Highways and transport strategy 2023 – 2025

Foreword

Lancashire County Council recognises the crucial role of our highways and transport as an enabler to economic growth, environmental improvement, social activity, and people’s health and prosperity.

Whether we are travelling to see friends and family, access services, go to work or conduct business, or visit places, or we are simply using Lancashire’s network of urban and rural roads, footways and cycle tracks to exercise, socialise and improve our physical and mental wellbeing, transport is part of the daily life of every resident, worker, business and visitor in the county.

But it also impacts the people using it or experiencing its effects, local places and our wider environment. Traffic congestion brings delay and disruption and an economic cost to productivity. Road collisions cause suffering and fear. Vehicle emissions affect people’s health and contribute to climate issues. The sheer size and extent of the network serving Lancashire presents a considerable challenge to its maintenance and upkeep.

Looking forward, we want a transport system that is simpler to navigate, one that offers greater choice and convenience, that caters for everyone’s needs and widens people’s travel horizons, and makes everyday journeys simpler, safer, greener and more reliable.

To get there we know we have a job to do. We will need to employ more innovative, cost-effective and low-carbon solutions, improve our understanding of our network and invest in our capabilities so that we make the right interventions and develop a credible pipeline of transport improvements.

To achieve all this, we must also build on our work with Government and regional partners, with a particular focus on working with our district partners and listening to the voice of our residents and businesses to understand and align our collective priorities and engage with our town and parish councils and our local communities when our decisions may affect them.

Cllr Rupert Swarbrick Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport

Our Highways and Transport Strategy will drive a step change in attitudes and behaviour, establishing safe, inclusive, affordable and low-carbon travel choices as our first priority to growing our economy, tackling deep-seated social and health inequalities, revitalising our communities and protecting our environment.

Executive summary

This Strategy presents a high-level view of how we will deliver our highways and transport responsibilities over the next three years to deliver to our corporate priorities.

The modern, efficient, innovative transport network that we want for Lancashire must ensure that no part of the county is left behind. In linking opportunities with need, we want everyone to benefit from our activities.

Our focus will be on developing better links, and improving journey times and reliability, between areas of economic opportunity and their workforce, with the provision of sustainable forms of travel a priority. We know that there will continue to be a reliance on the private car, not least in peripheral and rural areas, for people to go about their business. Encouraging people to get out of the car for journeys that can be taken by cleaner, healthier, more inclusive and more cost-effective ways to travel, will sit across all our transport and travel activities. By doing so we aim to improve the quality of life for others using or experiencing the effects of transport.

To achieve this, we must maximise the opportunities available through local and national funding to bring investment to Lancashire’s transport network to improve connectivity generally and widen access to alternative travel choices to the private car.

The council has important highways and transport roles to play at both the strategic and operational levels. This Strategy provides a single point of reference for the council’s activities envisaged in the period to 2025. The following four core priorities and twelve objectives set the framework for our activities in this period:

Highways asset management

• Manage our highways assets efficiently and effectively to support connectivity to employment and to essential services
• Build our understanding of the condition of all our highways assets to focus our maintenance activity and leverage investment
• Reduce the carbon footprint of our highways maintenance activities

Network management and safety

• Improve the efficiency of our urban and rural road networks
• Reduce all road casualties and progress towards zero people killed or seriously injured
• Create safe and social spaces

Public transport and active travel

• Deliver sustainable travel choices that are accessible, inclusive and affordable for all
• Support bus and rail services and encourage opportunities to use different forms of transport for single journeys with improved interchanges and better inter-urban and rural connectivity
• Reduce the need to travel by car particularly for shorter journeys

Strategic partnerships

• Facilitate economic growth, regeneration and levelling up
• Establish a pipeline of plan-ready transport interventions to leverage investment
• Bring partners together to align local, regional and national investment priorities

These objectives relate to vehicular highways and the rail network and will inform our action planning for services. Progress will be monitored through a broader range of departmental and corporate key performance indicators.

Transport in Lancashire

Where are we now?

