Agenda item

The Board considered a report and received a presentation which set out the new Lincoln Transport Strategy which had been developed by Lincolnshire County Council, the City of Lincoln Council, North Kesteven District Council and West Lindsey District Council.

It was reported that the development of the Strategy included an extensive engagement process with elected members, stakeholders, officers and the general public through drop-in events, workshops and questionnaires. It also set out to enhance the transport network, improve choice and inclusive accessibility and support the continued growth of the city and surrounding area.

The Strategy would help deliver a modern, sustainable and future-ready transport network in and around Lincoln so that the area could continue to grow sustainably, meeting challenges and taking advantage of future opportunities.

The following aspects of the Strategy were highlighted as part of the presentation:

·         what the Strategy aimed to achieve;

·         delivery of the Strategy and that its success would require a collaborative approach;

·         the Strategy’s vision;

·         the Strategy’s objectives, which were shaped around the key elements of the vision to support economic growth, rebalance movement towards more sustainable modes of transport and improving quality of life for all;

·         the key pillars of the Strategy, which formed the priority infrastructure and included:

-       North Hykeham Relief Road – reducing congestion and improving the resilience of the network;

-       Green Corridors – providing high quality traffic free routes for pedestrians and cyclists;

-       Lincoln Walking and Cycling Network – enhancing walking and cycling infrastructure within Lincoln;

-       Mobility Hubs – promoting shared mobility and providing multi-modal and multi-functional transport interchanges across the city;

-       Bus Priority – improving access and supporting growth, including new routes from the Mobility Hubs to the city centre;

-       Public Realm and Environmental Improvements to Broadgate and Wigford Way and St Mary’s Street – improving the public realm, enhancing Lincoln’s historic core and strengthening east-west movements;

-       Electrification Package – helping reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality through expanding the electric charging network and uptake across the strategy area.

·         the key pillars of the Strategy, which formed the key options and packages to support the infrastructure and included:

-       Flexible Demand Response Transport – providing new flexible on-demand connections between people and places;

-       Digital – supporting a future-ready Lincoln and reducing the need to travel via better Wifi and 5G;

-       Payment and Ticketing – enhancing public transport across Lincoln through smart ticketing;

-       Behaviour Change Programme – promoting sustainable travel through a behaviour change programme;

-       Education Travel – improving access to education and reducing the impact of school travel on the network;

-       Sharing Package – improving access to shared and on-demand mobility services including Urban Car Clubs;

-       Last Mile Package – helping people on the last part of their journey and improving connectivity as part of multi-model journeys;

-       Parking Strategy – delivering better parking that supported the wider Strategy;

-       Sustainable Urban Extensions – developing a movement plan that set out the transport and movement priorities and expectations for the Sustainable Urban Extensions;

-       Safety Package – providing a safer network and implementing safety improvements as part of the annual Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership accident and analysis prioritisation.

·         secondary interventions, which were lower priority schemes that would be delivered where additional support was required and support the key pillars.

Councillor Richard Davies explained that the new Strategy represented a fundamental shift and that the only way to improve congestion and support growth in the city was to encourage people to use other, sustainable, modes of transport.

Leo Scott Smith asked whether any statistics were available to identify what proportion of traffic was attributable to commuters, together with the locations of where they were coming from and going to.

It was noted that this information was available and that 60% to 70% of traffic was local, located within the common travel area just outside of the city’s boundary.

Kate Ellis reported that all of the city’s largest employers were working together through travel surveys with their staff, which had indicated that over 50% of people who travelled into the city for work travelled less than five miles. It was accepted that provision needed to be put in place for buses in order to make them more efficient but that the quality of the public transport offer was also key. Operators were not likely to invest unless they could see a benefit from doing so. Delivery of a step-change in the way in which people travelled in and out of the city, promoting sustainable transport and modal shift, would therefore demonstrate to operators that it would be worthwhile investing in Lincoln.

Councillor Richard Davies reminded the Board that a small amount of investment could make a huge difference, such as improvements made to lighting and cycle storage at North Hykeham train station which had resulted in a 19% increase in patronage.

Councillor Ric Metcalfe felt that it took a degree of political courage to put forward a Strategy which sought to challenge and encourage a change in culture and congratulated Councillor Davies for doing so. The Strategy was forward looking, place-making based and represented the most sustainable version of the document he had seen, with it also connecting with other aspects of the Lincoln Town Deal agenda. It was important that all members of the Lincoln Town Deal Board considered how they could play their part in delivering the principles of the Strategy from the perspective of the organisations they represented.

Jacqui Bunce reported that the health sector was reducing the number of physical journeys to and from hospitals as a result of technology which helped people improve their own health and wellbeing without the need to physically visit health practitioners. Links with the digital agenda also sat alongside this, such as agile working practices for example. She highlighted that lots of services in the health profession operated on the basis of 24 hours, seven days a week, so consideration would need to be given to seven day connectively which was safe and secure for people to use. Additionally, a lot of staff working these shifts represented some of the lowest paid workers in the city so it would need to be a cost-effective solution.

Caroline Killeavy was of the view that if a sustainable transport system was going to be designed around the lowest paid workers in the city it was not going to achieve the behavioural change referred to in the Strategy. Bus provision needed to be on the basis of a hop-on-hop-off service that was clean and efficient and needed to be vastly improved in order to encourage people to use such a service rather than their own vehicles. She suggested that research needed to be undertaken with the business community as to what it needed from transport infrastructure in Lincoln. 

Leo Scott Smith did not necessarily agree that the answer was solely with buses and that there were other opportunities in linking up with the digital economy. Use of electric vehicles in the form of scooters and bicycles as opposed to cars, for example, could provide a solution and potentially attract large technology companies to the city.

Mary Stuart acknowledged that a range of different solutions would be needed to address congestion in Lincoln and the way in which people worked and moved around the city. She referred to the issue as being about mobility rather than transport.

It was RESOLVED that the content of the Lincoln Transport Strategy be noted.