Background to LTPs

In April 2025, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander re-confirmed plans, originally announced by the previous Government, to revive the Local Transport Plan (LTP) process, with updated guidance on preparing LTPs to be issued later in 2025. This could be a crucial opportunity for the Department for Transport (DfT) to set out what local transport authorities outside London (i.e. county councils, non-metropolitan unitary authorities, and the combined authorities and combined county authorities which cover England’s main conurbations and which have been forming in other areas in recent years) need to do to support the vision of DfT’s Integrated National Transport Strategy, which is also due for publication later in 2025.

The LTP system was established in 1999/2000, under powers set out in the Transport Act 2000. It required local transport authorities in England to set out a long-term vision for transport in their area, together with a multi-year programme of local transport improvements. The Department for Transport (DfT) would then allocate multi-year (initially 5-year) funding settlements to each authority, depending on the quality of its LTP.

However the system fell into neglect after 2010, when DfT announced that local authorities were free to submit LTPs whenever they wished to (rather than on a fixed 5-year cycle), and that their funding settlements would no longer depend on these. DfT has not updated its guidance on LTPs since 2009. Instead, councils have been forced to seek funding, often through competitive bidding processes, from short-term funding streams such as the Future High Streets Fund, Housing Infrastructure Fund or Transforming Cities Fund. This did not give councils the long-term certainty they need to develop coherent local transport plans and scheme programmes.

So the last Government’s announcement (in its 2021 Transport Decarbonisation Plan) that it planned to revive the LTP process was widely welcomed by environmental campaigners and local authorities alike. Although it later abandoned that commitment, the current Government now says it plans to issue guidance on LTPs and QCRs later in 2025.

The Government’s 2025 Spending Review has increased the proportion of transport funding English local transport authorities will receive over the four years 2025/6 to 2029/30, to spend as they choose. It includes:

  • £8bn of Transport for City Regions (TCR) funding for the 9 city regions with combined authorities – the amount in 2029/30 will be double the amount in 2024/5 in real terms (n.b. a further £7.6bn of TCR funding has also been allocated for the following two years);
  • £2.3bn of Local Transport Grant (LTG) funding for England’s other local transport authorities outside London – this funding will quadruple between 2024/5 and 2029/30;
  • £2bn for London.

With these sorts of funding increases, Low Traffic Future believes it is crucial that DfT’s LTP guidance clearly specifies the outcomes it expects local transport authorities to achieve with this funding, e.g. decarbonising transport,  as well as improving air quality, public health, road safety, accessibility and the range of travel options available, particularly for children, young people and others who cannot drive for whatever reason.

Sections 108 and 109 of the Local Transport Act 2000 require English local transport authorities (outside London) to prepare a Local Transport Plan (LTP), and to keep it under review, altering it as they see fit. The LTP must set out the authority’s “policies for the promotion and encouragement of safe, integrated, efficient and economic transport to, from and within their area”, and to implement those policies. In developing their policies, they must take account of Government policy and specifically any statutory guidance on LTPs which it issues under subsection 108(2ZB). However the last such guidance was issued in 2009.

After the previous Government announced that it would issue updated statutory LTP guidance by Spring 2022, most local transport authorities in England began updating their LTPs. Many of them have now completed that process, even though DfT never formally issued the promised guidance on LTPs or the accompanying guidance on setting ‘Quantifiable Carbon Reductions’ (QCRs) – though the latter was published unofficially following a Freedom of Information request. Recent LTPs should nonetheless have reflected other relevant national policies cited in the “Official guidance” listings throughout this document, notably the guidance on Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans (LCWIPs) and Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs).

The publication later in 2025 of new LTP and QCR guidance may then prompt local transport authorities to carry out further updates to their LTPs (even where these have been revised recently). Doing so would also allow them to take advantage of the financial certainty they have gained from the 2025 Spending Review and, we hope, to set targets to reduce motor traffic or to increase the proportion of trips made by sustainable alternatives to cars, vans or taxis.. In the case of ‘strategic authorities’ (i.e. combined authorities and combined county authorities) who are expected to gain new strategic planning powers from the Devolution Bill currently before Parliament, an updated LTP would also enable them to strengthen the integration of strategic transport and land-use planning policies in their areas.

The first step in preparing a Local Transport Plan is to gather evidence on the local area, its needs and opportunities, its people and their travel patterns. This evidence needs to inform the development of the ‘business case’ for the proposed LTP. The Government’s guidance on preparing transport business cases explains that a business case should consist of the following elements:

  • A strategic case: showing how the proposed plan fits with the authorities’ and the Government’s policies and priorities;
  • An economic case: showing how it represents value-for-money in delivering public benefits;
  • A financial case: showing that the plan is affordable;
  • A commercial case: showing that robust financial, contractual and risk-management arrangements can be put in place with relevant private sector contractors or partners; 
  • A management case: showing that the authority itself has the capacity to implement the Plan.

