Local Transport Plan for County
MARK SULLIVAN
A new Local Transport Plan (LTP), issued in January by East Sussex County Council (ESCC) and currently up for public consultation, proclaims five aims:
- enable safer and more accessible journeys
- develop healthy places to enable people to live well
- decarbonise transport to help us to achieve net zero targets by 2050 at the latest
- maintain and strengthen our transport networks so that they are resilient
- support a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable economy within our coastal towns, market towns and villages in more rural areas.
The Plan has been developed, according to ESCC, after “broad and extensive engagement… with seniors and young people, schools, and groups representing protected characteristic groups, transport operators, business representatives, and community transport partnerships”. It highlights public transport, walking and cycling, with no proposals to build new roads, only vague plans for improvements. The LTP “supports”, in a ritual way, improvements to the A21 such as a bypass of Hurst Green and for a new A27 between Lewes and Polegate (said to cost £600 million), but these are trunk roads and for National Highways to undertake. They run through the High Weald AONB and the South Downs National Park respectively, which makes approval any time soon unlikely.
Stress is laid on the current national policy that seeks to “decarbonise transport”: the “transition to zero-emission vehicles” should be assisted. But the Plan’s main value is that it oversees three more detailed plans already prepared: the Local Cycling & Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP), published in 2020, the Bus Service Improvement Plan, completed in 2021, and the rather old Rail Strategy, of 2013. These are not well-known, but they are the nuts and bolts for improving transport in the County.
CYCLING
Spending on cycle routes and better provision for walking is at last significant nationally, after years of little or no money. A new government quango, Active Travel England, is able to fund improvements for walking and cycling. These forms of travel no longer depend on crumbs from the roads budget. ESCC has received £20 million in the last few years, though little has yet been spent in Hastings. There is much that could be done in the town to make walking more attractive, and safer, not least for children and older people. The LCWIP (pages 23-24) includes a plan for cycle routes for Hastings. The LTP confirms that money is available. But, as Charmaine Kenner explains below, cycle route development in Hastings has come to a stop. Getting this going again is a call that those commenting on the Plan can now make.
The most positive part of the LTP is the support it gives to developing bus services. National policy on buses has changed completely in the last six years. They are no longer deregulated. A new law, the Bus Services Act of 2017, gives County Councils the power to regulate and plan services. A “statutory partnership” between the council and the operators has been set up under that Act, and a Bus Service Improvement Plan (‘BSIP’) was published in by ESCC in 2021. It explains that the national bus strategy seeks in each county:
- A fully integrated service with simple, multi-modal tickets
- More bus priority measures
- High-quality information for all passengers in more places
- Better turn-up-and-go frequencies that keep running into the evenings and at weekends.
- ESCC has received £41 million to start to deliver this in the County.
RAILWAYS
In contrast to the encouraging progress on bus services, the East Sussex ‘Rail Strategy and Action Plan’ is ten years old and is out of date. It seeks improvement of the Ashford-Hastings line, but the wider strategic case for electrifying that line to create a South Coast route from Thanet and Canterbury through Hastings, Bexhill and Brighton to Hampshire with faster trains – and reducing traffic on the A259 and A27 – is yet to be developed. What could be done sooner is to improve the Charing Cross line, which remains very slow. The “Rail Strategy” says that the electrical supply cannot provide enough power for faster trains, or 12-coach trains all day. “Network Rail is currently in the process of undertaking study work looking at rail improvements in the Hastings area, including on the Hastings-London line, which includes consideration of upgrading the electricity supply between Hastings and Tunbridge Wells to enable a 12-car service to operate on a more frequent basis.” Ten years on, nothing has changed. The LTP needs to put that right.
The Local Transport Plan is fortunate in one way: it is being published while the government is maintaining the £2 cap on all single bus fares in England outside London. That simple step has caused bus travel to grow, when it had been declining every year. Originally for 3 months to get passengers back after the Covid period, the fare cap is now extended into 2025. One can’t see a change in government ending it; the election should ensure it lasts longer. Responses to the consultation could call for the promised service improvements to be brought in now so that the new users which the £2 fare cap has attracted stay ‘on the buses’.
The consultation runs until 25 February. Comments can be sent to the Local Transport Plan Team at [email protected] (tel: 0345 60 80 193) or go to the website page: consultation.eastsussex.gov.uk/economy-transport-environment/local-transport-plan-4-2024-2050
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To make a town nice, easy and enticing for walking, cycling and using public transport, you need a strategy, a method – HSTF suggest this:
10 Step Charter for a Smart Town Transport Network
1. Make a map of the town with a network of bus-only lanes; a joined up safe cycling network; School Streets; comfortable (larger) bus stops; buildouts (planted) and chicanes; cycle storage; bin hubs and widened pavements, to create a walking and wheeling town with congestion-free buses, a complete system in which all modes of Public and Active Travel complement one another. These mode-switch measures will reduce space available to car, van and lorry traffic, but should not deprive them of a coherent road network and access to all the destinations they have access to now.
2. Establish Residential Parking Zones over the whole Borough – issue only as many permits as parking bays, on-street and off-street, with off-street sometimes compensating for parking lost to other uses. Lost revenue from visitors paying for off-street parking can be replaced with a (initially low) charge for Resident Parking Permits. Where bus-only lanes are created, on-street parking may have to be moved to off-street parking.
3. Install the coherent network of bus and bike lanes, as planned, over the whole town to improve bus frequency, reliability and, thereby, use and profitability. Improve bus stops.
4. Impose a default urban speed limit of 20mph and, to make it easy to stick to and enjoy, cut and plant buildouts, build chicanes and lobby for Government permission to paint, affordably without Belisha beacons, zebra crossings over every side road. Begin with the School Streets.
5. Install neighbourhood bin hubs (to eliminate pavement-compromising wheelie bins) and bike hangars at regular intervals to serve all local residents.
6. Signpost and waymark a comprehensive network of walking routes – upgrade the surface of paths adequately for all seasons and provide wildlife friendly lighting.
7. Improve the walkability of pavements by widening, repairing, greening and installing benches and play equipment. No in-town road should have width devoted to cars wider than 5.5m, wide enough for 2 cars or lorries to pass one another. The surplus space should go to people or buses.
8. Establish Park and Rides as edge of town hubs with one serving as a new electric bus depot for recharging.
9. Write into the Local Plan – all new housing developments should be car-free/car-lite and should contribute to the 15-minute neighbourhood concept with direct routes through the estates for walking and cycling that link to the main routes.
10. Advertise Hastings as a clean, car-lite, Active town, perfect for holidaying – ‘Come by Train or Bus to the Town in the Woods by the Sea!’ – to maintain and increase visitor numbers and encourage them to stay for longer.