Council’s from across the UK will be making tracks for Herefordshire to find out how it delivers improvements to the local transport system.
The authority has been named as one of just 17 new centres of excellence for local transport delivery by Local Transport minister charlotte Atkins.
She said the hard work and implementation of improvements by the new centres of excellence for transport has resulted in improvements in the condition of local roads through to better buses and safer streets.
“I congratulate the areas to which Centre of Excellence status has been award to and I hope they will provide an excellent example to other local authorities around the country,” said the Minister.
Responding, Cllr Mike Wilson, Herefordshire Council’s Cabinet Member (Transport), said: “We’ve particularly been singled out for our work in relation to road safety and public transport in rural and urban areas.
“Because of the nature of the County, we face a wide range of transport problems. It’s thanks to innovative approaches that we’ve adopted to solve them that we’ve been picked as one of the authorities to which other Councils will look for direction,” he added.
Herefordshire Council’s proactive approach has seen the establishment of a Transport Ambition Group to oversee the development and implementation of local transport strategy. This has flowed out of the development of the local transport strategy through the Herefordshire Partnership – itself having received national recognition as a pathfinder.
“We work closely with local communities and voluntary organisations to deliver a range of innovative transport projects and have developed a nationally recognised track record in the innovative use of available funding and securing funding from a wide range of sources, for transport improvements,” added Cllr Wilson.
Examples which impressed Charlotte Atkins include:
· Rural Low Floor Bus Project that has transformed the quality of the local bus fleet through the introduction new low floor buses, which now operate 80 per cent of subsidised services. The introduction of such vehicles has led to average increases in passengers being carried on these services of 8 per cent.
· Herefordshire Rural Transport Partnership - one of the first and most successful in the country, delivering, with the voluntary sector, many successful community-based projects.
· St James and Bartonsham Community Travel Plan working with community members to deliver behavioural change through measures such as individualised marketing and innovative street design, drawing upon the significant expertise in this field of Ben Hamilton-Baillie, specialist in urban design and movement.
· Rotherwas Industrial Estate Travel Plan, involving all employers on the estate, linked to the delivery of infrastructure measures on the ground.
Other activities which were also taken into account included:
· Leominster bus station enhancement
· Leominster access road
· Newtown Crossroads traffic signalling
· Safer Routes to Schools projects – including the 20mph zone for Tupsley schools
· Marlbrook cycleway, Hereford
“It’s important to note that we are not sitting back on our laurels. This good work is continuing – notably at the current time with the improvements to the western section of Hereford’s Roman Road,” said Cllr Wilson.
The centre of excellence status now means that Herefordshire Council will share the way it operates in a variety of ways with other authorities.
These include seminars, via its website and a CD-ROM, appearances at major UK conferences and work-shadowing and exchange visits for transport professionals from other authorities.