The strategic case is crucial at the outset. It needs to reflect the Government’s emphasis on a ‘place-based approach’, not least towards decarbonising transport (this is emphasised in the Government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan). Hence the business case needs to reflect the specific needs, challenges and opportunities of the area to be covered, taking account of its:

  • Natural environment – including any environmental factors which affect travel patterns or infrastructure provision;
  • Physical environment –  including settlements, other key destinations and existing transport and other infrastructure;
  • Economy – e.g. where key industries or travel attractors are located;
  • Demographics – including any factors (e.g. the presence of younger people in university towns) which may affect travel patterns, as well as population groups who face transport poverty or who have a high prevalence of health conditions relating to deprivation that may be exacerbated by air pollution or other transport-related factors. 

The Government provides guidance on preparing local transport models and using them to appraise alternative transport options for a local area.

Section 109 of the Transport Act 2000 sets out statutory requirements for public consultation. In summary, when preparing or reviewing an LTP, local transport authorities must consult:

  • The Secretary of State;
  • Other relevant local highway or traffic authorities and district councils;
  • Public transport operators and service providers;
  • Organisations representing users of those services; and
  • Anyone else they consider appropriate.

It is particularly important to seek to engage with people from demographic groups who are less likely to respond to conventional consultations but who may be particularly impacted by transport (including both poor transport provision and adverse impacts of pollution, unsafe roads etc). These groups include young people, disabled people, women and people from ethnic minority groups.

It is worth bearing in mind Arnstein’s Ladder of Engagement, a framework for understanding the different levels of public engagement in decision-making (from non-participation to genuine citizen control). Reaching the higher rungs of the ladder is harder and more resource-intensive, but can produce much better feedback and greater public buy-in to the resulting strategy.

The strategy set out in a LTP should have clearly-defined ‘objectives’. Being clear about these can help inform decisions about what measures to prioritise for inclusion in the Plan (and the resources to be allocated to them), as well as to explain the rationale for the plan to decision-makers and the public.

Objectives should normally be quantified, in the form of ‘performance indicators’ (PIs) or, better still, ‘targets’. The difference is that PIs merely signal whether progress is being made in the right direction (e.g. whether road casualties are being reduced), whereas targets also spell out the amount of change to be achieved in a given time-period (e.g. an X% reduction in road casualties by year YYYY). The term ‘key performance indicators’ (KPIs) can also be used to indicate the most important measures of success. Whatever term is used, quantifiable measures of progress help show whether the plan’s originally-defined objectives are being met or whether corrective action is needed. Clear objectives and monitoring should not be feared – as if they were an exam to be passed – but as a way of allowing for experimentation and, if need be, learning from what doesn’t work as well as what does.

Recommended targets or performance indicators can relate to ‘inputs’ (e.g. the amount of money spent on cycle facilities), ‘outputs’ (e.g. the length of cycle network delivered) or ‘outcomes’ (e.g. increases in cycle use or improvements in cycle safety).

We suggest that targets should relate to:

  • Reductions in total mileage travelled, or trips made, by car or by private motor vehicles;
  • Increases in the number or (preferably) the proportion of personal trips made by sustainable transport modes: walking, wheeling or cycling, public, community or shared transport;
  • Reductions in overall road casualties, and particularly serious or fatal casualties;
  • Reductions in the risk (per mile or per trip) of injury (or of serious or fatal injury) while walking or cycling – n.b. risk-based targets or indicators are essential here, as targets simply to reduce pedestrian or cycle casualty numbers can create a perverse incentive to reduce walking and cycling activity. Conversely, a risk-based indicator also reflects changes in the levels of walking and cycling. So for instance, if cycle mileage increases by 50%, a 25% increase in cyclist casualties still amounts to a 17% reduction in the risk of a cycling casualty per mile travelled.
  • Reductions in pollutant emissions from road transport, and/or compliance with air quality standards at road-side monitoring sites.

