LTP4 Strategy
East Sussex Fourth Local Transport Plan
Presenting Local Transport Plan 4
These pages present the Local Transport Plan 4.
Please use the contents and/or index links on the left to navigate around the document. Content links take you to individual chapters, and the index links take you to sections within that chapter.
Should you have any queries, please contact the Local Transport Plan team via email at LocalTransportPlan@EastSussex.gov.uk or by telephone (0345 60 80 190) and ask for the Local Transport Plan Team.
1. Foreword
Foreword to East Sussex Local Transport Plan 4
We are pleased to introduce East Sussex’s fourth Local Transport Plan (LTP4) 2024 - 2050.
The LTP4 strategy embraced a co-development approach with a range of stakeholders. It is underpinned by a robust evidence base and pursues an ambitious vision for the future focussed on ‘planning for people and places’. It sets out the future direction for planning and providing the transport infrastructure, services and policy framework needed to achieve net zero targets, healthy places and support for a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable economy within coastal towns, local centres and villages in more rural areas of the county.
This plan has been developed with stakeholders across the county, from elected members, council officers and local planning authorities, seniors and young people, schools, and groups representing protected characteristic groups to transport operators, business representatives, and community transport partnerships. This broad and extensive engagement has resulted in a plan that reflects the transport aspirations of local residents, communities and businesses and will foster further partnership working with key stakeholders to help bring forward future transport schemes.
This plan is coming forward during a time of great change and challenge. Nationally, the COVID-19 pandemic has altered people’s travel habits, and public services are under great financial strain. There is a cost-of-living crisis and a climate emergency that continues to impact all of our lives.
East Sussex is home to densely populated urban centres along its coast, local centres and large rural areas. Transport enhancements in all these areas are vital for the achievement of our goals, but it is recognised that people in rural and urban communities need different things from the transport network. The plan therefore contains measures which are tailored to the different local contexts.
We also have an ageing population and people with physical and hidden disabilities - the plan will ensure that transport infrastructure and services and the public realm are accessible and that community amenities are made available to enable healthy ageing.
The plan answers to the challenges faced are to:
- Maintain existing transport networks for all users.
- Improve the convenience, comfort and cost of public transport, and enhance walking, wheeling and cycling facilities to provide people with greater choice when they travel.
- Plan places so that people are brought closer to the shops, schools, and jobs that they want to get to, reducing the need to travel long distances.
- Support the use of zero and low emissions vehicles, reducing transport’s carbon footprint.
To demonstrate the ambition to deliver the strategy, the Investment Plan sets out the type of schemes, and the funding, timescales, governance, and partnership working required.
Implementing such an ambitious plan will have its challenges, but we owe it to future generations to develop a transport system that minimises carbon impacts, is inclusive and supports a prosperous East Sussex.
Councillor Dowling - Lead Member for Transport and Environment
Rupert Clubb - Director of Communities, Economy and Transport
2. Executive Summary
Purpose of the Local Transport Plan
Local Transport Plans (LTPs) are a requirement of the Transport Act 2000. The Transport Act states that plans must set out both overall strategy and plans for their implementation.
East Sussex’s third LTP (LTP3) was adopted in 2011 and covers the period from 2011 to 2026. Since LTP3 was adopted, the policy context has changed significantly on a national, sub-national and local scale, leading to the need to review the existing LTP and develop a fourth LTP (LTP4).
The policy review provides full details of the renewed context and need for a new LTP. Key changes include an increased emphasis on climate change, the need to decarbonise transport, and how the pandemic has impacted user needs and the way in which people choose to travel. Furthermore, transport accessibility, equity and inclusiveness, and the opportunities to support healthy lifestyles have become a priority for transport investment. LTP4 needs to reflect a changing policy context and current transport investment priorities.
LTP4 approaches
A collaborative approach in developing LTP4 has been taken, which has resulted in an ambitious and deliverable plan. Delivery of the plan will require partnership working with partners and communities and, crucially, funding from various sources. Underpinning the approach has been the goal of identifying the role that transport can play in improving social, environmental, and economic outcomes across both urban and rural areas within East Sussex, and connectivity across the East Sussex boundary and to the wider south east region.
Inclusive
This approach is inclusive - The principle of inclusiveness is a fundamental element of the plan. Including planning for people with both physical and hidden disabilities alongside other groups, including people of an older age, women, and Black, Asian, and ethnic minority groups. An Equalities Impact Assessment has been undertaken on LTP4 to analyse and assess how the plan might impact differently on the identified groups of people, as above, and sets out the actions partners can undertake when developing and delivering transport infrastructure, services and initiatives to eliminate or minimise any impacts.
Partnership working
This approach has been developed in partnership - Partnership working is a critical element of this plan. Working with stakeholders across a wide range of modes, sectors, and policy areas, has been employed in the development of the plan. Responsibility for the delivery of the LTP rests not just with East Sussex County Council but with multiple organisations. Relationships established throughout the LTP co-development process will be maintained and enhanced to support and maximise the funding secured over the life of the plan to enable the vision and objectives of the LTP4 to be delivered.
Planning for 'people and places'
This approach plans for people and places - focusing on enabling and encouraging integrated journeys and reducing the need to travel through land-use and planning policies that support sustainable travel. Encouraging and enabling inclusive and sustainable travel modes (walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport), adopting vehicles with cleaner fuels alongside the utilisation of emerging transport technologies will help to achieve the Council's net-zero ambitions.
This approach is vision-led and resilient to future uncertainty - by embracing a ‘planning for people and places’ approach and working collaboratively with stakeholder representative groups (councillors, officers, and local stakeholder representatives) to explore how different political, economic, social, technological, and environmental trends might evolve to create different versions of the future in 2050. This activity was undertaken using scenario planning.
A preferred future ‘Completely Connected Communities’ was developed and informed the LTP4 vision. Importantly a vision led approach provides flexibility. Whilst the vision will stay constant during the timescale of the East Sussex LTP4 the policies and schemes identified within the strategy and investment plan can be updated, adjusted or adapted to take into account any policy changes and the availability of new funding streams that are brought forward over the life of the plan. Further details are included in Appendix A.
Vision
An inclusive transport system that connects people and places, is decarbonised, safer, resilient, and supports our natural environment, communities, and businesses to be healthy, thrive and prosper.
Objectives and outcomes
To realise the vision, the following objectives and corresponding desired outcomes have been identified.
Objectives
- Objective 1: Deliver safer and accessible journeys
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- Outcome 1.1: Create enhanced and inclusive transport networks for all users.
- Outcome 1.2: Contribute to reducing the number of casualties and collisions on our transport networks.
- Outcome 1.3: Contribute to improving personal safety for all journeys.
- Outcome 1.4: Improve interchange between travel modes.
- Outcome 1.5: Improve access to key local services by all modes.
- Objective 2: Support healthier lifestyles and communities
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- Outcome 2.1: Increase the proportion of walking, wheeling, and cycling journeys.
- Outcome 2.2: Increase active travel and public transport journeys through education, training, travel behaviour change initiatives and information.
- Outcome 2.3: Re-design road space to balance the needs of different road users, including encouraging people to walk, wheel, cycle and use the bus.
- Outcome 2.4: Support reduction of emissions to improve air quality.
- Outcome 2.5: Mitigate noise pollution through technology and design.
- Outcome 2.6: Improve access to green spaces, public rights of way and leisure and health facilities.
- Objective 3: Decarbonise transport and travel
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- Outcome 3.1: Increase the proportion of people travelling by walking, wheeling, cycling, public and shared transport.
- Outcome 3.2: Facilitate the uptake of ultra-low and zero-emission vehicles for journeys, through the delivery of supporting infrastructure.
- Outcome 3.3: Work with partners to decarbonise transport and tackle climate change.
- Outcome 3.4: Support clean technologies and fuels that contribute towards the decarbonisation of transport.
- Objective 4: Conserve and enhance our local environment
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- Outcome 4.1: Conserve and enhance our local and natural environment by mitigating negative impacts of transport design and delivery.
- Outcome 4.2: Enhance and create attractive connected communities and public spaces.
- Outcome 4.3: Support habitat connectivity and increase in biodiversity through the delivery of enhanced and new transport infrastructure and public spaces.
- Objective 5: Support sustainable economic growth
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- Outcome 5.1: Facilitate the efficient movement of goods and people.
- Outcome 5.2: Contribute to reducing deprivation and inequality through improved accessibility for all to employment, education, and training.
- Outcome 5.3: Attract and retain businesses and a skilled workforce in the county.
- Outcome 5.4: Enhance sustainable access to key visitor and cultural destinations.
- Outcome 5.5: As a local highway authority engage with our local planning authorities to deliver sustainable and well-connected housing and employment growth identified in their Local Plans.
- Objective 6: Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks
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- Outcome 6.1: Improve journey time reliability for people and businesses.
- Outcome 6.2: Enable transport journeys to be resilient, flexible, and adaptable and recover quickly from emergencies and events.
- Outcome 6.3: Improve the condition of highway and other transport infrastructure and assets.
Chapter themes, policies and example schemes
This strategy is centred around four key themes. Each chapter includes policies to achieve, objectives and priority scheme types that have been referred to in the accompanying investment plan.
Theme A: Tackling climate change and enhancing our local environment
Supporting decarbonisation of the transport system and the way in which transport can support, protect, and enhance our natural and built environment.
Policies relating to this chapter include:
- Policy A1: Reducing emissions.
- Policy A2: Future zero-emission vehicles and infrastructure.
- Policy A3: Resilience and adaptation.
- Policy A4: Biodiversity and natural capital.
- Policy A5: Energy supply.
Most schemes included in the plan seek to support the decarbonisation of transport, therefore a map of schemes has not been included in this chapter.
Theme B: Safer, healthier, and more active travel
The capacity for transport investment to improve public health and individual wellbeing in our urban towns and local centres and villages in more rural areas. Schemes include active travel (walking, wheeling, cycling), improved connectivity, placemaking, public space enhancements, behaviour change programmes and travel interchanges / mobility hubs.
Policies relating to this chapter include:
- Policy B1: Healthy lifestyles.
- Policy B2: Active travel.
- Policy B3: Road safety.
- Policy B4: Placemaking.
- Policy B5: Air quality.
- Policy B6: Improved access to green and blue infrastructure.
- Policy B7: Rights of Way.
Example schemes from the LTP4 Investment Plan which supports the LTP and the delivery of Theme B, subject to funding being secured by East Sussex County Council and other partners, are presented in Figure 1.
Click here for a larger version of Figure 1 'Key Schemes for Theme B' in pdf format [1.8 MB] [pdf]
A full list of schemes presented on this map is available in Appendix B.
Theme C: Integrated and accessible transport for all
Bringing as many people as possible within ready access of a high quality, frequent and reliable public transport provision. Proposed is a suite of urban, inter-urban and rural bus service enhancements, as well as rail enhancements.
Policies relating to this chapter include:
- Policy C1: Inclusive access.
- Policy C2: Bus and coach.
- Policy C3: Rail.
- Policy C4: Integrating transport.
- Policy C5: Demand responsive (including taxi, private hire, and digital demand responsive travel) and community transport.
- Policy C6: Public transport infrastructure.
Example schemes from the LTP4 Investment Plan which support the delivery of LTP and Theme C, subject to funding being secured by East Sussex County Council and other partners, are presented in Figure 2.
Click here for a larger version of Figure 2 'Key Schemes for Theme C' in pdf format [1.8 MB] [pdf]
A full list of schemes presented on this map is available in Appendix B.
Theme D: Keeping East Sussex Connected
Supporting people and businesses in getting where they need to go, quickly and reliably. Specifically, longer distance highway, railway and bus schemes are of importance as well as freight.
Policies relating to this chapter include:
- Policy D1: Strategic connectivity.
- Policy D2: Freight and international gateways.
- Policy D3: The needs of business and the visitor economy.
- Policy D4: Supporting sustainable development and development control.
- Policy D5: Parking.
- Policy D6: Highways maintenance and asset management.
Example schemes from the LTP4 Investment Plan which support the delivery of LTP and Theme D, subject to funding being secured by the Council and other partners, are presented in Figure 3
Click here for a larger version of Figure 3 'Key Schemes for Theme D' in pdf format [1.7 MB] [pdf]
A full list of schemes presented onthis map is available in Appendix B.
LTP4 Investment Plan
The delivery of the LTP strategy is supported by an ambitious Investment Plan. This Investment Plan will require a combination of national regulatory and policy activity and funding supported by local policies and investment priorities that combine to achieve the ambitions and vision.
Partnership and collaborative working across multiple organisations responsible for delivering the different aspects of the plan will be critical. Together these aims to produce a step-change in transport provision, subject to funding being secured by East Sussex County Council and partners. Investment priorities often are multi-modal and integrated across transport as well as other key policy areas, including digital, health and land-use planning.
With this being an aspirational strategy, setting out ambitions for transport up to 2050, it will be used by the County Council and their partners to secure future funding. Therefore, as the plan is largely unfunded it does not include targets. The delivery of the LTP4 will be monitored using a set of indicators related to the LTP4 objectives, alongside the evaluation of specific schemes.
LTP4 carbon assessment
As part of the development of LTP4 an assessment of carbon impacts of interventions within the plan has been conducted via the following:
- Scenario planning - a quantitative assessment using Transport for the South East’s South East Economy and Land Use Model (SEELUM) that estimated that a Local Transport Plan aligned with the ‘preferred scenario’ could reduce tailpipe emissions from between 19 and 30 percent beyond reductions in emissions under a ‘Business as Usual’ scenario in 2050.
- Multi-criteria assessment - a qualitative assessment for sifting of policies and schemes for inclusion in the Local Transport Plan was conducted. Within this assessment all policies and schemes were assessed against the following criteria: activity (impacts on vehicle kilometres), efficiency (impacts on fuel consumption or zero-emission vehicles) and embedded carbon (impacts of construction / materials).
A Carbon Assessment playbook was launched at the end of August 2024 jointly by several Sub National Transport Bodies, including Transport for the South East. The County Council will use the carbon assessment playbook during the early part of the Plan’s delivery phase to acquire a better understanding of local emissions by scheme investment type and scheme level identified in the LTP4 Investment Plan. The County Council will publish the outcomes of these assessments on the LTP4 webpages, when they are available.
Modal Strategies
The LTP4 will be supported by a series of short modal strategies, with these either being updated to reflect LTP4 or being newly developed strategies. These are outlined below.
- Local Cycle and Walking Infrastructure Plan.
- Bus Service Improvement Plan.
- Rail Strategy and action plan.
- Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy.
- Freight Strategy.
These will include identified schemes which are specific to each mode of travel, but also demonstrate the opportunities for integration between modes.
3. Introduction
East Sussex at a glance
An evidence base has been developed which provides the analytical foundation of Local Transport Plan 4 (LTP4) and ensures that the direction promoted in this strategy addresses the objective needs of the county. This section sets out summary findings of this evidence base.
Geographic context
The county of East Sussex is situated in the south east of England. It covers an area of 1,792 km2 (692 square miles) and includes the administrative boroughs and districts of Hastings, Eastbourne, Lewes, Rother, and Wealden. It is classified as “Urban with significant Rural” in the six-fold classification. The districts and boroughs are:
- Eastbourne = “Urban with City and Town”.
- Hastings = “Urban with City and Town”.
- Lewes = “Urban with significant rural”.
- Rother = “Largely rural”.
- Wealden = “Mainly rural”.
With the county classified as ‘urban with significant rural’ it highlights the requirement to consider the differing needs of the communities and businesses in East Sussex within urban and rural areas of the County, concerning transport connectivity within settlements but also to local centres and towns in East Sussex and cross boundary destinations.
It is home to the eastern area of the South Downs National Park (south west of the county) and a large proportion of the High Weald National Landscape (across the north and east of the County).
East Sussex is located south of London, with Kent to the north and east, West Sussex and the city/unitary authority of Brighton and Hove to the west, and Surrey to the north west.
The map in Figure 3.1 includes the County’s major transport corridors including national cycle network routes, railway lines and stations, strategic road network, major road network and other A roads.
Population and demographics
Based on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) 2021 Census, the population in East Sussex is approximately 546,000, an increase of over 19,000 people (3.6%) since 2011, with population increases in each of its boroughs and districts.
The population is set to increase to 628,000 by 2035 (an increase of 15%). All borough and districts are also expected to continue to experience population growth:
- Wealden is expected to see the greatest increase in population at 22% with an additional 43,600 people.
- Eastbourne is expected to see the smallest increase at 4% with an additional 4,100 people.
- Hastings is expected to have 5,000 more residents (+5.4%), Lewes 11,200 (+11%) and Rother 12,100 (+12.5%).
This population growth increases the need for housing, accessible transport, access to jobs, healthcare, education and learning provision in addition to the creation of places where people are proud to live, work and visit.
Analysing this population growth by age bands shows that East Sussex has an ageing population.
- The population of those aged 0 to 17 is expected to increase by only 1% between 2020 and 2035.
- The number of people aged between 18 and 64 is forecast to increase by 4%.
- Those aged over 65 are projected to increase from around 146,100 in 2020 to 202,100 in 2035, an increase of 38%.
- Wealden would see the largest increase in the number of people aged over 65, increasing from approximately 42,680 in 2020 to 62,600 in 2035, (47% increase).
- Wealden is also expected to see the largest increase in those aged 0 to 17 with a 13.5% increase expected by 2035, and those aged 18 to 64 with a 13.8% increase.
- Those aged 0-17 in Eastbourne are expected to decrease by 11% from approximately 19,900 to just over 17,800 by 2035.
The implications of an ageing population include ensuring there are viable alternative transport opportunities for those who may be unable to drive, to access key services and amenities that can be accessed by a range of transport (including non-car) modes.
Health and wellbeing
In East Sussex, 65% of adults are classified as being overweight or obese.
Lewes and Newhaven Air Quality Management Areas.
In 2005, an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) was declared in Lewes town centre for nitrogen dioxide. In 2014, an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) was declared for the Newhaven gyratory (A259) around the town centre for nitrogen dioxide. Lewes-Eastbourne Council work in partnership with key partners, including East Sussex County Council to identify and deliver measures to improve air quality within the AQMA’s.
Increasing physical activity through encouraging greater amounts of active travel (in place of vehicle travel) can support improving air quality and improve the health and wellbeing of residents.
Employment
The number of East Sussex residents who are in employment (within or outside the county) in 2020 has increased by 8,000 since 2010 (from 176,000 employees to 184,000).
However, employment opportunities are not evenly distributed across the county. Eastbourne and Lewes districts have higher numbers of jobs per working age resident suggesting there is a higher proportion of jobs available in these districts, whilst in Wealden, Rother, and Hastings there is a lower proportion of jobs for every working age resident.
There are 24,335 businesses in East Sussex (3,870 in Eastbourne; 3,140 in Hastings; 4,530 in Lewes; 4,130 in Rother; and 8,665 in Wealden). Delivery of transport improvements is an important part of increasing the attractiveness of East Sussex, as a choice of business location and enhancing strategic connectivity between districts and boroughs will better connect people to these employment opportunities.
Travel to work journeys
Commuters in East Sussex largely travelled in private cars and vans (60%) prior to the pandemic. The next highest mode of travel was on foot at 12%. This data also shows that a higher proportion of people worked from home in East Sussex (8%) before the pandemic, compared to England and Wales as a whole (5.4%). The higher rate of working from home after the pandemic provides an opportunity to pursue interventions to build well connected communities where residents can access goods, services, and opportunities without making long journeys.
Active travel (walking, wheeling and cycling)
35% of adults in East Sussex walked continuously for at least 10 minutes at least five times per week (includes any continuous walk of at least 10 minutes. Includes walking for leisure, for travel, rambling/Nordic walking. Excludes hiking, mountain/hill walking, and walking around shops). This figure is above the national average of 31%. However, the proportion of adults cycling at least once per month has decreased from a peak of 15% in 2017 to 10% in 2021. This figure is below the national average of 13%. People are influenced by several factors in choosing if to cycle or walk for all or part of regular journeys, and includes the availability and quality of infrastructure. The East Sussex Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) sets out proposals to enhance existing or deliver new active travel infrastructure, extend networks and ensuring integration with other modes. This ambition will contribute to supporting an increase in cycling and walking.
Bus passenger journeys
Bus passenger numbers in East Sussex decreased from 19 million in 2009/10 to 15 million in 2019/20 reflecting the declining national trend. Reasons for this national decline include the reduced bus funding from Local Transport Authorities, reduced services and increasing fares. During the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, bus passenger journeys in East Sussex fell a further 9 million to 6 million. The East Sussex Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) secured £41.4m in government funding in July 2022 with the aim of improving passenger numbers to exceed pre-pandemic levels. This money has delivered bus service enhancements across the county and will also introduce bus priority measures on popular and congested bus routes. The plan will support the proposals of the BSIP and provide an opportunity to further deliver significant improvements for the bus network, both services and infrastructure. Including bus routes parallel to which there is a rail route, in order to offer users choices at different costs and allow them to make their own ‘cost vs. time’ decisions.
Railway station use
East Sussex is home to 38 railway stations, most of which are in the county’s main urban areas. In 2019/20, entries and exits at stations in the county reached a peak of 18.4 million, declining to 5.6 million in 2020/21 due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. In 2021/22, it demonstrated a considerable recovery to 13.6 million entries and exits.
During 2019/20 Eastbourne was the busiest station in the county with over 3.6 million entries and exits and 61,000 interchanges (changes between services). Lewes and Hastings were the next busiest stations with 2.6 million entries (and 508,000 interchanges) and 2.4m million entries and exits (65,000 interchanges) respectively. Bexhill and Polegate are the only other stations in the county to have over 1 million entries and exits with 1.5 million and 1 million respectively.
Passenger numbers are showing a positive recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic and there is opportunity to work with the train operating companies and Network Rail, which are likely to merge to become Great British Railways in the near future, to grow rail patronage, particularly on inter-urban trips.
Strategic highway journeys
Traffic volumes in East Sussex are highest along its major roads, some of which are managed by East Sussex (for example, A26 Lewes to Tunbridge Wells and A259 Peacehaven to Pevensey) and others by National Highways (namely the A21, A26 (Newhaven to Lewes), A27 and A259 Pevensey to the county boundary with Kent via Bexhill, Hastings, and Rye).
The high traffic volumes on these roads reflect their role in providing strategic connectivity within the county, to London and international gateways such as Gatwick Airport and the Port of Newhaven (other maritime transport has not been explicitly considered in the LTP due to a lack of ports and infrastructure elsewhere in East Sussex), and to other parts of the south east region. Demand (high traffic flows) along these corridors is similar during the morning and evening peak periods, however these roads face significant delays during peak periods due to high demand. There are opportunities to improve these routes to provide faster journeys for bus, safer routes for active travel users, to address safety concerns and improve journeys for all users.
Stakeholder and public engagement
Stage 1 - scoping
As part of the development of the East Sussex LTP4 evidence base, engagement was held with local, regional and national stakeholders as part of stage 1 - Scoping. The purpose of early engagement was to understand:
- Stakeholders’ priorities for travel and transport.
- The key issues people encounter in relation to travel and transport.
- What opportunities there are for improving travel across East Sussex.
In order to understand these three key elements, the following targeted engagement was undertaken:
- Targeted engagement with East Sussex County Council members and officers and key local stakeholders (e.g. districts and boroughs, Transport for the South East, Network Rail, National Highways, South Downs National Park Authority, operators, active travel groups).
- Targeted young person’s engagement with primary and secondary schools and further education colleges.
- Engagement with local senior groups and disability groups.
- A public consultation via the Online Engagement Platform.
Summary of priorities
The priorities identified during the early engagement have been summarised as follows
- Key stakeholders’ engagement (East Sussex County Council members, East Sussex County Council officers, local stakeholders)
-
There were a range of issues and opportunities raised across three broad themes of:
- Area for intervention (e.g. electric vehicle charging, road safety).
- Supplementary documents (e.g. Investment Plan).
- Ways to develop the LTP (e.g. future proof).
- Young persons’ engagement
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The key insights from the young persons’ engagement highlighted that:
- Most students travel to school via sustainable modes and when walking, wheeling, scooting and cycling they dislike busy roads dominated by cars.
- Students acknowledge that cars cause pollution but are modes they like to use.
- Primary aged students prefer to travel on foot or by wheeling, scooting or cycling, more so than travelling by bus.
- Public online engagement
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The two most important priorities highlighted by a short survey on priorities were:
- Safety, health and air quality.
- Accessibility, equity and social inclusion.
The key issues and opportunities identified by respondents on a map were:
- Issues: just over a half of all general comments related to public transport, and for specific comments congestion followed by a lack of transport infrastructure were the most common issues identified.
- Opportunities: 60% related to public transport and a third (33%) concerned active travel infrastructure.
4. Approach, vision, objectives and strategy
Approach
Inclusive
This approach is inclusive - The principle of inclusiveness is a fundamental element of the plan. Including planning for people with both physical and hidden disabilities alongside other groups, including people of an older age, women, and Black, Asian, and ethnic minority groups. An equalities impact assessment has been undertaken on Local Transport Plan 4 (LTP4) to analyse and assess how the plan might impact differently on the identified groups of people, as above, and sets out the actions partners can undertake when developing and delivering transport infrastructure, services and initiatives to eliminate or minimise any impacts.
Partnership working
This approach has been developed in partnership - Partnership working is a critical element of this plan. Working with stakeholders across a wide range of modes, sectors, and policy areas, has been employed in the development of the plan. Responsibility for the delivery of the LTP rests not just with East Sussex County Council but with multiple organisations. Relationships established throughout the LTP co-development process will be maintained and enhanced to support and maximise the securing of funding to enable the vision and objectives of the LTP4 to be delivered.
Planning for 'people and places'
This approach plans for people and places - focusing on enabling and encouraging integrated journeys and reducing the need to travel through land-use and planning policies that support sustainable travel. Encouraging and enabling inclusive and sustainable travel modes (walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport), adopting vehicles with cleaner fuels alongside the utilisation of emerging transport technologies will help to achieve net-zero ambitions.
