Councillors agree £6.1m boost for local transport
Lancashire County Council has agreed this year's programme of investment in local transport infrastructure – including road and cycle safety and improvements to local footpaths and bus stops.
The county council's cabinet has approved a report which detailed £6.1m of extra investment, including contributions to major infrastructure projects including Lancashire's successful Levelling Up Fund bid, the South Lancaster Growth Catalyst garden village, and active travel schemes planned for the future.
A total of £1m is to be invested in road and cycle safety schemes at locations where at least 5 collisions have resulted in people being injured within a 5-year period. The schemes include improved safety markings and signage, speed humps, toucan and puffin crossings and other interventions designed to reduce risk.
Other investments agreed included £300k of funding for Public Rights of Way improvements – including investments in footpaths and bridleways in Burnley, Ribble Valley, South Ribble and West Lancashire – and £100k for ongoing improvements to make bus stops more accessible for people with disabilities.
Andrew Mullaney, director of environment and planning, said: "We're committed to encouraging more people to choose cycling or walking for short journeys, and making our roads and paths more welcoming and accessible is an important part of this. We also have an ongoing programme of improvements to bus stops to ensure they provide easy access for everyone, including people with disabilities.
"We're always working towards making our roads safer and have prioritised a number of improvements for locations where there has been a pattern of incidents and we're able to engineer measures to reduce the risk of incidents in future.
"There are also a number of transport improvements in the pipeline where we need to provide match-funding to secure investment in our infrastructure, and where we are setting funding aside over a number of years so that we are in a position to deliver these investments which will help to support our wider economic ambitions across the county."
Notes to editors
The following road safety schemes will now be delivered:
- £80k to reduce incidents where people lose control of their vehicles by improving visibility of road markings and signs, and cutting back vegetation, on the A586 Garstang Road at Larbreck in Fylde.
- £120k for a scheme to reduce vehicle speeds on the 20mph part of Duddle Lane, Walton-le-Dale. This includes installing road humps, improved warning signs and SLOW markings.
- £300k to improve safety on Derby Street West, Ormskirk, by introducing a 20mph speed limit and puffin crossing, along with improvements to the pavement, road surface, signs and road markings.
The following cycle safety improvements were also agreed:
- £230k for the installation of a puffin crossing on Black Bull Lane in Preston, with bus-friendly speed cushions on the approaches, a new section of cycle lane, and relocation of an existing bus stop to accommodate the new crossing.
- £224k for the installation of a toucan crossing and improvements to the pavement to replace the existing zebra crossing on Barkerhouse Road in Nelson.
- £46k for detailed design of a new signalised junction with toucan crossing at the junction of St Vincents Road and the A6 Garstang Road in Preston.
Funding agreed for major infrastructure projects was as follows:
- £2.5m towards transport projects within the wider Preston, South Ribble and Lancashire City Deal.
- £1.25m towards match-funding of transport projects in East Lancashire which have already received support from the government's Levelling Up Fund.
- £460k towards infrastructure to support the proposed South Lancaster Growth Catalyst garden village project.
- £491k has been set aside for potential match-funding of further schemes to support walking and cycling pending a government announcement on recent Active Travel project bids.