1. Lancashire’s vehicular highway infrastructure is the most valuable publicly owned resource managed by the county council, with a combined value of £10 billion. Without it, Lancashire would not function as a place to live, work, visit or to prosper.
2. Lancashire lies within the nationally important north-south motorway and main rail line transport spine, providing excellent connectivity with other parts of the UK, and a comprehensive network of motorways and railways linking much of Lancashire with the major regional employment centres of Manchester and Liverpool, and the international gateways of Manchester Airport and the port of Liverpool.
3. With a strong economic narrative and a focus on areas of growth, Lancashire has attracted substantial investment over the last decade and more in improving strategic connectivity across its road, bus and rail transport networks.
4. We have an established pipeline of major transport infrastructure with the potential to secure as much as £9.8 billion of investment during the next decade.
5. Cycling and walking continue to grow in popularity, representing a positive change in road usage from the pandemic, and whilst the number of licenced motor vehicles continues to rise, ultra-low emission vehicles account for a significant and increasing proportion of new vehicles.

But…

6. Government funding for maintaining our highway assets has not kept pace with its deterioration, meaning our current focus is on risk-based investment and preventative and preservative treatments
7. Connectivity and the quality of our transport provision varies significantly between our strategic north-south and east-west transport corridors, impacting travel opportunities and choice locally across Pennine Lancashire, the Fylde Coast and West Lancashire, and to regional destinations such as Leeds and Liverpool.
8. Walking and cycling rates for Lancashire remain below the national average and a long-term decline in public transport use has been exacerbated over recent years.
9. The reduction in people killed or seriously injured in road collisions is countered by increasing casualties and disproportionately affected groups of motorcyclists, young road users and cyclists.

Links to other strategies

Transport is an enabler to economic and social activity. Its environmental impacts are also well understood. As such, the influence of this strategy extends across all four of the council’s corporate priorities in ‘Delivering better services’, ‘Protecting our environment’, ‘Supporting economic growth’ and ‘Caring for the vulnerable’. It is focused on a number of Cabinet responsibilities, covering:

• Highways Asset Management
• Roads, Bridges and Structures
• Street Lighting and Highway Drainage
• Network Management, Traffic Control Systems and Parking
• Traffic Safety policy and Lancashire Road Safety Partnership
• Public Transport Policy including Transport for the North
• Local Transport Planning
• Active Travel

This strategy complements similar documents on health, education, economy and the environment. It is supported by a number of other transport-related strategies for Lancashire either published or in production, including the Local Transport Plan. Transport Asset Management Plan, Highways Decarbonisation Strategy, Bus Service Improvement Plan, and Cycling and Walking Strategy.

The council has also made a commitment to the promotion of ‘Health in all Policies’ and we aim to show how an effective transport network can drive health and other priority outcomes for Lancashire and the council itself.

Whilst this strategy focuses solely on the council’s own activity in respect of transport it will contribute to the wider perspective and wider partnership view set out within the sub-regional vision and strategy, ‘Lancashire 2050’ by supporting delivery of all eight core priorities including ‘transport and infrastructure’ in particular.

This diagram illustrates how corporate themes and priorities overlap between the three core strategies of Economy, Environment and Transport.

Highways asset management

Our 2025 vision

Our use of innovative, cost-effective and low-carbon solutions offers the opportunity to improve the condition of our highways assets and keep the highway network and its users safe. Our understanding of the underlying condition of our assets allows us to focus on the use of early intervention preventative maintenance strategies to prevent deterioration where possible, using recycled materials where we can, and avoiding costlier, more intensive and disruptive maintenance work.

How we will get there (priority projects)

We will:

• Focus on risk-based investment and preventative and preservative treatments
• Build our understanding of the condition of our assets
• Develop ways to reduce the carbon (CO2 e) generation from our activities towards net zero

Focus on risk-based investment and preventative and preservative treatments

We have a large, diverse and demanding highway network. Maintaining these assets involves more than filling potholes and repairing defects. Our aging assets present a challenge to managing risks and prioritising investment and provide as safe and reliable highway network as resources will allow.

We continue to make good progress in maintaining the condition of the A, B and C road networks, a priority we set back in 2014 to help boost Lancashire’s economy, and we are on track to achieve the standards set for the end of Phase 2 of the county council’s Transport Asset Management Plan in March 2025.