This approach is vision-led and resilient to future uncertainty- by embracing a ‘planning for people and places’ working collaboratively with stakeholder representative groups (councillors, officers, and local stakeholder representatives) to explore how different political, economic, social, technological, and environmental trends might evolve to create different versions of the future in 2050. This activity was undertaken using scenario planning.
A preferred future ‘Completely Connected Communities’ was developed and informed the LTP4 vision. Importantly a vision led approach provides flexibility. Whilst the vision will stay constant during the timescale of the East Sussex LTP4 the policies and schemes identified within the strategy and investment plan can be updated, adjusted or adapted to take into account any policy changes and the availability of new funding streams that are brought forward over the life of the plan. Further details are included in Appendix A.
The overarching LTP4 vision, objectives and outcomes have been informed by the above approach and the following three inputs:
- Evidence base - a review of the policy landscape and analysis of data which demonstrates the current and future transport, social, environmental context. It also identifies key issues and opportunities that transport can support in addressing.
- Stakeholder and public engagement - through a scoping stage (involving workshops with stakeholder representatives, infrastructure managers and operators, protected characteristic groups, and an online public consultation engagement period), views were obtained on how transport can be enhanced, and how that can support the achievement of wider social, environmental, and economic goals. More detail on the stakeholder and public engagement process is set out in the previous section and in the and stage 2.
- Scenario planning - a number of alternative future scenarios were developed to consider what East Sussex could be like in the future, with input from stakeholder representatives. Building on this work a preferred scenario, referred to as ‘Completely Connected Communities’ was developed which sets out how people want East Sussex to be by 2050 and which informed the LTP4 vision. This preferred scenario identifies the land use, telecommunications and transport planning characteristics, and the types of interventions that will be required to realise that preferred scenario. Further information on the scenario planning approach can be found at Appendix A.
Informed by the extensive evidence base, outputs of public engagement, and co-design with stakeholder representatives as a product of the scenario planning approach, in line with the relevant transport appraisal and other government guidance, a vision has been developed, along with and a series of objectives and outcomes. These are set out below.
Vision
An inclusive transport system that connects people and places, is decarbonised, safer, resilient, and supports our natural environment, communities, and businesses to be healthy, thrive and prosper.
Objectives
Six equally weighted objectives have been identified. The plan has been developed to enable flexibility and adaptability towards different community needs, and emphasis on different objectives may change accordingly, including in response to any updates to national policies. The objectives are:
- Deliver safer and accessible journeys.
- Support healthier lifestyles and communities.
- Decarbonise transport.
- Conserve and enhance our local environment.
- Support sustainable economic growth.
- Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks.
Outcomes
For each objective several outcomes have been identified. These outcomes demonstrate what wants to be achieved through the delivery of each objective, with the inevitability that some of the outcomes support multiple objectives.
Objectives
- Objective 1: Deliver safer and accessible journeys
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- Outcome 1.1: Create enhanced and inclusive transport networks for all users.
- Outcome 1.2: Contribute to reducing the number of casualties and collisions on our transport networks.
- Outcome 1.3: Contribute to improving personal safety for all journeys.
- Outcome 1.4: Improve interchange between travel modes.
- Outcome 1.5: Improve access to key local services by all modes.
- Objective 2: Support healthier lifestyles and communities
-
- Outcome 2.1: Increase the proportion of walking, wheeling, and cycling journeys.
- Outcome 2.2: Increase active travel and public transport journeys through education, training, travel behaviour change initiatives and information.
- Outcome 2.3: Re-design road space to balance the needs of different road users, including encouraging people to walk, wheel, cycle and use the bus.
- Outcome 2.4: Support reduction of emissions to improve air quality.
- Outcome 2.5: Mitigate noise pollution through technology and design.
- Outcome 2.6: Improve access to green spaces, public rights of way and leisure and health facilities.
- Objective 3: Decarbonise transport and travel
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- Outcome 3.1: Increase the proportion of people travelling by walking, wheeling, cycling, public and shared transport.
- Outcome 3.2: Facilitate the uptake of ultra-low and zero-emission vehicles for journeys, through the delivery of supporting infrastructure.
- Outcome 3.3: Work with partners to decarbonise transport and tackle climate change.
- Outcome 3.4: Support clean technologies and fuels that contribute towards the decarbonisation of transport.
- Objective 4: Conserve and enhance our local environment
-
- Outcome 4.1: Conserve and enhance our local and natural environment by mitigating negative impacts of transport design and delivery.
- Outcome 4.2: Enhance and create attractive connected communities and public spaces.
- Outcome 4.3: Support habitat connectivity and increase in biodiversity through the delivery of enhanced and new transport infrastructure and public spaces.
- Objective 5: Support sustainable economic growth
-
- Outcome 5.1: Facilitate the efficient movement of goods and people.
- Outcome 5.2: Contribute to reducing deprivation and inequality through improved accessibility for all to employment, education, and training.
- Outcome 5.3: Attract and retain businesses and a skilled workforce in the county.
- Outcome 5.4: Enhance sustainable access to key visitor and cultural destinations.
- Outcome 5.5: As a local highway authority engage with our local planning authorities to deliver sustainable and well-connected housing and employment growth identified in their Local Plans.
- Objective 6: Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks
-
- Outcome 6.1: Improve journey time reliability for people and businesses.
- Outcome 6.2: Enable transport journeys to be resilient, flexible, and adaptable and recover quickly from emergencies and events.
- Outcome 6.3: Improve the condition of highway and other transport infrastructure and assets.
The figure and table below show the relationship between outcomes and objectives and shows the multiple relationships that exist.
| Outcome | Main objective | Outcome supports objectives |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1 Inclusive transport networks | 1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys |
2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities 5. Support sustainable economic growth 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 1.2 Casualty & collision reduction | 1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys |
2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 1.3 Personal safety | 1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys |
2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities 5. Support sustainable economic growth 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 1.4 Improved interchange | 1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys |
2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities 3. Decarbonise transport and travel 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment 5. Support sustainable economic growth 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 1.5 Access to services | 1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys |
2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities 5. Support sustainable economic growth 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 2.1 walking, wheeling and cycling journeys | 2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities |
1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys 3. Decarbonise transport and travel 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment 5. Support sustainable economic growth 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 2.2 increased active and public transport journeys | 2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities |
1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys 3. Decarbonise transport and travel 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment 5. Support sustainable economic growth 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 2.3 redesign road space | 2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities |
1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys 3. Decarbonise transport and travel 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment 5. Support sustainable economic growth 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 2.4 reduce emissions | 2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities |
3. Decarbonise transport and travel 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment |
| 2.5 mitigate noise pollution | 2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities | 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment |
| 2.6 improved access | 2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities |
1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys 3. Decarbonise transport and travel 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment 5. Support sustainable economic growth 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 3.1 walking, wheeling and cycling journeys | 3. Decarbonise transport and travel |
1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys 2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment 5. Support sustainable economic growth 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 3.2 Ultra-low and zero-emission vehicles | 3. Decarbonise transport and travel |
2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment |
| 3.3 decarbonise transport | 3. Decarbonise transport and travel | 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment |
| 3.4 clean technologies and fuels | 3. Decarbonise transport and travel |
2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment |
| 4.1 Conserve and enhance local environment | 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment |
2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities 3. Decarbonise transport and travel |
| 4.2 connected communities and public spaces | 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment |
1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys 2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities 5. Support sustainable economic growth 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 4.3 habitat connectivity and biodiversity | 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment | 3. Decarbonise transport and travel |
| 5.1 efficient movement of goods and people | 5. Support sustainable economic growth |
1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys 3. Decarbonise transport and travel 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 5.2 reduce deprivation and inequality | 5. Support sustainable economic growth | 2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities |
| 5.3 retain businesses and workforces | 5. Support sustainable economic growth | 1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys |
| 5.4 access to visitor and cultural destinations | 5. Support sustainable economic growth |
1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys 2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities 3. Decarbonise transport and travel 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 5.5 Local Plan development | 5. Support sustainable economic growth |
1. Deliver safer and accessible journeys 2. Support healthier lifestyles and communities 3. Decarbonise transport and travel 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
| 6.1 Journey time reliability | 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
3. Decarbonise transport and travel 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment 5. Support sustainable economic growth |
| 6.2 resilient, flexible and adaptable journeys | 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
3. Decarbonise transport and travel 4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment 5. Support sustainable economic growth |
| 6.3 asset management | 6. Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks |
4. Conserve and enhance our natural environment 5. Support sustainable economic growth |
Overarching strategy
The following strategy principles are reflective of the approach, vision and objectives. These have been applied throughout the development of the strategy and will be integrated as part of transport scheme development and delivery. These are in alignment with the concept of Triple Access Planning. This concept encompasses consideration of spatial proximity in relation to land use, transport systems, and digital connectivity.
Embedding sustainable development
The LTP vision is embedded in the three components of sustainable development - economic, social, and environmental. This plan seeks a balance between these three components to deliver sustainable development.
These three components should be viewed in the context of East Sussex’s characteristics, identified within the evidence base:
- A productive economy, which often requires efficient transport links, sustainable, and inclusive, placing economic opportunity at the heart of community renewal and prosperity. As reflected in the East Sussex Economic Prosperity Strategy, business is central to future economic prosperity so by helping businesses to be more productive can help ensure economic gains are captured locally.
- There are areas of deprivation and health inequalities within the county. These tend to be persistent over time, reflecting a combination of limited access to opportunities for labour market progression and a range of complex factors linked with the housing market, access to services and health conditions. Therefore, any future schemes should also consider the circumstances of all in East Sussex, with specific attention given to aiding the most disadvantaged to access better jobs, reduce social isolation, increase physical activity and support health and wellbeing. Wider social outcomes, including quality of life outcomes, for residents should be considered in addition to economic gains.
- East Sussex is rich in environmental and historic assets, including the South Downs National Park, High Weald National Landscape, the coastline, Seven Sisters Country Park, Lewes Castle, and Rye’s historic centre. Thus, any transport intervention should equally protect and enhance these assets and enhance visitor access.
The LTP objectives are mutually supportive. Improving the environment with a particular focus on air quality will simultaneously stimulate better health outcomes for local people. However, these objectives may also conflict, such as infrastructure implementation degrading the environment. Partners must, therefore, mitigate transport’s adverse impacts, make best use of existing infrastructure, and prioritise interventions and initiatives that will deliver a positive impact.
An inclusive package of interventions has been developed. These recognise the strong links between spatial, transport and digital infrastructure planning and delivery, and allows for accessibility of residents to goods, services and opportunities to be enhanced.
Creating healthy places
East Sussex County Council and their partners will work with local planning authorities to realise a spatial strategy that supports healthy places, prioritising town centre and mixed-use developments, supporting the creation of more vibrant urban centres, and encouraging sustainable communities, which reduces the need for residents to travel long distances to access goods, services, and opportunities.
This approach is not only relevant to the county’s largest towns, but also local centres and connectivity between rural communities, where better access to services and opportunities can be provided through focusing development in existing areas where residents will be able to locally access vital goods and services. Enabling the development of healthy and thriving communities supporting greater quality of life.
Transport connectivity for all
In order to realise transport connectivity for all, it is necessary for local communities to be at the heart of the planning and design of the delivery of the LTP’s interventions and policies. All schemes will be subject to engagement as part of each stage of their development, considering both the geographic context (i.e. urban/rural) and the differing needs of those with protected characteristics.
This strategy recognises that the private car is currently the most used transport mode for making journeys in and around East Sussex. Spaces and lifestyles have evolved around and been shaped by car use, leading to car dominated environments. It is important to consider how partners can improve people’s mobility in spaces, re-designing road space to balance the needs of all users (particularly prioritising those walking, wheeling, cycling, and using public transport) whilst maintaining and improving connectivity.
The plan involves packages of interventions which provide all users with multiple choices for travel. Improving the provision and integration of rail, bus and/or active travel options (often referred to as ‘greener transport’) will ensure that there are attractive and reliable choices as alternatives to private car use, encouraging uptake of sustainable transport modes to facilitate day-to-day activity. Replacing car trips with those taken by walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport will reduce congestion, improve air quality, improve safety, and support the creation of more attractive, healthy, and thriving communities.
Many of the core policies aim to encourage and enable walking, wheeling and cycling and/or public transport, including investment in infrastructure to support convenient, comfortable, and safer journeys, combined with demand management measures and travel behaviour change initiatives. Major projects will provide new fast, frequent, and competitive journey opportunities, such as:
- Urban active travel networks in the county’s largest towns (for example, physically protected cycle lanes, where feasible).
- Further bus service improvements between Eastbourne and Tunbridge Wells via Polegate, Hailsham and Heathfield including introduction of bus priority enhancing rural and inter-urban connectivity.
- Extending St Pancras – Ashford high speed rail services to Rye, Hastings, Bexhill, and Eastbourne.
The importance of digital connectivity
Improved digital connectivity enables remote access to goods, services, and opportunities, reducing the need to travel, relieving congestion on roads and routes. Changes in travel behaviour will allow repurposing and redefining of public spaces providing support to local high streets and helping them to thrive through public realm enhancements like those being undertaken in Eastbourne Town Centre.
Great success has been achieved over the past decade in delivering greatly enhanced connectivity. This success has been achieved because of developments in the market and investment by telecoms operators, and through the rollout of the County Council’s e-Sussex Superfast Broadband programme which ensured that the great majority of communities were able to secure superfast connectivity even though it was not viable for this programme to be delivered by the market alone.
As technology has advanced, East Sussex has seen rapid improvements in connectivity: just 4.3% of premises had gigabit-capable (1000 megabits per second (Mbps) or one gigabit per second (Gbps)) connections in October 2019, compared with 60.8% of premises now (2023).
Implementing a sustainable movement and place framework
To help guide the development of new transport schemes a user hierarchy that outlines how consideration will be given to the needs of different transport modes has been developed. This plan prioritises vulnerable users and ‘active modes’ over other users and forms of transport, as their benefits align closely with the objectives.
An explanation of the relationship between ‘place’ and ‘movement’ is provided in Figure 5,with place function relating to a location’s community role and movement focused on how it facilitates travel by different types of users.
Considering place and movement in this way reflects the reality of the transport network and the differing needs it must serve. Different transport modes have varying strengths and weaknesses, meaning that certain modes are more appropriate or desirable for certain situations. Considering place and movement function as part of the user hierarchy is the best way to deliver a transport network that provides good connectivity, whilst preserving the localities which it serves.
| Lower movement function | Higher movement function | |
|---|---|---|
| Higher place function |
Urban centres High societal value and often seen as the destination of journeys. Examples include Hastings Seafront and Uckfield Town Centre. User hierarchy: A. Walking B. Cycling and other non-motorised modes C. Public transport D. Goods vehicles E. Motor vehicles (zero/low emissions) F. Motor vehicles (higher-emissions) |
Thoroughfares Spaces or corridors of importance for strategic transport but located in a high place function. Examples include the A259 through Bexhill. User hierarchy: A. Walking B. Public transport C. Cycling D. Motor vehicles (zero/low emissions) E. Goods vehicles F. Motor vehicles (higher-emissions) |
| Lower place function |
Everyday destinations Locations where people reside or work, and often the origin of journeys. Most places are in this quadrant. Examples include rural villages and urban suburbs. User hierarchy: A. Walking B. Cycling and other non-motorised modes C. Public transport D. Goods vehicles E. Motor vehicles (zero/low emissions) F. Motor vehicles (higher-emissions) |
Key corridors Rarely considered the origin or end point of journeys but are fundamental to regional connectivity. Examples include the A21 and A27. User hierarchy: A. Public transport B. Goods vehicles C. Motor vehicles (zero/low emissions) D. Motor vehicles (higher-emissions) E. Cycling and other non-motorised modes F. Walking (where permitted) |
In spaces with a high movement and low place function, priority will be focused on the efficient movement of people and goods. Along strategic corridors, such as the A21 and the A27, the private car, commercial and heavy goods vehicles will be given higher priority. New or improved road infrastructure may be required in particular circumstances to ensure that strategic movements move efficiently and all road users have reliable choices for journeys. Sections of the strategic and major road network are also vital for the provision of frequent and reliable public transport services, with priority lanes, junctions and other measures for buses possibly being needed on specific corridors.
Consideration will also be given to ensuring walking and cycling infrastructure and routes can be accommodated as an integral part of the strategic and major road networks. Measures may include parallel segregated routes and safe junction crossings.
Whereas, in spaces with low movement but high place function, priority will be given to modes that complement that specific setting or location. For example, within town centres, people walking, wheeling and cycling and public transport will be given priority as these modes provide good access to these spaces.
There will be cases where a degree of judgement will be required to identify the most suitable user hierarchy for a given location relative to its movement and place functions and to provide access for specific user groups (for example, the provision of disabled parking). In these cases, a combination of local engagement and location-specific constraints will inform the definition of the user-hierarchy.
Recognising the different geography types of East Sussex
The best transport networks enable a mix of modes to operate effectively aligned to the geographical requirements of an area. In applying principles of the movement and place framework to the East Sussex context has led to the development of four general place and movement types with synergies to the Transport for the South East’s Transport Strategy geographical approach that will guide different transport planning approaches:
Geography Type 1 – Regional long distance
This place and movement type accounts for journeys between the largest towns using higher speed main road and rail routes such as the A27, A26, A21 and A22 and the East Coastway/Marshlink, Uckfield line and Hastings-Tonbridge rail line. The approach to strategic long-distance connectivity is focused on improvements to rail such as connecting HS1 to Hastings, Bexhill, and Eastbourne, as well as selected highways interventions where they address safety concerns by separating strategic trips from local trips (for example, the dualling of the Uckfield Bypass and A27 Lewes to Polegate). The county’s inter-urban bus network is also important for the movement of people between towns and rural communities and areas as well as cross local authority boundary trips.
Geography Type 2 - Moving east west along the coast
This place and movement type accounts for trips connecting coastal towns – Telscombe Cliffs, Peacehaven, Newhaven, Seaford, Eastbourne, Bexhill, and Hastings. The plan is for rail and bus travel to work in tandem to deliver improved connectivity between these towns. Interventions to improve journey times on the East Coastway Line and delivery of Sussex Coast bus related transit schemes will support this ambition and strategic interchange opportunities in each town between public and active travel networks.
Geography Type 3 - Urban coastal areas
This place and movement type accounts for journeys contained within the largest conurbations along the coast such as Hastings and Bexhill, Eastbourne, and Telscombe Cliffs Peacehaven, Newhaven and Seaford. It is proposed to focus on delivering comprehensive active travel and rapid transit networks connecting suburbs to local centres and deploying demand management measures such as parking restraint and traffic management schemes to promote journeys by sustainable modes.
Geography Type 4 - Rural and local centres
This place and movement type accounts for trips both within and between local centres (for example, Hailsham, Uckfield, Crowborough and Lewes) and within and between the villages, hamlets and farmsteads in the rural parts of the county. The plan for these areas is the delivery of intra-urban and rural bus service enhancements such as the improvements between Hailsham and Tunbridge Wells, and Lewes, Hailsham and Eastbourne; extension of the existing Digital Demand Responsive Transit (DDRT) provision; and development of interchange opportunities in village and town centres. This provision is alongside measures to improve and enable safer active travel for short local journeys (for example, connections to Public Rights of Way and quiet routes in rural parts of the county).
The East Sussex Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) will consider how these geography types can be applied to treat network development as area-based, acknowledging that there are different requirements for improvements in urban coastal areas than in rural and local centres.
Travel behaviour change
Provision of high quality walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport options only goes so far to support sustainable travel patterns. Programmes and initiatives to provide information to potential users and raise awareness of new and existing sustainable transport options, challenge travel behaviours and empower people to make a change where knowledge or skills are key barriers.
Travel behaviour change initiatives need to be diverse and comprehensive according to communities needs, and link with infrastructure delivery, to tackle the various causes of single occupancy car journeys, particularly for short local journeys. They may aim to effect transport mode shift or the re-timing, re-routing or reducing of existing trips, for example by encouraging increased car sharing and/or working from home. They may also aim to promote new transport infrastructure/services, for example with marketing campaigns, integrated ticketing and/or cheaper fares.
Effective engagement and communication with local and regional stakeholders is a prerequisite for travel behaviour change initiatives to be successful. Working with businesses, education providers, developers and other focal points in communities will be essential to influence journeys and support sustainable travel planning, minimising single occupancy travel to sites and maximising the use of sustainable modes. Additional support, such as cycle training for adults, may also be provided where necessary. Delivery of these measures will be subject to the Council, its partners and communities securing funding.
Aligning objectives and policies
The following chapters addresses key challenges and set out the ambitions in more detail with each section including, as appropriate:
- A map of all the place-based investment priorities, and county wide policies, interventions and initiatives identified in the LTP4 Investment Plan which, subject to funding secured by the County Council and/or other partners, will support that ambition.
- Commentary setting out how these mapped interventions or schemes as well as wider policy interventions will support delivery of the objectives.
- Detail on each of the component policy areas.
There are synergies between a number of the draft component policy areas in this plan to demonstrate the opportunities for integration between modes. Together with links to existing specific East Sussex County Council Highways and Transport policies, which are not superseded by these policies. It is important to note that some existing East Sussex County Council Highways and Transport policies may be subject to review on adoption of this strategy.
The alignment of theme chapters to objectives and to policy areas is provided in Table 2. This alignment sets out the structure of the next four chapters.
| Policy | Objective | Chapter |
|---|---|---|
| Policy A1: Reducing emissions | Decarbonise transport | Tackling climate change and enhancing our local environment |
| Policy A2: Future and zero emission vehicles and infrastructure | Decarbonise transport | Tackling climate change and enhancing our local environment |
| Policy A3: Resilience and Adaptation | Conserve and enhance our local environment | Tackling climate change and enhancing our local environment |
| Policy A4: Biodiversity and natural capital | Conserve and enhance our local environment | Tackling climate change and enhancing our local environment |
| Policy A5: Energy supply | Conserve and enhance our local environment | Tackling climate change and enhancing our local environment |
| Policy B1: Healthy Lifestyles | Support healthier lifestyles and communities | Safer, healthier, and more active travel |
| Policy B2: Active Travel | Support healthier lifestyles and communities | Safer, healthier, and more active travel |
| Policy B3: Road Safety | Support healthier lifestyles and communities | Safer, healthier, and more active travel |
| Policy B4: Placemaking | Support healthier lifestyles and communities | Safer, healthier, and more active travel |
| Policy B5: Air Quality | Support healthier lifestyles and communities | Safer, healthier, and more active travel |
| Policy B6: Improved access to green and blue infrastructure | Support healthier lifestyles and communities | Safer, healthier, and more active travel |
| Policy B7: Rights of way | Support healthier lifestyles and communities | Safer, healthier, and more active travel |
| Policy C1: Inclusive access | Deliver safer and accessible journeys | Integrated and accessible transport for all |
| Policy C2: Bus and coach | Deliver safer and accessible journeys | Integrated and accessible transport for all |
| Policy C3: Rail | Deliver safer and accessible journeys | Integrated and accessible transport for all |
| Policy C4: Integrating transport | Deliver safer and accessible journeys | Integrated and accessible transport for all |
| Policy C5: Demand responsive (taxi, private hire and Digital Demand Responsive Transport) and community transport | Deliver safer and accessible journeys | Integrated and accessible transport for all |
| Policy C6: Public transport infrastructure | Deliver safer and accessible journeys | Integrated and accessible transport for all |
| Policy D1: Strategic connectivity | Support sustainable economic growth | Keeping East Sussex Connected |
| Policy D2: Freight and international gateways | Support sustainable economic growth | Keeping East Sussex Connected |
| Policy D3: The needs of businesses and the visitor economy | Support sustainable economic growth | Keeping East Sussex Connected |
| Policy D4: Supporting sustainable development and transport development control | Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks | Keeping East Sussex Connected |
| Policy D5: Parking | Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks | Keeping East Sussex Connected |
| Policy D6: Highways maintenance and asset management | Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks | Keeping East Sussex Connected |
5. Tackling climate change and enhancing our local environment
Introduction
In 2019, East Sussex County Council declared a climate emergency in response to the need to address human-induced climate change and to achieve the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty ratified by the United Kingdom in 2016 with the overarching goal to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” This declaration is aligned with the United Kingdom’s legal requirement under the Climate Act to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 100% of 1990 levels (net zero) by 2050.
Transport is the largest sector for emitting GHG emissions, producing 24% of the UK’s total emissions in 2020 (406 MtCO2e), with increases in the intensity and frequency of severe weather events already being felt across the region. The serious nature of such changes means the transport network needs to be more resilient and for East Sussex to play its part to prevent additional GHG emissions being released to avoid the even more severe impacts of climate change forecast by scientific experts.
The East Sussex Climate Emergency Road Map for 2022-25 sets out a county-wide target of reducing emissions by 13% each year. It also acknowledges the Council’s influence on transport emissions in its role as a local transport and highways authority.
Only by addressing human-induced climate change will all other policies proposed in this Local Transport Plan (LTP) be achievable. This initial chapter therefore focuses on schemes and policies that will support decarbonisation of the transport system and the way in which transport can support, protect, and enhance the natural and built environment.
Also important in addressing climate change is mitigating its impacts. Mitigation of the impacts of climate is covered through a number of the policies within this chapter, including A3: Resilience and adaptation, as well as in subsequent chapters including B6: Improved access to green and blue infrastructure.
Mitigating climate change through decarbonising transport
Transport decarbonisation is the process of reducing, and ultimately removing, greenhouse gas emissions produced as a by-product of transport infrastructure and operations. To achieve this objective, the approach is moving towards supporting a carbon free transport network during the lifetime of the plan. Achieving this ambition will help tackle climate change and limit the impacts on the planet. This plan has been designed to achieve local targets and contribute towards wider, national decarbonisation targets. As part of this objective the aim is to:
- Increase the proportion of people travelling by walking, wheeling, cycling, public or shared transport.
