2.6 Future Opportunities

Most of the opportunities that we have, to engage with the problems identified, cut across issues and contribute to the delivery of more than one of the shared priorities and our  local objectives. They can be considered under three headings; Partnerships and Public Support, Recent Trends in Lancashire and Plans and Strategies

2.6.1 Partnerships and Public Support

Partnership working

Lancashire County Council has a strong record of forging transport partnerships. These have secured benefits across all of the shared priority areas as well as in the design and implementation of our programmes and schemes. Examples include;

• Partnerships with the local bus companies to improve services and Bus and Rail Strategy groups to take forward policies including PTi Ltd, the company jointly owned by Lancashire and bus operators across the County
• Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety
• Local Strategic Partnerships to consider joint transport and planning initiatives which support Market Town Strategies and Neighbourhood Plans
• Lancashire Local Committees to take transport decisions at a local level
• CiVITAS sustainable transport project in Preston and South Ribble with District and commercial partners, such as Sustrans and bus operators.

These partnerships facilitated the delivery of a number of schemes during the first LTP period through the contribution of funding and the shaping of plans and strategies. Such partnerships give us a strong foundation on which to address many of the problems identified. Particular areas in which partnership working will continue to steer our work include the following.;

Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs)

The Lancashire Strategic Partnership and the twelve Local Strategic Partnerships are central to our LTP policies and strategies. The LSPs involve senior representatives of organisations providing important public services  such as healthcare, community safety, transport and education. They have played an important role in identifying key areas in which accessibility is poor and will continue to take a lead role in the development of the accessibility strategies and local action plans.

Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety

The Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety is comprised of all the key agencies in Lancashire. This ongoing partnership has already contributed towards reducing the number of casualties in Lancashire and it is hoped that new initiatives will help to reduce further the number of casualties.

Bus Partnerships

Working with local bus operators provides the opportunity for significant improvements to bus services in Lancashire. Lancashire has two main forums, LAPTA and PTi Ltd, which provide formal relations with bus operators in addition to the day-to-day informal contact that takes place.

Lancashire created the original 0870 608 2 608 service with its bus operators  that was subsequently adopted by Government to become traveline. This service has ongoing annual costs which are met equally between public and private bus companies.

We have already implemented nine successful Quality Bus Partnerships in Lancashire and across our borders with Local Authorities and bus operators. Four more are in progress to completion and during this LTP period we will actively pursue new partnerships to assist in taking forward our policies and strategies. We are proud of our flourishing Quality Bus Schemes, notably Burnley & Pendle Mainline and Royal Preston Hospital Quality Bus, because they not only demonstrate successful high quality bus schemes, but also for their contribution to the communities in which they operate.

We have worked jointly with operators to market services, including the X services from East Lancashire to Manchester, which have become a group of the most successful and rapidly growing bus services in the United Kingdom.

Our planned investment with bus operators and local organisations is continuing on a number of fronts. We work with District Councils to ensure ongoing support for infrastructure around our Quality Bus routes. Parish Councils are increasingly adopting responsibility for bus shelters installed by the County Council on their behalves. Bus operators are taking joint responsibility for service provision, infrastructure and marketing.

We initiated the Safer Travel Unit and work with operators to reduce anti-social behaviour on and around bus services. This brings wider benefits to the whole community.

Health

Primary Care Trusts are taking the opportunity to be genuine partners in shaping our accessibility strategies. We are aiming to increase access to hospitals and health centres, two of the key locations for healthcare. We aim to ensure that all available chances of delivering access and transport services in partnership with other agencies are explored and exploited to contribute to a more equitable, cost-effective, and patient centred service.

We have contributed to the Developing a Vision for Health Strategy. Our contribution into the strategy ensured that, wherever possible, synergies were established between the LTP and the Vision for Health Strategy.

Air Quality Partnerships

The close working relationship between the County Council and the District Councils has allowed targeted measures to be introduced that will help to improve air quality. For example, Lancaster City Council is already closely involved in devising measures to reduce emissions in the centre of Lancaster. Options include a Low Emission Zone and random testing of buses and taxis to ensure conformity of standards. As part of the development of this LTP, air quality officers in all District Councils have been involved in establishing the strategy for air quality and working with the County Council to identify appropriate transport interventions that can help to improve air quality, particularly in any declared and future Air Quality Management Areas.

Public Support

We have an excellent record of consultation on key issues affecting transport. This consultation has consistently shown a high level of support for our policies and an understanding of the issues and recent consultations have shown support for the work of the County Council is growing and public satisfaction levels are rising.

As part of these and other consultations, we ensure that we listen and respond to views from the public by shaping our strategies and measures for implementation to cater for local needs. In addition to public support, perceptions of transport are also changing in a way that will help us to deliver our objectives. One notable area is the public attitude to drink driving, which is now considered socially unacceptable following a series of campaigns. A similar attitude is beginning to emerge with respect to speeding. Our next target is to change the perception of public transport to make it more acceptable and attractive.

2.6.2 Recent Trends in Lancashire

The need for improved transport infrastructure has been identified for Lancashire as new pressures are identified and more robust infrastructure costs become available. This requirement has been recognised in the emerging Northwest Regional Spatial Strategy and Regional Economic Strategy and is one of the key driving forces behind this LTP to tackle the problems of traffic growth in the county, particularly within the Central Lancashire  Sub-Region. The LTP sets out how we will address this need.