We will continue to maintain our primary routes in good condition to support connectivity to employment and to essential services. Our activity on our A, B and C classified road network will continue at current levels of intervention through predominantly preventive and preservative treatments.

Considering our other main assets, we will:

• arrest the decline of the residential (urban unclassified) road network through structural capital schemes for those roads that have deteriorated and require structural maintenance on 95% of their area or above.
• continue investment in the Localised Deterioration Fund to address areas of the carriageway that show signs of rapid deterioration in the year, which will help reduce the number of repeat visits to fix potholes.
• maintain the condition of our rural unclassified network through the use of spray injection to find and fix defects and preserve condition. We will prioritise structural capital schemes for the worst areas and preventative treatments on the most strategic routes.
• for footways and cycle ways we will focus on the areas of worst condition with the greatest footfall for vulnerable users, such as around schools, hospitals and other essential services. Particular consideration will be given to targeting the most deprived communities where there is typically a greater reliance on walking and cycling.
• for bridges and structures we will identify appropriate preventative maintenance to prevent further deterioration and continued investment in improving our understanding of high-risk structures. • increase investment to planned street lighting column replacement and continue our risk-based approach to testing the most vulnerable assets and replacing them where necessary

Build our understanding of the condition of our assets

We know that addressing the maintenance backlog across all highway asset types would require a threefold increase in the funding made available from the Department of Transport each year. Intervening at the right time with the right solution, typically more frequently at an earlier stage with more cost-effective treatments, enables us to provide the best value and impact for the available funding.

Our ability to keep pace with the deteriorating condition of other important highway assets, such as the Unclassified Road network, street lighting columns and traffic signals, points to a refocus of our targets set for March 2025. For our larger assets, such as bridges and structures, our life cycling modelling reinforces the importance of building our understanding and the evidence necessary to keep these assets safe and to leverage further investment. The preparation of the next Transport Asset Management Plan phase for 2024/25-2028/29 will provide us with the opportunity to review our priorities and the effectiveness of our maintenance activities, with particular consideration to be given to the deteriorating condition of our rural road network.

Across all our assets, we will build our understanding of their condition to predict deterioration profiles and identify early intervention. Prioritising early intervention preventative maintenance strategies represents our best opportunity to prevent deterioration where we can. For our most vulnerable assets, we will employ a risk-based approach to determine our maintenance activities, in line with ‘The Well Managed Highways Code of Practice’ and good asset management principles laid out in our Transport Asset Management Plan.

Develop ways to reduce the carbon (CO2 e) generation from our activities towards net zero

Work so far on decarbonising the carriageway capital programme has shown a substantial reduction in carbon footprint. We will develop an understanding of the impact of our highway maintenance activities on carbon (CO2 e) generation and develop strategies to reduce this to work towards net zero. Our award-winning Highways Decarbonisation Strategy will drive our efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of our activities through the use of recycled materials, low-carbon solutions and working practices.

Our assessment of the carbon impact of our 2023/24 carriageway capital programme shows 549 tonnes (26%) saving in CO2 e emissions by utilising recycling and other low-carbon materials and processes.

Network management and safety

Our 2025 Vision

Lancashire’s transport network will provide for the safe and efficient movement of its users by a choice of ways to travel. Particular problems of traffic congestion and road capacity that have previously limited economic growth in key areas are being resolved or mitigated. The safety and attractiveness of the public realm that links our homes to local services and employment will have been improved.

How we will get there (priority projects)

We will

• Manage our network effectively
• Continue towards our overriding aim that people are safe and feel safe on our roads
• Transform our streets and places to create safe and social spaces

Manage our network effectively

Lancashire has enjoyed sizeable investment in its transport network over recent years, with new road, cycleway and footway space and new transport facilities built to cater for modern requirements and help traffic flow more easily. We will continue to invest in new road space which is the most effective way of reducing congestion and unlocking economic growth. Our Economic Strategy presents the county council’s current transport pipeline being delivered to support major development projects and including a number of schemes which will add physical road space to our network (including provision for other forms of travel to the car).