- Facilitate the uptake of ultra-low and zero-emission vehicles for journeys, through the delivery of supporting infrastructure.
- Work with partners to decarbonise transport and tackle climate change.
- Support clean technologies and fuels that contribute towards the decarbonisation of transport.
The plan for decarbonising transport in East Sussex seeks to achieve a reduction in transport carbon emissions in three ways by:
- Promoting public transport and active travel to encourage modal shift from car based journeys.
- Reducing the carbon impact of existing trips through supporting the roll out of electric vehicles and decarbonising public transport operations.
- Reducing the need to travel by bringing people closer to goods, services and opportunities.
Delivering an efficient transport network
The transport’s system efficiency needs to improve. Through integrated land-use planning and transport demand management the need to travel and the length of the remaining necessary trips may be reduced.
Reducing the need to travel is not about reducing accessibility. It’s about bringing people closer to the goods, services, and opportunities that they want and need without the requirement to travel longer distances. This scenario can be achieved through encouraging development to be focused on town centres and to be mixed use, and by encouraging enhanced digital connectivity to enable people to access what they need and want online where the goods or services are not available locally or can be accessed without the need to travel (for example, online medical consultations).
A package of interventions to support the creation of healthy sustainable communities has been developed. In both rural and urban areas, appropriate demand management measures will be used to enhance quality of place and increase safety, for example, through the delivery of a School Streets programme, area-based traffic management schemes, which re-design road space to support liveable towns and neighbourhoods and parking restrictions (particularly in town centres). To optimise the benefits of demand management measures the Country Council will work with local planning authorities to integrate land use, spatial and transport planning. Where possible supporting and facilitating investment by others, such as government’s “Project Gigabit” initiative, in future proofing broadband and mobile digital infrastructure, ensuring that the whole county benefits from constantly evolving opportunities gained through digital transformation.
Promoting public transport and active travel
Decarbonise transport through moving journeys from transport modes with greater carbon emissions such as cars towards walking, wheeling and cycling and using public transport.
These measures will help to encourage a move to public transport through the development and delivery of bus service enhancements across the county ensuring that more people are well served by reliable, frequent, and high-quality bus services. On higher frequency routes, such as coastal routes (for example, Eastbourne - Seaford - Newhaven – Peacehaven - Brighton or Bexhill - Hastings) as well as intra-urban bus routes (for example, parts of Eastbourne’s Loop), highway congestion can present a barrier to faster journey times. Proposals include the delivery of bus priority infrastructure, such as bus lanes and bus gates, to ensure the bus is an attractive mode for all types of trips.
Active travel infrastructure will be delivered, encouraging walking, wheeling and cycling for short and medium length trips. New public transport and active modes will be integrated through a network of interchange opportunities at the intersections of different parts of the transport network (walking, cycling, bus, rail, and road) allowing for easy connections and seamless, sustainable trips thereby increasing the competitiveness of public transport and active travel compared to the car.
Reducing the carbon impact of existing trips
Reducing the carbon emissions of transport modes and related vehicle technology is needed to decarbonise transport. Achieving this ambition will require partnership working as many of the key initiatives and opportunities to support this aim are not in the direct control of East Sussex County Council, but with partners.
Supporting decarbonisation of transport involves working in partnership with transport operators to deliver the rollout of zero-emission vehicles in their fleets and across the county. Working together will ensure that the enhanced connectivity provided by the County Council’s programme of bus service improvements does not generate increased carbon emissions. The East Sussex Bus Service Improvement Plan proposes to “work closely to take advantage of any funding opportunities that may arise to introduce battery electric buses or hydrogen fuel cell buses”. Moving to a zero-emission fleet also has positive air quality impacts and will support delivery on air quality management objectives across the county and improve the health of individuals.
The rail network in East Sussex, while mostly electrified, includes two notable sections which are still serviced by diesel operations: the Oxted Line (Hurst Green (Surrey) to Uckfield) and the Marshlink line (Ore to Ashford). Electrifying both stretches of track will reduce the carbon impact of rail operations in East Sussex.
For trips where public transport and active travel are not an option, this plan seeks to accelerate the transition to a decarbonised fleet. This transition will be encouraged through delivery of on-street electric vehicle charging infrastructure by the County Council, and off-street provision including a network of charging hubs across the county via other partners as well as exploring opportunities to capitalise on newer fuels. This ambition extends to freight and buses,with hydrogen refuelling stations enabling even the largest highway freight vehicles to be decarbonised and buses in other local authority areas already being fuelled by hydrogen (i.e. Metrobus – Crawley). The Hydrogen Sussex Strategy provides a route map for optimising the potential of hydrogen in supporting a decarbonised transport network and East Sussex will work with partners and stakeholders to identify locations where hydrogen production and distribution could take place.
Conserve and enhance our local environment
The approach is to conserve and enhance our natural environment to promote sustainable active travel (walking, wheeling, cycling and horse riding) and enable access to green spaces for residents and visitors. It is aimed to:
Conserve and enhance our local environment by mitigating negative impacts of transport design and delivery.
Enhance and create attractive and connected communities and public spaces.
Support habitat connectivity and increase biodiversity through the delivery of enhanced and new transport infrastructure and public spaces.
Assets and infrastructure
East Sussex is home to many leisure and tourism assets and cultural heritage sites. Preserving these sites is essential to retaining the character and cultural heritage of the area, as well as supporting the visitor economy through encouraging efficient transport to those tourism sites. This plan will, in the first instance, make best use of adapting existing infrastructure, balancing the needs of different users and delivering improvements which have minimal impact on the local environment. Where infrastructure with more considerable environmental impact is required, partners would ensure that assets are protected from the impacts of that construction.
Habitats and biodiversity
During construction and implementation of transport schemes, partners will seek to minimise and mitigate the disruption caused to the environment and habitats, as well as support the connectivity of ecologically robust habitat trails and pathways. Infrastructure schemes will be rigorously assessed to safeguard habitats and increase biodiversity, examples may include through street greening and tree planting. As part of this plan, safeguarding habitats and biodiversity net gain as key requirements in scheme assessment and the LTP has been subject to an independent .
Large infrastructure construction projects can limit the protection and preservation of key natural areas in the natural environment. Networks will be designed with conservation and enhancement of the environment as a key consideration, accounting for new species along road verges, marine habitats along the coast and the natural landscape.
Delivering these objectives
These objectives will be delivered through the following policy areas:
- Policy A1: Reducing emissions.
- Policy A2: Zero emissions vehicles.
- Policy A3: Resilience and adaptation.
- Policy A4: Biodiversity and natural capital.
- Policy A5: Energy supply.
Policy A1: Reducing emissions
Context
Under the Climate Change Act (2008), the UK Government has set a target for the UK to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In East Sussex, transport accounts for 35% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions – decarbonising transport is therefore a vital part of achieving net zero.
Issues/opportunities
Two thirds of journeys in East Sussex are under 5 miles, however more than 80 per cent of direct tailpipe emissions from highways traffic is generated from journeys over 12 miles in length. Many of these longer distance trips occur where a more sustainable option is not available or suitable. A journey between Uckfield and Etchingham, for example, takes approximately two times longer by public transport (one hour and requiring a change of bus) than by car (thirty minutes).
Interventions to enhance capacity, resilience, reliability, and connectivity provided by public transport will increase its ability to capture a greater share of longer distance trips reducing the number of private car trips taken and limiting carbon emissions from transport.
Delivery of infrastructure and networks that enables journeys under 5 miles by walking, wheeling, cycling or public transport in both urban and rural areas will support decarbonisation of these trips.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Reducing the need to travel by bringing goods, services and other opportunities closer to people through spatial planning and digital connectivity.
- Enabling and encouraging mode shift and choice from the private car to more sustainable transport modes such as walking, wheeling, cycling (including use of e-bikes) and public transport for short journeys or part of longer journeys.
- Supporting efforts to reduce carbon emissions from the public transport network through adoption of alternative fuels.
- Supporting people to transition to ultra-low and zero emission vehicles through the provision of suitable refuelling and charging infrastructure.
Policy A2: Future and zero emission vehicles and infrastructure
Context
Transitioning to zero emission vehicles is essential to reducing emissions. Department for Transport’s Decarbonising transport: a better, greener Britain (2021) sets out a commitment to decarbonisation through mode shift and a transition to zero emission vehicles. It recognises the opportunity and challenges that this transition presents and makes several commitments including support for the delivery of zero emission buses, working towards phase out dates for the sale of all new non-zero emission HGVs as well as petrol and diesel phase out dates for new vehicles.
Issues/opportunities
The arrival of micromobility modes such as e-bikes has increased the range of trips that people can reasonably make through active travel modes as well as making them accessible to wider range of users. Roll out of e-bike and other future mobility type schemes can provide a zero -emission alternative to the private car for short and medium trips.
In January 2022 there were 136 (off-road) public charge electric vehicle points in East Sussex, an increase of 76.6% over a two-year period. This increase is supporting a take-up of and use of electric vehicles. Increasing the availability of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, particularly on road in residential areas which have limited off-street parking and more rural areas where there is relatively low availability, can better support residents to transition to electric vehicles.
Adoption of electric cars in East Sussex is relatively low. In March 2024, 2.2% of the cars and light goods vehicles registered in East Sussex were either battery electric or plug-in hybrid models, lower than the UK (3.9%) and South-East (5.2%) averages. Charging point availability is also relatively low. 373 charging points were available in July 2024, significantly less than in Kent (955), Surrey (894) and West Sussex (736).
East Sussex is part of the Hydrogen Sussex group which seeks to raise awareness and develop opportunities for clean hydrogen as a key energy source in the transition to net zero carbon emissions. They have recently published their strategy which presents a blueprint for harnessing the potential of hydrogen to power zero emissions vehicles.
We acknowledge that the cost of zero-emission vehicles is relatively high and therefore difficult for operators and local authorities to meet alone. The County Council will work with public transport operators to support their transition to zero-emission buses. Support could include submissions for funding to secure infrastructure or zero-emission vehicles, through to collaborative working to re-charge electric vehicles at the start, beginning or mid route.
Component policy measures
Whilst more detail is provided in the Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy, in summary the policy measures focus on:
- Supporting the delivery of electric vehicle charging infrastructure across the County to for all users; communities, businesses and visitors.
- Utilising new zero emissions transport fuels and technologies as they become available.
- Working with bus operators to rollout zero emissions vehicles through Enhanced Partnerships (EP’s), a statutory partnership between a local authority and their local bus operators, setting out how they will work together to deliver the Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) outcomes in their local geography.
- Supporting the continued development of active travel networks and transport interchange facilities (mobility hubs) to encourage the use e-bikes and micromobility modes.
Policy A3: Resilience and adaptation
Context
The impacts of climate change being experienced in the UK include hotter, drier summers with more intense storms and rainfall, potentially increasing the risk of flash flooding. This change is alongside milder and wetter winters. Both bring more extreme weather events; and contribute to global rising sea levels – all of which are significant for East Sussex. While exact impacts are difficult to forecast, East Sussex will be susceptible to both water shortages and flooding in the future.
Issues/opportunities
Highways, pavements, and other active travel routes are subject to a number of risks such as:
- Subsidence, heave and landslips due to coastal erosion, drought and lower water tables.
- Surface damage due to extreme heat in the summer, erosion from intense localised storms in the summer, freeze/thaw in the winter and flooding.
- Extreme weather flooding of active travel infrastructure and highways.
- Potential future sea level rises and coastal flooding affecting existing road infrastructure.
Railway infrastructure may suffer from:
- Buckling of railway tracks due to excessive heat.
- Impacts from adverse weather (e.g. flooding or landslips) as well as from potential future sea level rises and coastal flooding.
A Climate Change Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (CRVA) for East Sussex was undertaken in 2024. This assessed climate risks facing East Sussex under three scenarios: present day, 2 degrees (temperature rise) and 4 degrees. The individual risks assessed under these scenarios were drawn from the UK national climate risk assessment, ensuring risk alignment between national and local level.
The report outlined the risks facing the county, with the key risks for transport being:
- Surface water flooding is prevalent across East Sussex, with hotspots in Eastbourne, Hastings and Bexhill. Heavy rainfall is projected to become 20-25% more intense under a 2°C warming level, or 40-45% under a 4°C warming level. This change is expected to have an adverse impact on the likelihood of surface water flooding, albeit with some uncertainty around how heavy rainfall changes the likelihood of a flood event.
- River flooding affects road and rail infrastructure in flood plains. Risk in East Sussex is associated with the county’s five main rivers and their tributaries: Adur, Ouse, Medway, Rother and Cuckmere. The likelihood of river flooding is expected to increase, with peak river flows projected to increase by 27-37% (2080s, approximately 2°C scenario), or up to 62-107% (approximately 4°C scenario).
- High temperatures can cause road melt, buckling of railway lines, etc. Taking the example of road melt, the likelihood of temperatures exceeding that linked with an increased risk of road melt is projected to increase from the baseline of 12 per year (1981-2010) to 29 days per year under 2°C and 65 days under 4°C
- Cascading failures are a domino effect of increasing failures due to positive feedback mechanisms. For a county council, one example could be highway flooding causing a succession of failures in services such as domiciliary care, school transport, etc. Transport is a frequent starting point for cascading failures, and the risk of serious incidents increase in line with climate risks.
In building a transport network capable of serving all, it will be important to respond to these risks. Including designing transport infrastructure that is resilient to natural disasters (for example flood-proofing) and adapting existing infrastructure to tackle the negative impacts of climate change for people (for example, public realm improvements and development of healthy streets which include consideration of measures such as provision of urban greening (vegetation and trees - providing shade, benches and materials which are reflective of heat etc.) and securing appropriate levels of funding to support these changes.
To mitigate the impacts of flooding in the County, specifically Eastbourne and South Wealden a new six-year project called the Blue Heart was established in 2021. This project will provide an understanding of the local water catchment and how it works. It will communicate the risk of flooding to the communities of Eastbourne and south Wealden.
The project will mitigate the impact of flooding caused by climate change through technology to manage and monitor water levels in Eastbourne and south Wealden. This project will involve the development of a smart integrated water management system that gives warning of heavy rainfall, will calculate the most the optimum response and issue flood warnings and alerts where necessary. This technology will trigger watercourses, ponds and lakes to release water so they are ready to contain incoming storm water. Homes and businesses will benefit from better flood mitigation.
Component policy measures
In summary, policy measures will focus on:
- Ensuring the design of transport infrastructure is resilient to the physical impacts of climate change (flooding, heat etc.).
- Improvements to existing transport infrastructure to consider the impacts of climate change through surface water flooding, river flooding, high temperatures and cascade failures on people and infrastructure.
- Assessing the transport network and places at risk especially along the coast where there are key corridors of movement (i.e. A259) vulnerable to coastal erosion as well as potential sea level rises and coastal flooding to identify, with partners, potential mitigation options.
- Incorporating climate change projections into road and active travel infrastructure design and maintenance plans as well as other key strategic transport infrastructure projects.
- Utilising new technologies to improve climate resilience as they become proven and available.
- Identifying opportunities to pilot emerging technologies to support more effective resilience and adaptation.
Policy A4: Biodiversity and natural capital
Context
Biodiversity net gain is a strategy to ensure that when land is developed there is contribution to the recovery of nature. It is a way of making sure the habitat for wildlife is left in a better state than it was before development. These requirements apply from November 2023 for residential and commercial developments and will be extended to ‘Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects’ – which include large road and railway schemes – by no later than 2025. Wildlife habitats are present across East Sussex including woodlands, marshes, heathlands, meadows, and coastal areas as well as the county’s network of rivers and ponds. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended) is the main law followed for the protection of wildlife in Great Britain, with particular emphasis on conserving biodiversity, natural habitats, flora, and fauna.
Issues/opportunities
Transport has an important role to play in the enhancement of the environment and managing negative impacts on biodiversity in addition to people’s experience of the environment:
- Balance the management of vegetation in terms of providing value as natural capital (i.e. verges), alongside reducing any impacts on safety for all users (i.e. removal of overgrown vegetation impacting sightlines).
- Prioritising transport interventions which minimise land take and increases in traffic such as active travel routes can enhance biodiversity, landscape, geodiversity and the quality of water and soil.
Such interventions can also enhance people’s access to and experience of the natural environment increasing public health and personal well-being. More detail is provided in Policy B6: Improving access to green and blue infrastructure.
There is a need to ensure consideration of the emerging East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Local Nature Recovery Strategy, which maps, plans and prioritises action for nature locally, especially for improving, expanding and better connecting areas for wildlife on the ground. The Local Nature Recovery Strategy will also include identifying opportunities to reduce light pollution from the transport network, supporting policies in relation to ‘Dark Skies’, specifically in relation the High Weald National Landscape and the South Downs National Park in East Sussex.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Implementing the correct and timely use of Strategic Environmental Assessments and Habitat Regulation Assessments for all transport schemes where required.
- Achieving material biodiversity net gain in the delivery of transport schemes.
- Implementing integrated planning and travel demand management approaches.
- Enforcing developers’ adherence to central government requirements for biodiversity net gain.
- Supporting delivery of flood risk management strategies.
Policy A5: Energy supply
Context
Over the coming decades, road vehicles will move from petrol and diesel fuelled engines to zero emission technologies. Scenarios for the government’s 2023 ‘Decarbonising Transport’ strategy suggest that between 30 to 47% of car miles will be driven by zero emission vehicles by 2030, and almost the entire national fleet of cars, vans and HGVs will be zero emission by 2050. For cars and light vehicles, battery electric systems are expected to dominate. Public electric vehicle infrastructure for such vehicles will be provided by a mix of partners – East Sussex County Council for on street provision in residential areas with no off-street parking as well as town centre locations, alongside district and borough councils and other public/private organisations (e.g. Network Rail/Great British Railways, NHS Trusts, supermarkets, private car park operators) for off street parking. However, for heavy vehicles there is currently no single clear technological pathway – battery electric, hydrogen, and e-fuels (which are synthetic liquid fuels made by reacting hydrogen with captured CO2), may all have roles to play.
Facilitating this change will require new infrastructure to supply transport energy. By 2050, distribution networks for liquid fossil fuels will be largely redundant, and new systems established that use electricity, hydrogen and/or e-fuels as the energy carrier. During the transition period, ensuring secure, accessible supplies of both legacy diesel/ petrol and zero emission energy will be crucial.
Rail and maritime transport are also expected to decarbonise. In East Sussex, much of the rail network is already electrified. However, there are notable exceptions in the coastal line east of Hastings (Ore) to Ashford and the Uckfield branch line. The government’s stated ambition (Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail) is to remove all diesel-only trains from the network by 2040, using a combination of rail electrification and battery/hydrogen trains. For shipping, there are currently no clear decarbonisation pathways, with hydrogen and e-fuels two potential options.
Issues/opportunities
By 2050, it’s anticipated that nearly every road vehicle will be zero emission. Current expectations are that the vast majority will be battery electric. This transition will require a huge increase in the number of charging points - public, business, and domestic – to ensure all vehicles have opportunities to charge.
Where households have off-street parking, most of their charging is likely to take place at home. In East Sussex, 62% of households have off-street parking (or the possibility of off-street parking). This figure is considerably higher than most urban authorities, for example Brighton and Hove has 46%.
There is a great deal of uncertainty around technology pathways for heavy road vehicles. Hydrogen and e-fuels are possible solutions; however, battery technology is advancing rapidly and may become viable for heavy vehicles, including freight and buses. Similar uncertainty affects zero emissions shipping, with no clear technology pathways at the time of writing. This uncertainty makes planning difficult and risks funding being wasted on technological dead ends.
The electricity distribution network is an increasingly essential means of providing transport energy. Pressures on the network are mounting, and current issues include high costs for upgrading electricity supplies to support (for example) installation of commercial vehicle charging and rapid chargers for light vehicles. Significant upgrades to the system will be needed to support the electrification of transport, and (outside of transport) to electrify heat supply and allow distributed renewable generation to be connected to the grid.
As electric vehicles become dominant, the costs of supplying and distributing petrol and diesel will be split between fewer and fewer users. Transition to electric vehicles could lead to increasing cost and lower availability of petrol and diesel, or even a total collapse as the distribution business becomes uneconomic. This change may negatively affect residents and businesses who are unable to switch to electric vehicles.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Improving electric vehicle charging infrastructure availability by implementing an electric vehicle charging strategy.
- The County Council will work with key stakeholders, including the energy network operators, the emerging Regional Energy Strategic Planner function of Ofgem (Office of Gas and Electricity Markets) and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero funded Greater South East Net Zero Hub, to determine the optimum power supply options and phasing that will facilitate the transition from fossil fuelled transport.
- Improving the availability of electric vehicle charging and/or zero emission fuels at Council operated sites, to facilitate the use of zero emission vehicles.
- Working with district and borough councils to ensure that anticipated electric vehicle charging demand is integrated into Local Plans and positively provided in new development sites.
- Supporting pilot projects on hydrogen, e-fuels and other zero emission technologies for heavy vehicles and shipping, working with partners such as Hydrogen Sussex.
- Working with Network Rail/Great British Railways and train operators to support projects that remove diesel only trains from the county’s rail network.
- Monitoring the availability of petrol and diesel fuels and, if necessary, developing fuel availability strategies.
6. Safer, healthier and more active travel
Introduction
In this chapter, the focus is on the capacity for transport investment on infrastructure and within places to improve safety and increase health for communities and individual wellbeing across urban and rural areas
Click here for a larger version of Figure 6 'Key Schemes for Theme B' in pdf format [1.8 MB] [pdf]
A full list of schemes presented in this map is available in Appendix B.
Supporting safer, healthier lifestyles and communities
This plan will improve safety for all journeys and through the provision of transport to reduce health inequalities and enhance health and wellbeing through increased physical activity opportunities and the design of healthy places. These opportunities include walking, wheeling, and cycling being the natural first choice for everyday short journeys or as part of longer journeys, improving local connectivity to key services, reduced emissions which improve air quality and providing easy access to nature and greenspace. This plan will:
- Increase the proportion of walking, wheeling and cycling journeys.
- Increase active travel and public transport journeys through education, training, travel behaviour change initiatives and information.
- Redesign road space to balance the needs of different road users, including integrating infrastructure to support people to walk, wheel and catch the bus.
- Support reduction of vehicle emissions to improve air quality.
- Mitigate noise pollution through technology and design.
- Improve access to green spaces, public rights of way and leisure, health and community facilities.
Road safety
This plan sets out responsibilities for improving road safety, particularly to reduce casualties and the perception of safety to enable safer journeys on networks for all users.
Similar to the majority of East Sussex County Councils geographies, there is a higher number of road traffic collisions that result in someone being killed or seriously injured (KSI’s) than the average for England. East Sussex County Council has a statutory duty to undertake studies into collisions and to take steps to both reduce and prevent them.
A challenge that the county faces is that many of the county’s roads were designed and constructed prior to modern standards, where safety is a key consideration of design. Hence, many of the roads are narrower, have more bends, have vegetation close to the road and different junction designs compared to more recently constructed roads (e.g. Bexhill-Hastings Link Road or new developments).
Improving road safety requires a partnership approach, and the County Council will continue to work with key partners within the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership (SSRP) to deliver innovative road safety education and training, alongside modern safety standards to be incorporated into the design and maintenance of transport interventions and networks.
Supporting healthy lifestyles
This plan will provide a shift towards supporting better health for all by supporting healthy lifestyles, specifically contributing to address health inequalities and disparities in public health across the County.
Walking, wheeling, or cycling for everyday journeys provides one of the most inclusive ways of enabling people to integrate more physical activity into their daily lives. The number of people using active travel modes nationally for short and medium trips has grown, which is also reflected in local walking trips in the County - 35% of adults in East Sussex walked continuously for at least 10 minutes (includes any continuous walk of at least 10 minutes. Includes walking for leisure, for travel, rambling/Nordic walking. Excludes hiking, mountain/hill walking, and walking around shops) at least five times per week, compared to 31% nationally. However, the proportion of adults cycling at least once per month has decreased from a peak of 15% in 2017 to 10% in 2021. This figure is below the national average of 13%.
Health inequality is a key factor in life expectancy. Hastings has the lowest life expectancy for both males (78 years) and females (81.8 years) compared to the rest of England, East Sussex and the south east. This difference is likely linked to deprivation levels, as 40% of residents in Hastings borough live in areas defined as amongst the most deprived 20% of areas in England. This figure is the highest amongst the districts and boroughs in East Sussex and the 31st highest (out of 296 local authorities) in England. The biggest causes of death between the most and least deprived areas of East Sussex are circulatory diseases, cancers, and respiratory diseases.
Obesity is also a key factor in health and life expectancy. In children, obesity amongst reception age children is most prevalent in Rother (23.5%), higher than the national average. In year 6 children, obesity is most prevalent in Hastings (38.4%), approximately 1% higher than the national average. In adults the levels are highest in Eastbourne, 68.3% of adults are classified as overweight or obese.
In terms of overall health Rother has the highest proportion of individuals in ‘very bad’ health and Hastings has the highest proportion of individuals in ‘bad’ health. Hastings has the highest proportion of inactive adults (27.3%), while Lewes has the highest proportion of active adults (71.9%) followed by Wealden. The East Sussex whole-system healthy weight plan 2021-2026 has been developed to address these issues and will be delivered in conjunction with East Sussex Local Transport Plan 4 (LTP4), and more specifically the East Sussex Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP).
This plan will directly support healthy lifestyles through:
- Enabling more active travel - greater priority towards integrated active travel infrastructure complemented by travel behaviour change initiatives in both urban and rural areas to support local connectivity.
- Design of places - delivering improvements to public places and the public realm within these, with partners, incorporating quality design, which is attractive, welcoming, safer for all and resilient to the impacts of climate change.
- Creating healthy places - greater integration between transport planning, health and spatial planning to create places to enable people to live well, as referred to in Homes England’s ‘Building for a Healthy Life Toolkit’. Providing clear consideration towards integrated neighbourhoods, developing distinctive places and creating streets for all.