Besides the targets or indicators suggested above, DfT has said it will expect LTPs to quantify the Plan’s expected impact on reducing carbon from surface transport – though DfT prefers not to refer to these Quantifiable Carbon Reductions (QCRs) as “targets”.  England’s seven Sub-national Transport Bodies (STBs – e.g. Transport for the North, or Transport for the South East) have developed a Carbon Assessment Playbook to support local transport authorities in setting QCRs for their areas. QCRs are expected to include not only the emissions from burning petrol or diesel but also from producing energy for electric vehicles, and emissions from building and maintaining transport infrastructure. Nonetheless, the main component of QCRs is likely to be tail-pipe emissions from motor vehicles, predominantly private cars.

The consultancy Transport for Quality of Life (TQL) has summarised evidence from the Green Alliance and sources indicating the need to reduce car-kilometres by at least 20% by 2030.

We therefore recommend setting targets to reduce car mileage by at least 20% in rural areas by 2030, with more ambitious targets being set for urban areas, given the additional need to reduce congestion and to meet air pollution targets.

Local authorities are required to carry out a Strategic Environmental Assessment of their LTPs. This will include identifying climate and air pollution impacts, as well as on landscapes, biodiversity, habitats and indeed on human health (see guidance). It should never be simply a tick-box exercise. Legally, it must genuinely be used either to validate the LTP’s proposed strategy or to consider whether to adopt other policy options to reduce adverse environmental and health impacts.

The setting of targets or (key) performance indicators (KPIs or PIs) clearly needs to go hand-in-hand with considering how they will be monitored, including what data is already available that can be drawn on, what additional data may be needed in order that meaningful targets and (K)PIs can be set, and what resources are needed to gather and analyse these data. Data sources can include:

  • Manual, automatic or video counts of vehicles or people, e.g. crossing cordons or screenlines – this will reveal levels of transport activity at the locations in question (and hence changes over time in this activity), but not the demographics of the people travelling, nor the start or end-points of those journeys or the reasons why they are being made;
  • Surveys – which can reveal more information about where people are travelling from, why, and the demographics of those travellers. However, comprehensive travel surveys are clearly more expensive. More limited surveys e.g. ‘hands up’ school travel surveys) can be a cost-effective way to reveal data on specific trip-types and/or to specific locations of interest.
  • Nationally-collected data, such as the census.

In the absence of more formal guidance on cost-effective monitoring strategies, we recommend the guidance on sustainable transport monitoring strategies, produced by the Distillate project.

"Crucially, DfT will once again use the quality of an authority’s LTP as the main mechanism for deciding what funding it allocates to each authority for local transport improvements."

"Crucially, DfT will once again use the quality of an authority’s LTP as the main mechanism for deciding what funding it allocates to each authority for local transport improvements."

Background to LTPs

In April 2025, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander re-confirmed plans, originally announced by the previous Government, to revive the Local Transport Plan (LTP) process, with updated guidance on preparing LTPs to be issued later in 2025. This could be a crucial opportunity for the Department for Transport (DfT) to set out what local transport authorities outside London (i.e. county councils, non-metropolitan unitary authorities, and the combined authorities and combined county authorities which cover England’s main conurbations and which have been forming in other areas in recent years) need to do to support the vision of DfT’s Integrated National Transport Strategy, which is also due for publication later in 2025.

The LTP system was established in 1999/2000, under powers set out in the Transport Act 2000. It required local transport authorities in England to set out a long-term vision for transport in their area, together with a multi-year programme of local transport improvements. The Department for Transport (DfT) would then allocate multi-year (initially 5-year) funding settlements to each authority, depending on the quality of its LTP.

However the system fell into neglect after 2010, when DfT announced that local authorities were free to submit LTPs whenever they wished to (rather than on a fixed 5-year cycle), and that their funding settlements would no longer depend on these. DfT has not updated its guidance on LTPs since 2009. Instead, councils have been forced to seek funding, often through competitive bidding processes, from short-term funding streams such as the Future High Streets Fund, Housing Infrastructure Fund or Transforming Cities Fund. This did not give councils the long-term certainty they need to develop coherent local transport plans and scheme programmes.

So the last Government’s announcement (in its 2021 Transport Decarbonisation Plan) that it planned to revive the LTP process was widely welcomed by environmental campaigners and local authorities alike. Although it later abandoned that commitment, the current Government now says it plans to issue guidance on LTPs and QCRs later in 2025.

The Government’s 2025 Spending Review has increased the proportion of transport funding English local transport authorities will receive over the four years 2025/6 to 2029/30, to spend as they choose. It includes:

  • £8bn of Transport for City Regions (TCR) funding for the 9 city regions with combined authorities – the amount in 2029/30 will be double the amount in 2024/5 in real terms (n.b. a further £7.6bn of TCR funding has also been allocated for the following two years);
  • £2.3bn of Local Transport Grant (LTG) funding for England’s other local transport authorities outside London – this funding will quadruple between 2024/5 and 2029/30;
  • £2bn for London.