The greater part of our transport network continues to rely on the same road space since it was first built, during which time we have experienced rapid traffic growth, changing use and behaviour and, more recently, increasing expectations for different forms of travel to be segregated and prioritised. For this network, the means to maintain and improve its efficiency relies on the way we manage it. Our continuing interventions through traffic regulation, traffic control systems, engineering operations, and the introduction of new technologies are designed to help traffic flow more easily, improve air quality, widen travel choices and protect vulnerable road users

Technology solutions can offer a more cost-effective, greener and less disruptive way of optimising the way people and goods move through our transport network. From the way we collect transport data, control traffic signals, to managing information and messaging, technology offers us the means to improve the customer experience and achieve more from our network. The government’s drive for smarter travel solutions will be explored through our plans for managing urban traffic through technology solutions, beginning in Preston city centre as part of the Transforming Cities Fund, and, subject to funding being agreed, to our Levelling Up proposals in East Lancashire and as part of our movement strategy for Lancaster city centre.

We will also provide robust and effective enforcement targeting locations on our network of particular concern to users and residents. Under new powers available to local authorities with highway responsibilities, we will seek to enforce moving traffic violations, which will support our efforts to reduce congestion, improve air quality and make our roads safer.

Continue towards our overriding aim that people are safe and feel safe on our roads

Lancashire has seen a 32% reduction in people killed or seriously injured since 2012. The county council has an important role, working with Lancashire Constabulary, in making our roads safer and in 2016 published a ten-year road safety strategy Towards Zero Lancashire. The Strategy employs a range of interventions covering engagement and education, engineering and enforcement designed to reduce fatalities and the severity and number of injuries, improve outcomes for vulnerable users, and change road safety attitudes and behaviours.

In the next three years, we will continue to support the actions of the police and other partners and stakeholders through road safety interventions. We will refresh and roll forward our road safety strategy to reflect the latest evidence, consider specific measures for those disproportionately affected groups of motorcyclists, young road users and cyclists, and target our efforts accordingly.

Supporting our road safety activities, we will also:

• Deliver local safety improvements and employ route-based interventions to improve the safety of ‘high-risk’ parts of our road network, using preventative measures to manage speeds and improve driver behaviour.
• Work with local planning authorities and developers to ensure that new developments can be accessed safely with adequate provision to safeguard vulnerable users, pedestrians and cyclists.
• Work with parish and town councils to deliver local safety improvements and encourage safe and responsible behaviour by road users.

Transform our streets and places to create safe and social spaces

In recent years, the way we think about our public realm has begun to change. The car has traditionally dominated the design and use of our streets and public spaces in our city and town centres and throughout most neighbourhoods. Increasingly, concerns for our health, our safety and our environment, aligned with the importance of reinvigorating our local centres and communities, is leading us to invest in our public realm to create better places for people to live, work, visit and prosper. From a transport perspective, this can reduce the dependency on the car, by making walking, cycling and public transport more accessible and convenient and the natural choice in our city and town centres and neighbourhoods.

Transforming town and city centre streets and spaces can be beneficial in a number of ways. It can help to enforce a sense of place, a ‘civic pride’, encourage greater footfall and be a catalyst for regeneration and investment in property and businesses at a time when, unchecked, societal and lifestyle changes are threatening the traditional role of our towns and cities. Taking inspiration from recent successful schemes, we will look to add value to places, and to the businesses, homes and activities they support.

By placing people, rather than the car, at the heart of how our neighbourhoods are designed, can enable our streets to be placed to socialise, to play, to be physically active, and to feel safe. Creating Civilised Streets, based on the government’s Manual for Streets, was published by the county council in 2010 and recognised that residential streets are not simply to move people (and goods) from A to B but have an important role to play in supporting people’s quality of life. The county council will review its approach to the design of street environments in local neighbourhoods, beginning with its work to support its Levelling Up plans targeting East Lancashire, through the creation of Liveable Neighbourhoods to support existing communities. The approach would see residents working with the county council to repurpose streets to enable people to move around more easily and to be able to incorporate physical activity into their daily routines.

