Cycle Winchester briefing on Hampshire County Council’s consultation on the Local Transport Plan.
Final date for your comments: 28 February 2021.
Hampshire County Council (HCC) is consulting on its future Transport Plan. This is a crucial document as it will provide a framework that guides HCC’s future transport planning and investment until 2030.
The consultation lasts until 28 February 2021. HCC explains its thinking behind the consultation via an online presentation entitled Towards a new Local Transport Plan for Hampshire, with sections entitled: About the plan, Context and need for change, and Visions outcomes and principles. HCC then requests that feedback is provided via a series of online forms, under the heading Have your say, starting here.
Cycle Winchester will be submitting a response on behalf of the group but we urge individuals to respond to the survey as well, and this article provides some suggestions that may be useful when you make your response.
We recommend, that you complete the forms online as this will ensure that all your responses are included in the survey results and it is also easier for HCC. However, you can download from us here a Microsoft Word document containing the same questions. You might prefer to prepare your responses offline and then cut and paste into the online survey form. That way you will have a copy of your responses.
Our comments on the briefing material
Overall, the vision and guiding principles are an extremely positive development and many of the measures, if implemented, would encourage cycling, walking and the use of public transport and reduce the dependency on the private car. We need as many of you as possible to respond in order to show the support for increased cycling and decarbonising transport.
However, what is missing are targets. We would like HCC to strengthen its commitment to non-motorised transport by including targets for modal shift. If challenging targets are included, they will act as a lever when it comes to budgets.
It is difficult to quantify precise targets but we suggest that the response should be something along the following lines: “LTP4 should include quantifiable targets for modal shift from private car to cycling and to walking and also a quantifiable increase in the number of journeys of 3 miles or less carried out by bike or walking.”
Drivers for change
The survey asks you to rank six drivers for change in order of importance. Each of the drivers is considered in greater detail here. Here is our suggested response, in green:
There is a supplementary question on the short-term and longer-term impacts associated with the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Vision and outcomes
You are asked to rank two statements. Our view in green, as usual:
Outcomes
You are asked to rank eight potential outcomes. In our view, all are very important. We suggest adding something relating to low carbon or carbon neutrality.
Guiding principles
You are asked for your view of two principles. We strongly agree with both. They are quite general but the next questions relate to measures that will serve to further those principles and so amplification of the principles is probably not necessary.
Measures
Following on from the guiding principles, the survey asks what measures are required to further the first principle ‘reduce dependency on the private car and reduce overall need to travel‘. Some of them relate to public transport or parking, i.e., not cycling-specific but worthy of support. As a result, they all seem relevant (you are not asked to prioritise the measures at this point):
The following question asks you to prioritise three measures in the event of limited funding. We suggest this top three as most relevant to cycling.
Next you are asked for your views on measures relevant to th esecond guiding principle, ‘a transport system that improves the quality of place and puts people first‘. We support all the measures except for the last…
When forced to prioritise a top three, we recommend these:
Finally, you are asked to propose any any additional measures which would support either of the two guiding principles. Here’s one we like:
That completes the survey. You don’t have to follow our suggestions, but we urge you to respond. Remember, the consultation closes on February 28, which is just one week from now.