Local transport functions
Legal background
12.At present, responsibility for setting overall strategies for transport services for a particular area in England (outside London and the six metropolitan counties) lies with the county council or unitary authority, which is also the local highways authority and local traffic authority for that area. Under section 108 of the TA 2000, these local transport authorities are required to develop policies relating to local transport, and to prepare and publish a local transport plan.
13.In the metropolitan counties outside London (West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Tyne & Wear) these responsibilities are split. The metropolitan counties have been designated as “passenger transport areas” and a PTA has been established in relation to each of those areas, with responsibility for planning local transport services (jointly with metropolitan district councils) and for procuring public transport services. The metropolitan district councils have responsibility for the local road network as local traffic authorities and local highways authorities.
14.Across England (outside London) the Secretary of State, acting through the Highways Agency, is the highways authority and traffic authority for the strategic road network.
The Act
15.The Act amends provisions in Part 2 of the TA 2000 concerning local transport policies and plans. These changes will apply in all local authority areas outside London. The Act expands the existing duty on local transport authorities to develop policies relating to transport, so that these policies must cover all aspects of transport, rather than the currently more limited requirement relating only to transport facilities and services, and must take the protection and improvement of the environment (including mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change) into account. The Act also provides that in the six metropolitan counties this duty will lie solely with the Integrated Transport Authority (see below). The Act also amends the arrangements for preparing and publishing the local transport plans which contain those policies, removes the need for local transport authorities to prepare a separate bus strategy, and amends an existing duty relating to the needs of persons who are elderly or have mobility problems so that it applies also to the needs of disabled persons.
16.The Act also provides a means for making changes to the organisational arrangements for the discharge of statutory transport functions in local authority areas (“governance”). It changes the name “Passenger Transport Authority” (“PTA”) to “Integrated Transport Authority” (“ITA”), and enables changes to be made to the constitutions and functions of the renamed ITAs. It includes provisions relating to the establishment of new ITAs, and provision enabling changes to be made to the boundaries of existing integrated transport areas. It also gives all ITAs power to promote or improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of their areas.
