Letter To Parvis Khansari from David Wilson

The following is correspondence between Mr David Wilson from the Salisbury Neighbourhood Development Plan Transport and Movement Topic Group Lead to Mr Parvis Khansari, Director - Highways and Environment, Wiltshire Council 

To Parvis Khansari, Director - Highways and Environment, Wiltshire Council 17th March 2021 

Email: parvis.khansari@wiltshire.gov.uk

Dear Mr Khansari,

As you will be aware, there has been significant under-investment in Salisbury’s cycle infrastructure and we are rapidly falling behind comparable towns and cities. The most concerning element is that many of Salisbury’s new housing developments are now occupied and, in nearly all cases, Wiltshire Council has not managed to deliver the off-site S106 cycle infrastructure linking the housing sites to schools, shopping centres and the city centre.

The Local Plan Review consultation has sharply increased the focus on the lack of progress, with concerns being discussed at the City Council, the Neighbourhood Development Plan steering group, topic groups and the newly formed Salisbury Neighbourhood Plan Connectivity Group. As far as we are aware, you do not have a pipeline of cycle schemes in the engineering design phase, which are required to serve the new developments.

The funding for local authorities in the Government’s three year spending review settlement (22/23, 23/24 & 24/25) being allocated for Active Travel is expected to be significant and, after recently attending your Salisbury Cycling Liaison Panel meeting, I am far from confident you will be in a position to start delivering these cycle routes within the next 12 months. As far as I am aware, the majority of planned cycle schemes in Salisbury have been stuck in the early transport planning phase for many years now and have not been moved into the engineering design phase.

I understand that the Government has recently written to your Council, setting out their requirement for you to implement high standard LTN1/20 compliant schemes in order that they can fulfil their £2 billion Active Travel spend commitment, set out in last year’s Gear Change proposals. 

We now have 12 months until the government is expecting Councils to start delivering these LTN 1/20 cycle routes on the ground and,as far as I am aware, you do not have any of Salisbury’s key routes ready to go to into the construction phase. We are currently working with Heather Blake to prioritise the list of cycle routes for the emerging LCWIP, but all of these schemes are at a very early stage of scheme development. Therefore, in parallel to the LCWIP consultation activities over the coming months, we need to move at least three key cycle routes into the engineering design phases in order to be able to successfully spend your Active Travel grant settlement by the end of this parliament. 

In order to assist in getting Active Travel schemes on the ground from 22/23, the Government is giving local authorities additional revenue funding to cover the next 12 month period (through the recently announced Capability Fund) to allow you to finalise LCWIPs and to design and procure LTN 1/20 compliant cycling schemes ready for delivery over the three years from 22/23, as part of the multi-year spending review settlement for Active Travel. We would like you to ringfence a significant proportion of  this funding to help Salisbury get back on track.

I am aware that the LCWIP covering Salisbury has been in the development phase for many years and still needs to be consulted on and adopted. In addition, the 2018 Salisbury Transport Strategy refresh has yet to be adopted. It must therefore be a top priority to get both documents adopted this summer and, most importantly, issue the long awaited 2018 Transport Strategy Implementation Plan to give local people confidence that you have a pipeline of highway capacity and active travel schemes in train.

Salisbury NP Connectivity Group are extremely keen to work with your team to support you in progressing the above. There is much cycle and walking infrastructure required, however we recognise the need to be realistic and the priority must be to deliver the S106 funded cycle links from the largest new development sites to the city centre. An LTN1/20 compliant cycle route linking St Peters Place on the northern edge of Salisbury, through the city centre to the approved Netherhampton Rd, Harnham Development on the southern edge would create a very important and much needed north-south spine across the city. Much of this spine would be implemented and funded as part of the approved EA River Park (Maltings) scheme. The other top priority is the east west NCN corridor from Petersfinger to Wilton to link with the large new housing developments in Wilton.

These routes are deliverable with minimal third party land requirements and most have S106 funding available. If we can plan to deliver the north-south spine and the east-west NCN link, using a combination of S106 and Active Travel grant, we will have a framework in place by 2025 linking the new residential sites to employment and education, and this framework can be further enhanced in future.However there seems to be a blockage in moving this work from transport planning phase into engineering design.

 Can you please therefore confirm: 

Salisbury has many enthusiastic volunteers and groups working hard to help facilitate more active travel in the local area. Some of these groups are part of the newly formed Salisbury NP Connectivity Group and we feel that we are very well placed to assist you in meeting the Dft’s requirement for you to collaborate with local voluntary groups to develop and deliver initiatives that support the Active Travel funding objectives.

I would be grateful if ‘Salisbury Cycle and Walking Infrastructure to serve new developments’ could be added as an agenda item for your next Future Salisbury Place Board, which I believe is due to be restarted after the May election.

I look forward to hearing from you.   

Kind regards

David Wilson

Salisbury Neighbourhood Development Plan Transport and Movement Topic Group Lead

 

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