Final LTP March 2006

We identify opportunities to deliver a better quality of life to local communities through a range of mechanisms:

1. Corporate Working

2. Partnership Working

3. Local Consultation

These mechanisms provide opportunities to disseminate information and obtain opinions from stakeholders and people and groups in the community.  The fundamental issue is a better understanding of problems, needs, desires, constraints and opportunities by all concerned.  This has also provided a basis for previous LTPs to influence other agencies' decisions, including decisions within our partner authorities.  This LTP2 will continue to influence relevant decisions across a wide range of other activities, including regeneration, housing and other aspects of local authority responsibilities.  How we achieve this is discussed in the following paragraphs

(a)  Corporate Working

Corporate working is an essential way of ensuring both that the LTP2 takes account of the widest possible range of issues and that transport issues take a central role in the decision-making processes affecting other local authority services.

Leaders and Chief Executives of the Metropolitan Authorities have increased their focus on the LTP2 and especially its targets and scheme delivery.  In particular, the Chief Executives have established a Transport Steering Group.  This ensures that our LTP2 is a corporate document, taking account of needs within individual areas, and that it will achieve better value for money and greater acceptability through inter-departmental working between Authorities.  Members from the eight Authorities have formed a Monitoring Group, reporting to the Planning & Transportation Sub-Committee, explicitly to monitor progress and, where necessary, identify actions to get programmes back on track.

The membership of CEPOG, that oversees production and implementation of this LTP2, comprises officers who are responsible for other functions in addition to transportation planning and engineering implementation, including local and regional spatial planning and regeneration.  Through them, transport policy and decisions are closely integrated with and influence other local authority decisions.  This is in addition to the formal structures that ensure that key policy documents, including the LTP2, influence the work of all local authority departments.

Examples are emerging from work on accessibility planning.  Birmingham City Council has set up a corporate accessibility group to ensure there is focus on the accessibility agenda throughout the Council.  Walsall MBC has established links with the education service to ensure that a pilot study looking at borough-wide access to post-16 education can progress smoothly.

(b)  Partnership Working

Regular consultation and joint working arrangements with partners can both maximise the efficient use of resources and produce benefits for local communities.  At the strategic level, we have been involved with Advantage West Midlands, the Regional Assembly and other authorities in the Region to undertake studies of common problems.  Recent examples of this has been the the Regional Freight Study and the Study on Lorry Parking aimed at improving services to businesses.  These studies are helping to fill gaps in facilities.  At the implementation level, a recent example has been the coordinated approach to the simultaneous maintenance of the M6 and A38(M) during the summer of 2004, involving Birmingham City Council, Centro and the Highways Agency.  We are also the first area to have signed memoranda of understanding with the Highways Agency and Police in respect of incident management and control of the national and local highway networks.

The Accessibility Strategy also sets out many examples of partnership working, for example, with Local Strategic Partnerships, health authorities, education establishments, Job Centres and across authority boundaries.  These partnerships have both developed policy and identified action needed to address problems.

We have established a Traffic Managers liaison group to assist with performing the duties of the 2004 Traffic Management Act across our whole Area.  One task is cross-boundary coordination of road closures caused by utility work, in order to minimise traffic disruption.  We aim to achieve value for money in its widest sense, taking account of the cost of delays to people and businesses, as well as co-ordinating appropriate opportunities to make best use of the existing assets.  Our aims are both to avoid the need for new or upgraded infrastructure and to maximise the benefits of new investment.

Following their valuable contributions to the 2003 LTP, more than 3,000 stakeholders were invited to comment on the Appendices supporting this LTP2.  These responses have also informed the development of LTP2 itself.

After submission of our 2003 LTP, we have continued to engage with key stakeholders in order to better understand the issues and practicalities of proposed solutions.  We frequently meet leaders of the business community (through the Business Transport Group and representatives of Environmental campaign groups (e.g. Transport 2000, FoE and CPRE) to discuss problems, opportunities for change, and progress towards targets.  Centro has regular meetings with bus and rail operators about operational and strategic issues.  Goods distribution is discussed with the Freight Quality Partnership. All these meetings have helped to inform our LTP2  strategy and Major Schemes programmes.  This engagement is an ongoing feature of our work and will continue for the life of LTP2, recognising that the type of engagement may change as circumstances change.

We can reduce congestion, increase accessibility, raise air quality, make roads safer and contribute to quality of life objectives by partnership working.  We have a sound foundation of such working arrangements with other agencies.  We will continue to develop existing arrangements and seek new opportunities such as the "quick wins" programme put forward by the West Midlands Business Transport Group. The benefit is that investment and action are coordinated, ensuring efficiency and effectiveness and that business has increased confidence in partnership working creating results..