Public transport and active travel

Our 2025 Vision

More people will be using sustainable travel for everyday and leisure journeys in Lancashire. Lancashire’s sustainable travel offer will put the user first, with services, routes and facilities prioritised and tailored to local needs. Innovative, value for money interventions will be contributing to reducing the numbers of vehicles on our streets and the environmental and health problems they create. We will support those who rely on alternatives to the private car, especially younger and older people, and those living in our more deprived communities and rural communities.

How we will get there (priority projects)

We will

• Deliver bus priority and other service improvements to make public transport the preferred choice of travel in Lancashire
• Improve the rail travel offer across Lancashire through the improvement of services and network infrastructure
• Put walking and cycling at the forefront of our local transport planning and bus travel for longer local journeys

Deliver bus priority and other service improvements to make public transport the preferred choice of travel in Lancashire

Bus services across Lancashire operate in a deregulated market, meaning we don’t control the bus network, franchise routes or control fares. Bus services, and the journey information, fares, ticket products and payment methods they offer, can vary considerably, by operator, amongst different age groups, and between different areas and particularly away from urban areas.

We have invested heavily in public transport infrastructure along key routes and at interchanges in recent years and have more recently re-invested in our tendered bus service network.

The council expects to spend almost £8 million, net of revenue, on supporting bus services, carrying 2.5 million passengers a year.

In the next three years, we will continue to work more closely with bus operators, alongside local communities, to create a network that people want and will use. The major changes introduced following the government’s launch of the national bus strategy Bus Back Better in 2021 offer the prospect of simpler, cheaper fares, consistent high-quality journey information in more places, and more frequent services in the evening and at weekends.

The council has published a ten-year Enhanced Partnership Plan and Scheme alongside its Bus Service Improvement Plan which together will deliver measures to restore confidence and grow patronage numbers back to pre-pandemic levels on public transport. Over this time, we will invest in physical and technology measures and in new ways of working to improve the customer’s experience and convenience.

The council’s bus service improvement plan targets by 2025 a 10% reduction in bus journey times, with 90% of non-frequent services being on-time, a reduction in excess waiting time for frequent services, a return to pre-Covid passenger numbers, and improved passenger satisfaction levels for safety, reliability, affordability with services that try to meet passenger’s needs.

To support the Enhanced Partnership, and in conjunction with all Lancashire’s bus operators, we are introducing a Passenger Charter that sets out the standards of what customers can expect when using bus services in Lancashire.

 Many of the Lancashire’s tendered bus services help to support our rural communities by providing key links to the wider network. Bus services are unable to fulfil every possible transport need, we, therefore, continue to support the community transport sector by providing dial-a-bus door-to-door services for those customers who are unable to access bus services. We are also looking at options to develop demand-responsive transport services through the use of developing technologies to match services to local demand.

Improve the rail travel offer across Lancashire

Lancashire’s rail network plays an important part in our overall transport system, providing a range of intercity, regional and local services which serve a range of markets. The travel-to-work market in traditional peak periods has always been a strong focus for the rail system, but in recent years strong growth has been seen in leisure, education and off-peak travel.

A range of rail projects and initiatives are being developed, ensuring that Lancashire has a modern fit-for-purpose rail system that meets the widest range of passenger needs. Restoring Your Railway proposals are at varying stages of development (Poulton – Fleetwood, South Fylde Line and Rawtenstall to Manchester), new station projects are developing (Cottam Parkway), and brand-new transport solutions are being introduced (Skelmersdale Bus / Rail link). Opportunities are also being seized in relation to High Speed 2 with the focus on Preston Railway station as both a national and local hub for passenger, capacity and wider property developments.

The county council is working closely with Transport for the North on developing and prioritising a range of reliability and performance improvements on the rail network to benefit existing services and to speed up journeys.

A key objective is to ensure that the rail network is attractive to current and future passengers. The county council will work with Network Rail and Train Operating Companies to lever in investment into stations and services, with a focus on improving passenger facilities at stations including access, parking, links for walking and cycling. Bids into central government Access for All and Levelling-Up programmes have recently been made with rail elements integral to wider bids.

