Rural roads protocol agreed for Dorset

10 April 2008

Dorset County Council has approved a rural roads protocol to ensure the county’s highway network is managed in a ‘sensitive and sustainable way’.

Drawn up in response to the lack of national guidance on rural road design, the protocol takes into account the distinctive quality of the county’s landscape and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

‘All decisions affecting the highway environment in Dorset will ensure the conservation and enhancement of the outstanding quality of its landscape and settlements, while delivering a safe and convenient network for all modes of movement,’ the protocol states.

It calls for rural highway designs ‘which are appropriate to the physical characteristics of the road and the environmental context, and the use of local materials and locally-sensitive design within settlements to maintain a sense of place’.

Levels of signing, lining and street furniture should be minimised, and roadside clutter removed or replaced with alternative designs where appropriate.

Stephen Hardy, Dorset’s principal transport planner, welcomed the development as a ‘significant step’ in local highways policy. ‘There has never been an authority-wide document drawing on local distinctiveness and character. Lots of people are doing bits of it but never the whole lot,’ he said.

Andy Ackerman, Dorset’s head of highways client services, said all council policies, from signage to planning, would now be reviewed against the protocol.

‘They must demonstrate conformity to the protocol,’ he said, adding that costs would likely be reduced in the long term because of the nature of the principles.

The Dorset Rural Roads Protocol follows last week’s publication of the Local Transport Note 1/08 (Surveyor, 3 April), which encourages minimalism and flexibility in rural road design.

Mr Hardy was confident other councils would follow Dorset’s lead over the next few months. He pointed to a remarkable change of attitude over recent years, with council engineers previously concerned about litigation now championing the protocol’s principles.

He said the Manual for streets had not, in the past, addressed ‘reservation and cynicism’ because it only applied to residential roads. The protocol conforms to Dorset’s Local Transport Plan, which states that transport improvements should ‘complement Dorset’s high environmental quality and improve the public realm in ways that respond to local context’.

The principles will be tested this year on the B3143 Piddle Valley route, and B3157 Bridport-Weymouth coastal road.

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