More active travel
This plan will improve connectivity to enable people to travel by walking, wheeling and cycling, making it a natural choice for short journeys to access key services, such as employment, education or GPs, in both urban and rural areas.
The county is also fortunate to be home to the South Downs National Park to the south, High Weald National Landscape in the north and picturesque stretches of coastline. Having these environmental assets in East Sussex makes the county a very desirable and attractive place to live, work and visit. As funding is available the plan will deliver enhanced active travel infrastructure (including access for people horse riding), integrating with public transport to enable more people to access these environmental assets and spaces sustainably supporting health and quality of life.
New infrastructure will be designed to be inclusive and accessible as possible and practicable. It will be delivered across the county and connect with cross boundary routes as reflected in Transport for the South East’s Active Travel Strategy, to increase participation in active travel trips within and between urban town centres and rural and local centres, integrating with other modes across county boundaries (particularly rail and bus and at transport interchanges (mobility hubs)), and bringing more people within reach of an active travel network.
East Sussex County Council and key partners ambition for Active Travel is reflective of the Department for Transport’s (DfT) Gear Change strategy, published in July 2020, which sets out a bold vision for cycling and walking, and outlines DfT’s plans to revolutionise active travel. It focuses on the need for:
- Healthier, happier and greener communities.
- Safer streets.
- Convenient and accessible travel.
- Ensuring active travel is at the heart of transport decision-making.
Complementary to Gear Change is the DfT’s second Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS2), published in March 2023. CWIS2 sets out an ambition for ‘walking, wheeling and cycling to be the natural choice for shorter journeys, or as part of a longer journeys’. In turn, supported by a series of objectives to increase the percentage of short journeys in towns by walking and cycling, increase walking activity, doubling cycling activity and increasing the percentage of children walking to school.
This plan, including the policies and the accompanying Investment Plan, demonstrates East Sussex County Council and their partners commitment to increasing active travel and reflects the vision and aims in DfT’s Gear Change and CWIS2.
Changes to the Highway Code in 2022 emphasised the relative importance of active travel, establishing a hierarchy of road users based on those most at risk in collisions, giving pedestrians priority when crossing junctions and giving cyclists priority over other road traffic when going straight ahead at junctions.
Local Authority Active Travel Performance and Commitment to Improvement
- To drive up the standards of active travel infrastructure delivered by local authorities, Active Travel England was established in August 2022. They are responsible for the allocation of active travel funding, monitoring of performance, approval and inspection of schemes, provision of training, good practice and knowledge sharing. They also inspect local transport authorities and review major planning applications.
- East Sussex County Council has a local authority active travel capability rating of 1.The rating is based on an authorities leadership towards active travel, ambition (in terms of LCWIP development) and a track record of delivery of active travel schemes that will support the objectives set out in CWIS2. This rating influences the amount of funding that local authorities are allocated.
- This plan, and more specifically the East Sussex LCWIP, demonstrates the County Council’s and their partners ambition for raising the County Councils active travel capability rating across the three key areas that Active Travel England (ATE) assess.
- Political leadership for active travel – With a high priority attributed to active travel for both urban and rural areas and within this county wide multi modal transport strategy, there is strong political leadership for active travel which will provide a golden thread into scheme delivery.
- LCWIP Development – A robust commitment for more active travel is included in this plan with a commitment to review the East Sussex LCWIP in 2024/25 to ensure alignment with this plan and which will include an emphasis on developing, subject to funding availability, a robust pipeline of deliverable active travel schemes.
- Scheme delivery – A commitment to the design and delivery of high-quality active travel schemes, that will consider the latest government guidance on infrastructure design (LTN 1/20) alongside the latest ATE active travel design tools.
Design of active travel infrastructure and places
People are influenced by several factors in choosing to walk or cycle for all or part of regular journeys. These are often influenced by the design, quality of infrastructure provided and perception of safety.
Our first Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) adopted in September 2020 sets out early ambition for the types of active travel infrastructure schemes proposed to bring forward. To reflect ambitions in this plan for active travel, the updated LCWIP will reflect the East Sussex LTP4 approach for active travel and consider new national policy, guidance and tools in relation to active travel.
To encourage an increase in walking, wheeling and cycling, partners will deliver inclusive active travel infrastructure and the segregation between modes, where feasible and where space is available in both urban and rural areas. As set out in Policy B2, infrastructure will take into consideration the LTN 1/20 guidance for cycle infrastructure design, emerging Active Travel England rural active travel guidance and the outcomes of stakeholder and public engagement.
From a policy perspective the design of streets and public spaces will reflect those that enable the creation of ‘active environments’ and a sense of place, including walkable communities, providing active travel routes, providing high quality streets and spaces, as referred to in Sport England’s Active Design principles. (See Policy B2 for further details.)
At a scheme development level the County Council has adopted Lucy Saunders’ ‘Healthy Streets’ approach with the overarching aim of ‘Making streets healthy places for everyone’. As outlined in Policy B4, it focuses on assessing how people experience being on streets and includes a series of ten ‘Healthy Street Indicators, which are assessed to drive a change in how streets and places are designed and ultimately how they will look and feel.
Importantly active travel schemes, especially with improvements to places, will need to be resilient to the impacts of climate change through consideration of measures such as provision urban greening (vegetation and trees) providing shade, benches and materials which are reflective of heat etc.) as outlined in Policy A3.
Consulting and engaging with communities on Active Travel Schemes
- Equality and inclusion provide a golden thread throughout this plan. For active travel it considers the influences or barriers on travel behaviour, especially people with protected characteristics, the differing needs of urban or rural communities and consideration towards health and economic disparities in the county.
- Equality and inclusion do not apply solely to the design and delivery of schemes and initiatives. With a ‘planning for people and places’ approach, inclusive engagement will be a key driver in this plan. Proactive and inclusive engagement will be integrated from the outset of scheme development to enable those who do not usually participate to have a voice. The county and their partners (including the voluntary sector) will bring together communities and/or stakeholders to co-design particular types of schemes that they want to see come forward within their areas, subject to the availability of funding (for example school streets).
Travel behaviour change
Complementing the delivery of active travel infrastructure schemes with initiatives and training to demonstrate that walking and cycling can be convenient, quick, safe and reliable for everyday journeys, can help transition peoples travel behaviours towards using more active travel.
East Sussex County Council and their partners have experience of delivering ‘Active Travel Programmes’ working with schools, businesses and communities to deliver walking and cycling initiatives. Previously delivered initiatives include cycle and e-cycle hire schemes, supported walking and cycling projects such as Sustrans Active Steps, the development of active travel maps with Living Streets and the East Sussex County Council Bikeability scheme.
Travel behaviour is often complex and influenced by several factors including people’s daily habits, the stage of their life and accompanying time pressures, attitudes to travel and crucially structural factors, such as availability, accessibility, location and cost of infrastructure. This plan will work with partners and communities to seek funding to develop and deliver programmes, which enable people to feel more confident and able to walk, wheel and cycle more for local journeys or as part of longer journeys.
Healthy Places
This plan provides a basis for East Sussex County Council, the district and borough councils, the South Downs National Park Authority (SDNPA) and other key partners to integrate transport planning, health and spatial planning to create places to enable people to live well.
This partnership work is strengthened through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which sets out how the Public Health Team within the County Council and all local planning authorities (LPAs) will work together to deliver the County Council’s statutory public health responsibilities and LPAs duties to deliver relevant elements of the National Planning Policy Framework through the planning system, with transport being a key element.
Part of this approach is the use of ‘Health Impact Assessments’ at an appropriate stage of the development process, which assess the health impacts of a development on people and their environment. Reinforcing opportunities for sustainable and active travel to be included as part of development.
The County Council will work in partnership with developers and the district and boroughs to seek the adoption of design codes which reflect various national guidance and toolkits in relation to the design of active travel infrastructure and places. These include the Homes England Building for a Healthy Life Toolkit (and its companion guide - Streets for a Healthy Life), Sport England’s Active Design principles, DfT Manual for Streets, DfT’s Local Transport Note (LTN) 1/20 and Healthy Streets. Enabling the County Council to work with local planning authorities and developers to realise a spatial strategy that embraces the development of healthy places.
Delivering these objectives
These objectives will be delivered through the following policy areas:
- Policy B1: Healthy Lifestyles.
- Policy B2: Active travel.
- Policy B3: Road Safety.
- Policy B4: Placemaking.
- Policy B5: Air quality.
- Policy B6: Green and blue infrastructure.
- Policy B7: Rights of Way.
Policy B1: Healthy lifestyles
Context
Public Health England’s ‘Everybody Active, Everyday’ sets out an evidence-based approach to drive a step change in public health. It identifies the following key action areas.
- Active society: creating a social movement and changing people’s attitudes.
- Moving professionals: activating networks of expertise and persuading people to be more active.
- Active environments: creating the right spaces that encourage being active.
- Moving at scale: interventions that make people active.
Active travel is the healthiest mode of transport. Those who walk, wheel and cycle as a mode of transport benefit from ‘incidental’ exercise. Active travel is one of the easiest ways to build in daily activity to people’s lives, improving both physical and mental health. Physical inactivity is responsible for one in six UK deaths (equal to smoking) and is estimated to cost the UK £7.4 billion annually (including £0.9 billion to the NHS alone). This improved connectivity can support access for all including vulnerable groups, and people in more deprived areas reducing health inequality and creating more attractive socially cohesive communities.
Issues/opportunities
Repurposing and redefining public spaces and the public realm can help to create environments which are health promoting and encourage healthy lifestyles, reducing health inequalities.
Creation of places that are well designed, attractive, safe, and inclusive improves connectivity and walkability, reduces social isolation and improves community cohesion and enables more sustainable use of the built and natural environment.
Active travel participation is growing nationally, and this increase was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Locally whilst walking is above the national average and cycling below, there are opportunities to increase the proportion of active travel journeys through continuing to improve active travel infrastructure and integration between modes, training and initiatives and travel behaviour change programmes.
Provision of active travel infrastructure both within and between coastal towns, local centres, connectivity to cross boundary active travel routes and within rural villages can improve access to education, training, and employment, supporting sustainable economic growth, whilst also encouraging more people to travel by active modes for more healthy lifestyles.
Active travel can also provide fast and convenient options for short sections of longer journeys. For example, from home to a railway station or bus stop. These opportunities allow people to build incidental exercise into their daily routine.
With the development of housing and employment sites through the development and delivery of local plans, there is a need to ensure that they are safe, easily accessible and navigable by people walking, wheeling and cycling, thereby supporting better connected, accessible and liveable neighbourhoods and helping to create quality environments for people to thrive.
Component policy measures
In summary policies will focus on:
- Reducing physical inactivity through active travel infrastructure, education, training, initiatives, behaviour change programmes and promotion and targeting these towards people who will benefit most.
- Reducing air pollution through supporting zero and low emissions transport options and the greening of infrastructure.
- Improving public spaces and public realm to improve safety.
- Increasing access to employment, education, and training.
- Increasing access to health care and leisure and community facilities / amenities.
- Ensuring East Sussex County Council, local planning authorities in East Sussex and developers work in partnership to ensure development incorporates high quality walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure that importantly connects into wider active travel networks and integrates with other transport infrastructure (including bus and rail).
- Planning and delivering transport options that increase climate change resilience in ways that promote population health and reduced health inequalities, including by taking a system-wide approach with partners.
Policy B2: Active travel
This policy sets out the ambition for active travel (walking, wheeling, cycling) and consideration to horse riding where applicable in the County. The County Council and their partners want to make walking, wheeling and cycling part of people’s everyday lives and for it to be the natural choice, as it benefits people’s health, the environment and economy.
If partners can enable people to be physically active it helps delay the onset of many health conditions, especially as people age, alongside the crucial benefits to mental health. It helps to reduce congestion and vehicle emissions, improving air quality and makes villages and towns healthier and more vibrant places to live.
The availability of active travel infrastructure and the quality of the design are key drivers for enabling people to choose more walking, wheeling and cycling in both urban and rural areas.
This policy is reflective of current and future proposals for the East Sussex LCWIP. It demonstrates East Sussex County Council’s and their partners commitment to increasing active travel, reflecting the vision and aims DfT’s Gear Change and the second Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy and importantly raising their national active travel performance rating.
An ambitious and inclusive programme of active travel schemes and initiatives across the county that balances the needs of all users, especially more vulnerable users, where feasible and practicable is proposed. Proposals include exploring opportunities to enhance existing and new active travel networks and the redesign of road space, where possible whilst also balancing other needs, to create conditions that make all people feel safer and more comfortable walking, wheeling and cycling.
It is proposed to provide connected active travel routes, which are safer, continuous, direct and attractive alongside walkable communities in key urban areas including Newhaven, Eastbourne, Bexhill and Hastings and local active travel enhancements in local centres including Lewes, Uckfield, Crowborough, Battle and Rye, as well as in villages. These routes are alongside considering opportunities for improving connectivity between these areas, for example inter-urban routes between major towns (such as Hailsham – Uckfield) or connectivity from villages to key service centres, such as Ringmer to Lewes.
Where an active travel route runs parallel to a major road, the scheme will be designed to consider the opportunities for segregation, (where feasible), between active travel routes and the main carriageway enhancing safety and improving the experience of walking, wheeling, or cycling (for example the National Highways active travel improvements alongside the A27 between Polegate and Firle). By improving active travel facilities, there is an opportunity to enhance the ‘liveability’ of local environment and reduce safety concerns by exploring the opportunities for modal segregation.
The LTN 1/20 Cycle Infrastructure Design Guidance considers the principles of design at all stages including journey origins to destinations, safety, junctions design, crossings, cycle parking, signage and wayfinding. Whilst these standards will be considered as part of East Sussex County Council scheme designs, and will require other parties to also consider these, including developers. The implementation of these standards will be dependent on-site specifics when particularly needing to balance the competing needs of all road users with highway space often limited in many areas of the county. The emerging ATE Active Travel Rural guidance, when it becomes available, will be considered.
The East Sussex LCWIP 2021 to 2030 sets out a plan to improve walking, wheeling, and cycling infrastructure, initially focused on the key towns located on the coastal strip and local centres, as well as the rural parts of the county. It includes a list of prioritised schemes for delivery by key partners. It will be a supporting document to the LTP and will be subject to review in 2024/25. With the aim of accelerating the delivery of active travel schemes in the County, this review will include the following:
- Review of current and proposed networks and the inclusion of more area based active travel opportunities.
- The opportunities to align the LCWIP with other key strategies, particularly with the East Sussex County Council Bus Service Improvement Plan, Asset Management Strategy and district and borough local plans.
- Review the processes and funding opportunities associated with the delivery of active travel
The East Sussex LCWIP also identifies the importance of complementing the delivery of active travel infrastructure schemes with initiatives that help people incorporate more walking and cycling into their everyday The LCWIP will support future applications for funding to enable East Sussex County Council, other key partners and communities to deliver active travel initiative programmes which provide cross policy benefits.
Issues/opportunities
There is a need to increase the proportion of people walking and cycling. Currently 35% of adults in East Sussex walked continuously for at least 10 minutes (includes any continuous walk of at least 10 minutes. Includes walking for leisure, for travel, rambling/Nordic walking. Excludes hiking, mountain/hill walking, and walking around shops) at least five times per week, nationally this figure is 31%. The proportion of adults cycling at least once per month has decreased from a peak of 15% in 2017 to 10% in 2021. This figure is below the national average of 13%.
High-quality cycle routes can transport high volumes of people through a relatively limited amount of road space, making them very efficient within urban environments. Most journeys to work in East Sussex are within 5km so there is potential for a greater proportion of residents to walk, wheel or cycle for their commute, where space is available for the delivery of segregated cycle routes.
Greater integration of active travel networks with other modes will provide a sustainable last-mile option for rail and bus users, in many cases removing the need to drive to a station or access a bus stop, enhancing accessibility opportunities for all journeys.
Ensuring access to micromobility solutions for all users, including those with reduced mobility and families through implementation of shared bike, e-bike, and other future mobility schemes can increase participation in active modes by sections of the population who are less likely to currently use these modes.
Ensuring the LCWIP is reflected and developed further as part of the development and delivery of local plans so that development sites are sustainably located and fully consider walking, wheeling and cycling accessibility within and to and from the site.
Ensuring active travel is considered as part of network and area-based schemes.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Reviewing and delivering the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan which includes a robust pipeline of deliverable active travel schemes for networks and places and ensuring a balance of schemes to support walking, wheeling and cycling.
- Planning, designing, delivering, and maintaining new and enhanced high quality infrastructure to support more walking, wheeling and cycling that considers national infrastructure guidance and best practice. (as outlined in Manual for Streets, DfT LTN 1/20 and Healthy Streets).
- Promoting safer, more accessible, and quicker travel by active travel modes integrating with public transport.
- Integrate active travel infrastructure and initiatives with other strategy documents (i.e. East Sussex Bus Service Improvement Plan, local planning authorities Local Plans, Transport for the South East’s (TfSE) Transport Strategy and the TfSE Active Travel Strategy) to increase the opportunities to secure funding to deliver these types of measures.
- Providing high-quality inclusive public spaces and public realm as part of placemaking schemes.
- Delivering walking and cycling initiative programmes which support travel behaviour change with key local partners and communities alongside identifying opportunities for the funding of these.
- Review the East Sussex Sustainable Modes of Travel Strategy (SMOT) to enhance the promotion of sustainable travel to school.
Policy B3: Road safety
Context
This policy recognises responsibilities regarding improving road safety, particularly to reduce casualties, and enable safer journeys on networks for all users.
Nationally, the Department for Transport Road Safety Statement 2019, sets out an approach to improve road safety, with an emphasis on the need to reduce casualties. Including:
- Increasing road safety education and training.
- Ensuring that vehicles are safe for drivers, passengers, and other highways users.
- Making sure that highways are designed and maintained with safety in mind.
Locally the delivery of this approach is co-ordinated by the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership and brings together the highway authorities of East Sussex County Council, West Sussex County Council, Brighton and Hove City Council. Alongside Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service and National Highways.
In more recent government documents, including the second Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, published by the DfT in 2023, which identifies “tackling road safety and personal safety concerns, which may influence levels of walking, wheeling and cycling” as one of its key investment priorities. This priority is reflected in the East Sussex Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan and is a key consideration when designing schemes.
Road Safety in East Sussex
Similar to the majority of County Councils, East Sussex County Council has a higher number of road traffic collisions that result in someone being killed or seriously injured (KSI’s) than the average for England. For the three year period 2017-2019 the average rate of KSIs for England was 43.2 per 100,000 population, compared to a rate of 73.7 for Hampshire, 72.0 for Cambridgeshire 68.1 for East Sussex and 59.7 for West Sussex.
Therefore, the focus for East Sussex County Council is fundamentally to:
- Meet the County Council’s obligations under section 39 of the Road Traffic Act, which puts a "statutory duty" on local authorities to undertake studies into road traffic collisions, and to take steps both to reduce and prevent them.
- Reduce crash sites and casualties.
- Deliver measures to support vulnerable road users.
Understanding how to reduce crashes and save lives - East Sussex County Council Road Safety Programme
Recent evidence of the County Councils commitment to study, identify and deliver road safety solutions are reflected in East Sussex County Council innovative programme Understanding how to reduce crashes and save lives: the East Sussex Road Safety Programme | East Sussex County Council.
Following identification, that the county had a higher-than-average KSI rate, in the Public Health Outcomes Framework, an evidence-led programme was developed. Testing the effectiveness of a variety of behavioural interventions to change the behaviour of road users with the aim of reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI’s) within identified priority groups.
National evidence which underpinned the programme indicated that the vast majority of KSI’s and over 90% of collisions resulted from driver carelessness or error. Therefore, the programme developed and implemented trials to improve road safety through behavioural interventions alongside targeted infrastructure and speed management schemes at high-risk sites.
The trials during the programme resulted in several positive outcomes including, a significant reduction in speeding re-offending by 23%, and reductions in the average number of crashes and casualties per annum at identified and treated high-risk sites of 49% and 61%. A second phase of this programme is currently being developed.
Casualty Reduction Programme
The County Council’s current approach to casualty reduction, based on national best practice, is to identify sites or routes that display a disproportionate number of crashes and identify appropriate measures to reduce crashes. These are prioritised for inclusion in the capital programme.
Lower Speed Limits including 20mph Speed Limits and Zones
To be effective, speed limits need to be set at a level which appears reasonable to a driver and be reflective of the environment through which the road passes. The introduction of a lower speed limit will not automatically slow traffic down. It is nationally recognised that most drivers travel at the speed they consider to be safe for the conditions of the road, based on their assessment of the local environment. There are several factors that are taken into consideration when assessing a length of road for a speed limit, with the predominant factors being the character and appearance of the road, the level of visible frontage development and the average speed of traffic using the road.
The delivery of lower speed limits including 20mph speed limits and zones in the County is done in accordance with East Sussex County Council adopted Policy PS05/02. This policy reflects national guidance and best practice for setting speed limits.
The policy allows for lower speed limits, including the introduction of 20mph speed limits/zones, to be considered where they are likely to be self-enforcing. The introduction of a 20-mph speed limit can be achieved with signs alone on roads where the mean (average) speed of traffic is below 24mph. On roads where mean speeds are higher, appropriate traffic management/calming measures would need to be introduced to enable them to be self-enforcing.
Issues/opportunities
Similar to the majority of County Councils, East Sussex has a higher number of road traffic collisions that result in someone being killed or seriously injured than the average for England.
Numbers of KSIs on the county’s rural A and B class roads are higher than the England average and perform poorly compared to roads built to modern standards. Predominantly due to them being of poorer quality in terms of design (width, bends, junction layouts and roadside furniture/trees being present).
Between 2015 and 2020 in East Sussex, there were 10,624 casualties reported from 7,738 accidents. Of these casualties, 1% were fatal, 24% serious and 75% slight. Targeted site/route specific engineering measures, such as schemes which develop self-explaining roads can support a reduction in the numbers of collisions and severity of casualties that result from those collisions.
Sussex Safer Roads Partnership delivers a number of campaigns including events focussed around reducing drink driving, set expectations of drivers to pass safely around vulnerable highways users (for example, pedestrians, wheelers, and cyclists) and encouraging vulnerable highways users to wear bright clothing to increase their visibility. These campaigns will continue to increase awareness of transport safety issues and encourage people to do what they can to keep themselves and others safer.
In line with the transport user hierarchy set out in the overarching strategy chapter (chapter 4), active travel infrastructure which separates pedestrians, wheelers and cyclists from other highway users can help to enhance safety (both perception and actual) will be included as part of designs, where deliverable, to help to remove one of the key barriers to active travel participation). There may be barriers to overcome, such as people being deterred from active travel due to the negative impact of fear from perceived and actual poor road safety.
In alignment with the East Sussex County Council Asset Management Strategy prioritisation will be given towards the maintenance of the existing highway assets to provide a transport network which is as safe as possible for all users.
With SSRP Partners the County Council will continue to embrace a ‘Vision Zero’ approach (based on the belief that no death or serious injury is acceptable on roads). The system requires coordination of multiple agencies (of which East Sussex County Council is one) to work together in partnership to improve road safety.
Component policy measures
In summary policies will focus on:
- Taking a multi-agency approach to improving road safety.
- Committing to continuous and comprehensive monitoring and evaluation of key road safety indicators in partnership with Sussex Safer Roads Partnership.
- Supporting improvement in road user behaviour through road safety engineering, education, training, and publicity programmes.
- Minimising risk to all road users through early Road Safety Team engagement at the design stages of any highway improvement schemes and development work.
- Fulfilling the County Councils statutory duties under S39 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 to reduce collisions and injury on the county’s road network.
- Working as one council to promote sustainable transport and identify opportunities for reducing dependency on car-use.
Policy B4: Placemaking
Context
Placemaking is about creating quality environments to enable people to thrive whether it be to live, work or play in urban or rural areas. It is focussed on the design of high-quality streets, spaces and neighbourhoods, enabling interaction between people and providing an environment for walking, wheeling and cycling to be the natural choice. Public spaces need to be accessible, safer and inclusive for all people to accommodate how people use these spaces in different ways (for example children, disabled people, and older people) and enable the whole community to improve their health and wellbeing.
Co-design is an important element of placemaking. Helping strengthen the connection and understanding between people (communities, businesses etc.) as part of the design process and ensures that all user needs are considered as part of the places that they use and share.
This co-design approach has successfully been used with stakeholders in the plans to improve movement and access in Eastbourne Town Centre with the removal of traffic from the town centre, moving towards creating a more ‘liveable town’. As part of the scheme design work East Sussex County Council employed an independent access auditor to assess the scheme design to consider accessibility needs for both people with physical and hidden disabilities. This approach enabled a series of recommended improvements to the design to be developed and working in partnership with the county council and the local disability group to agree changes to the design.
A similar co-design approach has also been used in the development of School Streets schemes and wider measures to support safer and more accessible journeys to school, providing benefits which are twofold for the school and wider community.
We understand the overwhelming evidence which indicates that the wider determinants of health are influenced by the physical environment, access, traffic, and the impact that these have on health behaviours. Alongside the wider benefits to businesses from more attractive and welcoming environments. So, this plan will embrace the need for people friendly streets and places with attractive walkable environments providing easy access and opportunities for interaction. In the design of streets and public spaces East Sussex County Council and their partners are committed to adopting the ‘Healthy Streets’ assessment framework, with the overarching aim of ‘Making streets healthy places for everyone’.
The Healthy Streets assessment focuses on assessing how people experience being on streets. It includes a series of ten ‘Healthy Street Indicators, which are assessed to drive a change in how streets and places and designed and ultimately how they will look and feel:
- Everyone feels welcome.
- Easy to cross.
- Shade and shelter.
- Places to stop and rest.
- Not too noisy.
- People choose to walk and cycle.
- People feel safe.
- Things to see and do.
- People feel relaxed.
- Clean air.