With these sorts of funding increases, Low Traffic Future believes it is crucial that DfT’s LTP guidance clearly specifies the outcomes it expects local transport authorities to achieve with this funding, e.g. decarbonising transport,  as well as improving air quality, public health, road safety, accessibility and the range of travel options available, particularly for children, young people and others who cannot drive for whatever reason.

Sections 108 and 109 of the Local Transport Act 2000 require English local transport authorities (outside London) to prepare a Local Transport Plan (LTP), and to keep it under review, altering it as they see fit. The LTP must set out the authority’s “policies for the promotion and encouragement of safe, integrated, efficient and economic transport to, from and within their area”, and to implement those policies. In developing their policies, they must take account of Government policy and specifically any statutory guidance on LTPs which it issues under subsection 108(2ZB). However the last such guidance was issued in 2009.

After the previous Government announced that it would issue updated statutory LTP guidance by Spring 2022, most local transport authorities in England began updating their LTPs. Many of them have now completed that process, even though DfT never formally issued the promised guidance on LTPs or the accompanying guidance on setting ‘Quantifiable Carbon Reductions’ (QCRs) – though the latter was published unofficially following a Freedom of Information request. Recent LTPs should nonetheless have reflected other relevant national policies cited in the “Official guidance” listings throughout this document, notably the guidance on Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans (LCWIPs) and Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs).

The publication later in 2025 of new LTP and QCR guidance may then prompt local transport authorities to carry out further updates to their LTPs (even where these have been revised recently). Doing so would also allow them to take advantage of the financial certainty they have gained from the 2025 Spending Review and, we hope, to set targets to reduce motor traffic or to increase the proportion of trips made by sustainable alternatives to cars, vans or taxis.. In the case of ‘strategic authorities’ (i.e. combined authorities and combined county authorities) who are expected to gain new strategic planning powers from the Devolution Bill currently before Parliament, an updated LTP would also enable them to strengthen the integration of strategic transport and land-use planning policies in their areas.

The first step in preparing a Local Transport Plan is to gather evidence on the local area, its needs and opportunities, its people and their travel patterns. This evidence needs to inform the development of the ‘business case’ for the proposed LTP. The Government’s guidance on preparing transport business cases explains that a business case should consist of the following elements:

  • A strategic case: showing how the proposed plan fits with the authorities’ and the Government’s policies and priorities;
  • An economic case: showing how it represents value-for-money in delivering public benefits;
  • A financial case: showing that the plan is affordable;
  • A commercial case: showing that robust financial, contractual and risk-management arrangements can be put in place with relevant private sector contractors or partners; 
  • A management case: showing that the authority itself has the capacity to implement the Plan.

The strategic case is crucial at the outset. It needs to reflect the Government’s emphasis on a ‘place-based approach’, not least towards decarbonising transport (this is emphasised in the Government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan). Hence the business case needs to reflect the specific needs, challenges and opportunities of the area to be covered, taking account of its:

  • Natural environment – including any environmental factors which affect travel patterns or infrastructure provision;
  • Physical environment –  including settlements, other key destinations and existing transport and other infrastructure;
  • Economy – e.g. where key industries or travel attractors are located;
  • Demographics – including any factors (e.g. the presence of younger people in university towns) which may affect travel patterns, as well as population groups who face transport poverty or who have a high prevalence of health conditions relating to deprivation that may be exacerbated by air pollution or other transport-related factors. 

The Government provides guidance on preparing local transport models and using them to appraise alternative transport options for a local area.

Section 109 of the Transport Act 2000 sets out statutory requirements for public consultation. In summary, when preparing or reviewing an LTP, local transport authorities must consult:

  • The Secretary of State;
  • Other relevant local highway or traffic authorities and district councils;
  • Public transport operators and service providers;
  • Organisations representing users of those services; and
  • Anyone else they consider appropriate.

It is particularly important to seek to engage with people from demographic groups who are less likely to respond to conventional consultations but who may be particularly impacted by transport (including both poor transport provision and adverse impacts of pollution, unsafe roads etc). These groups include young people, disabled people, women and people from ethnic minority groups.

It is worth bearing in mind Arnstein’s Ladder of Engagement, a framework for understanding the different levels of public engagement in decision-making (from non-participation to genuine citizen control). Reaching the higher rungs of the ladder is harder and more resource-intensive, but can produce much better feedback and greater public buy-in to the resulting strategy.

