Looking at cl a( o7gm7 Ca W. by Keith Vincent
Page 18
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Slow road to progress
LAST NOVEMBER a vicechairman of the Road Haulage Association, Albert Neely, complained that the "gestation period for roads is too long". He called upon the Government to reduce it — if necessary by changing the laws which govern the planning processes.
Loud "Amens" to that suggestion will come from road users up and down the country. Ironically, during the recession the actual construction periods have been getting shorter, while the processes which must be completed before the bulldozers start work are taking longer and longer. But except among those who have taken an active part in them, knowledge of the statutory procedures is usually fairly sparse.
The first thing to note is that they refer solely to trunk roads. These are roads provided and maintained by central government — the Department oi Transport in England, and the Scottish and Welsh Offices in the rest of Great Britain. Different procedures apply to local authority roads. The basic procedures are quite simple. There is nothing in them which inevitably gives rise to years of delay.
The route of a new all-purpose trunk road is fixed by means of a Trunk Road Order made under the Highways Act 1980. The Order, usually known as the line order, is published in draft, accompanied by very large-scale plans showing precisely what is intended. The fact of its publication has to be advertised in local newspapers in the areas affected, though naturally most people learn of it through the news columns.
There follows a period — minimum six weeks, but often longer — during which objections can be lodged. There are no restrictions on who can object; unlike the new 0licensing proposals the right is not confined to those living in the vicinity. If the proposed new road is a motorway, the draft Order is replaced by a draft Scheme, which differs only in name from an Order.
The construction of a new motorway or trunk road almost always requires changes to other roads which cross its path. Above all the junctions with those existing roads have to be carefully designed to permit safe free-flowing traffic. These alterations are dealt with in seperate Orders, usually known colloquially as "side-road Orders". These apply whether the proposed new road is a motorway or an all-purpose road.
The side-road Orders are also published in draft, and are open to objection for a minimum of six weeks. They, too, are accompanied by large-scale plans showing precisely what is intended.
Often these are more complicated than the plans showing the proposed line of the new road, because they have to deal with everything from a footpath to an intersection with another trunk road.
The draft main-line and sideroad Orders may be published simultaneously, but sometimes the latter is deferred until the route of the new road is established. This avoids abortive design work when the changes are made to the route of the new road. But often the side road changes give rise to as much complaint as the new road itself. Bridges and underpasses are so expensive that the designers try to reduce their number by combining a number of local roads and footpaths, thus increasing the distance which local residents have to travel. So where possible, both line and side-road Orders are published simultaneously.
The Secretary of State is required by law to consider the objections, and to decide whether or not to overule them. So long as he cannot be shown to have ignored them he has full power to make the Orders or Schemes, thus fixing the line of the new road and the changes in the side roads.
There is no absolute legal requirement for a public inquiry to be held. Only if local authorities or some other statutory bodies lodge formal objections does an inquiry become obligatory.
The routes of the vast majority of the original 1,000 miles of motorway were fixed without public inquiries. However, today's hostility to new roads means that even where there are no statutory objections — a rare state of affairs — an inquiry is usually held. Inevitably the delays start here.
The length of the actual inquiry is only a small part of the delay. At an early stage of planning the Department conducts "public participation exercises". The various options are set out, and meetings are held at which local residents can question the planners.
Several years later, when the plans have been formally published and an inquiry set up, there is an informal pre-inquiry meeting between the Inspector and the main objectors. This is designed to take the heat out of the inquiry itself, when it opens several weeks later.
Moreover, in the past 10 years or so the scope of the inquiries has widened. Although the law is unclear, in practice objectors can now go a long way to challenge the need for the new road, and this can lead to very lengthy pesentations, and subsequent cross-examination. After the inquiry there is a pause while the Inspector writes his report. This usually takes longer than the inquiry itself. But the major delay comes at the decision-making stage. The DTp (or its Celtic counterparts) usually take well over a year to announce a decision. If the Inspector's report is hostile to the proposal it will take very much longer.
How could this be speeded up?
The accretion to the statutory procedures of non-statutory steps, such as the public participation exercise and the pre-inquiry meeting, have undoubtedly lengthened the process. But their abolition would almost certainly bring back the rowdy disruptions which disfigured inquiries until the mid-1970s and which (pace the RHA and FTA fears about the new 0-licence regulations) now seem to be a thing of the past.
The major scope for acceleration seems to lie in two areas. Inspectors could produce their reports more quickly, and perhaps their fees could be designed to encourage this. And Ministers could make the decisions more quickly, instead of hoping that delay might land the problem in their successor's lap.
This would be helped if the balance of evidence at the inquiries was less one-sided. Objections predominate, and this must affect the Inspector's reports and the subsequent Ministerial decisions. For example, when the Inspector into the proposed sorely-needed widening of the North Circular Road recently asked how many witnesses supported the idea, only one hand was raised!
Operators would do well to obtain a copy of the recently published Objectors' Guide to Trunk Road Inquiries. As the brain-child of Transport 2000 it is aimed at helping opponents of new roads, but it is full of excellent advice about presentation of evidence at inquiries. Most of this advice is just as relevant to supporters as to opponents.