWIP progress update

·        Annex E: Air Quality Management Plan 4 update