Consideration must be given to the fact that some areas of the public realm in East Sussex are of a historic nature or are within areas with environmental designation. Examples include historic centres of Rye, Maresfield and Lewes, the South Downs National Park, the High Weald National Landscape, and the seafronts in Seaford, Eastbourne, Bexhill and Hastings. Guided by the principles outlined in ‘Streets for all: South East’, there is a need to ensure that public spaces are appropriately maintained and managed to retain the historic character of the county whilst allowing for contemporary needs. Including respecting designated Conservation Areas. However, this approach, with the replacement of non-standard materials will be dependent on available funding. There are also links to policy D4: Supporting sustainable development and development control.
It will also be critical that these approaches are integrated through partnership work with LPA’s and developers to enable well designed development and the opportunities to create high quality public spaces and infrastructure. This approach will be supported through the use of Health Impact Assessments at all stages of local plan development and delivery, which has been adopted by East Sussex County Council and the local planning authorities within the County.
Issues/opportunities
There is an opportunity through public space enhancement to increase accessibility, attractiveness and reduce barriers and severance to encourage greater uptake of active travel modes, improve connectivity, social cohesion and increase permeability.
Public space enhancements will provide opportunities for social interaction reducing social isolation and creating community cohesion.
Introduction of natural features such as tree planting and other greening measures can improve mental health, provide shade, and support better adaption to climate change.
Working with developers, well designed developments present the opportunity to create new public spaces or enhance the existing public realm.
Working with partners to ensure whole life scheme maintenance costs are considered to ensure that these are affordable.
Working with disabled access groups as part of scheme development (especially development of public spaces) to ensure accessibility needs are considered as part of the design.
Adopt a Healthy Streets approach to street and place design with the overarching aim of ‘Making streets healthy places for everyone’.
Creating streets and places where people feel welcome, relaxed, and safer.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Working with appropriate partners to provide public spaces where practicable and a public realm that is maintained, safe, well designed, inclusive, and accessible for all users.
- Ensuring other transport schemes enhance the public realm.
- Ensuring that the maintenance of the public realm is appropriately prioritised within the funding available.
- Redesigning streets within urban areas where feasible to provide opportunities to create more space for improved public realm.
- Reducing perceived risks to crime through enhancements to public realm including lighting, natural surveillance, and clear signage.
- Undertake access audits for key public space and town centre schemes to enable accessibility needs of disabled people to be included as part of scheme design.
- East Sussex County Council and partners public space schemes to be assessed using the Healthy Streets assessment tool and other key Active Travel England guidance.
- Plan and deliver places to increase climate change resilience in ways that promote population health and reduced health inequalities, including by taking a system-wide approach with partners.
Policy B5: Air quality
Context
In April 2023, the government published its Air Quality Strategy for England, outlining legally binding international targets already adopted to reduce emissions of five of the most damaging air pollutants (fine particulate matter, ammonia, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, non-methane volatile organic compounds) by 2030. The strategy sets out the comprehensive action that is required and introduces new legislation to create a stronger and more coherent framework to tackle air pollution. Local authorities are empowered to control major sources of air and noise pollution, in line with the risk they pose to public health and the environment. There will also be a requirement for Local Authorities to establish Air Quality Strategies regardless of whether they have Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) within their areas on not.
Issues/opportunities
East Sussex has two Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs), both in Lewes District - Lewes town centre and A259 Newhaven ring road and town centre. Supporting residents to use sustainable and active modes can reduce the levels of emissions and particulates, enhancing air quality in these areas and throughout the county. Notably to address particulates from brakes, tyre and road wear and tear, which occur even in zero emission vehicles.
Air quality in these AQMAs has been improving considerably, in response to actions taken as part of Air Quality Action Plans. With substantial population growth forecast for the area there is likely to be an increase in demand for travel to, from and within the area. The lessons learnt from successful Air Quality Management Areas will help to mitigate against any risk of worsening air quality caused by this increased transport demand.
Delivering interventions which reduce vehicle mileage, shift journeys to sustainable modes such as walking, cycling and public transport and improve the transport infrastructure and vehicle fleet to enable sufficient uptake of lower emission transport modes can all be deployed to support achievement of these Air Quality Management Plan objectives.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Investigating the potential for traffic management schemes in the centres of largest urban areas.
- Reducing the need to travel by higher polluting transport modes through better, integrated spatial and transport planning.
- Promoting less polluting forms of travel (for example, active travel, public transport, and electric vehicles) for people and goods movement.
- Assisting local planning authorities in the development and implementation of Air Quality Strategies and Action Plans to ensure agreed targets are met.
- Harnessing improvements to vehicle technology, including the use of ultra-low and zero emission vehicles and fuels.
- Further developing the County Council’s School Streets programme to restrict vehicle access outside schools at drop off and pick-up times, thereby reducing levels of pollutants in their vicinity.
- Working with partners and communities to co-develop, seek funding and deliver travel behaviour change programmes, to support walking, wheeling and cycling.
Policy B6: Improved access to green and blue infrastructure
Context
Access to green and blue infrastructure provides multiple benefits to health and wellbeing, but also to environmental management and the climate. This plan identifies the opportunities of integrating these benefits as part of the design of infrastructure and places.
Green and blue infrastructure is defined by the National Planning Policy Framework (2021) as ‘A network of multi-functional green and blue spaces and other natural features, urban and rural, which is capable of delivering a wide range of environmental, economic, health and wellbeing benefits for nature, climate’. The infrastructure includes natural and human-made features such as open spaces, woodlands, meadows, footpaths, the sea, rivers, canals, and historic parks. Natural England’s Green Infrastructure Framework (2023) provides a further point of reference as to what good quality green infrastructure should look like.
The Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation suggests “Green and Blue Infrastructure can play an important role across our highway network in promoting healthy and safe communities, as well as helping to deliver net zero targets, adapting to climate change, and conserving and enhancing the natural environment.”
In terms of places, the ‘Building for a Healthy Life’ – A Design Toolkit for neighbourhoods, streets, homes and public spaces highlights the need to ‘Create places that are well integrated to wider natural surroundings, as well as ‘connecting existing and new habitats, safeguarding existing or creating new movement corridors for nature as part of design and connections with the wider highway network’.
Green infrastructure to improve biodiversity is being integrated into wider town centre improvement schemes which include enhancing the quality of the public realm. Alongside developing sustainable access to nearby green spaces.
Issues/opportunities
Incorporating green and blue infrastructure in new or existing transport networks can influence flood management, carbon reduction, noise and air pollution supporting many objectives of this LTP include decarbonisation, health, and resilience.
There is an opportunity to integrate green and blue infrastructure in the planning of new developments from the outset to help develop more sustainable and healthy communities.
Enhancing green and blue infrastructure can create or enhance major economic and tourism opportunities.
Enhanced access to green and blue infrastructure can support health and wellbeing benefits.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Providing enhanced access by sustainable modes to the natural environment and green spaces (green infrastructure) as well as waterways and the sea (blue infrastructure).
- Managing and improving the existing Rights of Way network through the Rights of Way Improvement Plan.
- Considering the needs of land management, flood prevention and resilience, conservation, heritage and concern about rural crime and anti-social behaviour in the management and improvement of access to green spaces and waterways (blue infrastructure).
Establishing formalised systems to include green and blue infrastructure within existing highway networks and planned improvements, especially at the crucial stages of planning, design and delivery, adoption and maintenance.
Policy B7: Rights of Way
Context
Having access to the natural environment supports people’s health and wellbeing. East Sussex has an extensive Public Rights of Way (PRoW) network, which extends for a combined distance of around 2,000 miles.
Rights of way are official public highways across privately owned land. These can include the following:
- Footpath – for walking, running or wheeling.
- Bridleway – for cycling, walking, wheeling or horse riding.
- Restricted Byway – for any transport without a motor and wheeling.
- Byway open to all traffic (BOAT) – for all transport.
Both the county council and landowners are responsible for maintenance of the rights of way networks. Public access may also be permitted along permissive routes, but landowners reserve the right to withdraw access at any given time.
The County Council is currently reviewing its ‘Rights of Way Improvement Plan (RoWIP)’. The ROWIP sets out the County Council’s plans to improve the public rights of way network and access to the countryside. There is a duty to review the plan every ten years. The review is at an early stage and there is engagement with the East Sussex Local Access Forum, a statutory group of experts who provide access advice to the County Council, to develop the next Plan. Aligning with key county and partners strategies in regard to environment, transport, health, economy and spatial planning.
Promoted rights of way routes in East Sussex
There are a number of promoted rights of way routes in the county. These include:
- The South Downs Way - this 100-mile National Trail walking route follows ancient paths across the South Downs from Eastbourne to Winchester.
- The Cuckoo Trail – This 14-mile surfaced path follows the former ‘Cuckoo Line’ railway track through the Sussex countryside and stretches from Heathfield to Shinewater Park in Eastbourne passing through Horam, Hailsham and Polegate. It is mostly traffic free and is a safe route for walkers and cyclists of all ages, forming part of the National Cycle Network – route 21.
- Forest Way Country Park - The Forest Way runs between East Grinstead (in West Sussex) and Groombridge, it is approximately 10 miles long and is used for cycling, walking, wheeling, horse riding and the quiet enjoyment of the countryside.
- Wealdway – an 81 mile walk from Gravesend to Eastbourne which passes through the Ashdown Forest and past the Long Man of Wilmington.
- 1066 Country Walk - This 31-mile walk runs from Rye to Pevensey, exploring sites linked to the Battle of Hastings.
- Saxon Shore Way – a 163-mile path that starts in Gravesend in Kent and finishes in Hastings which traces the shoreline as it was in Roman times.
- Sussex Ouse Valley Way - A 42-mile continuous path, starting near the source of the River Ouse at Lower Beeding in West Sussex to Seaford Bay in East Sussex.
- Circular walks of various lengths across the County.
- The South East England Coast Path National Trail (SEECP), part of the King Charles III England Coast Path) is due to be fully open by 2024/25. At present the parts of the Shoreham-by-Sea to Eastbourne and Camber to Folkestone sections in East Sussex are open to the public.
Issues/opportunities
The network of public rights of way (PRoW) provides off-road routes between settlements. Building on this network, primarily through ongoing maintenance and access improvements can provide better routes for walking, wheeling, and cycling avoiding the main highways network. In alignment with the East Sussex LCWIP and Rights of Way Improvement Plan, enhancing the safety and attractiveness of these modes for inter urban trips allowing people of all abilities to feel comfortable using them for leisure and commuting purposes. Enhancements as part of development, section 106 and Community Infrastructure Levy funding can also assist in funding the delivery of these improvements, where public rights of way pass through or near development sites.
East Sussex County Council responsible for surface repairs, provision of surface vegetation clearance, maintenance of bridges, appropriate signposting, and provision of steps. Ensuring that PRoW’s are well maintained can help encourage use of the routes, safeguarding the safety and enjoyment of journeys taken on them.
The County Council works closely with landowners, ensuring they are aware of their legal obligations with regards to PRoW. Helping to ensure that the network remains open and accessible to the public.
PRoW identified as a key element of the local visitor economy and providing connectivity to cultural and tourist sites.
Greater promotion of PRoW in relation to supporting access to the natural environment and the growing evidence towards supporting mental health alongside physical activity.
The role of spatial planning in protecting the existing access to PRoW alongside enhancing public access as part of development of housing and employment activity.
Greater opportunities to integrate access to PRoW using public transport.
Close links will be developed between this Plan and the RoWIP, which is currently under review.
Component policy measures
In summary policies measures will focus on:
- Developing a network which is accessible and encourages healthy lifestyles.
- Integrating new development into the ProW network while maintaining or enhancing access.
- Making available high quality, definitive information, maps, and records on the network.
- Working with landowners to help balance public access and land management needs.
- Ensuring access to ProW is inclusive and working with landowners to provide access to all where possible.
- Promoting the provision of accessible transport information.
- Enable and encourage sustainable access to the PRoW network by walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport in association with travel demand measures.
- Ensure alignment of ROWIP with key county and partners strategies regarding the environment, transport, health, economy and spatial planning.
7. Integrated and accessible transport for all
Introduction
This chapter is about the opportunities for integrating infrastructure and services to improve all aspects of the public transport passenger experience to enable seamless and accessible journeys The aim is to focus on ensuring that as many people as possible can readily access high quality, frequent and reliable public transport provision. Alongside access to local active travel networks to ensure people have travel choices, as outlined in chapter 6 – Safer, healthier and more active travel.
An integrated transport network, along with attractive ticketing arrangements, will also support accessibility, therefore it is proposed improved interchange between modes of travel (mobility hubs) at busier interchange locations to support seamless journeys. It is recognised that access to the car is essential for some journeys, especially in more rural areas of the County, so there is a need to support communities in enabling access to options for cleaner fuels or energy sources.
Click here for a larger version of Figure 7 'Key Schemes for Theme C' in pdf format [1.8 MB] [pdf]
A full list of schemes presented in this map is available in Appendix B.
Integrated and seamless travel
We propose an integrated transport network that allows as many residents as possible to the make the trips they need to make by public transport by making services affordable and accessible. It also recognises the importance of improved connectivity between the first and last mile part of journeys (i.e. walking from home to/from the bus stop or cycling to the railway station) and that these can be barriers to using available public transport services. It is aimed to:
- Create and enhance an inclusive transport network for all users.
- Improve interchange between travel modes.
- Improve access to key local services (including education, training, employment and health services) by all modes.
Accessing and using the bus and rail transport network
The plan delivers a network and service provision that is responsive to and accommodates users with different needs, including some of whom may be using wheelchairs, pushchairs, use other mobility aids or have hidden disabilities.
East Sussex County Council’s long-term aspirations for bus service improvements are set out in the East Sussex Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) adopted in October 2021. The BSIP has the following mission:
“Our mission as a local transport authority and bus operators is to ensure that East Sussex residents and visitors enjoy the highest possible quality bus services that provide a frequent and comprehensive choice, reduce congestion and make a positive contribution to better air quality and decarbonisation.”
The BSIP has targets relating to:
- Faster journey times.
- Improved reliability and punctuality of services.
- Increased patronage and passenger satisfaction.
- More households with access to a bus service, and within 30, 60 and 90 minutes of a town centre.
Digital Demand Responsive Travel (DDRT) fulfilment targets. Whilst the BSIP sets out a longer-term vision for the county’s bus offer, funding and partnership working is required to ensure successful long-term realisation of the BSIP. Short-term funding has delivered the following improvements to grow bus patronage:
- Running of more frequent bus services across East Sussex.
- Making bus services faster and more reliable with the County Council’s investments in bus priority, including bus lanes and changes to traffic signals.
- Improving bus stop infrastructure and real time information provision.
- Lowering fares with new ticket products.
- Making public transport provision more comprehensive, especially in rural areas with demand responsive ‘Flexibus’ services.
In the longer term the shared mission of East Sussex County Council and the bus operators remains to ensure that East Sussex residents and visitors enjoy the highest possible quality bus services that provide a frequent and comprehensive choice, reduce congestion and make a positive contribution to better air quality and decarbonisation.
The County Council is working in partnership with bus operators to deliver a bus network that works for residents and visitors through the mechanism of the statutory East Sussex Enhanced Bus Partnership Plan.
Complementing the network of commercial and supported bus routes and the Digital Demand Responsive Transport (Flexibus service), East Sussex also has community transport providers in specific geographic areas. These provide services where there is no public transport or the needs of users are not met by other public transport offer. However, community transport providers consistently express concerns about their limited capacity for expansion. Many of these providers heavily rely on the dedication of specific individuals, and the sector faces challenges in recruiting volunteers to sustain its services. Accessing and using the railway network
The development of this plan will include a review of the East Sussex Rail Strategy. Which will support infrastructure and service enhancements such as:
- Faster East Coastway line (Hastings, Eastbourne, Seaford and Lewes to Brighton routes) services.
- Extending High Speed 1 services into the county, via Ashford, to Rye, Hastings, Bexhill and Eastbourne.
- Reinstatement of the Uckfield -Lewes Line and potential electrification or other power solutions for the Uckfield to Hurst Green section of the current Uckfield line.
Together these present a step change in connectivity across much of the county, bringing more people closer to a wider range of rail journey opportunities.
Some changes have recently been realised on the rail network in the county:
- Newer and longer trains operating on the Sussex Downs Line (Seaford – Lewes - Brighton route).
- Improved timetables for trains on the East Coastway line, providing a more even service, with improved connections at Lewes for services to/from Seaford and London (via the Brighton mainline).
With the establishment of Great British Railways (GBR) in the near future, which will bring together rail infrastructure improvements and the delivery of services, the County Council will work in partnership with GBR and other key partners to bring forward improvements to both rail services and infrastructure.
Across the county, a number of railway routes are covered by the Southeast Community Rail Partnership (SCRP), who lobby for improvements to rail services and support local community groups and operators to improve the station environment, support community activity including use of station space (e.g. Friends of Bishopstone Station), encourage the use of rail and host events to promote rail. Particularly supporting access to the railway and local stations in rural parts of the county, the current SCRP line groups within the county are:
- 1066 Line (Hastings to Tonbridge).
- Marshlink Line (Hastings to Ashford International).
- Sussex Downs Line (Seaford – Lewes – Brighton).
- Uckfield and East Grinstead Lines (Uckfield to Oxted, and East Grinstead to Oxted).
SCRP are also developing proposals to formally extend the community rail line from Lewes to Eastbourne and forward to Hastings to join up the Marshlink and 1066 lines at Hastings.
Accessing and using walking, wheeling and cycling and wheeling networks
- The East Sussex Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) sets out proposals to introduce a network of walking and cycling routes in East Sussex. The LCWIP will consider the different context and challenges of different parts of the county (e.g. rural and urban) to provide local and longer-distance connectivity by walking, wheeling and cycling. A review of the East Sussex LCWIP will commence in late 2024. This review will incorporate the opportunities for active travel to be improved as part integrated journeys (i.e. walking, wheeling or cycling to a bus stop or rail station or travel interchange / mobility hub).
- Accessibility to walking, wheeling and cycling routes is important for health and wellbeing. The approach and policies are presented in chapter 2 Safer, healthier and more active travel.
Accessing and using walking, wheeling and cycling and wheeling networks
The East Sussex Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) sets out proposals to introduce a network of walking and cycling routes in East Sussex. The LCWIP will consider the different context and challenges of different parts of the county (e.g. rural and urban) to provide local and longer-distance connectivity by walking, wheeling and cycling. A review of the East Sussex LCWIP will commence in late 2024. This review will incorporate the opportunities for active travel to be improved as part integrated journeys (i.e. walking, wheeling or cycling to a bus stop or rail station or travel interchange / mobility hub).
Accessibility to walking, wheeling and cycling routes is important for health and wellbeing. The approach and policies are presented in chapter 2 Safer, healthier and more active travel.
Accessibility and inclusive transport
Transport provision (services or networks) is an important factor influencing how people can access the services they need or want to get to, including healthcare, education, training, employment and leisure. For this reason it is critical that the County Council and their partners across the key sectors of health, employment and skills, business and leisure, culture and tourism continue to work in partnership to ensure that people can get to the places that need or want to go to.
Public spaces need to balance the needs of a broad range of users, some of whom use spaces in different ways. Therefore, physical accessibility to buses, trains and their stops or stations, is just as important as geographic accessibility. Spaces and public transportation vehicles, in addition to walking, wheeling and cycling routes need to be accessible to all users and not present a barrier to travel.
East Sussex BSIP includes proposals for all buses to have audio-visual announcements, dementia friendly floors, and the introduction of a wheelchair taxi guarantee scheme.
Similarly the LCWIP requires that all new active travel infrastructure considers Local Transport Note (LTN) 1/20 and ATE’s Active Travel Design Guidance (guidance provided to local authorities on delivering high quality active travel infrastructure), where deliverable. This guidance ensures it enhances safety for walkers, wheelers and cyclists. The design of public space and public realm schemes need to be subject to access audits to make them as inclusive as possible.
The rail network already advises which stations have step-free access and how users can book any required assistance at stations. The County Council will continue to work with Network Rail/Great British Railways and train operators to make all the county’s stations fully accessible.
Seamlessly integrated journeys
Networks and journey interchange (including mobility hubs)
When people undertake journeys there can be a number of components within, for example:
- Walk from home to the bus stop, take the bus into town, walk to the shops.
- Cycle from home to the railway station, take the train to the next town and cycle into the office.
- Wheel from the office to station, take the train to a town three stops away, before catching the bus to the next village, before wheeling to client’s office.
- Walk from the house to get into your car (parked on the street), drive to a car park in the nearest large town before walking to the theatre.
The plan will implement measures to integrate the county’s bus, rail, funicular (Hastings), walking, wheeling and cycling transport networks to deliver seamlessly integrated journeys. Integration of networks is important to enable all users to complete their first/last mile journeys (for example getting between your home and the bus stop, or between the railway station and your place of work or the shops).
To support seamless integrated journeys there will be support for the delivery of high-quality public spaces and transport infrastructure where people can change transport modes. It is proposed to deliver a network of improvements to interchange (mobility hubs) opportunities in rural and urban areas, between different modes, to enhance experiences of using and connecting with public transport and expand the catchment areas of bus stops and railway stations.
These improvements may include bus stop enhancements (e.g. adding shelters, real time passenger information and seats) or the addition of cycle stands or car club parking. The improvements to interchange will be designed to suit the different place and movement characteristics, the local environment and reflect the needs of local users (including demand).
In addition, the County Council are working with partners to review and improve public transport timetables, to have more buses or trains per hour between key destinations along main corridors (e.g. inter-urban bus services) which also serve the rural settlements along these routes between destinations, and with higher frequencies during the evenings and weekends.
Ticketing
To further encourage use of sustainable transport the County Council will work with operators, and government, to improve ticketing integration, for example expanding on multi-operator bus ticket offer, to ensure that the mechanism for paying for transport and services is transparent and intuitive. Proposals include introduction of affordable and attractively priced smart ticketing to allow all public transport services to be paid for in the same way, particularly for journeys requiring both rail and bus.
By improving provision across the board from integrated ticketing, better information and improved interchange facilities, a readily available transport system will be created which allows users the flexibility to choose the transport services that work best for them. Introducing strategic interchange opportunities to integrate bus, rail and active travel and to deliver complete end-to-end journeys for all users by non-car modes, ensuring access to vital public services, employment and leisure.
This plan will also encourage affordable cost of travel and the County Council will work with partners to deliver cost effective fares for journeys within urban parts of the county as well as for rural/urban trips.
Cars as part of seamless integrated journeys
We recognise that access to the car may be essential for some journeys (i.e. making the transport network inclusive in the absence of reliable and suitable alternatives). This plan seeks to address the challenges of unsuitable or absent alternatives and provide opportunities to demonstrate how the built environment and transport services are inclusive, thereby, providing the option to enable people to travel using sustainable modes.
As partners deliver on addressing these challenges, there may be times that there is a need to focus on placemaking and/or specific modes (i.e. giving priority to other modes) or managing demand (e.g. limiting or restricting parking, redesigning road space to prioritise people walking, wheeling and cycling, or amending the cost of parking) to meet the objectives and outcomes of the plan.
Delivering these objectives
These objectives will be delivered through the following policy areas:
- Policy C1: Inclusive access.
- Policy C2: Bus and coach.
- Policy C3: Rail.
- Policy C4: Integrating transport.
- Policy C5: Demand responsive (taxi, private hire and DDRT) and community transport.
- Policy C6: Public transport infrastructure.
Policy C1: Inclusive access
Context
In 2020 DfT published its Inclusive Transport Strategy for achieving equal access for disabled people. That strategy has the following key themes:
- Raising awareness of the obligations on transport operators.
- Ensuring that transport staff (frontline and managerial) understand the needs of disabled people.
- Ensuring that transport operators provide travel information in formats that all passengers can easily access.
- Ensuring that vehicles, stations and streetscapes are designed, built and operated so that they are easy to use for all.
- The future of inclusive transport - ensuring that technological advances and new business models provide opportunities for all.
In the south of the county the East Coastway rail route connects major towns including Lewes, Eastbourne, Bexhill and Hastings. The bus network connects a number of the major towns, in doing so providing access to/from rural areas in between, though provision is sparse where public transport use has traditionally been poor. The voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors play an important role in keeping people and places connected in these areas through community support activities.
Everyone should be able to access the travel mode they want for their journey where practical. Improved access to transport networks will help improve social inclusion, through access to employment, education, and training regardless of where you live in the county.
Issues/opportunities
Increasing the travel options available and publicity of their availability can help achievement of accessibility, equity and social inclusion goals by extending people’s ability to access the places they need and want to go to a range of services, including health, education, training and employment and leisure.
Six of the 38 railway stations in East Sussex have the top accessibility rating of A (these are Buxted, Eastbourne, Eridge, Hastings, Seaford, and Uckfield). Therefore, there is considerable opportunity for improvement of the accessibility of facilities at the other railway stations to help increase the number of disabled people who can safely use railway services in the county. Network Rail currently have a competitive national Access for All approach to fund or part-fund accessible. However, East Sussex County Council will work in partnership with Great British Railways in the future to address accessibility at rail station.
Working with operators there is an opportunity to increase the affordability of public transport, for example, with the help of continued government funding for lower bus fares. However, the County Council is limited in that it does not have powers to directly influence the affordability of public transport.
Reducing the cost of providing bus services through the introduction of bus priority is also key, as this saves the need for more buses and drivers due to increased traffic delays. Working in partnership with the bus operators, these operating cost savings would be passed on to service users through improved services and better value fares, particularly in the most deprived areas.
There are also areas of deprivation in rural areas and local centres including Hailsham, Rye and Eastern Rother where there are areas amongst the most deprived in East Sussex (using indices of multiple deprivation). By improving interchange between modes (mobility hubs) and enhancing bus services in between rural and local centres can support better access to health, education and skills facilities can help to address deprivation.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Promoting accessibility improvements to physical transport infrastructure.
- Improving access to employment, education, health, social care, retail, social destinations and other key services.
- Promoting the provision of accessible transport information across key sectors including health, employment and skills, business and leisure, culture and tourism.
- Working with operators to make public transport more affordable and better value for money.
