Fresh proposals to ensure that the Highways Agency considers a wider range of spatial issues when it considers whether the network can cope with new development have been welcomed.
The Department for Transport proposals to replace the 2001 circular set out how applications affecting the strategic network would be treated.
The draft circular was designed to encourage ‘the agency and developers to work together effectively,’ according to roads minister Dr Stephen Ladyman. The County Surveyors’ Society says local highway authorities presently have to balance competing demands for expansion, housing growth and transport demand, while the agency has the relative luxury of only having to consider one element of the transport system.
Said secretary, George Batten: ‘The County Surveyors’ Society welcomes this consultation on the new draft circular which proposes a much wider appreciation of spatial planning issues by the agency.
‘This would enable it to take into account the same balance of issues with which councils are faced on a daily basis.’
The draft circular also says long-term road capacity increases are not viable, and developers should manage demand for transport and impacts on strategic highways. The proposals were accompanied by the long-awaited guidance on transport assessments, calling on developers to identify the transport – as opposed to merely the traffic – implications of significant-sized developments (Surveyor, 17 August).
But, controversially, developers would only need to cater for 10 years’ traffic growth, rather than 15, as now.
• Circular on Planning and the Strategic Road Network : www.surveyormagazine.com/index .cfm?fuseaction=archive.featuredetail&IsPaper=true&articleID=3205