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matters by John Darker, AMBIM
DoE view of the planning of transport
Road transport managers should play a constructive role in the preparation by local authorities of TPPs — Transport Policies and Programmes
RECENT ARTICLES in this column have urged the need for transport operators to play a constructive role in the development of local authority or area traffic planning schemes. Against a background of publicity urging public participation in planning, any coherent body like road hauliers and bus operators could stand condemned if their commercial interests are prejudiced by lack of interest in planning.
At a recent PTRC seminar at Sussex University, Mr J. C. Collier, of the Department of the Environment, revealed that the first "TPP" — the initials stand for Transport Policies and Programmes — was expected in Whitehall in the summer of 1974 in respect of the years 1975 /76. From now on, local authority planning staff will be working hard on traffic plans to avoid being late in the queue for money; naturally, the whole planning process will not get fully into top gear until the newly constituted local government areas are working smoothly.
Since Government money will be paid out for the best presented schemes it was interesting to hear from Mr Collier how proposals will be assessed.
He drew attention to the Baines Report (The New Local Authorities, Management and Structure), available through HMSO, in which the criteria for preparing plans are set out. Counties, in transport matters, will have to strike a multiplicity of balances dividing resources between different parts of the county with varying transport needs related to population density, etc. The TPPs will have to allocate resources between public transport, highways, and parking, giving appropriate weight to safety and environmental factors and striking a further balance between operational expenditure and investment.
Despite the Government's encouragement of public participation, any thought that locally agreed major schemes will automatically get the DoE's approval was rudely shattered by Mr Collier. He did not recall the old adage: "He who pays the piper, calls the tune" but he hinted that the DoE would look at the plans submitted like a critical headmaster.
The total cost of a plan would be looked at to see whether this compared favourably or otherwise with the national average for similar plans. Any "inherited commitments" or "special needs" catered for in a TPP would be looked at.
Quaky
The quality of the plan submitted would be considered in relation to its comprehensiveness: how much money was proposed to be spent on roads as opposed to public transport? What were the detailed schemes for improved traffic management, including parking? What was planned for hgv to make urban movements more safely and with less damage to the environment?
While looking for a good discussion of all these problems, the DoE might also want studies undertaken, to support the TPP, relevant to the local geography, population distribution and trends, flexibility of the plan, etc.
To the criteria of cost and quality, the TPPs will be assessed in terms of their realism — a useful Whitehall expression. In essence, realism means: can the proposals submitted achieve their targets in time? If the costs of plans are to be kept within bounds the objectives set for themselves by the planners must, in relation to the cost of achieving them, and the tune the plans will take to mature, appear reasonable estimates to Whitehall_
It hardly needs pointing out that the length of a Cabinet Minister's purse is often related to his or her effectiveness in the Cabinet. However effective and generous a Secretary of State for the Environment may be, a tough Chancellor would be likely to prune all departmental estimates, with effects on TPPs akin to the regular cuts in road-building programmes indulged in by all governments.
Complication
Another complication for officials and transport people helping with the preparation of TPPs is that it will not be possible
to plan wholly in isolation for a particular area.
"Even new counties," said Mr Collier, "will have to negotiate with neighbouring districts."
He pointed out, very sensibly, that a lot of industry may be spread across the borders of local authorities. It would make no sense for two separate TPPs to be sent to the DoE for vetting if they bore no relationship to each other in terms of traffic and environmental needs.
Whitehall has allowed for the effect on TPPs of local government elections. Enough flexibility will be shown by those administering public funds to allow for changes in TPPs which have, in fact, been approved.
Programmes
The TPPs should not be confused with local authority "Structure Plans", though the two are related elements in the new planning laws. A questioner at the seminar who asked Mr Collier whether structure plans must first be approved, before work could begin on a TPP, was told that this was not so. "The structure plans will have 'outputs' over, perhaps, a fiveyear period. The TPPs will rank for annual grant; they will have to be kept up to date but complete revision will not be necessary."
All this may sound way beyond the ken of most practical transport men but Mr Collier stressed that rate support grants will be higher to meet the TPP element. Two things would seem to follow: the sooner each local authority prepares an effective TPP to meet the critical standards of the DoE, the sooner will central government grants flow back to the towns and cities to help pay for road and public transport improvements; because of the fluid state of present transport planning the scope for specific subsidies — hitherto restricted to passenger transport — may develop in the freight sector. Would it be impossible to conceive, for instance, a subsidy to compensate shopkeepers and food distributors for the extra cost of night deliveries?
Timing
What is apparently envisaged by the Government — the timing is uncertain because some new legislation will be needed — is that most specific grants from central government to local authorities which have affected their transport spending will be phased out and the new approach will be to pay out money after approval by the DoE of each county's TPP. Counties will have to submit annual statements of their transport policies and programmes. It does not need to be stressed that a huge amount of on-going research work and continuing talks between local authorities and the public will be necessary in future.
For the TPPs "are designed to elucidate in explicit terms the transport objectives and policies which counties have decided to pursue. They will direct attention at the planning stage to the need to ensure that decisions relating to different geographical areas and on different subject matters are properly inter-related. TPPs would be prepared and submitted by counties covering the whole of their areas, but within these would be expected to highlight particular problems. Large urban areas, in which transport mix would be an issue, would normally merit separate treatment."
Mr Collier continued: "TPPs would relate to and be informed by the medium-term transport plans covering a period of 10-15 years ahead emerging from studies, many of which are already being pursued throughout the country. TPPs would, however, go on to translate the policies into costed programmes for action, firmly for the first year, with some confidence up to five years and more tenuously up to 10 years ahead."
Grants
Anyone might think from the foregoing that counties in future would be required as a statutory duty to submit a fresh TPP each year. Not a bit of it! TPPs, in Mr Collier's words, were "essentially an administrative means by which the Secretary of State could inform himself about a local authority's transport policy and expenditure plans, be associated with their preparation and take decisions on the allocation of supplementary transport grant."
The truth is that TPPs will be one source of information for the gentlemen in Whitehall who hold the purse strings, if they do not always "know best". The DoE will also digest acres of structure plans, and local plans and development plans. "The level of studies required for TPPs will normally be more detailed, and with a shorter-time horizon than that required for structure planning, but clearly must be compatible with them."
Regional offices of the DoE will play a significant role in co-ordinating all this massive transport and environmental planning. How many bus or lorry operators have met the DoE regional planning staffs?