- Working in partnership with bus operators to reduce bus operating costs through the introduction of more bus priority measures, with savings passed on to service users.
- Working with community transport providers and groups (e.g. Southeast Community Rail Partnership) to make access to transport as widespread and inclusive as possible.
Policy C2: Bus and coach
Context
In 2020, the government announced £3bn of new funding to improve buses services and infrastructure across England towards London standards and published ‘2021 a new National Bus Strategy (NBS) - Bus Back Better’. East Sussex submitted a Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) to the DfT at the end of October 2021, which made the case for and included interventions to achieve high quality bus services across the county that provide a frequent and comprehensive choice and improve journey time reliability and punctuality of buses. These can be achieved through, amongst other measures, better scheduling of services and bus priority infrastructure that will in turn make a significant positive contribution to better air quality, decarbonisation, the local economy and accessibility (to services) improvements.
East Sussex is a popular tourist destination, with many visitors arriving by coach as part of coach holidays, especially within Eastbourne.
The county has previously been part of commercial national coach networks, though these connections have been lost in recent years. Those wishing to travel by coach need to travel to Brighton, West Sussex (A23 corridor – Hickstead or Gatwick) or Kent for coach connections towards London and other destinations.
Issues/opportunities
East Sussex County Council secured £41.4m of BSIP funding in July 2022. The BSIP funding will improve bus services through to April 2026, reduce fares and simplify ticketing, and deliver infrastructure improvements (including bus priority measures, bus stops and real time information provision), targeted at supporting increased usage of bus for short, medium and long-distance trips. This includes supporting operators to adapt to and accommodate changes in travel demand, e.g. increased working from home and changes in leisure travel.
The plan proposes a step change in bus frequency throughout the day and on weekends on high demand inter-urban corridors and in urban conurbations, where possible, enabling a turn up and go service for all users. These frequency changes will help to increase competitiveness of inter urban bus journey times and reliability with private car.
In rural areas, Digital Demand Responsive Transport (DDRT) known in East Sussex as ‘Flexibus’ is currently funded through the BSIP until March 2026. This DDRT service means that nearly every resident has access to a bus service. Work continues to optimise the DDRT provision in East Sussex, to try and deliver DDRT services in the most needed areas beyond the BSIP funding and ensuring that these services can be provided cost effectively (i.e. achieve value for money).
Mobility-a-a-service (MaaS) is a term used to describe digital transport service platforms that enable users to access, pay for, and get real-time information on, a range of public and private transport options. These platforms may also be linked to the provision of new transport services (UK Parliament, 2017). Innovative MaaS principles will be explored and delivered when it can be done in an effective manner both in terms of cost of delivery and the benefits.
This provision makes transport more integrated and a key part of MaaS. Introducing integrated ticketing means that the resultant cost should be reduced / less than the combined price to all users. It also fosters technical and operational innovation to improve the efficiency of services such that the whole region has access to high quality, rich and accurate public transport information that will in turn allow for the network to be enhanced and continuously improved.
Bus delay analysis, using improved data systems in partnership with the bus operators, is expected to be an increasingly powerful tool to review feasibility options and potential interventions. These solutions may be a range of interventions including:
- Operational adjustments to bus timings and routes to improve punctuality and reliability.
- New ticketing and payment schemes that reduce passenger boarding delays.
- Changes to roadside parking schemes to reduce highway pinch points, including enforcement improvements.
- Introduction of priority for buses at traffic signals.
- Review of bus priority opportunities at pedestrian crossings and traffic signals to reduce undue delays to buses and ensure pedestrian safety.
- Introduction of traffic light control at roundabouts where there are significant delays to buses.
- Changes in bus stop design, including carriageway re-profiling and longer bus stop clearways, to reduce delays caused to buses in entering and exiting bus stops.
- New bus lanes, including bus gates, to speed bus journey times and improve reliability.
Where operational savings will be realised through bus priority measures, the bus operators have committed through the Enhanced Partnership to re-invest these savings into service enhancements and/or better value fares.
There may be opportunities to reintroduce commercial coach services to East Sussex, providing an alternative mode of travel by which residents and visitors can access the county. Working with partners to ensure there is suitable coach pick-up and drop-off spaces at key destinations, in addition to providing adequate coach parking. Alongside investment in inter-urban and rural bus services, to improve important cross-boundary links with neighbouring counties such as West Sussex.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Supporting the continued development of urban and key corridor bus networks by working in partnership with bus operators to improve frequency, punctuality, reduced cancellations and frequency.
- Delivering significant improvements to the public transport network within urban areas to support growth and deliver a step change in accessibility.
- Supporting measures to better manage demand for road space following the provision of high-quality public transport infrastructure.
- Supporting opportunities to reinstate commercial coach operations into the county and ensuring provision is made of coach pick up/drop off and parking at key destinations in East Sussex.
Policy C3: Rail
Context
Rail, in East Sussex, transports large volumes of people quickly, safely, efficiently, and with less impact on the environment due to a largely electrified network, with the exception of the Oxted Line from Hurst Green (Surrey) to Uckfield and the Marshlink line between Ore and Ashford. Rail services are more effective in carrying concentrated flows of passengers between town and city centres at higher speeds than bus and private cars.
However, rail is much less competitive for shorter door-to-door journeys. The East Sussex Rail Strategy focusses on how rail can better facilitate the two key strategic, longer-distance movements:
East-West along the south coast, using the East Coastway and Marshlink lines, connecting Brighton, Newhaven, Seaford, Lewes, Polegate (which provides a rail hub for Hailsham and other nearby villages), Eastbourne, Bexhill, Hastings and Rye.
Between East Sussex and London, with an ambition of closing the gap between service provision and journey times such that Eastbourne, Bexhill and Hastings to London are comparably competitive to Brighton to London.
Issues/opportunities
The county rail network serves the majority of main urban areas. With improvements to frequency, journey time and reliability, rail could be more competitive with private car for inter-urban trips.
Pre-pandemic rail in East Sussex was based on a ‘commuter railway’, where higher peak time fares are charged. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, leisure rail travel has recovered strongly, whilst commuter and business travel remains below pre-pandemic levels. An increase in leisure travel provides an opportunity to cater for an expanded and new rail market and needs to consider the different requirements and expectations of this market.
The strategy focuses on partnership working to, reinstate former railway lines such as the Uckfield – Lewes line, upgrade existing rail alignments such as the Marshlink and utilising technology such as dynamic signalling to support faster, higher capacity and more frequent services, particularly on the Coastway lines.
There is emerging railway reform and emerging policies through the establishment of Great British Railways which will focus on maximising railway performance and reliability, whilst making railways easier to use; rolling out accessibility improvements at stations; integrated ticketing and improved industry response during disruption to increase the perceived attractiveness of rail.
Rail is expensive to construct, maintain, and operate, and this cost is reflected in fare levels which mean that travelling by train can be more expensive than travelling by car. Fixed infrastructure can also be difficult and expensive to modify, and services are susceptible to disruption which can discourage its use.
Component policy measures
The East Sussex Rail Strategy will be updated in 2025. In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Supporting measures to deliver a more reliable, integrated, passenger friendly rail network.
- Facilitating improvements to stations to improve the experience of travelling by train.
- Exploring options to expand/reinstate the rail network to link to new settlements, corridors and growth areas to improve journey times to and from East Sussex as well as provide network resilience.
- Supporting frequency and journey time enhancements on rural and intercity rail links to improve connectivity and capacity (for both leisure and business travellers).
Policy C4: Integrating transport
Context
Public transport, including bus, rail, and demand responsive transport along with active travel is most effective, and attractive to the public , when seamless, easy-to-use and attractively priced. Poorly integrated public transport services deter their use amongst residents and visitors, making it difficult to understand which service to use, where to change buses or onto other services, or the best way to pay for journeys.
Campaign for Better Transport’s Integrated transport: A new generation of interchanges states that “an integrated transport network with reliable and well-positioned interchange points requires clear long-term policy supported by meaningful planning attached to investment decisions”. The aim is for a transport network that enables seamless trips - a faster and more reliable strategic network paired with improvements to first/last mile connectivity.
Issues/opportunities
The strategy emphasises a series of strategic urban and rural interchange opportunities in key locations in East Sussex, enabling interchange between rail and bus services, active travel corridors, and could accommodate shared mobility solutions such as e-bike hubs and Digital Demand Responsive Transport (DDRT) – Flexi-bus. These strategic interchanges will be co-located at key locations (e.g. railway stations such as Polegate, or locations where several identified inter-urban bus routes intersect such as Lewes and Uckfield) enabling longer-distance trips across the county and beyond for residents of East Sussex and visitors.
East Sussex’s BSIP and Transport for the South East’s Strategic Investment Plan sets out ambitions to integrate ticketing between operators and transport modes as well as to improve timetable co-ordination and integration between different services and modes.
Whilst all bus operators in the county offer contactless payment, they do not all provide tap on tap out services or fare capping for contactless payments. Complementing policy measures focus on working with partners to deliver simplified fares and ticketing across East Sussex and neighbouring areas, and integrating bus and rail timetables to reduce end-to-end journey times and achieve a vision of seamless multi-modal connectivity which delivers an attractive, competitive journey time against private vehicles.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Encouraging the rollout of smart ticketing and value for money fare options across all modes of transport, working towards seamless multi-modal ticketing.
- Delivering improvements to major transport interchanges to help deliver a seamless transport network.
- Delivering intermediate and smaller scale interchange improvements (mobility hubs) in rural and local centres.
Policy C5: Demand responsive (including taxi, private hire and DDRT) and community transport
Context
Taxi, private hire, digital demand responsive transport (DDRT, called Flexibus in East Sussex) and community transport provision is an important service for individuals across East Sussex, forming an integral component within the transport ambition. This policy summarises the approach to rural mobility, adopting Mobility as a Service (MaaS) principles which promote integrated DDRT which feeds into strategic interchange locations that allow access to the wider public transport network. This policy will also incorporate private taxi hire and specialist transport provision, with a focus on connecting people to services, including healthcare, education, retail and leisure facilities across the region.
‘Digital platforms’ will enable transport providers to fully optimise transport provision, especially where providers’ data is shared. The incorporation of several transport resources from standard buses to private taxis is likely to play a crucial role in the cost effectiveness and value for money of transport provision and is seen as a significant opportunity that needs to be captured as early as possible.
Community transport is non-profit making transport provision. In East Sussex, these range from local car lift schemes intended to meet a particular need, such as access to a doctors’ surgery, to minibus dial a ride and local bus services. Some rely exclusively on volunteers, whilst others employ paid staff.
Issues/opportunities
Taxi and private hire provide a vital service to rural populations where public transport provision may still not be frequent and timely for connecting people to key services such as healthcare and education as well as for protected characteristic groups who are not able or feel uncomfortable accessing public transport.
A challenge is the availability of taxi services in rural areas, and at peak times when capacity is reduced due to taxi’s working on school transport runs.
The BSIP has delivered bus service enhancements across all days of week and day time and evenings, in some locations public transport may still not be available outside of regular hours of operation. Therefore, taxi and private hire play an integral part in the meeting and fulfilling demand of customers and staff of the night-time economy.
To serve one-off major events or surges in tourism demand in the summer months, specialist transport may play a role in adding capacity and resilience to the network.
Transitioning taxi, private hire, demand responsive and community transport vehicles to electric vehicles would considerably reduce the carbon and air quality impact of these trips.
Community transport providers may have limited capacity for significant expansion. The providers are often reliant on the efforts of key individuals and volunteers, though providers will pursue every possible means to take on additional services as the need arises.
The guidance in the Bus Services Act 2017 specifically suggests deploying publicly funded DDRT services to transport passengers from isolated villages to bus stops and transport hubs where they can connect to commercial bus services and complete their journeys, which keeps costs down both for the DDRT service and the commercial bus operator. On community transport, the guidance recommends that local authorities encourage community transport operators to integrate services into the wider public transport network. These are all policies which partners will continue to pursue.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures for demand responsive and community transport will focus on:
- Introducing incentives for taxi and private hire operators to electrify their fleet.
- Supporting the introduction of taxi only electric vehicle charging points on the road.
- Continuing to pursue the community transport principles noted in the DfT’s guidance relating to the Bus Services Act 2017. Including helping and encouraging community transport operators to run DDRT services.
- Assisting community transport operators to increase their service provision where they wish to do so, with help in seeking funding opportunities, training, knowledge sharing and assistance with recruitment and seeking volunteers.
- Working with operators and drivers to ensure training for drivers is provided to support improved accessibility, comfort and quality of service, and safety and security.
8. Keeping East Sussex connected
Introduction
In this chapter, the primary focus is about supporting people and businesses in getting where they need to go, quickly and reliably - specifically, longer distance highway, railway and bus schemes are of importance as well as freight.
Click here for a larger version of Figure 8 'Key Schemes for Theme D' in pdf format [1.7 MB] [pdf]
A full list of schemes presented in this map is available in Appendix B.
Support sustainable economic growth
The aspiration is for shared prosperity, fairness and environmental enhancements contributed to by a high-quality transport network. It is aimed to:
- Facilitate the efficient movement of goods and people.
- Contribute to reducing deprivation and inequality through improved accessibility to education, training and employment.
- Attract and retain businesses and a skilled workforce in the county.
- Enhance sustainable access to key visitor and cultural destinations.
- Engage with the local planning authorities to deliver sustainable housing and employment growth identified in their Local Plans.
Facilitating strategic passenger and freight movements
Given the county’s most populated communities are located on the coast, east-west connectivity to, for and through these communities is important to the county. This connectivity faces many transport challenges including uncompetitive rail journey times between key urban centres and a highway network that is constrained by single carriageway routes (for example, A27 and A259) which increases journey times when demand for these routes is high.
Similar highway constraints are seen on north-south routes serving primarily local centres such as Uckfield, Crowborough, and Heathfield as well as rural communities. The A21 and A22 both serve a strategic north-south function but also pass through the centre of local communities (for example, Hurst Green on the A21, Halland and Lower Dicker on the A22). These constraints limit the certainty of journey times provided by the route and can present safety issues within the villages and towns it passes through. Full north-south rail alternatives are confined to the eastern (Hastings – Tonbridge line) and western sides (Brighton mainline) of the county, with a connection north from Uckfield, also serving Buxted, Crowborough and Eridge, towards London.
A multi-modal strategy ensures focus is given to speeding up services on the East-Coastway line (running from Brighton to Lewes and then on to Eastbourne, and Hastings), leveraging advances in technology to run more frequent services, targeted infrastructure improvements to overcome bottlenecks at key railway junctions, and utilising bus-based mass transit for some intra-urban trips and active travel for local trips. A key challenge will be minimising disruption to highway trips at level crossings, particularly on busy sections of line (for example, Hampden Park in Eastbourne, Polegate High Street).
Strategic and local highway improvements will be targeted where they also accommodate and enhance bus and/or active travel provision through, for example, delivering bus priority and/or segregated active travel corridors. In addition, highway improvements will also be targeted on where there are safety concerns requiring a need for intervention, or where highways are required to support strategic freight movements.
Growing service and employment catchments
The largest employment sites are located in the urban areas along the coast. However, residents in rural communities currently have limited access to these employment opportunities with public transport between rural areas and urban coastal areas often being infrequent or providing slow or unreliable journey times. There are opportunities to improve provision of transport to access employment, education or training helping to maintain and grow a skilled workforce and thriving local economy.
Enhancements to rail services focused on these major centres as well as inter-urban bus service improvements will ensure that residents of this area can more sustainably access employment and education. Bus service enhancements on the A21 will improve public transport connectivity between rural locations along this route to Hastings, where employment opportunities are greater, but also where there are onward rail and bus connections to other major towns.
By investing in a joined-up transport network, partners want economic opportunities to be available to all and to provide employers with the biggest possible opportunity to attract the required talent. Not only that, since the pandemic attendance at workplace premises is likely to be a hybrid set up (84% of the workforce nationally still attend the workplace during the working week) so East Sussex employers still have a need for workers who can get to them within a reasonable commuting time.
Tourism
East Sussex has a range of tourist and cultural destinations that require connectivity to thrive. East Sussex welcomes tourists from all areas of the UK and abroad; enhancements to strategic transport infrastructure will support a growth in visitor numbers and improve the visitor experience, therefore extending stays and encouraging repeat visits to the benefit of the economy.
This plan includes interventions to enhance connectivity from beyond the county including linking Hastings, Bexhill, and Eastbourne by high-speed rail through upgrades to the Marshlink line (Hastings-Ashford) and improvements at Ashford International to enable access to the High Speed 1 (HS1) link (Ashford - St Pancras) alongside improvements to bus services from Gatwick Airport to the County. Equally, proposed interventions support sustainable access to key tourist destinations including bus service improvements and active travel linking to the South Downs National Park and High Weald National Landscape.
Strengthen the resilience of our transport networks
A transport system that is more capable of recovering from unexpected disruptions (including events caused by climate change), reducing transport delays will realise this objective. The aim is to:
- Improve journey time reliability for people and businesses.
- Enable transport journeys to be resilient, flexible, and adaptable and recover quickly from emergencies and events.
- Improve the resilience of highway and other transport infrastructure and assets.
Reducing disruption and delay
This strategy captures the latest plans by Network Rail in their Rail Network Enhancement Pipeline. East Sussex County Council continue to support the reinstatement of the railway between Uckfield and Lewes to provide an alternative railway route from London to the south coast, providing resilience to the Brighton main line, whilst also supporting local connectivity between communities in East Sussex along the line via Lewes. Proposals include extending HS1 to Rye, Hastings, Bexhill, and Eastbourne via the Marshlink line (Ashford - Hastings), which will improve journey times between these coastal communities and London and connectivity to Kent, in addition to providing a viable attractive alternative to reach the East Sussex coast during periods of disruption on the rail network.
Some of the improvements to improve services to/from East Sussex occur outside of the county. For example, a series of capacity enhancements on the Brighton Main line and remodelling of the rail network in the East Croydon area will increase the number of services that can be accommodated between London and the South Coast (including to East Sussex), whilst also providing more resilient and reliable journeys during any disruption.
The major roads in East Sussex carry both strategic (longer distance) and local traffic, which can cause considerable delays in and around urban areas where speeds and/or volumes of traffic are constrained and impact the effective operation of local buses. This plan proposes several highways interventions to separate these strategic and local trips to support faster journey time and safety. The Uckfield Bypass will reduce congestion on this section of the A22, whilst also enabling opportunities to improve public transport and active travel journeys within Uckfield. Also included in the plan are further improvements to the A27 corridor between Lewes and Polegate as well as junction improvements to the A22 at Hailsham and Polegate/Stone Cross.
Flexibility and choice
To provide flexibility and choice, the County Council will need to work with partners and stakeholders to provide a range of transport choices for residents and visitors, enabling them to pick the one that best suits their needs. Allowing users to plan their journeys both ahead of travel and ‘live’ (for example, during any disruption), increasing consumer perception and confidence in travelling using public and integrated transport.
Emergency and events
The plan is for a transport network that is more resilient to incidents and the impacts of a changing climate, collisions and other events that disrupt transport networks, as referred to in Chapter 5 – Tackling climate change and enhancing the local environment. Resilience ensures alternatives for users during periods of disruption (either by same or alternative modes) and networks that can accommodate future growth and changing travel needs and patterns.
The County Council will work in partnership with Network Rail (and Great British Railways once formally established), National Highways, Sustrans and Transport for the South East in ensuring the strategic transport network in and serving the county continues to develop, evolve, and expand to future travel needs. At a local level the County Council will work with local communities and stakeholders to minimise inconvenience on local communities during periods of disruption. By designing a transport network fit to face any issues, the aim is to provide reliability to improve consumer service and retention.
Delivering these objectives
These objectives will be delivered through the following policy areas:
- Policy D1: Strategic connectivity.
- Policy D2: Freight and international gateways.
- Policy D3: The needs of business and the visitor economy.
- Policy D4: Supporting sustainable development and development control.
- Policy D5: Parking.
- Policy D6: Highways maintenance and asset management.
Policy D1: Strategic connectivity
Context
East Sussex is poorly connected to the rest of the country, relative to other areas in the south east, by both road and rail. Supporting inclusive socio-economic growth, means the need to overcome the correlation that exists between the areas with the poorest strategic connectivity and the most deprived areas of East Sussex.
By improving local (within East Sussex and its immediate environs) and regional (within the south east) strategic connectivity to/from areas of the county which are most deprived, partners can continue to build towards a future where all members of the community contribute to, and benefit from the area’s growth and success.
Issues/opportunities
The East Coastway line performs a dual function of serving local and shorter distance trips between Brighton, Lewes, Eastbourne, Bexhill and Hastings, as well as connecting these settlements to the West Coastway line (Brighton to Portsmouth/Southampton) and Kent (via the Marshlink line). This function means the two-track railway can serve neither purpose effectively as faster, regional services are held up by stopping, local services, or slowed down by having to call at additional stops.
Passenger numbers on the Brighton mainline have recovered from considerable reductions brought about by reduced transport demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022 the average numbers of passengers standing on services in the AM and PM peaks are only 1.8% less than the level that was seen in 2019.
The alternative radial rail links towards London, the Uckfield line (which terminates short of the south coast) and the Hastings - Tonbridge line, have relatively slow line speeds with several local stops albeit these stations provide vital connectivity to jobs and services particularly for smaller rural settlements and their hinterlands.
The current condition and discontinuous nature of the strategic and major road network around East Sussex falls short of the standard needed to fulfil this role on carrying longer distance and strategic traffic. The A21, A22 and A27 all pass through several villages and cause significant severance, noise, and air quality issues for local residents, and visitors travelling to/from the south coast.
The A259 between Brighton and Eastbourne serves as an alternative in the event of disruption on the A27 corridor. However, disruption means traffic is diverted onto this coastal road which is ill-equipped for the high volume of traffic and affects its function of carrying both intra- and inter-urban trips for the communities of Telscombe Cliffs, Peacehaven, Newhaven, Seaford, East Dean, Friston and Eastbourne along the A259 which also traverses through the protected landscape of the South Downs National Park.
There are multiple issues with rail level crossings on the strategic road network in East Sussex, particularly along the A259 between Rye and Brenzett where the road and Marshlink railway cross and conflict at the Star and Guldeford crossings. The A259 also has several steep inclines, tight bends, including the tight Ferry Hill hairpin bend at Winchelsea, which poses significant safety risks.
Maintaining, enhancing or introducing cross-border bus connectivity to neighbouring authorities and their communities, for example links to Brighton, Gatwick, and Tunbridge Wells.
Work with coach operators to reintroduce coach services to the county, as part of nationwide coach networks, connecting the county to large parts of the country by this mode.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Supporting improvements on regional and national corridors to improve connectivity to the rest of the UK and abroad for freight and passengers.
- Explore options to expand the strategic transport network to link to new settlements, corridors, and growth areas.
- Supporting measures to deliver a more reliable, integrated, passenger-friendly rail network.
- Supporting measures to deliver a safer highways network that serves the needs of active travel, mass transit, freight, and new mobility as well as motorists.
Policy D2: Freight and international gateways
Context
Transport for the South East published its Freight, Logistics and Gateway strategy in May 2022 which identifies a series of strategic actions, interventions, and measures, designed to deliver the following objectives:
- Improve operational efficiency and capacity of the freight and logistics sector.
- Grow the size of, and employment within, the sector.
- Improve connectivity to/from the south east’s international gateways.
- Reduce safety risk to other road users produced by freight transport, by reducing the likelihood of conflict between strategic freight movements and local, active travel movements.
- Integrate logistics into place-making process through integration with planning policy and cultivating and harnessing better data from the sector.
- Reducing environmental impact of sector by achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest, as well as reducing air pollution associated with freight transport.
- Reducing wider environmental impact of sector including impact on communities, noise levels, and informal lorry parking.
The strategy will capture these principles and safeguard the region’s prosperity through holistic freight and logistics planning, incorporating innovative rail and last mile solutions to ensure freight movements to and from East Sussex are optimised and decarbonised. Enabling the economy of East Sussex to thrive and be a growing contributor to the wider UK economy.
Issues/opportunities
Cross-boundary movements are central to the movement of freight in East Sussex. Located either at the boundaries of the county or just outside are London Gatwick Airport (located to the north west of East Sussex) and the Port of Newhaven (located in the south of the county). These are international gateways which serve both international passenger and freight markets and there are opportunities to improve public transport connectivity, beyond that which is currently provided via the Brighton Main line and Seaford branch line (for rail) and the strategic road network (for vehicular access). Improvements would enable a greater proportion of residents to sustainably access these gateways.
The potential expansion and growth (i.e. Northern Runway plans) of London Gatwick Airport in particular provides opportunities for economic and employment growth for East Sussex and the region, albeit this expansion is balanced against the impacts that such growth will have on the environment and local communities (e.g. noise, air quality) in the county as well.
The south east of England hosts several major international freight gateways of national significance, with East Sussex being in proximity to Dover and Folkestone (Channel Tunnel) to the east and therefore being within reach of the continent and Southampton to the west. It is projected that freight and passenger movements across the channel to Europe will continue to grow. There are continued economic opportunities for East Sussex to thrive into the future.
The A259 east of Hastings, which connects East Sussex with Kent, is not suitable for carrying high volumes of road freight on HGVs due to the poor alignment including narrow sections of road, sharp bends and steep hills, for example Ferry Hill at Winchelsea. As strategic freight movements conflict with local traffic, the likelihood and severity of collisions rises. Road safety data provided by the Department for Transport suggests that when compared to the national average, East Sussex has a higher percentage of fatal (East Sussex 2% and England 1%) and serious collisions (East Sussex 24% and England 18%). Furthermore, the presence of HGV movements on local roads discourages active travel usage as users have to navigate narrow road space with oversized vehicles.
Road freight links between East Sussex and the rest of the country is also poor, disrupted by congestion on many strategic road corridors, most notably the need to bypass London via the M25 which slows down the movement of heavy goods vehicles carrying freight to and from the rest of the country.
There is also a lack of resilience for freight routes, particularly a lack of alternative/diversionary road and rail routes for several critical freight links.
