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8.4 Other issues arising from the assessment
Thisis essentially quite a human focused LTP. It addresses areas such asimprovements to health, reducing congestion etc, with little regard paid toenvironmental issues such as landscape, biodiversity and climate change.
The closest that the LTPObjectives come to promoting environmental issues is through the objective ‘_To move towards a more sustainable patternof development and growth_’. The LTP would benefit from having a moreenvironmentally focused objective, particularly one that addresses the specificneed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The LTP does not providesufficient emphasis to the ‘other quality of life issues’ that are included inthe DfT guidance (DfT, 2004b), and the Final LTP will need to address thisissue. The recommendations of the Environmental Report will be considered byWMMA with a review to revising the Final LTP.
The major schemes proposedwithin the LTP will have an overall benefit for population and human health,although it is important that these benefits are ‘locked in’ by introducingdemand management measures, otherwise induced traffic will simply fill-up thenew road space, and make the situation worse than it was before. Some of theschemes could have negative impacts on landscape, biodiversity, soil and waterresources, and mitigation measures should be adopted to reduce these impactswhere possible.
Use of demand management is not well communicated in the LTP.
The LTP should place more emphasis on the role that personal travelplanning and car clubs can play in contributing towards reductions in thenumber of car trips.
The forecast growth tables (LTP Table 8.1 p75) are not consistentwith the LTP targets; e.g. Mandatory Indicator LTP3 for cycling (LTP p139).