Lancashire is one of the few areas outside of London where public transport use is increasing. The number of people using buses to travel has increased above our targets to over 10% since 2001. Bus travel in Lancaster and Morecambe has seen 12% growth over the year, the 10th highest growth for a bus network in the country in 2004. In addition, the X1 route between Clitheroe and Manchester was the second fastest growing route with an excellent 94% growth in 2004. Public transport is of fundamental importance in addressing all of our objectives and the shared priorities, and in providing for the travel demand of the County’s future Growth Agenda.

Lancashire is encouraging a cycling culture by introducing schemes and measures together with key stakeholders. Journeys to work are generally short in Lancashire, but just over 2.5% of people living here cycle to work compared with 4.2% nationally. There is great scope to increase cycling on journeys to work. Cycling measures in Lancaster have been successful and Lancaster is now the setting for a national Cycling Demonstration Project. Lancaster will act as a model for towns in Lancashire and across the country. The Market Town strategies of both Pendle and Ribble Valley contain proposals for comprehensive cycle networks; this provides a real opportunity to increase cycle use in the emerging market towns, promote healthy communities and reduce levels of greenhouse gases and noise.

Lancashire has a proven ability to deliver the projects and plans now in place to meet the new challenges. Our success in delivering projects related to our objectives and targets has led to awards across the range of our work.  We were proud to receive the title of Local Transport Authority of the Year in 2004 and we have been rated as an excellent local authority by the Audit Commission.

Projects delivered in the first LTP period include;

• Walton-le-Dale Park & Ride site
• 20% more cycle lanes than our targets and 36% more cycle installations through the hugely successful Bike Aid Programme
• 22% more travel plans than predicted
• Real Time information across Preston and South Ribble districts
• new bus stations in Burnley and Chorley
• 33% more 20mph zones than predicted and road safety measures across the County including 22 major safety schemes
• improved maintenance measures throughout the County.

We have exceeded the majority of the targets that we set in our last LTP.

2.6.3 Plans and Strategies

Bus Strategy and Lancashire Bus Information Strategy

Our Bus Strategy aims to increase passenger numbers by providing improved services which meet the needs of the County. Working with bus operators and local organisations, we aim to deliver a range of measures in the LTP2 which will improve access and co-ordination of services with employment, healthcare, leisure, education and retail locations. The Information Strategy has set targets to improve the delivery of information and its quality across the County.

The Lancashire Bus Information Strategy is published separately and is available on request, or can be found at

www.Lancashire.gov.uk/environment/bus/bis/bis.asp.

Sustainable School Travel Plans

The School Travel Plan initiative provides a real opportunity to promote sustainable modes of transport on the journey to school. Joint working with schools in the county has helped and will continue to help to increase fitness levels among children and promote healthy communities. 20mph zones centred on schools combined with Safer Routes to School projects will improve road safety and reduce the risk of road casualties.

Rights of Way Improvement Plan (RoWIP)

The Lancashire Rights of Way Improvement Plan has been developed to meet the requirements of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. The RoWIP represents a significant opportunity to improve countryside access in the County through partnership working, reflecting the changes that development will bring to the County.

The RoWIP is published separately and is available on request, or can be found at

www.Lancashire.gov.uk/environment/countryside/rowip/rowip.asp.

Transport Asset Management Plan (TAMP)

The development of the TAMP will allow the County Council to make the right strategic decisions to ensure the County’s assets are exploited to their full potential and safeguarded for the future. In particular it will provide;

• reduced life-cycle costs
• the ability to track performance using defined levels of service
• improved transparency in decision making
• the ability to predict the consequences of funding decisions
• enhanced management of financial, operational and legal risk, and
• ability to discharge valuation and financial reporting responsibilities.

Asset management is intended to facilitate better decision-making by supplementing empirical judgement and supposition with financial, economic and engineering analysis. Asset management is to cover not only maintenance, but also the full life-cycle of assets, from procurement to disposal, ideally in the context of a ten year plan. It will enable the County Council to better understand and manage the relationship between cost and performance and thereby to provide demonstrably better value.

Physical opportunities

There are a many places within the County where transport schemes would bring wide-ranging benefits. These include opportunities to;

• build a new rail-public transport interchange at Nelson and a new bus station in Rawtenstall as its town centre is redeveloped following completion of a Masterplanning exercise
• provide new public transport systems in Preston as part of the CIVITAS initiatve
• build the Eaves Green Link Road with our developer partners in Chorley
• establish a strategy of congestion-busting Park & Ride sites in South Ribble and Preston
• continue to develop safe cycle routes across the County serving urban centres and market towns
• support the development of Regional Investment Sites and key employment areas
• provide safe and convenient links between  housing rejuvenated in the ELEVATE programme and new schools in the Building Schools for the Future programme in Burnley and Pendle.

2.6.4 Conclusion

The issues that Lancashire faces have been defined and we have ensured our LTP2 supports the objectives of the emerging Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies. To address the problems of accessibility, sustainable transport, air quality, congestion and safer roads, we will take forward the opportunities set out in this chapter. In doing so, we will provide an excellent transport system that meets the needs of residents, visitors and the considerable development planned for the County, and ensures we do this in the most sustainable way possible.

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