Road adoption: Design Standards & Benchmarking Nick Gough Area Highway Development Control Manager - SW Hertfordshire

Summary Design Standards Who, what and why National standards Local standards Benchmarking Relevance to road adoption National Regional Within Hertfordshire

Design Standards 1 Who, what and why National standards Design Manual for Roads and Bridges Design Bulletin 32 (1977) superseded by Manual for Streets (2007) Reflects changes planning policy Solutions tailored to circumstances rather than worst case standard Encourages local distinctiveness and use of innovative techniques like SUstainable Drainage Systems or SUDs

Design Standards 2 Local standards Available on-line at Roads in Hertfordshire 2 nd edition being reviewed Incorporate changes in national context as well as local initiatives like the Transport Asset Management Plan and emerging Local Transport Plan 3 Incorporate clarified approach to adoption agreed at Highway & Transport Panel in November rd edition will be web-based and more easily updatable Standards give certainty and minimise risk - for all parties For the Highway Authority this means only adopting roads we would be willing to maintain

Benchmarking Relevance to road adoption - meeting with Welwyn Hatfield and Hertsmere in late Particular concerns about large multi-phase/ developer sites like British Aerospace, Hatfield National level comparisons Regional Within Hertfordshire

National scene Web search results: Shires who refer to the APC on their website = 9 out of 27 Derbyshire, Devon, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Kent, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Suffolk West Sussex considering its stance on the APC Unitaries who refer to the APC = 14 out of 57 Barnsley, Basingstoke & Dean, Bury, Cornwall, Coventry, Derby, Halton, Kirklees, Pembrokeshire, Plymouth, Swansea, Swindon, Vale of Glamorgan and Wokingham District who refers to the APC: South Somerset

Regional approach to adoption 1 General development topics Development Management Forum every 6 months Next full meeting at HCC on 10 May Eastern region benchmarking group to meet on 5 March Responses from 9 authorities in February 2008 Criteria: charging for pre-application advice, S38 and S 278 procedures, commuted sums, S 106 and Community Infrastructure Levy Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, HCC, Norfolk, Peterborough, Southend, Suffolk and Thurrock

Regional approach to adoption 2 Team structure and the Advanced Payment Code Responses from 15 authorities from Southern and Eastern Forums in October 2008 These 6 apply the Code: Essex, Oxfordshire, Slough (unitary), Suffolk, West Berkshire (unitary) and Wokingham (unitary) These 10 do not apply the Code: Bedfordshire (pre- split), Brighton & Hove (unitary), Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire (tomorrow), East Sussex, Hertfordshire, Isle of Wight (unitary), Luton (unitary), Peterborough (unitary), and Reading (unitary) # 15

Regional approach to adoption 3 Reasons for not using the APC ‘…staff time and cost involved to do it properly have always been the deciding factor’ ‘Often it didn't really achieve what we wanted it to achieve and left us with additional work to do’ ‘…it can restrict flexibility’

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