The county council will continue to input into wider rail industry strategies and programmes to ensure that Lancashire schemes are prioritised.

Put walking and cycling at the forefront of our local transport planning

Walking and cycling continue to grow in popularity, representing a positive change in road usage from the pandemic, although walking and cycling rates for Lancashire remain below the national average, impacting people’s travel horizons and health, and environmental quality. The renaissance in leisure cycling over recent years and the desire for greener and healthier travel bring many positives, with benefits to physical and mental health, to our local places and to the wider environment.

The county council’s ten-year strategy for cycling and walking was published in 2018. Through a range of interventions targeting places, people and promotional activity, the strategy targets a doubling of the number of people cycling, a 10% increase in the number of people walking, and levels of physical inactivity in every Lancashire district brought below the national average by 2028. In the next three years, we will refresh and roll forward our cycling and walking strategy, which will enable us to reflect the Government’s latest vision in the national cycling and walking plan for England Gear Change along with its investment priorities set out in the second national cycling and walking investment strategy. To guide our investment decisions, we will continue our close dialogue with Active Travel England and during 2023 will publish a series of Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans to cover Lancashire. Where cycling and walking are not realistic options for daily journeys to work and other essential services, which might be because of distance and remoteness, topography, or the character of local roads, we will support the use of public transport for longer local journeys

Strategic Partnerships

Our 2025 Vision

Lancashire will be an equal among regional partners recognising our importance to the northern economy and ability to grow and attract investment. We’ll sustain and build on our capabilities and our reputation with Government for promoting credible transport improvements and our proven track record for delivering nationally important transport programmes and major projects.

We’ll enjoy ever closer ties with our local government partners ensuring alignment of our investment priorities and programmes for development and growth and complementary infrastructure delivery.

How we will get there (priority projects)

We will

• Establish Lancashire’s high-level priorities for transport
• Build on our evidence and our capabilities to secure investment to a pipeline of plan-ready transport interventions
• Work with our partners to raise Lancashire’s profile

Establish Lancashire’s high-level priorities for transport

We will establish Lancashire’s high-level priorities for transport to 2050, working with Lancashire partners to deliver the Lancashire 2050 strategic framework and develop a Lancashire infrastructure Plan to better integrate infrastructure and growth opportunities.

This strategy period will also see the publication of Lancashire’s fourth Local Transport Plan, closely aligned with Lancashire 2050 in its production and priorities, which will provide the basis for the county council’s transport activities and programmes for delivery into the next decade. This will be complemented by a series of strategies and plans to be produced by the council in support of decarbonising transport, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, local cycling and walking, bus service improvement and enhanced partnership working.

Build on our evidence and our capabilities to secure investment to a pipeline of plan-ready transport interventions

Lancashire has had many notable successes in attracting substantial awards of Government funding to maintain and improve our transport network. This coincides with a period in which Government has increasingly come to rely on funding competitions outside the Mayoral and Combined Authorities to distribute funding during which time annual grant settlements have fallen.

We will continue to develop credible evidence and work to secure Government investment towards improving Lancashire’s walking, cycling, bus, rail and road infrastructure.

We will invest in our own technical and creative capabilities in order to deliver our current programme of transport infrastructure, representing an investment of more than £800 million over the next five years, and to bring forward a pipeline of planready proposals for transport interventions to give ourselves the best chance to secure future funding nationally and locally.

We must be responsive to funding opportunities announced by the Government, to deliver the improvements necessary to support Lancashire’s ongoing growth and development, with targeted interventions in key locations to tackle challenges including:

• east-west connectivity by both rail and road across the county through Pennine Lancashire, and strategic connections with West Yorkshire and beyond hampered by the long-standing congestion pinch point at Colne and no direct rail connection
• north-south connectivity affecting travel choices and journey time reliability between Pennine Lancashire and Greater Manchester
• rail and road network resilience through West Lancashire impacting journeys to local destinations and connectivity to Liverpool city region
• commitment nationally to transform Preston station into a modern, 21^st-century transport interchange, and to explore plans for a new crossing of the River Ribble west of Preston
• securing the full benefits of HS2 for Lancashire
• resolving outstanding capacity challenges through central Manchester risking the benefits of recent investment in the Preston to Manchester rail corridor
• capacity enhancements to the local rail network, serving Fleetwood and South Fylde, and trunk road network north of M55
• improving travel choices generally between our towns and cities, including the development of an inter-urban ‘superbus’ network