There is limited freight services and parking in the county. Whilst there is some lorry parking at the Cophall services near Polegate for heavy goods vehicles there are no driver welfare facilities and often heavy goods vehicles drivers find themselves parking in laybys alongside the strategic and major road network or on-road in Industrial Estates overnight.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Promoting rail freight, including the transfer of road freight onto rail.
- Promoting sustainable urban freight distribution for first mile/last mile freight journeys to and from key town centres and industrial estates.
- Improving road freight facilities, with focus on reducing conflicts between strategic freight movements and local, active travel movements.
- Explore opportunities to improve lorry parking and driver facilities.
- Supporting improvements to public transport services to the Port of Newhaven and Gatwick Airport.
A Freight Strategy for East Sussex will be developed as part of this Local Transport Plan (LTP). It will expand on the component policy measures mentioned above beyond the level of detail currently included in the Investment Plan. The county’s Freight Strategy will be subject to separate public and stakeholder consultation.
Policy D3: The needs of businesses and the visitor economy
Context
The provision of a transport network that supports the needs of businesses is a critical element of the plan. Specifically to support transport connectivity to improve links to existing markets and unlock new markets and ensure journey reliability for goods and people to help businesses to be more productive. Ensuring that economic gains are captured locally.
A new East Sussex Economic Prosperity Strategy was adopted in Autumn 2024. It will provide a framework for partners to work together in the medium and short term through a shared vision for East Sussex. It will promote and enable shared understanding of East Sussex’s strengths, challenges and opportunities, and will provide the strategic backing for competitive funding bids to unlock increased funding from central government.
The Sussex Visitor Economy Initiative (SVEI) was established in September 2020 in partnership between East Sussex County Council, West Sussex County Council and Brighton and Hove City Council, initially in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The strategic partnership is working with public and private sector partners to harness the opportunities that cross-county collaboration brings. It aims to support sector recovery, resilience, and growth, and to raise the profile of Sussex as a national and international visitor destination.
With a range of nationally and internationally significant tourism destinations such as Cuckmere Haven and the Seven Sisters, cultural destinations such as Glyndebourne and the seaside towns, and a hinterland that includes the High Weald National Landscape and the South Downs National Park, tourism and cultural industries are an important consideration in planning the future transport provision in East Sussex.
The East Sussex, Brighton and Hove and West Sussex Local Visitor Economy Partnership (LVEP) secured its Visit England accreditation in 2024 and joins a network of LVEPs which create a new and more efficient national strategic infrastructure for visitor economy management. The strategic partnership is working with public and private sector partners to harness the opportunities that cross-county collaboration brings. It aims to support regenerative sector recovery, resilience and growth, and to raise the profile of Sussex as a national and international visitor destination. The LVEP’s vision and priorities are captured in its Strategy for Growth and includes supporting regenerative practices, improving accessibility, improving data capture and a growth target of £2.5bn.
To further support the above, East Sussex County Council and West Sussex County Council are launching Experience Sussex to maximise the impact of the Sussex brand, in particular to high spending overseas visitors. Culture East Sussex is developing a refreshed East Sussex Cultural Strategy which will reinforce the value of the visitor economy in supporting cultural visitor destinations viability and supporting the quality of life and health outcomes of residents. Data capture to inform investment and the marketing of key unique selling points such as Wine Tourism and Sussex Bay aims to achieve growth target. These will not be achievable without the fit for purpose transport infrastructure to ensure an environmentally responsible, accessible approach to growth.
International gateways in and around East Sussex are key to both the needs of business and the visitor economy. These include London Gatwick and other London airports and ports such as Newhaven, Dover and Portsmouth.
Issues/opportunities
Often those who rely on public transport cannot easily access the county’s cultural, leisure and tourism offer.
Rail travel for leisure purposes has recovered from pandemic travel restrictions more quickly than commuter or business demand. Enhancements to rail service provision can help to capitalise on this recovery allowing more people to access visitor destinations within East Sussex in a sustainable way.
Businesses value reliability and resilience from a transport network. Bus service improvements which increase frequency and operating hours of services and on the most congested routes, introduction of bus segregation, can help to deliver a public transport network which the workforce and businesses can rely on, stimulating choices regarding business location.
Work to maximise the potential of international gateways will be informed and complemented by future plans, for example the Newhaven Port Masterplan Refresh published in September 2024.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on:
- Investing in rail and highway networks to allow businesses to trade and workers to travel easily across the country and abroad.
- Improving local connectivity to bring firms and workers in towns closer together, especially in rural areas, to promote jobs, growth and increased prosperity for both local businesses and local people.
- Improving connectivity to international gateways, to large centres in the county and wider region, as well as local communities.
- Delivering an integrated transport network navigable by visitors.
- Delivering sustainable transport connectivity to tourist destinations.
- Supporting access to education and training opportunities.
Policy D4: Supporting sustainable development and development control
Context
The population of East Sussex is forecast to grow by 70,000 by 2035. A significant level of residential development as well as development of commercial sites for employment and other civic amenities and facilities is required to accommodate this growth and to meet housing needs from the current level of population.
Future development in the county will be guided by local planning authorities’ Local Plans and their vision-led approach, where the County Council will ensure that the key principles of LTP4 are embedded within the respective Local Plans (and any subsequent reviews). Development is likely to come forward through a combination of town centre densification, urban extensions, suburban developments, and sensitive rural development. It will also be informed by Health Impact Assessments and using the Healthy Streets framework.
The presence of the South Downs National Park in the south of the county and the High Weald National Landscape to the north, as well as the sea provides quality of life for people living and working in the County, but also results in constraints to the location of development and delivery of infrastructure to support these landscapes.
The County faces several transport based challenges around car ownership, dependency, and congestion on key corridors. As such, a key aim is to reduce the distance’s that people need to travel and to encourage higher levels of walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport journeys.
With sustainable development underpinning the National Planning Policy Framework, Active Travel England’s requirement for development sizes (over 150 residential units or sites having area of five hectares or more) to assess the merits of walking, wheeling and cycling as part of development proposals and this plan having a greater emphasis on the opportunities to increase active and sustainable travel, consideration of sustainable development as part of development proposals is fundamental in influencing the development of healthy places.
Local planning authorities have responsibility, through policies set out in their Local Plans and other development plan documents, to set the requirements that developers must adhere to in contributing to accommodating travel demand and the mitigation of impacts of developments on the transport network. The Local Plan framework, along with this Local Transport Plan, will provide the context for enhancements to transport infrastructure and the identification and collection of development contributions.
Issues/opportunities
- There is a need to better connect existing and future housing to jobs, effectively bringing more of the population ‘closer’ to employment opportunities. Spreading the benefits of future economic growth more evenly, and benefit businesses who will have a wider range of potential employees to select from.
- Developments to the transport network can help to ‘unlock’ sites for future housing by providing new and improved connectivity to existing urban areas.
- Future population increases could load more journeys onto the network, potentially worsening congestion, but if a co-ordinated land use/transport planning approach is pursued which focusses development within established urban areas then this approach can help to reduce these increases in transport demand (alongside other measures to improve travel choices and encourage walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport). The network is particularly sensitive to increased demand as vehicles are now often larger than originally intended in older road designs, such as country lanes.
Component policy measures
To contribute to the achievement of sustainable development the County Council will work in partnership with local planning authorities to:
- Actively manage patterns of growth to promote sustainable transport use.
- Ensure that strategies and investments for supporting sustainable transport are aligned.
- Transport issues are considered from the earliest stages of plan making and development proposals.
- Encourage early and ongoing engagement with developers on transport impacts, transport infrastructure to be delivered and/or funded to support development.
- Ensure developments maximise opportunities to deliver new and/or enhance existing pedestrian and cycle links.
- Secure development contributions for strategic and local infrastructure.
- Deliver and/or secure, through development, strategic transport and complementary connectivity infrastructure.
- Deliver and/or secure, through development, public transport service and infrastructure provision.
Policy D5: Parking
Context
Every journey made using a car or by cycle starts and ends with a parking space, either in a designated public or private space, ‘bay’, ‘rack’ or an informal location.
Parking is an important part of the county’s transport network for both vehicles and bicycles. Being able to travel easily to key locations is a fundamental part of society and quality of life and, for many of journeys, requires parking. However, as a demand management tool, availability and pricing of on- and off-street parking for vehicles has the ability to incentivise alternative journey options.
Cycle parking is of equal importance and the provision of secure, quality, and safe parking at key destinations supports seamless and integrated journeys.
National policy for vehicle parking is contained within the National Planning Policy Framework, specifically with regards to the setting of parking standards. It states, “If setting local parking standards for residential and non-residential development, policies should take into account:
- The accessibility of the development.
- The type, mix, and use of the development.
- The availability of and opportunities for public transport.
- Local car ownership levels.
- The need to ensure an adequate provision of spaces for charging plug-in and other ultra-low emission vehicles.”
Issues/opportunities
Parking plays a vital role in demand management. There are opportunities to manage demand through parking design, controlled provision and the cost of these, and enforcement supporting reduction in congestion, influencing travel behaviour towards more sustainable travel models, reductions in carbon emissions and improvements in air quality.
Repurposing parking space can enhance the public realm and creation of public spaces providing space for cycle parking, parklets, active travel infrastructure, or greening balanced with the needs of providing inclusive access. Better supporting achievement of wider socio-economic outcomes.
The number of organisations that influence parking policy, provision and enforcement is complex:
- Central government - sets the National Planning Policy Framework.
- County Council/local highway authority - as the local highway authority, publishes Parking Guidance for new development along with the provision of a parking calculator to establish the level of parking provision for new residential development. Also provides on-street parking controls and charging; often comments on parking as a statutory consultee to development applications; and can oversee Park and Ride provision.
- Local planning authorities - sets parking standards (i.e. permitted volumes of parking) in their Local Plans and ultimately decides whether to consent to the amount of parking permissible as part of development sites; operates public off-street parking (which they might outsource to a third party operator) and enforce off-street parking controls.
- Developers - assess the likely need and ultimately build parking provision as part of their development sites.
- External partners - provide off-street parking which support the overall parking stock. Partners include shopping centre operators and Network Rail.
- Police - responsible for some on-street parking enforcement where civil parking enforcement not in place (currently only Wealden do not have civil parking enforcement).
The level of parking provision provided as part of development will be influenced by:
- The accessibility of the development.
- The type, mix, and use of the development.
- The availability of and opportunities for public transport.
- Local car ownership levels.
- The need to ensure an adequate provision of spaces for charging plug-in and other ultra-low emission vehicles.
Component policy measures
In summary parking policy measures will focus on:
- Promoting parking design that is safe, secure and considers the parking needs of all road users.
- Repurposing existing parking spaces that encourage more sustainable travel behaviours and promote a better quality of life in communities.
- Working with key partners to ensure the provision of cycle parking as part of wider schemes and at key destinations.
- Reducing parking provision to manage demand and encourage more walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport journeys.
- Investigating parking technology and implications of disruptive technology to improve management and use of on and off-street parking stock.
- Working with local planning authorities to promote the benefits of controlled parking enforcement in parts of the county in which it is not currently in place.
- Exploring opportunities to enhance coach and heavy goods vehicles parking in the county.
Policy D6: Highways maintenance and asset management
Context
Maintaining and managing the assets that form transport networks – roads, public transport infrastructure, cycle routes, footpaths (streets), street lighting, road signs and other infrastructure is an essential part of keeping residents and visitors moving and is important to prosperity and growth. A well-maintained and managed network helps ensure that journeys around the area are safe, reliable, and efficient, at all times and in all weather conditions.
The East Sussex Highway Asset Management Strategy and supporting policy aims to deliver a more efficient and effective approach to management of highway infrastructure assets through longer-term planning and ensuring that levels of service are defined and achievable. Through taking a life-cycle approach to assets and their management, and engaging with local stakeholders, the County Council aim to make best use of resources and target improvements to highway infrastructure assets to support social wellbeing of local communities and drive sustainable economic growth. Alongside supporting the objectives of LTP4 including safety, accessibility and resilience.
Issues/opportunities
Ensure asset management programmes are future proofed and adapt to changes in mobility.
During the maintenance and repairs of assets, the replacement of materials that are more difficult to source will be dependent on availability of funding and prioritisation.
Ensuring that whole life scheme maintenance costs are included from the outset of scheme planning stages, to ensure that these are affordable, will be critical.
Climate change and an increased frequency of extreme weather events mean that highways assets are subject to increased adverse conditions which can result in increased maintenance costs.
Use of carbon management systems in scheme identification, design and delivery minimise the embedded and operating emissions of the infrastructure.
There is growing recognition of the importance of good design and integrated delivery in maximising the life and capacity of existing assets while considering social and environmental impacts, such as resilience to climate change.
Consideration of the waste hierarchy during construction (for example, using sustainably sourced materials with recycled content or reusing demolition material in new schemes) offers wide reaching benefits in terms of resource efficiency, sustainability, and cost savings.
Component policy measures
In summary policy measures will focus on the following which are in alignment with East Sussex County Council’s Highway Asset Management Strategy:
- Provision of a transport network which is as safe as possible for all users.
- Prioritisation towards the maintenance of the existing highway assets.
- Provision of enhancements to highway assets depending on the availability of funding.
- Minimising the whole life costs of the highway.
- The management and co-ordination of roadworks which minimise delays for all users, particularly public transport.
- Addressing the challenges of climate change and enhancing communities and environment through highway asset management and maintenance.
- Embedding carbon management systems in the identification, design, and delivery of highways.
- Monitoring and evaluating the outcomes of highways maintenance to ensure value for money is being achieved.
9. Glossary
Glossary table
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Active travel | Physically active modes such as cycling, walking, wheeling or horse riding. It also includes walking or cycling as part of a longer journey. |
| Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) | An area where it is unlikely that the national air quality objectives, as set by DEFRA, will be achieved. |
| Car dependency | Reliance on cars to get around, whether through habit, because street environments have been planned around car use, or because walking, cycling and public transport alternatives are not available or appealing. |
| Carbon footprint | The total greenhouse gas emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organisation, event or product, expressed as a carbon dioxide equivalent. |
| Clinical Commissioning Group | Responsible for implementing the commissioning roles as set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. |
| Community transport | A form of typically demand responsive transport that is typically volunteer-led and focused on vulnerable and isolated people. Sometimes takes the form of fixed route services where conventional bus services are needed but not available. |
| Distribution Network Operator (DNO) | Distribution Network Operator, a company licenced to distribute electricity in the UK. |
| Digital demand responsive travel (DDRT) | A form of transport where vehicles alter their routes based on particular transport demand rather than using a fixed route or timetable. |
| Electric vehicle | A vehicle that uses an electric motor for propulsion, comprising ones that run solely on batteries, as well as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that have an attached petrol or diesel engine to power the battery engine. |
| Equalities Impact Assessment (EqIA) | A process designed to ensure that a policy, project or scheme does not discriminate against any disadvantaged or vulnerable people. |
| Greenhouse gas | A gas which absorbs solar radiation contributing to the greenhouse effect which leads to global warming and climate change. |
| Heavy goods vehicle (HGV) | A large heavy vehicle generally used for transporting freight. |
| Health Impact Assessment (HIA) | A series of procedures by which the impact of an intervention or policy may have on the health of a population is measured. |
| Highway | The whole or part of a public right of passage, often in reference to a road but also including pavements / footpaths, cycle routes, bridges, tunnels and other adjoining assets. |
| Habitats Regulation Assessment (HRA) | Assesses whether plans will have the potential to cause an impact on protected areas. |
| Killed or seriously injured (KSI) | A standard metric used to measure levels of road safety. |
| Local Cycle and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) | A long-term approach to developing local cycling and walking networks over a ten-year period. |
| Light rail | A form of urban rail transport which operates at a higher capacity to a tramway, often on an exclusive right of way, and serving parts of a large metropolitan area. |
| Local Authority | A local council organisation. In England there may be either one or two tiers of local government. A two-tier structure includes a County Council as the upper tier and a District Council as the lower tier. Local Authority responsibilities include strategic land use planning, and highways and transport. |
| Local Plan | A statutory planning document which sets out the vision and framework for future development within a local planning authority area. It addresses housing, economy, community and infrastructure and is used as a tool to guide decisions about development proposals. |
| Local Transport Plan (LTP) | Local Transport Plan, a statutory document which sets out the objectives and programme for improving the transport network. |
| Mass transit | A form of public transport to satisfy higher potential trip demand, featuring limited stops, high capacity and attractive, reliable journey times. It is usually rail based, such as trams or light rail above ground, or underground trains. |
| Mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) | Mobility as a Service, a shift away from privately owned vehicles towards a model where different transport modes are consumed as an on-demand service through a single (online) platform. For example, the concept of paying for a weekly travel pass that includes bike hire, car hire, bus and train travel. |
| Mobility hub / travel interchange | A place of transport interchange providing easy access to the wider transport network with cycle parking, taxi call points and access to car club vehicles, drop off points and (at larger locations) park and ride facilities. |
| Mode share | The relative use of each mode of transport. |
| Mode shift / modal shift | A percentage change in the use of different transport modes. When one transport mode becomes more advantageous than another over the same route or market, a mode shift is likely to take place. |
| Major Road Network (MRN) | A classification of Local Authority roads in England. |
| Multi-modal/multi-operator ticketing | Multi-modal ticketing is being able to use the same ticket or ticketing system across different modes of transport, e.g. on a bus and then on a train. Multi-operator ticketing is being able to use the same ticket across different transport operators, not necessarily across different modes, e.g. on a Stagecoach bus and then on a First bus. |
| NOx | A generic term for the nitrogen oxides that are most relevant for air pollution, namely nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂). NOx gases are produced during the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels in diesel and petrol-powered vehicles. In areas of high motor vehicle traffic, NOx can be a significant source of air pollution. |
| Park and Ride | A system for reducing urban traffic congestion, in which drivers leave their cars in car parks on the outskirts of a city and travel to the city centre on public transport. |
| Particulate matter (PM) | A complex mixture of small material and liquid droplets which have the potential to cause significant health issues. |
| Public Health England (PHE) | The body responsible for protecting the nation's health and wellbeing and reducing health inequalities. |
| Public realm | Publicly accessible space between and within buildings, including streets, squares, forecourts, parks and open spaces. |
| Public transport | Shared transport such as bus and train. It can also include the funicular railways in Hastings, where and if appropriate. |
| Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) | A decision support process which ensures that environmental and sustainability aspects are considered effectively in policy, plan and program making. |
| Strategic road network (SRN) | Motorways and the most significant trunk roads in end and, which are managed by Highways England. |
| Sustainable transport | Forms of transport which have lower environmental impact than single occupancy car use. It includes walking, cycling, public transport, Park and Ride, and car-sharing. |
| Transport decarbonisation | The process of reducing, and ultimately removing, greenhouse gas emissions produced as a by-product of transport infrastructure and operations. |
| Transport for London (TFL) | The body in charge of delivering transport services in Greater London. |
| Transport for the South East (TfSE) | The regional sub-national transport body for the south east. |
| Travel interchange / Mobility hub | A place of transport interchange providing easy access to the wider transport network with cycle parking, taxi call points and access to car club vehicles, drop off points and (at larger locations) park and ride facilities. |
| Travel Plan | A strategy that an organisation or development has to meet the travel needs of the site it is developed for, particularly to minimise single occupancy travel and maximise the use of sustainable modes. It involves ongoing and continuous implementation of initiatives and measures as well as constant monitoring. |
| Trip | A one-way movement from one place to another to achieve a single main purpose. Trips may be further sub-divided into journey stages. |
| Ultra-Low Emission Vehicle | Vehicles that use low carbon technologies, fuelled by electricity or hydrogen, to reduce the amount of pollutants emitted. They commonly have rechargeable batteries which are used to store energy. |
| Vision Zero | An approach to road danger reduction that works towards the elimination of road traffic deaths and serious injuries by reducing the dominance of motor vehicles. |
| Wheeling | Using a wheelchair or mobility scooter to get around as opposed to walking or cycling. |
Appendix A: Future Transport Scenario Planning Report
Introduction
As part of the development of the East Sussex Local Transport Plan (LTP), a series of stakeholder workshops was held between January – September 2023 to help develop the strategy including alternative future scenarios, a preferred scenario, and vision and objectives, around which the strategy was formed.
This appendix summarises the rationale, methodology and outcomes from the scenario planning process workshops, and how it has influenced the development of the LTP so far.
Why scenario planning?
By considering how different futures may come about and their implications, using a scenario planning approach allowed East Sussex County Council and its key stakeholders to understand how different versions of the future may support or hinder local visions coming to fruition.
Scenario planning is useful for:
- understanding the uncertainty of the future and what that could mean for transport and travel;
- identifying alternative versions of the future – plausible, hypothetical alternatives – not target-seeking or visionary alternatives;
- helping provide insights into the issues and opportunities different corridors or areas may face and a need for intervention; and
- helping shape a preferred scenario or vision testing the resilience of a vision and plan
This not only enabled the development and confirmation of a joint, stakeholder approved future preferred scenario which aligns to the vision, but also enabled planners to fully think through the components of their vision, what is needed to achieve it both what is within their control and what external factors may be outside their control. A better understanding of this uncertainty was intended to improve and assist future investment and policy making decisions; and ensure the Local Transport Plan proposes actions that represent ‘no regrets’ decisions.
Stakeholder engagement workshops
Seven sets of workshops were held between January and September 2023 during the development of the LTP.
The bullet points below outlines the key discussions that took place at each of these workshops to inform our preferred and alternative scenarios, and how these informed our vision, objectives and packages of interventions for the area and how these were presented in the strategy.
- Identifying drivers of change (January – February 2023)
- Importance and certainty of drivers that will influence a strategy
- Axes of uncertainty – what are the extremes of factors that are important and uncertain
- Scenario Refinement (February – March 2023)
- Likely transport, social, environmental and economic outcomes
- What is the preferred future (March 2023)
- Agree characteristics of the identified scenarios that should appear in our preferred scenario / the future
- Informed by modelling of the four scenarios
- Vision, objectives and options generation (April 2023)
- What interventions could be delivered to achieve the preferred scenario?
- Shortlisting packages of interventions (May 2023)
- What packages should be our priority in the short- (0-5 years), medium- (5-10 years) and long-term (10+ years)
- The strategy (Sumer 2023)
- Confirmation of the vision and objectives in relation to options and packages
- Deciding what will underpin our strategy (e.g. principles)
- Draft strategy for consultation (November 2023 – February 2024)
- Final draft and seek political approval / adoption (Spring / Summer 2024)
This note focuses on documenting the outcomes of the first four workshops centred around scenario development, refinement and defining a preferred future.
For each of the stages, Steer facilitated workshops with the following three sets of stakeholders:
- East Sussex County Council Member Reference Group – cross party comprising eight councillors from the Council’s Place Scrutiny Committee, chaired by Councillor Redstone;
- East Sussex County Council officers – comprising officers from different teams both within the Communities, Economy and Transport directorate (e.g. Road Safety, Transport Hub, Asset Management, Culture & Tourism) and other departments in the County Council (e.g. Public Health); and
- East Sussex local stakeholders – comprising of stakeholders with a vested interest in the future transport in the area. This group included local planning authorities (districts, boroughs and South Downs National Park), representatives from Transport for the South East, strategic transport providers, protected characteristic group representatives, access and user groups and representatives from the business, culture and voluntary sectors.
Findings between workshops were consolidated and presented for confirmation at the subsequent workshop to ensure key discussions points were captured and there was stakeholder alignment across the groups.
Workshop 1 – Introduction, Driver Mapping and Axes of Uncertainty
Steer has developed and refined a four-step process for producing bespoke scenarios tailored to a geography and importantly using the views of stakeholders in that geography, which were followed in the initial workshops. Stakeholders were asked what factors, both within the control of the public sector and outside of their control, could impact on what the future brings for the region.
Step 1: Driver Mapping
Stakeholders were asked to identify key drivers of future uncertainty using a PESTLE framework (Political, Economic, Social, Technology, Legal, Environment). The conversation was steered towards seeking those drivers which will impact on the demand for movement and the choices people and businesses will make when travelling.
Identified drivers were then mapped based on two key factors how important each driver is and how uncertain its future trajectory might be. The aim was to identify drivers which considered to be both important and uncertain, and hence influence alternative scenarios.
For example, population growth in an area may be very important to how we plan transport for the future, but some may view that it’s trajectory should be reasonably certain because of the detailed forecasts and modelling done by the Office for National Statistics. Hence that may not be considered a key driver of future uncertainty. Conversely, there could a driver for which the future is very uncertain but in terms of its impact on planning for transport it may not be deemed particularly important, such as the impact of robotics and AI in industry.
The figure and table below summarises the mapping of drivers from stakeholders.
Results of stakeholder driver mapping
- More important and more certain
-
- Demographics
- Transport integration
- Transport policy
- New zero policies
- Clean transport technologies
- Impacts of climate change
- Attitudes to shared mobility
- Other environmental policies
- New transport technologies
- More important and less certain
-
- Integrated spatial planning
- Transport pricing
- Government spending and priorities
- Economic shocks
- Attitudes to the environment
- Changes in working patterns
- Automation of transport
- Attitudes to health
- Changes in remote activities
- Changing role of town centres
- Less important and more certain
-
- Data and connectivity
- COVID-19 recovery pathway
- Energy sources
- Less important and less certain
-
- Robotics / AI in industry
- Energy / fuel prices
Step 2: Axes of Uncertainty
After identifying the most important and least certain drivers, stakeholders were next asked to create an uncertainty axis specific to each driver.
The aim of the activity was to describe the situation at the two ends of an axis which considered how that driver might either have a ‘positive contribution’ to the local transport plan vision, or at the other end how it might ‘negatively impact’ and put the vision at risk.
