Withdrawn Traffic Management Act 2004: network management to support active travel

The TMA gives councils more tools to manage parking policies, coordinate street works and enforce some moving traffic offences. The Secretary of State believes that local authorities should produce a report dealing with their civil enforcement duties, whether just parking, or including bus lanes and moving traffic. They will benefit from interviews with camera operators, who are in a unique position to identify changes to bus lane and moving traffic enforcement patterns, and with office staff, who see challenges and representations and the reasoning behind them. These might, for example, identify specific enforcement issues that should be addressed to improve compliance or reduce costs. The charge levels for bus lane and moving traffic contraventions will be the same as that for higher-level parking contraventions.

• Local authorities should never view enforcement in isolation and should use physical enforcement measures, for example build-outs, wherever possible to prevent contraventions.
• If an adjudicator allows the appeal, the adjudicator may issue appropriate directions for giving effect to its decision, including a direction to the authority to cancel the PCN and refund any sum already paid in respect of the penalty charge.
• However, local authorities are encouraged to submit applications for moving traffic enforcement to cover the whole CEA area.
• And any decisions on whether to remove or modify them must be publicly consulted on with the same rigour as we require for decisions to install them.

Amendment to the Traffic Management Permit Scheme (England) Regulations 2007

For the following reasons explained, DfT must be satisfied in relation to various SRL telematics software matters before a Designation Order can be made. Delays in providing the information fully at the outset may result in delays in the Order being drafted, urgent requests for further information, and tying up of resources for the authority and the department. Ultimately, this could lead to the department being unable to agree to meet any proposed coming into force date.

Inclusive Mobility, updated in January 2022, provides detailed design advice to ensure the pedestrian environment is accessible to all. The guidance sets out high-level principles to help local authorities to manage their roads and what actions they should take. It applies to all highway authorities in England, who shall have regard to this guidance to deliver their network management duty under the act. It is effective from the date of publication and replaces the guidance published on 9 May 2020 and updated on 23 May 2020, 13 November 2020 and 30 July 2021. Traffic management is necessary as it provides a safe environment for those working on the roads and for the general public who are using the UK’s road system.

It requires a written Construction Phase Plan before work begins, and health and safety files to be maintained throughout. For traffic management works, CDM dovetails with the Work at Height Regulations 2005, risk assessments must specifically address any elevation access involved in the works setup. The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 apply to most roadworks schemes. They place legal duties on clients, designers, and principal contractors to plan, manage, and monitor health and safety throughout every stage of a project. Under CDM, operatives working at height must have a suitable and sufficient risk assessment in place before work begins. Under Section 16 of the Traffic Management Act 2004, every local traffic authority has a statutory duty to manage their road network with the objective of securing the expeditious movement of traffic.

legislation.gov.uk

It is recommended that local authorities should offer motorists flexible and efficient ways to contact them, by at least one method, including email and telephone. They should ensure there is an adequate audit trail to defend any accusations of unfairness. Local authorities should remember that an appeal is a judicial proceeding and that time limits laid down in regulations or set by adjudicators must be adhered to strictly. Local authorities should respond promptly to contacts from the adjudicator concerning appeals.

A person who recklessly or knowingly makes a representation to a local authority or adjudicator which is false in a material particular is guilty of an offence, and on summary conviction may be liable to a fine of any amount. A suitably senior local authority officer should review all cases in which a delayed PCN is being considered because of a problem in obtaining data from the DVLA. The ‘vehicle owner’ is definedfootnote 16 as the person by whom the vehicle is kept, which is presumed to be the person in whose name the vehicle is registered with the DVLA, unless the contrary is proved. Local authorities should not charge an additional surcharge (for example, towards administrative costs) for a particular method of payment. Processes must comply with all relevant primary legislation, regulations, TROs and administrative law.

Local authorities may also wish to set out certain situations when a PCN should not be issued. For example, a local authority may wish to consider issuing a written warning rather than a PCN in appropriate circumstances. The local authority should have clear policies, instructions and training for officers on how to exercise such discretion and authorities should publish their policies. They should also make sure that those staff, have the skills, training, authority and resources to give the public a high quality, professional, efficient, timely and user‑friendly service. The local authority must specify what type of authority it is (county council, a borough council, a district council, a unitary authority, or a metropolitan district council). In the case of a metropolitan district council, the authority must indicate whether it is applying jointly with another metropolitan district council or in respect of its own area only.

For example, what is appropriate in urban areas (including market towns) may not be suitable in more rural areas where a large proportion of journeys are too long to be made on foot or by cycle and people are more reliant on private vehicles. We have no interest in requiring councils to keep schemes which are proven not to work. And any decisions on whether to remove or modify them must be publicly consulted on with the same rigour as we require for decisions to install them.