Other stakeholders which are responsible for strategic transport networks include the Highways Agency, Network Rail, DfT (Rail) and bus and coach operators.  We maintain close working relationships over individual schemes and their potential impact.  For example, the Masshouse Circus and Bullring redevelopments involved close liaison with the HA and Network Rail in order to minimise disruption to traffic and rail services.

We attend many ad-hoc and regular meetings that address relevant issues.  One example of which is the West Midlands Public Transport Users Forum, a voluntary body that brings together a wide range of not-for-profit organisations representing the interests of users or potential users of public transport across the whole region.  With an agenda set by the Forum's membership, it provides opportunities for dissemination of information, an exchange of views and discussion of issues important to people.  Thus, it provides a 'grass roots' input into development of transport schemes or plans, including this LTP2.

Within the context of our current strategy and range of measures, we have the opportunity to work with Government and other key stakeholders to establish new and innovative approaches to dealing with congestion beyond this LTP2 period.

(c)  Local Consultation

Consultation with the public and stakeholders has meant that our LTP2 is focused on important local issues.  This ensures that resources are targeted wisely and achieve value for money.   We want to minimise the risk of pursuing strategies that are locally unacceptable and that might, therefore, waste resources. Feedback from local consultation on Bus Showcase, Red Routes, Safer Routes to School and Local Safety Schemes has fed into both the wider strategy and detailed programmes.

Consultation is not limited to one-off events concerning the LTP2 and specific schemes.  Dialogue takes place, particularly with stakeholders as part of an on-going process.  This takes place at different levels.  For example, we meet regularly with the West Midland Business Transport Group, Centro has regular meetings with bus operators and individual districts routinely meet with specific groups, such as those representing cyclists.

Close working relationships with the LSPs have been established in order to avoid duplication and consultation fatigue.  The LSPs have raised local issues and many of these have informed the development of our LTP2 Strategy as well as, where practicable, feeding into individual Authority programmes.  A common theme from the LSPs is personal safety.  This reinforces our LTP2's focus on safety and is the reason for our local personal security target.

As part of the extensive travel surveys completed in 2001, residents were asked for their views on transport provision.  Based on more than 1,500 responses, their views are summarised and set against the relevant Transport or Quality of Life Shared Priority in Table 1 ‘Transport Issues and the Transport Shared Priority’.

Table 1 Transport Issues and the Transport Shared Priority

Issue	%	Shared Priority Theme
Traffic congestion	64%	Congestion
Speed of traffic	51%	Safety
Condition of roads	46%	Safety
Unreliable trains and buses	40%	Accessibility
Shortage of car parking	39%	Accessibility
Condition of footways	32%	Quality of Life
Frequency of public transport	32%	Accessibility
Unsocial behaviour on buses	29%	Accessibility
Difficulty in getting to places	28%	Accessibility
Too few cycle routes	23%	Accessibility
High level of traffic noise	19%	Quality of Life
Poor street lighting	17%	Safety
Difficulty in using public transport	13%	Accessibility
Number of road accidents	10%	Safety
Abandoned cars	8%	Quality of Life

Respondents were asked to identify their top three priorities.  These are set out in Table 2 ‘Improvement Priorities’.

Table 2 Improvement Priorities

Priority Identified	%
Improve public transport	44%
Reduce traffic congestion	43%
Provide cheaper fares	40%
Better road maintenance	38%
Improve bus reliability	34%
Improve bus frequency	27%
Improve walking / cycling facilities	20%
Safer public transport	17%
Improve transport interchanges	14%
Provide new roads and by-passes	12%

The research found that improving public transport was equally highly rated by both car and public transport users.

Notwithstanding the comprehensive nature of previous consultations, we carried out further consultation in the summer of 2004 to ensure that the general direction of the 2003 LTP retained public support.  We distributed a consultation leaflet and questionnaire, in free newspapers, to households across the Metropolitan Area.  We invited the public to agree or disagree with key elements of the overall transportation strategy.

The overall outcome was very strong endorsement of working towards better rail services (93% agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement), followed by giving greater priority to walking (90%), encouraging safer motoring, including keeping to speed limits (88%) and spending more on highway maintenance for the benefit of all road users including cyclists and pedestrians (85%).  Least agreement was given to spending more on road building (31%).  The complete list of percentages is shown alongside the outcomes of the 2005 consultation in Table 3 ‘Percentages of Respondents Strongly Agreeing or Agreeng with each Statement’.

