Whitehall is cutting the red tape surrounding certain road closures and diversions, but civil servants have ruled that they must still approve every non-standard road sign.
The results of a cross-government bureaucracy-busting initiative were announced by ministers last week. In all, the review of consent regimes has recommended repealing 21, and consultations on removing or streamlining another two dozen.
The Department for Transport operates 17 of these, approving issues ranging from converting footpaths for cycles to providing or removing cattle grids. Local authority officers welcomed the relaxation, but said the DfT could go further. It has agreed to scrap eight consent regimes, consult on four, and review another five. Two considered ‘most burdensome’ are set to go.
Councils complained that the Town & Country Planning Act requirement for ‘stopping or diverting highways in connection with development/amenity improvement’ delayed new developments, and road closures should be considered earlier in the planning process. The DfT has promised to ‘start work’ on its repeal in 2006/07, although an appeal process might still be required. Special events orders may also be repealed. One of the 60 consulted councils said it took about four officers, including engineers and lawyers, up to a week-and-a-half to collate the paperwork required. For London boroughs, the consent powers could pass to the mayor, and the DfT is to hold its own consultation for the rest of England.
But Whitehall balked at relaxing another ‘most burdensome’ consent regime – for traffic signs outside regulations. Special permissions have jumped by one-third in just two years (Surveyor, 9 March), but the DfT insists that consistency across the country is essential. Highway authorities recognised that need, but safety message signs could be exempted within a guidance framework, said ~Mike Ashworth~ of the County Surveyors’ Society traffic and safety group. Guidelines could also be issued for dispensing with yellow lines in town centres and conservation areas. ‘The dispensation process can be very lengthy,’ he said. Given ‘exponential’ demands on highway authorities, ‘any effort to reduce bureaucracy has got to be welcomed,’ Derbyshire’s assistant director of environmental services added.
Special event orders were no longer necessary, since every authority had a traffic manager and understood the need to manage street events in a holistic way. Other consent regimes set for repeal cover the fixing of traffic signs to certain buildings in London, stopping up or diverting side roads, and extending experimental traffic regulation and temporary orders. : Consent regimes – reducing unnecessary bureaucracy www.surveyormagazine.com
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