Rural Roads Character Project Partnership
The Rural Road Character Partnership includes:
- Cumbria County Council Transport Policy Team Leader and Senior Officer
- Cumbria County Council Highway Network Maintenance Programme Manager
- County Ecologist
- North Pennines AONB Partnership officer
- Friends of the Lake District project officer and transport officer
- Cumbria Highways and Public Realm Working Group, comprising representatives of the County Council as highway authority, Friends of the Lake District, CPRE, North Pennines AONB.
Initial tasks of the project partnership
- Identify local and national policies that support its aims and objectives
- Identify barriers to the adoption and implementation of these policies
- Identify ways in which these barriers might be overcome
Supporting policies
"The need to improve the public realm and conserve rural road character will be reflected by new guidance on the design and maintenance of the highway, advocating the use of suitable construction methods, materials and maintenance methods. The council will work with partners to identify ways in which highway works and traffic management measures can be made more sympathetic to the local environment particularly in sensitive areas. Including reducing signing clutter and using locally appropriate materials and techniques in very sensitive areas... drawing on other relevant examples of good practice."
Policy H6, Cumbria County Council's Provisional Local Transport Plan 2
Barriers to implementation
Attitudes and perceptions, such as:
"Using fancy materials is costly to implement and maintain."
"People expect to see signs and lines in response to a road safety problem."
"When new signs go in, the old existing ones are often left where they are."
Overcoming barriers
- Agree design principles and raise awareness of them, and the philosophy behind them, through training of those who need to know
- Preserving rural road character often involves minimising infrastructure and interference with the roadside environment, and using local materials and resources.
- Enabling people to drive at speed, will almost guarantee that they do.
