North Yorkshire to unveil 30-year Local Transport Plan

North Yorkshire County Council will unveil a new plan, which will set out transport strategies for the next 30 years.

As the Highway Authority for all adopted roads and footways within North Yorkshire, the County Council is responsible for the management, maintenance and improvement of over 5,700 miles of road, 2,500 miles of footways, 2,000 bridges and thousands of other highways assets.

The Local Transport Plan (LTP4) will replace the previous plan, which ends in March 2016 and the county council will give an opportunity for the public to put their views across in an online survey.

The plan looks at the short (0-5 years), medium (6-15 years) and long-term (16-30 years) and sets out five key objectives:

• Contributing to economic growth through reliable and efficient transport networks;
• Managing the adverse impact of transport on the environment;
• Improving road and transport safety;
• Improving equality of opportunity by facilitating access to services; and
• Providing healthier transport opportunities.

County Councillor Don Mackenzie, North Yorkshire’s Executive Member for Highways and Public Transport, said: “North Yorkshire has one of the largest transport networks in the country, spread across a vast largely rural area.

“The wellbeing of our residents and the economic future of our region, of its towns, market towns and villages, of its industry, its tourism, its cultural and heritage development, all rely on transport networks that are fit for purpose. This new plan sets out that purpose and takes the long view as well as setting out short-term aims.”

The plan considers transport on all levels of scale. For highway maintenance, for example, this will range from how the county council will decide which individual potholes to repair to which bypasses need resurfacing.

For improvements, the work will range from how and where the county council will install dropped kerbs to help wheelchair users to cross the road, to where it plans to build new road schemes; to how the council will consider the needs of a single street, village or town to how transport in North Yorkshire can contribute towards the Northern Powerhouse.

The Government has provided indicative capital funding allocations of £32m a year until 2020/21 to support North Yorkshire’s delivery of the Local Transport Plan. However, budgetary constraints are likely to remain.

The county council is therefore committed to using the most cost-effective means of achieving these objectives and also to taking every appropriate opportunity to bid for additional funding for transport in North Yorkshire.