Respondents were also asked to identify three top priorities from the list of eleven statements and, again, working towards better rail services received the strongest support (46% of respondents), followed by extending Bus Showcase (34%), spending more on highway maintenance (33%), extending Midland Metro (31%) and giving greater priority to walking (30%).  The statements given least priority were spending more on road building (11%) and introducing Red Routes (11%).  The complete list of percentages is shown alongside the outcomes of the 2005 consultation in Table 4 ‘Respondents' Top Priorities’.

These outcomes reinforce the strategy.  The lack of support for Red Routes appears to be partly due to a lack of knowledge of their purpose.

We used focus groups to reach those who were under-represented in the newspaper questionnaire.  Each comprised a specific group such as young people.  Ten groups both mirrored the newspaper consultation and explored specific issues in greater detail, including accessibility planning.  The outcomes are described in the consultation Appendix.

A similar consultation process involving the public and key stakeholder groups was carried out in 2005, referring to the Provisional LTP2 and seeking views on the same questions as set out in the 2004 consultation plus two others concerning traffic congestion.  The latter two questions came as a result of the Authorities deciding to submit a bid for TIF resources.  The consultation was also available on our website (http://westmidlandsltp.gov.uk/).

Well over 5,000 responses were received and analysed, comprising 4,992 'public', 127 'web' and 19 'stakeholder' questionnaires.  The following Table 3 ‘Percentages of Respondents Strongly Agreeing or Agreeng with each Statement’ shows the percentages of respondents who agreed or strongly agreed with each statement in the 2005 consultation, with the 2004 outcomes shown alongside in brackets.

Table 3 Percentages of Respondents Strongly Agreeing or Agreeng with each Statement

Statement:  We should;-	2005	(2004)
work towards better rail services	92%	(93%)
spend more on highway maintenance	91%	(85%)
do more to encourage safer motoring	89%	(88%)
give greater priority to walking	86%	(90%)
extend the Bus Showcase network	83%	(82%)
introduce more Park & Ride facilities	82%	(82%)
extend the Midland Metro network	79%	(74%)
spend more promotion of Green Travel choices	78%	(82%)
introduce more Red Routes	67%	(64%)
give greater priority to cycling	67%	(73%)
spend more on building road	38%	(31%)

The 2005 consultation included two additional questions on congestion.

• We should do more to tackle traffic congestion was supported by 88% of respondents
• We should investigate the pros and cons of all options for tackling congestion was supported by 75% of respondents, rising to 95% amongst the stakeholder responses

Respondents were also asked to identify four top priorities from the list of thirteen statements.  The following Table 4 ‘Respondents' Top Priorities’ shows the proportions ranking any statement as within their top four priorities, with the 2004 outcomes (top three priorities) shown alongside in brackets.

Table 4 Respondents' Top Priorities

Statement:  We should;-	2005	(2004)
work towards better rail services	50%	(46%)
spend more on highway maintenance	43%	(33%)
extend Midland Metro	40%	(31%)
extend Bus Showcase	38%	(34%)
do more to tackle congestion	31%	n/a
do more to encourage safer motoring	31%	(22%)
introduce more Park & Ride facilities	28%	(20%)
give greater priority to walking	23%	(30%)
spend more promoting Green Travel choices	21%	(22%)
investigate options for tackling congestion	21%	n/a
give greater priority to cycling	20%	(24%)
introduce more Red Routes	17%	(11%)
spend more on road building	16%	(11%)

The percentages of support have changed between 2004 and 2005, but the overall priorities are similar, with better rail services featuring strongly and building more roads receiving least support.  There cannot be a direct correlation between 2005 and 2004 with regard to people's priorities because there were two additional statements in 2005 and a request for the top four priorities instead of three in 2004.  However, generally, there appears to be greater support for better maintenance, Metro and safer motoring in 2005 than previously, although walking seems to have declined in importance.

As well as questionnaire responses, some organisations and several individuals have offered comments on the Provisional LTP2 in general and with regard to specific sections or paragraphs.  Ad-hoc comments have generally been positive and supportive of the LTP2, its aims, programmes and targets.  However, inevitably, it has raised a variety of different expectations and demands, often closely aligned with the stakeholders' or person's main interests.  These have been taken into account in refining this Final LTP2 where possible, balancing specific comments with each other and the overall strategy.

Some comments have expressed disappointment or criticism that the LTP2 generally and its targets specifically are unambitious.  However, the LTP2's programme and targets have been developed in the accordance with the available resources and in line with Government Guidance.  This means that aspirations of Metropolitan Authorities, stakeholders and the public are not fully reflected.  This is disappointing to all parties because, particularly without significant investment in Major Schemes, it will not be possible to make the desired progress towards LTP2 objectives, the Transport Shared Priority and our Area's contribution to the national economy.