Road Safety Bill (HL) Report Stage: amendment no.48
Lord Faulkner of Worcester moved Amendment No. 48:
After Clause 40, insert the following new clause -
After Clause 40, insert the following new clause -
"SPECIAL FACILITIES FOR HIGHWAYS: DUTY TO PROTECT CHARACTER OF COUNTRYSIDE After section 115 of the Highways Act 1980 (c. 66) insert— "115L SPECIAL FACILITIES FOR HIGHWAYS: DUTY TO PROTECT CHARACTER OF COUNTRYSIDE In carrying out their duties under Part VII of this Act (provision of special facilities for highways), when providing special facilities intended to improve road safety, highways authorities shall have regard to the desirability of protecting the character of the countryside." "
My Lords, the amendment would place a new duty on highway authorities to consider the effect of their policies and activities on the character of the countryside. It aims to improve the design of new interventions by those authorities in rural areas and to avoid clutter.
Traffic levels have traditionally risen faster in rural areas than in our already congested towns and cities and are forecast to grow more. Accompanying that growth in traffic has been an increase in the number of fatalities on rural roads. Indeed, they have increased consecutively for the past four years. So authorities have an important role to play in matching the volume and speed of traffic. However, frequently, that involves the installation of new warning signs, road markings and other traffic-calming measures. Those can have the effect of urbanising the countryside. As few authorities undertake audits to consider whether every warning sign or other piece of street furniture is still necessary, the result is an incremental increase in clutter. That is steadily eroding the character of the countryside. That is especially true in the case of temporary road signs relating to road works, which should come down but are left up for months after the roadworks have finished.
Road safety and protection of the countryside are not opposite ends of the same spectrum. In many instances, rural communities are effectively presented with a choice between unsafe villages or the disfigurement of their village by treatment measures that pay little regard to the surrounding character of the countryside. To be concerned about the visual impact of road safety and other measures is not to argue that road safety measures are not vital for many rural communities. The key is to ensure that they are implemented in ways that are sympathetic to the surrounding countryside.
There are examples of highway authorities who have tried to adopt a much more enlightened approach. I know of five county councils - Norfolk, Cumbria, Devon, Derbyshire and Wiltshire - all of whom have adopted sympathetic measures aimed at reducing the clutter in the countryside. None of those has come at the expense of road safety. If you double the number of road signs, you do not double the road safety that they create. Unfortunately, the initiatives undertaken by the five authorities that I mentioned are few in number and frequently restricted to protected areas, such as national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty.
The rural White Paper 2000 stated:
"we want local authorities to seek ways to enrich the countryside as a whole, not just in the protected areas, and maintain its distinctive local features".
It is appropriate, therefore, to place a national duty on local authorities to consider much more carefully the effect of their signing policy on the countryside. I would like local authorities and highway authorities themselves to consider the best way of doing it and of making it relevant to their own area. The amendment is not prescriptive of the method of implementation, although I hope very much that the Government would give some guidance and some support for it. I beg to move.
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for setting out his amendment in that excellent way. He makes the persuasive case that road safety measures are extremely important but must be implemented in a way that is sympathetic to the countryside environment. I take note of his campaign against clutter. However, I will disappoint him by resisting his call for a national duty, as he describes it.
The amendment is unnecessary as there are already proper statutory protection and planning policies in place for all the countryside of good character. For example, public bodies are already under a duty to have regard to the Habitats Directive, which provides a legal framework for the protection of special areas of conservation and certain species. There are also general duties under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to take reasonable steps on the conservation of flora and fauna in sites of special scientific interest.
The White Paper, The Future of Transport, which we published in July 2004, states at page 16 that,
"there will continue to be a strong presumption against schemes that would significantly affect environmentally sensitive sites or important species habitats or landscapes; by keeping the environmental impacts of new and existing transport infrastructure to a minimum, ensuring that mitigation measures are implemented to a high standard".
The White Paper expresses strongly the opinion that we should ensure that safety measures do not significantly affect environmentally sensitive sites.
There is also a requirement for certain types of project to be subject to environmental impact assessment before development consent is granted. I hope that in view of that explanation the noble Lord feels that largely we are meeting his objectives, without going as far as his amendment wishes. I hope that he will withdraw the amendment.
My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for that thoughtful and very coherent response. I would have preferred to move the amendment in Committee but that stage carried on for so many days that I was unable to attend the final sitting. I agree that it would have been more appropriate for it to be moved as a probing amendment in Committee rather than at this late stage. I shall read very carefully what my noble friend has said, particularly the references to the various directives and other powers already in place. It seemed pretty convincing to me. On that basis, I am very happy to withdraw the amendment.
© Lords Hansard 29 November 2005