5Formulation and content of regional transport strategies
(1)It is the duty of each Transport Partnership to draw up a strategy for transport within its region (its “transport strategy”).
(2)Its transport strategy shall include provision about each of the following matters—
(a)the respects in which transport in the region needs to be provided, developed or improved having regard to, among other things—
(i)future needs including those occasioned by demographic and land use changes; and
(ii)what can be done, taking account of cost, funding and practicability;
(b)meeting the needs of all inhabited places, in particular, those which the Partnership considers different from the remainder of the region by reason of their remoteness or the sparsity of their populations;
(c)meeting the need for efficient transport links between heavily populated places;
(d)how transport in the region will be provided, developed, improved and operated so as—
(i)to enhance social and economic well-being;
(ii)to promote public safety, including road safety and the safety of users of public transport;
(iii)to be consistent with the principle of sustainable development and to conserve and enhance the environment;
(iv)to promote social inclusion;
(v)to encourage equal opportunities and, in particular, the observance of the equal opportunities requirements;
(vi)to facilitate access to hospitals, clinics, surgeries and other places where a health service is provided;
(vii)to integrate with transport elsewhere;
(e)the order of priority in which different elements of the provision, development and improvement of transport should be undertaken;
(f)how the Transport Partnership’s functions will be exercised so as to fulfil its transport strategy and, if the Partnership considers that the conferring of further functions is necessary for that purpose, what those functions are;
(g)how the Transport Partnership, so as to enable it to fulfil its transport strategy, will seek to influence its constituent councils or council in the performance of their functions relating to transport;
(h)the measuring and monitoring of the achievement of the strategy.
(3)In performing its duty under this section, a Transport Partnership shall have regard to any guidance in that respect given to it or to Transport Partnerships generally by the Scottish Ministers and to any current national transport strategy established by the Scottish Ministers.
(4)In subsection (2)(d)(v) above, “equal opportunities” and “equal opportunities requirements” have the same meanings as in Section L2 of Part II of Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998 (c. 46).