Our councils are the weakest link
Oct 9 2007 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal
TRANSPORT planning in the North-East has been criticised as among the worst in the country.
The Department for Transport said when it comes to planning to keep the roads free of congestion and making sure the buses run on time, the region’s councils are England’s weakest.
Their assessment of councils’ local transport plans led to the DfT deciding it should offer some “guidance” to local authorities on how to better manage traffic flow.
The five Tyne and Wear councils and Northumberland County Council were singled out as having many weaknesses.
Despite some good points, overall Northumberland was rated as weak, as were the Tyne and Wear authorities on their first assessment, before the DfT had a second look and changed their grading to fair.
The assessors decided the Tyne and Wear planners had “little information on how the authority intends to deal with future traffic growth.” The report added that while the councils had looked at how to tackle congestion, their plans had “minimal detail on how this was monitored. Cycling, walking and freight strategies were very weak.”
The DfT was even harsher when it reviewed Northumberland Council.
The assessors stated “there was no obvious transport strategy in place” to tackle congestion.
A spokesman for Newcastle Council, which leads the five authorities on highways issues, said the report was based on documents produced two years ago.
He said: “We take any feedback from the DfT extremely seriously and would look to improve on the weaknesses highlighted in the review.”
A Northumberland County Council spokesman said the DfT report was outdated and possibly even inaccurate. A spokesman said: “This report is not a reflection on how well we are delivering or managing services on the road. It is only a judgment of how we have worded part of an official transport document, but we’re not satisfied it is accurate.
“This report is a year old and this is the first time we have seen it. It was prepared for the Department of Transport by consultants and we are concerned that some of the details are wrong. We will be asking them to review their assessment.
“However, it does state that all of the local transport plans within the North-East show a ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ understanding of the general requirements.
“The assessment of weak only relates to a small section of our 298-page Local Transport Plan, which sets out everything we aim to achieve in terms of transport between 2006-11 and which has been rated as fair overall.”