The strategy set out in a LTP should have clearly-defined ‘objectives’. Being clear about these can help inform decisions about what measures to prioritise for inclusion in the Plan (and the resources to be allocated to them), as well as to explain the rationale for the plan to decision-makers and the public.

Objectives should normally be quantified, in the form of ‘performance indicators’ (PIs) or, better still, ‘targets’. The difference is that PIs merely signal whether progress is being made in the right direction (e.g. whether road casualties are being reduced), whereas targets also spell out the amount of change to be achieved in a given time-period (e.g. an X% reduction in road casualties by year YYYY). The term ‘key performance indicators’ (KPIs) can also be used to indicate the most important measures of success. Whatever term is used, quantifiable measures of progress help show whether the plan’s originally-defined objectives are being met or whether corrective action is needed. Clear objectives and monitoring should not be feared – as if they were an exam to be passed – but as a way of allowing for experimentation and, if need be, learning from what doesn’t work as well as what does.

Recommended targets or performance indicators can relate to ‘inputs’ (e.g. the amount of money spent on cycle facilities), ‘outputs’ (e.g. the length of cycle network delivered) or ‘outcomes’ (e.g. increases in cycle use or improvements in cycle safety).

We suggest that targets should relate to:

  • Reductions in total mileage travelled, or trips made, by car or by private motor vehicles;
  • Increases in the number or (preferably) the proportion of personal trips made by sustainable transport modes: walking, wheeling or cycling, public, community or shared transport;
  • Reductions in overall road casualties, and particularly serious or fatal casualties;
  • Reductions in the risk (per mile or per trip) of injury (or of serious or fatal injury) while walking or cycling – n.b. risk-based targets or indicators are essential here, as targets simply to reduce pedestrian or cycle casualty numbers can create a perverse incentive to reduce walking and cycling activity. Conversely, a risk-based indicator also reflects changes in the levels of walking and cycling. So for instance, if cycle mileage increases by 50%, a 25% increase in cyclist casualties still amounts to a 17% reduction in the risk of a cycling casualty per mile travelled.
  • Reductions in pollutant emissions from road transport, and/or compliance with air quality standards at road-side monitoring sites.

Besides the targets or indicators suggested above, DfT has said it will expect LTPs to quantify the Plan’s expected impact on reducing carbon from surface transport – though DfT prefers not to refer to these Quantifiable Carbon Reductions (QCRs) as “targets”.  England’s seven Sub-national Transport Bodies (STBs – e.g. Transport for the North, or Transport for the South East) have developed a Carbon Assessment Playbook to support local transport authorities in setting QCRs for their areas. QCRs are expected to include not only the emissions from burning petrol or diesel but also from producing energy for electric vehicles, and emissions from building and maintaining transport infrastructure. Nonetheless, the main component of QCRs is likely to be tail-pipe emissions from motor vehicles, predominantly private cars.

The consultancy Transport for Quality of Life (TQL) has summarised evidence from the Green Alliance and sources indicating the need to reduce car-kilometres by at least 20% by 2030.

We therefore recommend setting targets to reduce car mileage by at least 20% in rural areas by 2030, with more ambitious targets being set for urban areas, given the additional need to reduce congestion and to meet air pollution targets.

Local authorities are required to carry out a Strategic Environmental Assessment of their LTPs. This will include identifying climate and air pollution impacts, as well as on landscapes, biodiversity, habitats and indeed on human health (see guidance). It should never be simply a tick-box exercise. Legally, it must genuinely be used either to validate the LTP’s proposed strategy or to consider whether to adopt other policy options to reduce adverse environmental and health impacts.

The setting of targets or (key) performance indicators (KPIs or PIs) clearly needs to go hand-in-hand with considering how they will be monitored, including what data is already available that can be drawn on, what additional data may be needed in order that meaningful targets and (K)PIs can be set, and what resources are needed to gather and analyse these data. Data sources can include:

  • Manual, automatic or video counts of vehicles or people, e.g. crossing cordons or screenlines – this will reveal levels of transport activity at the locations in question (and hence changes over time in this activity), but not the demographics of the people travelling, nor the start or end-points of those journeys or the reasons why they are being made;
  • Surveys – which can reveal more information about where people are travelling from, why, and the demographics of those travellers. However, comprehensive travel surveys are clearly more expensive. More limited surveys e.g. ‘hands up’ school travel surveys) can be a cost-effective way to reveal data on specific trip-types and/or to specific locations of interest.
  • Nationally-collected data, such as the census.

In the absence of more formal guidance on cost-effective monitoring strategies, we recommend the guidance on sustainable transport monitoring strategies, produced by the Distillate project.

Related solutions

View all solutions