Decision details

The Highway Design Guide and its supporting documents are available on the Council’s website at: www.york.gov.uk/HighwayDesignGuide
This includes:
• The Highway Design Guide
• The appendices to the Highway Design Guide
• The support documents to the Highway Design Guide
• The technical highway specification
• The technical highway drawings and plans

Most of these documents are 20 years old (or older) and have not been updated since their first publication. This means that out of date information and guidance is currently provided to the CYC teams, developers and designers who make use of these documents. Key issues include:
• Outdated approaches and design principles which, in some cases, conflict with newer legislation and guidance such as the Equality Act 2010, the Council’s duty under the Public Sector Equality Duty, Department for Transport national guidance, such as Inclusive Mobility A Guide to Best Practice on Access to Pedestrian and Transport Infrastructure, and Local Transport Note 1/20 Cycle Infrastructure Design (LTN 1/20);
• References to national and local policies, research, legislation and guidance documents which are out of date, have been superseded or overtaken by newer publications;
• Some elements of design which are now seen as essential in new developments are not included in the documents (for example Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) and other climate change adaptation measures);
• Advice on highway layouts which can be detrimental to active mode users and/or highway users with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.

National and local policies and guidance are expected to change significantly during 2023/24, because of:
• The anticipated adoption of City of York’s Local Plan and the development of associated Supplementary Planning Documents;
• The development of York’s Local Transport Strategy, 4th Local Transport Plan and supporting documents; and
• At the national level, Active Travel England becoming a statutory consultee for large development sites in 2023, supported by the publication of its planning application assessment toolkit;
• The publication of an updated version of Manual for Streets (first published in 2007 with Manual for Streets 2 published in 2010) expected in the coming months.

A suspension of the Highway Design Guide and its supporting documents is, therefore, recommended to remove the risk of confusing and/or contradicting advice being provided through the Council’s outdated published documents.

Whilst the documents are suspended, updated documents will be published by the Council as interim guidance as they become available. These interim documents will then be subject to consultation and review (including in the light of new local and national policies and guidance) before going through the Council’s approval process to become adopted CYC documents.

• Suspension of the documents and publication of interim guidance (recommended option)
• No action taken, and the documents remain as they are
• Documents fully revoked and removed from CYC website

No action – This option was rejected as the confusing/conflicting information published on the website would remain, leading to abortive work for CYC teams and developers/designers.
Documents revoked and removed from the website – This option was rejected as this would remove all guidance and information as updated documents are not yet ready to be published and/or adopted as CYC policy/guidance.