Supplementary memorandum submitted by
Geoff Gardner, North Yorkshire County Council (ST 32c)
Further to the email from the second clerk,
my response would be as below, noting that this is, as with my
verbal response, my view rather than an official policy statement
of the County Council.
"REVENUE"
COST OF
SCHOOL TRAVEL
INITIATIVES IN
NORTH YORKSHIRE
With specific regard to school travel promotion,
the County Council was in receipt of a three-year bursary from
DfT starting in 2001 amounting to £30,000 per year. From
1 April 2004 to 31 March 2006 this has been increased to £120,000
per year. The majority of this (around 90%) will be spent on staff
time following the recruitment of six part-time teachers (of very
high calibre, for example including an ex-head teacher, Ofsted
Inspector, ex-head of Drama etc).
There are close links between the activities
of the school travel plan team and the capital programme of work
to construct "safer routes to school". School Travel
Plans also help to guide expenditure on cycling and pedestrian
schemes as part of our Integrated Transport Budget of around 10
million pounds.
TRAVEL AWARENESS
COMPONENT OF
THE LOCAL
TRANSPORT PLAN
ANNUAL PROGRESS
REPORT. (ACTIVITIES
COMPLEMENTARY TO
SCHOOL TRAVEL
PLANNING, SUCH
AS THE
MARKETING STRATEGY,
FORM PART
OF THIS)
In order to create the sustainable future set
out in the North Yorkshire Local Transport Plan, it is necessary
to promote a positive awareness of the need for sensible travel
and in particular for responsible car use. Individual schemes,
such as cycle paths, need promotion of their use once completed
as much as they need temporary diversion signs during their construction.
A new bus service needs timetables and information at stops. The
provision of this type of information and publicity is necessarily
included in the capital cost of the scheme.
To provide the essential element of travel awareness
that will enable potential users to develop a positive attitude
towards the use of non-car alternatives a "hearts and minds"
campaign is also necessary. In the Local Transport Plan this is
referred to as Travel Awareness. Because this is such a fundamental
part of the integrated transport programme, and because it represents
an essential foundation on which this programme is built, then
an allowance of 1% of the integrated transport programme budget
has been allowed for Travel Awareness activities.
This is viewed as being an essential part of
the capital programme in that without this supporting awareness
raising, the ability of the capital provision to meet its expectations
will be compromised. The 1% spent on travel awareness activities
is therefore considered to be capitalised revenue expenditure.
"ACCEPTABLE
DISTANCES TO
SCHOOL" (FOR
INFO)
The school travel team at North Yorkshire County
Council have surveyed 9,000 parents as part of the school travel
plan process. Of these 85% spend less than 20 minutes travelling.
The calculation of an 85th percentile is used when setting speed
limits, for example, and may help to define an "acceptable"
upper limit.
There are 50% of people travel who less than
10 minutes to school. Our five-minute walk zone initiative especially
targets this group but also aims to get everyone to include some
walking in their day (because of the health and social benefits).
HAVE THE
DANISH DEFINED
A "SAFE
ROUTE TO
SCHOOL"? WHAT
IS IT?
The memorandum of evidence to the Transport
Select Committee from SUSTRANS contains a link to the Danish legislation
about the requirement for bus transport if there is no safe route
to school:
"1. In Denmark—where cycling
journeys to school (50%) are significantly higher than the UK
(2%)—the Government has introduced legislation which requires
that every child has a safe route to school and without this in
place, bus transport must be provided"
It also provides the following link to the legislation:
http://193.89.230.8/skoledebat/Bruger/vis. asp?which=1204
Unfortunately, this is in Danish, but from what
I can make of it, it does not give a rigorous definition of what
is a safe route. Denmark does, however, have a sliding scale of
statutory walking distances based on age.
May 2004
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