The table below summarises the possible future extremities of the six drivers identified.
| Axes of uncertainty | One extreme | Other extreme |
|---|---|---|
| Government spending and priorities | Inconsistent and lacking | Consistent and plentiful |
| Changing role of our town centres and integrated spatial planning | Renaissance of town centres | Dispersal of town centres |
| Changes in working patterns and changes in remote activities | Remote and automated | In-person and specialist |
| Transport policy | Increasing mobility | Reducing mobility and Net Zero Transition |
| Economic shocks | Environmental transition | Rising inequality |
| Automation in transport | More individualised transport | More public transport |
Workshop 2 – Alternative scenario development and refinement
Step 3: Scenario development and refinement
In workshop 2, stakeholders were asked to develop a ‘reference’ case scenario, which would be (i.e. a trend-based forecast, or ‘Business as Usual (BAU)). This was the scenario against which the chosen alternative futures would be compared against.
Next, the six drivers were considered, and four alternative scenarios were developed which mapped four extremities of how the future may be different from the BAU and how this may influence transport and socio-economic outcomes.
This was an important part of the process, as if the final scenarios developed were not sufficiently different from each other or the reference case, then they would not be usable as tools in the uncertainty testing of strategies, policies and investment choices for the LTP process.
The four alternative scenarios developed during these workshops are summarised below.
- Scenario 1: Slow economic recovery (a future with no or slow economic growth)
- Reduced level of government spend
- Transport and the environment are lower priorities
- Reduced population
- Increased use of private transport compared to public transport – car, walk/wheel and cycle/scooters
- Scenario 2: Rapid net zero (a future where achieving net zero carbon emissions is our top priority)
- Industrial strategy aimed at decarbonisation
- Improved health outcomes
- Environmentally focused technology investment
- Car and van/HGV use is disincentivised and increased use of sustainable modes
- Scenario 3: Individualistic behaviour (a future where the policy focus is primarily on the needs and wants of the individual)
- Economic growth is strong but unstable
- Rising inequality
- Convenience driven tech-solutions
- Connected and autonomous vehicle networks become commonplace
- Scenario 4: Connected communities (a future where there is an increased focus on community cohesion)
- Growth in town centres and investment in local specialisms
- Focus on quality of life and equity
- Reduce importance of technology
- Reduce use of private transport
Workshop 3 and 4 – Identifying and refining a preferred scenario and quantifying the future
Step 4a: Identifying and refining a preferred scenario and quantifying the future
Workshop participants were next invited to discuss the implications of each of the alternative scenario hypotheses, identify the ideal outcomes and develop a preferred scenario which would inform the future vision, desired outcomes and package of interventions for the LTP.
The agreed characteristics of this preferred scenario are:
- Net zero carbon
- Highly productive economy
- Improved health outcomes
- Focus on protecting and enhancing the environment
- Growth in town centres
- Increased virtual access
- Enhanced digital connectivity
- Investment in public transport for both urban and rural areas
- A comprehensive active travel network
- Rural mobility hubs
- National road pricing
- Faster roll out of infrastructure to support zero-emission vehicles
- Rapid transition to decarbonised freight
This preferred scenario was refined further with stakeholders by considering the specific impacts of what could happen in this preferred future, and how these may influence transport and wider socio-economic outcomes.
Stakeholders identified the land use, telecommunications and transport planning characteristics of this preferred scenario, which informed the types of interventions that will be required to get us to that preferred scenario.
A summary from these characteristics is presented in Appendix 1.
The preferred scenario and alternative scenarios were quantified using the South East Economy and Land Use Model (SEELUM). SEELUM simulates the interaction between how transport responds to changes in how people live and work (land use) and how people live and work in response to changes in transport. Steer developed this for Transport for the South East for use in their Transport Strategy, programme of Area Studies, and their Strategic Investment Plan.
The model outputs report changes in:
- the number of journey and by which mode (including freight)
- population change
- employment and GVA change
- change in carbon emissions
The preferred scenario captured the following characteristics:
- Reduced public transport fares and improved journey times
- Enhanced active travel infrastructure
- National road pricing
- Focus of growth in town centres
- Increased virtual access
The below bullet list summarises the impacts of the preferred scenario. Note, all results are for the year 2050 and compared to a ‘business as usual’ forecast of the future in 2050 and not to today.
- 19% fewer trips by private car or van
- 38% more trips by train
- 63% more trips by bus
- 43% more trips by walking, wheeling or cycling
- 4% less trips to East Sussex
- 15% less trips from East Sussex
- 3% more trips within Eats Sussex
- 3% (5,000) reduction in total trip
The preferred scenario reduces longer-distance personal transport trips, and increases rail, local bus and active travel trips. This scenario results in an overall 3% reduction in travel trips and a 19% reduction in carbon vs a BAU scenario in 2050, and a positive contribution to population, employment and GVA vs a BAU scenario in 2050.
A full set of modelling results of the preferred and alternative scenarios is presented in Appendix 2.
Next Steps
How the scenarios have informed the LTP process
The preferred scenario informed subsequent workshops focussed on developing and defining a vision statement of ambition for the East Sussex Local Transport Plan and a set of objectives which outline what the LTP desires to achieve to realise the vision.
During this process, stakeholders were continually reminded to reflect the desires from the preferred scenario, and thus have informed the strategic narrative, interventions and policy actions outlined in the LTP.
Other potential uses of the defined preferred and alternative scenarios
The preferred and alternative scenarios could have a number of uses for East Sussex County Council and partner Local Authorities going forward:
- They can be referenced in future to understand the opportunities and threats to the vision and action plans laid out in the East Sussex Local Transport Plan.
- They can be used as part of future detailed strategic planning of movement and connectivity in the region to understand how future uncertainty might impact decision making and prioritisation.
- They could also be used as a means of ‘stress-testing’ the strategic and economic case for specific schemes considered for the region, and support local decision making.
Appendix 1 - Preferred scenario characteristics
Characteristics by theme
The table below summarises the key characteristics which underpin the preferred scenario for the East Sussex area. These characteristics of the Completely Connected Communities preferred scenario were developed and discussed with stakeholders involved in the scenario planning process. These characteristics have informed the types of interventions and policies presented in the Local Transport Plan.
Key characteristics which underpin the preferred scenario for the East Sussex area
- Economy, business and employment
-
- Industrial strategy is significantly more focussed on decarbonisation and green technologies
- Public sector investment is focussed in most deprived areas, supporting local specialisms, and skills accordingly
- Higher and more stable growth, including in jobs
- High employment and wages, particularly in public/third sectors and construction
- Health and society
-
- Safety and accessibility for all is priority
- Communities planned for people of all ages and abilities
- Mental health valued as much as physical health
- More active lifestyles
- Higher outcomes for health, social cohesion and quality of life
- Environment
-
- Reduction in non-renewable energy/heavy industry
- Environmental protection/enhancement and decarbonisation the highest priority, including for adaptation
- Everyone has access and the ability to spend time in local green spaces and other natural assets in the county
- Higher outcomes for the environment, as a result to higher levels of local economic activity
- Technology
-
- Environmentally focussed technology solutions and rapid decarbonisation of transport such as renewable energy production, green hydrogen, and zero emission vehicles
- Faster roll-out / ubiquitous provision of gigabit broadband, 5G mobile digital connectivity (and successors)
- Very fast adoption of technologies that make our lives easier/require less effort
- More help available for those with lower technological skills levels
- Technology can enable interpersonal encounters for people (particularly vulnerable people)
- Digital technology assists accessibility and reduces the need to travel – virtual access to work, retail, and other services
- Data and smart technologies, including apps) improve the planning of journeys, user experience, and traffic management
- Use of digital technology to better co-ordinate freight movements and deliveries
- Mobility-as-a-Service to better integrate and link up journeys, help provide more options (e.g. bike and scooter hire) and lower average fares
- Use of data and smart technologies supports better spatial and transport planning
Characteristics by mode and/or sector
The information below summarises the key transport characteristics which underpin the preferred scenario for the East Sussex area. These characteristics were also developed and discussed with stakeholders involved in the scenario planning process. Four movement types were developed to understand and reflect the unique geographic opportunities and constraints, how they may impact different movements, and require different solutions in a future scenario. These characteristics have informed the types of interventions and policies presented in the Local Transport Plan.
Active travel
- Regional and longer distance travel for personal travel
-
- Increased active travel infrastructure across the county
- Coastal areas and moving east-west along the coast
-
- Increased active travel infrastructure across the county, this may be easier in coastal areas
- Active tourism - A27 as a strategic transport corridor, most journeys are shorter distance
- Market towns and rural areas
-
- Increased active travel infrastructure across the county
- Schemes are accessible to all
- Rights-of-way should be maintained by land owners
- Active travel integrated with public transport
- Rural road safety for vulnerable road users is increased encouraging active travel
- Freight and the needs of business
-
- Increased provision of active travel infrastructure locally and town centre public realm
Public transport
- Regional and longer distance travel for personal travel
-
- Re-prioritisation of some road investment to increase investment in public transport across the county (increased frequency, bus priority, new routes, reduced fares and zero emission buses)
- Coastal areas and moving east-west along the coast
-
- Re-prioritisation of some road investment to increase investment in public transport across the county (increased frequency, bus priority, new routes, reduced fares and zero emission buses)
- Less need for bus subsidies in coastal areas
- New models of on-demand services in urban areas
- Improved rail connections along the coast
- Market towns and rural areas
-
- Re-prioritisation of some road investment to increase investment in public transport across the county (increased frequency, bus priority, new routes, reduced fares and zero emission buses)
- New models of on-demand services in rural areas (dial-a-ride, etc.)
- Disincentives to using private vehicles
- Freight and the needs of business
-
- Re-prioritisation of some road investment to increase investment in public transport across the county (increased frequency, bus priority, new routes, reduced fares and zero emission buses)
- Key freight routes are retained
- Investment in rail freight
Private transport
- Regional and longer distance travel for personal travel
-
- Increased road capacity to meet rising demand
- Faster roll out of EV charging points
- Coastal areas and moving east-west along the coast
-
- Road space and kerb-side reallocation to more sustainable modes in urban areas and some inter-urban corridors
- Use of pricing mechanisms (e.g. parking tariffs, ULEZ)
- Prioritising vulnerable road users (for parking – blue badges)
- Faster roll out of EV charging points (including for those without driveways)
- Market towns and rural areas
-
- Road space and kerb-side reallocation to more sustainable modes in urban areas and some inter-urban corridors
- Use of pricing mechanisms (e.g. parking tariffs, ULEZ)
- Faster roll out of EV charging points
- Prioritising vulnerable road users
- Accessible parking space still needed in the centres of towns
- Broadly a shift towards shared transport with promotion of private micromobility/ active travel
- Freight and the needs of business
-
- Increased road capacity to meet rising demand
- Faster roll out of EV charging points
- Road space and kerb-side reallocation to more sustainable modes in urban areas and some inter-urban corridors
Freight
- Regional and longer distance travel for personal travel
-
- Rapid transition to decarbonised freight – rail/ZEV
- Focus on sustainable last mile freight solutions
- Driverless vehicles/ platooning of HGVs
- Coastal areas and moving east-west along the coast
-
- Focus on sustainable last mile freight solutions – especially coastal
- Sustainable and intelligent delivery (freight consolidation)
- Rapid transition to decarbonised freight – rail/ZEV
- Delivery hubs – will look different between coast and rural
- Market towns and rural areas
-
- Rapid transition to decarbonised freight – rail/ZEV
- Focus on sustainable last mile freight solutions (cargo bikes, lockers)
- Maybe reduce freight by sourcing things more locally/ moving to a more circular economy
- Freight and the needs of business
-
- Rapid transition to decarbonised freight – rail/ZEV
- Focus on sustainable last mile freight solutions
- Driverless vehicles/ platooning of HGVs
- Sustainable hydrogen production
- Improving e-bike range
Land Use
- Regional and longer distance travel for personal travel
-
- Focus on concentrating new development in town centres and where public transport connectivity is highest
- Coastal areas and moving east-west along the coast
-
- Focus development in town centres and where public transport connectivity is highest
- Support for mixed use and higher density development
- Net zero / climate positive developments
- An increase in services and amenities that are available locally
- Market towns and rural areas
-
- Focus new development in town centres and where public transport connectivity is highest
- Support for mixed use and higher density development and focus on regeneration
- Net zero / climate positive developments
- Working with developers to develop sites near public transport and amenities
- Supporting sustainable farming and greener food distribution (e.g. electric vehicles)
- An increase in services and amenities that are available locally
- Freight and the needs of business
-
- Focus on concentrating new development in town centres and where public transport and freight connectivity is highest
- Focus on regeneration
- Support for mixed use and higher density development
- An increase in services and amenities that are available locally
Digital
- Regional and longer distance travel for personal travel
-
- Rapid deployment of digital technology and faster adoption
- Coastal areas and moving east-west along the coast
-
- Business and public service providers encouraged to provide online functions, and households and business encouraged to use them
- Provision of support / assistance in roll out of technology (for particular users e.g. seniors)
- Rapid deployment of digital technology and faster adoption
- 100% coverage of high speed digital
- Market towns and rural areas
-
- Roll out and adoption keeps base with current forecasts
- Business and public service providers are encouraged to provide online functions, and households and other business encouraged to use them
- Investment distributed across the county
- Digital first but not digital only, there should be alternative options maintained as well
- Freight and the needs of business
-
- Rapid deployment of digital technology and faster adoption
- Business and public service providers are encouraged to provide online functions, and households and other business encouraged to use them
- Roll out keeps pace with current forecasts
Appendix 2 - Modelling results of preferred and alternative scenarios
This appendix presents the headline transport and socioeconomic outcomes from modelling the preferred and alternative scenarios through the South East Economy and Land Use Model (SEELUM).
SEELUM simulates the interaction between how transport responds to changes in how people live and work (land use) and how people live and work in response to changes in transport. Steer developed this for Transport for the South East for use in their Transport Strategy, programme of Area Studies, and their Strategic Investment Plan.
Quantifying the four alternative scenarios informed and validated the ideal characteristics of a preferred scenario.
In addition to the preferred scenario, two sensitivity tests were also modelled to understand the potential impact of introducing urban area parking restraints (a preferred scenario ‘plus’), and delivering initiatives which promote the concept of liveable neighbourhoods (a preferred scenario ‘max’),
Note, all results are presented in 2050 and compared to a ‘business as usual’ forecast of the future in 2050 and not to today.
Transport outcomes from the alternative and preferred scenarios
- Slow economic recovery scenario
-
- No change in total trips
- 2% less car trips
- 8% less rail trips
- 11% less bus trips
- 13% more active travel trips
- Rapid net zero scenario
-
- 4% less total trips
- 17% less car trips
- 42% more rail trips
- 21% more bus trips
- 36% more active travel trips
- Individualistic behaviour scenario
-
- 3% more total trips
- 6% more car trips
- 8% less rail trips
- 11% less bus trips
- 57% less active travel trips
- Connected communities scenario
-
- 3% more total trips
- 3% less car trips
- 17% less rail trips
- 47% more bus trips
- 20% more active travel trips
- Preferred scenario
-
- 3% less total trips
- 19% less car trips
- 38% more rail trips
- 63% more bus trips
- 43% more active travel trips
The preferred scenario resembled characteristics of the rapid net zero and individualistic behaviour alternative scenarios.
The preferred scenario characteristics reduces longer-distance personal transport trips and supports mode shift to rail (as per the rapid net zero scenario), and promote local trips which can be undertaken by bus and active travel (as per the connected communities scenario).
Transport outcomes from the preferred, preferred ‘plus’ and preferred ‘max’ scenarios
- Preferred scenario ‘core’
-
Modelled interventions are reduced public transport fares and improved journey times, enhanced active travel infrastructure, national road pricing, focus of growth in town centres and increased virtual access.
- 3% less total trips
- 19% less car trips
- 38% more rail trips
- 63% more bus trips
- 43% more active travel trips
- Preferred scenario ‘plus’
-
Modelled interventions are as per preferred scenario ‘core’ and urban area parking restraint (price and availability).
- 3% less total trips
- 21% less car trips
- 41% more rail trips
- 636% more bus trips
- 46% more active travel trips
- Preferred scenario ‘max’
-
Modelled interventions are as per preferred scenario ‘plus’ and liveable neighbourhoods in urban areas
- 5% less total trips
- 25% less car trips
- 46% more rail trips
- 72% more bus trips
- 52% more active travel trips
Capturing the potential impact of introducing urban area parking restraints (a preferred scenario ‘plus’) and delivering initiatives which promote the concept of liveable neighbourhoods (a preferred scenario ‘max’) results in a greater reduction in private car trips, and a modal shift to rail, bus and active travel trips.
Socioeconomic outcomes from the alternative and preferred scenarios
- Slow economic recovery scenario
-
- No change in total trips
- No change in population
- No change in employment
- No change in Gross Value Added (GVA)
- 1% less carbon
- Rapid net zero scenario
-
- 4% less total trips
- No change in population
- 2% less employment
- 2% less Gross Value Added (GVA)
- 8% less carbon
- Individualistic behaviour scenario
-
- 3% more total trips
- No change in population
- 2% more employment
- 3% more Gross Value Added (GVA)
- 7% less carbon
- Connected communities scenario
-
- 3% more total trips
- No change in population
- 5% more employment
- 5% more Gross Value Added (GVA)
- 5% less carbon
- Preferred scenario
-
- 3% less total trips
- 1% more population
- 4% more employment
- 3% more Gross Value Added (GVA)
- 19% less carbon
The preferred scenario results in an overall 3% reduction in travel trips and a 19% reduction in carbon vs a BAU scenario in 2050, and supports a positive contribution to population, employment and GVA vs a BAU scenario in 2050.
Socioeconomic outcomes from preferred, preferred ‘plus’ and preferred ‘max’ scenarios
- Preferred scenario ‘core’
-
Modelled interventions are reduced public transport fares and improved journey times, enhanced active travel infrastructure, national road pricing, focus of growth in town centres and increased virtual access.
- 3% less total trips
- 1% more population
- 4% more employment
- 5% more Gross Value Added (GVA)
- 19% less carbon
- Preferred scenario ‘plus’
-
Modelled interventions are as per preferred scenario ‘core’ and urban area parking restraint (price and availability).
- 3% less total trips
- 1% more population
- 3% more employment
- 2% more Gross Value Added (GVA)
- 23% less carbon
- Preferred scenario ‘max’
-
Modelled interventions are as per preferred scenario ‘plus’ and liveable neighbourhoods in urban areas
- 4% less total trips
- No change in population
- No change in employment
- No change in Gross Value Added (GVA)
- 30% less carbon
Introducing urban area parking restraints (a preferred scenario ‘plus’) and delivering initiatives which promote the concept of liveable neighbourhoods (a preferred scenario ‘max’) result in a greater reduction in trips and carbon emissions. This is due to a greater shift away from longer-distance private car trips to local trips undertaken by sustainable modes. Under these scenarios, sustainability outcomes are advanced without negatively impacting other socioeconomic outcomes vs a BAU scenario in 2050.
Appendix B: List of schemes presented in theme maps
Introduction
This appendix presents a list of the schemes presented within the themed maps
Key schemes: Theme B - Safer, healthier and more active travel
Mobility hubs / travel interchanges (one unless stated)
- Battle
- Bexhill
- Crowborough (two)
- Eastbourne (five)
- Etchingham
- Falmer
- Hailsham (two)
- Hastings (three)
- Heathfield
- Lewes
- Newhaven
- Polegate
- Rye
- Seaford
- Uckfield
- Wadhurst
Inter-urban active travel schemes
- A259 Coast Road (MRN). A259 road from Eastbourne, west to the border with Brighton & Hove City Council at Saltdean and to Brighton City Centre.
- Ashford-Hastings active travel enhancements. Indicative line from Hastings, past Rye and into Kent and Ashford
- Crowborough - Tunbridge Wells active travel enhancements via A26
- Eastbourne-Hastings active travel enhancements. Indicative route shown north of the railway line.
- Eastbourne/South Wealden active travel enhancements. Via the A22 and A2270 between Hailsham and Eastbourne town centre
- Hailsham/Polegate – Lewes – Brighton active travel enhancements. Indicative line north of rail route Polegate – Lewes – Brighton and via A22 between Polegate and Hailsham.
- Hailsham – Uckfield (largely via A22) and Hailsham – Heathfield (via Cuckoo Trail) active travel enhancements
- London-Paris “Avenue Verte”. Indicative alignment via Newhaven, Lewes, Uckfield to East Grinstead
- Tunbridge Wells-Hastings (A21) active travel enhancements.
- Tunbridge Wells – Hastings NCN active travel enhancements. No fixed alignment. Southern extents could include Bexhill.
Rural, village and market towns active travel
- Battle local active travel enhancements
- Crowborough local active travel enhancements
- Lewes and South Downs Area local active travel enhancements.
- Newhaven / Peacehaven / Seaford Area local active travel enhancements
- North Lewes Area local active travel enhancements
- North Wealden Area local active travel enhancements
- Rural village and market towns active travel enhancements. Covers all rural villages and connectivity within them and to/from market towns.
- Rye local active travel enhancements
- Uckfield local active travel enhancements
Urban active travel
- Bexhill active travel enhancements
- Hastings active travel enhancements
- Eastbourne area active travel enhancements
Key schemes: Theme C - Integrated and accessible transport for all
Mobility hubs / travel interchanges (one unless stated)
- Battle
- Bexhill
- Crowborough (two)
- Eastbourne (five)
- Etchingham
- Falmer
- Hailsham (two)
- Hastings (three)
- Heathfield
- Lewes
- Newhaven
- Polegate
- Rye
- Seaford
- Uckfield rail station
- Wadhurst
Railway scheme
- Brighton-Eastbourne faster services
- Direct rail services between Seaford/Newhaven and London
- Eastbourne-Hastings faster rail services
- High speed 1 to Hastings, Bexhill and Eastbourne (route via Ashford International)
- Hurst Green (Oxted)-Uckfield electrification
- Spa Valley line modern operations reopening
- Uckfield-Lewes reopening
Inter-urban public transport schemes or services
- Brighton-Lewes-Uckfield-Tunbridge Wells bus enhancements (via A26 and towns or village centres)
- Brighton-Newhaven-Eastbourne bus enhancements (along A259)
- Cuckfield-Uckfield bus enhancements (along A272)
- East Grinstead- Tunbridge Wells bus enhancements (along A264).
- East Grinstead-Uckfield bus enhancements (along A22)
- Eastbourne-Bexhill-Hastings bus enhancements (along A259)
- Eastbourne-Polegate-Lewes bus enhancements (along A27)
- Eastbourne-Tunbridge Wells bus enhancements (along A22 and A267)
- Gatwick Airport-Crowborough bus enhancements (indicative route along A264)
- Gatwick Airport-Uckfield bus enhancements (indicative route along A264 and A22)
- Hailsham-Lewes new interurban bus (along A22 and A27)
- Hastings-Rye-Ashford bus enhancements (along A259 east to Rye and then via Camber and eastwards to Dover along the coast)
- Hurst Green-Uckfield bus opportunities
Rural, village and market towns public transport schemes or services
- Hailsham-Battle/Hastings bus enhancements (along A271)
- Hailsham-Tunbridge Wells bus enhancements (via A267)
- On-demand rural and village transport. Covers all rural villages and connectivity within them and to/from market towns.
Urban public transport schemes or services
- Bexhill urban bus enhancements
- Eastbourne urban bus enhancements
- Hastings urban bus enhancements
Key schemes: Theme D - Keeping East Sussex Connected
Mobility hubs / travel interchanges (one unless stated)
- Bexhill
- Eastbourne (five)
- Falmer
- Hastings (three)
- Lewes
- Polegate rail station
- Rye
- Uckfield railway station
Railway schemes
- Brighton mainline connectivity (Lewes to Wivelsfield, Lewes to Brighton and Brighton to London)
- Brighton-Eastbourne faster rail services
- Direct rail services between Seaford/Newhaven and London
- Eastbourne-Hastings faster rail services
- High speed 1 to Hastings, Bexhill and Eastbourne (route via Ashford International)
- Hurst Green (Oxted)-Uckfield electrification
- Newhaven Port rail freight opportunities
- Spa Valley Line modern operations reopening
- Uckfield-Lewes line reopening
Inter-urban public transport schemes
- A21 bus enhancements (Length of A21 from Tunbridge Wells/Pembury to Hastings)
- Brighton-Lewes-Uckfield-Tunbridge Wells bus enhancements (via A26 and towns or village centres)
- Brighton-Newhaven-Eastbourne bus enhancements (along A259)
- Cuckfield-Uckfield bus enhancements (along A272)
- East Grinstead- Tunbridge Wells bus enhancements (along A264).
- East Grinstead-Uckfield bus enhancements (along A22)
- Eastbourne-Bexhill-Hastings bus enhancements (along A259)
- Eastboune/South Wealden bus enhancements (along A2270 and A22 to Hailsham)
- Eastbourne-Tunbridge Wells bus enhancements (along A22 and A267)
- Gatwick Airport-Crowborough bus enhancements (indicative route along A264)
- Gatwick Airport-Uckfield bus enhancements (indicative route along A264 and A22)
- Hailsham-Tunbridge Wells bus enhancements (via A267)
- Hurst Green-Uckfield bus opportunities
Highways schemes
- A21 Kippings Cross to Lamberhurst dualling
- A21 Flimwell and Hurst Green bypasses
- A21 Safety Enhancements (RIS2).
- A22 Corridor package (Maresfield to Hailsham)
- A22 Hailsham and Stone Cross
- A22 Hailsham to Uckfield MRN Pipeline
- A22 Uckfield Bypass dualling
- A22 and A2290 Corridor, Eastbourne
- A26 Lewes-Newhaven enhancements
- A26 Lewes to Uckfield (potential MRN Pipeline)
- A27 Falmer enhancements
- A27 Lewes-Polegate Package (RIS2)
- A27 Lewes-Polegate (RIS3 Pipeline)
- A259 Coast Road (MRN), Brighton to Eastbourne
- A259 level crossings removal (between Rye and Kent border)
- A2101 Access to Hastings Corridor Package (MRN Pipeline)
- Hastings and Bexhill distributor roads(west Bexhill to North Hastings)