Examination of Witnesses (Questions 52-59)
MR PAT
HAYES, MR
MARK BENNETT,
COUNCILLOR DAVID
SPARKS, COUNCILLOR
TONY PAGE
AND MR
BOB DONALDSON
17 MAY 2006
Q52 Chairman: Good afternoon to you,
gentlemen. Have you had time to collect yourselves to the extent
that you can tell us who you are?
Mr Bennett: Mark Bennett, Head
of Borough Funding in Transport for London, responsible for the
Local Implementation Plan and the Borough Spending Plan processes.
Mr Hayes: My name is Pat Hayes.
I am Director of Borough Partnerships at Transport for London
so I oversee the borough funding and planning processes.
Cllr Sparks: David Sparks. I chair
the Environment Board at the LGA which covers transport, planning,
housing and waste.
Cllr Page: Councillor Tony Page.
I am the Labour Group transport spokesperson on the Environment
Board of the LGA.
Mr Donaldson: I am Bob Donaldson.
I am transportation manager for the city of Sunderland and today
I am representing the Technical Advisers' Group.
Q53 Chairman: Does anybody have anything
they want to say to us before we begin? No. Can I ask the LGA
this: how did you help the department decide on the shared priorities
for Local Transport Plans?
Cllr Page: We had a series of
meetings with officials at the department at a time when meetings
were held more frequently with the department. There was a good
deal of collaboration and give and take around the determination
of the shared priorities.
Q54 Chairman: Do you think that is
a move away from a localised agenda to a centralised agenda?
Cllr Page: No. It reflected the
priorities that had worked their way up from local authorities,
I would suggest.
Q55 Chairman: It did not seem to
feature climate change and economic performance very highly, did
it?
Cllr Page: Climate change is not
one that features specifically. Having given evidence to the Environmental
Audit Committee recently, they raised that with us and we accepted
that that is an issue of now increased concern that perhaps could
have been reflected in the priorities, but at the time that was
not the case.
Q56 Chairman: Can I put that to London?
In the London Local Implementation Plans, what priority is given
to climate change and economic performance?
Mr Hayes: Starting with climate
change and sustainability, we would be the first to acknowledge
that the Mayor's transport strategy, which is the over-arching
document which Local Implementation Plans relate back to, is probably
lighter in the area of sustainability than we would now like it
to be in terms of the review that is about to start. This is clearly
an area that we will build more into. That is not to say that
the Local Implementation Plans are not now being brought forward.
There is a considerable emphasis in terms of things such as green
travel, travel demand management et cetera, so we have managed
it through the process possibly more than is set out in the original
Mayor's transport strategy. This document now relates back to
2001.
Q57 Chairman: The department's guidance
suggests that other quality of life issues, whilst not key objectives,
are no less important. How do local authorities interpret that
mixed message?
Cllr Page: On the ground, local
authorities always have given a high priority to issues of the
general environment, noise and pollution particularly. My own
authority is not rare in the fact that we monitor air quality
and noise at select points around the town and have done for many
years. That is built into the monitoring process and the reporting
process as part of the Local Transport Plans. Whilst we might
not write "climate change" in neon over it, the issues
that go to make up concerns around climate change are very much
a priority at local level but bringing it together in terms of
the wider climate agenda has perhaps been—
Q58 Chairman: They are including
things like sustainable communities, quality of public spaces,
conservation and biodiversity and they talk about noise and those
sorts of things which had been part of your previous plans. Had
you considered any of those? Do you think it is a mixed message?
Cllr Page: It is in danger of
being too prescriptive. We, as local government, do not necessarily
want to see everything prescribed in great detail from central
government and the guidance in the past, I would suggest, has
allowed local authorities to exercise a degree of flexibility
to reflect their local priorities.
Cllr Sparks: I think it is fair
to say that the big problem in relation to transport and climate
change, when it comes to local authorities, is that local authorities
when looking at transport have been overwhelmed by problems of
congestion, lack of infrastructure et cetera. At the same time
those same local authorities and the LGA as an association has
been giving an increasingly higher profile to climate change.
That was the reason why we set up an Environment Board and we
put planning, transport, housing and waste together. We are involved
in considerable discussions with the government on the whole question
of sustainable communities, of which a large part is to do with
the adequate provision of transport infrastructure. That has been
the main driver to look at new ways of financing infrastructure
but the problem is this has not been made explicit in local transport
policies to the extent that it could have been.
Q59 Clive Efford: Can I ask Transport
for London why it has taken so long to move from production of
the Mayor's transport strategy and the guidance document in July
2004 to the production of local implementation plans? It is two
and a half years. What has been the impact of the delay?
Mr Hayes: This was a major step
change, a move forward, for local authorities in London in terms
of having to look strategically at their transport priorities.
Put them within a subregional context and all of a sudden it is
perhaps an issue of climate change but around sustainability,
integration of "public transport" which previously was
operated by London Transport and the things they did themselves
in terms of the borough road network. This was a challenging task
for local authorities. The fact that we are now in a position
of having a number of LIPs, Local Implementation Plans, agreed
and there is a huge tranche in the pipeline so they will all be
agreed by the end of this year is a major step forward for London
in terms of the amount of thinking the boroughs have had to do.
I think it is also fair to say there was a considerable uprating
exercise in terms of the boroughs getting the capacity to produce
these Local Implementation Plans. It has involved them in the
main in having to take on or train people to do this. There has
been an increase in capacity and they were not well placed to
do this exercise to start off with. We are now in a position where
the capacity has been built up in local authorities and in terms
of London there is now far greater knowledge and awareness of
transport planning both at the very grass roots level within the
boroughs but also how it fits into regional structures and regional
strategies.
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