Work with our partners to raise Lancashire’s profile

To sustain Lancashire’s achievements in an increasingly competitive funding environment, our efforts to raise Lancashire’s profile and its voice across the Northern Region and nationally must focus on building and maintaining strong relationships with strategic partners in Government, Transport for the North, HS2 Ltd, Network Rail and National Highways.

The development of two regionally significant plans during the next three years present a particular opportunity for securing recognition to and funding towards Lancashire’s transport priorities. The county council will build on its close working relationship with Transport for the North through the production of its second Strategic Transport Plan to build the case and lobby for Lancashire’s transport priorities’ inclusion in the northern region’s investment programme.

Similarly, the county council will take every opportunity to engage with the Department for Transport and National Highways to shape and influence the preparation of the next Roads Investment Strategy for 2025-30 to stand the best chance of securing funding towards improvements to the county’s strategic road network of motorways and trunk roads.

Lancashire County Council will continue to work proactively with Transport for the North, Network Rail and Train Operating Companies to develop projects for improved rail services and infrastructure. Opportunities for funding will be explored with the rail industry, central government and third parties to ensure that small to medium-scale improvement projects get delivered. We will work with local bus operators, as part of the Enhanced Partnership, to ensure that bus service can adapt, where required, to changes in demand and local requirements.

We will work with Lancashire’s district councils, and parish and town councils, to plan new development around walking, cycling and public transport use and unlock new growth with effective and affordable transport solutions.

We already enjoy close working relationships with a number of Lancashire’s districts as partners to the delivery of multi-million-pound transport interventions to support local development strategies, that are grounded in Local Plans and supported by Government funding programmes.

We must ensure those same close ties extend to all Lancashire’s districts to be sure our collective priorities and efforts are aligned, and opportunities aren’t missed to make a lasting improvement to people’s travel choices and experience.

This establishes a continuing role for the county council’s Highways and Transport Master Plans, a series of sub-regional implementation plans under the umbrella of a new Local Transport Plan for Lancashire and developed alongside and supporting the development strategy to new Local Plans.

Closer working relationships with our district partners will be driven by maximising the opportunities presented during the development and implementation of the Lancashire 2050 framework to establish more integrated policies and activities.

Through this joint work we will look to secure an ambitious deal with Government for multi-year funding towards transport to give us the certainty to invest in our resources and capability and develop and deliver a credible long-term programme of investment to maintain and grow our transport network.

Working as one – wider impacts / wider outcomes integrated programmes

The four priorities set out in this strategy can all act independently of one another but work best when working in combination, including with other strategies, to manage our transport assets and deliver and maximise Lancashire’s transport offer. Working with partners on maintaining our highways assets, managing our network and its safety, developing our public transport and active travel networks, and building strategic partnerships to maximise our opportunities to achieve these, can create the conditions to stimulate economic growth, improve accessibility for everyone and target those in greatest need.

Delivering wider council priorities

Health

The County Council is committed to the promotion of a ‘Health in all Policies’ approach. From maintaining the condition of our highway assets, ensuring a safer network, widening access to jobs, services and recreation, and promoting cleaner, healthier travel choices, taking action to improve our transport has many benefits for our health and wellbeing.

Measuring progress and performance

The core priorities and activities set out in this Strategy will provide the framework for action planning. A separate implementation plan will sit alongside this strategy which will be reviewed annually, enabling us to refine our activity and develop new projects. Performance indicators and / or milestones will be established in our implementation plan to track progress against our projects and actions.

Governance

The milestones and performance indicators will be led by the council’s Growth, Environment and Transport directorate, though the wider input and contribution that all council services will have in delivering this strategy is recognised, with responsibility sitting with the relevant cabinet portfolio and scrutiny responsibilities.