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Planning guidelines for developers:
Facing up to the transport issues
Over the last two years, members of the Faversham Society have observed with increasing concern the proposals for road layout and traffic management submitted by developers in their planning applications for residential developments in the area, and their likely impact on the level of road traffic congestion, noise and pollution. Many of these have been approved by the County Council as the highway authority responsible for roads in the affected area. At its meeting on 20 November, the Society’s Board endorsed the following recommendations drafted by a team drawn from the Faversham Future Forum for consideration by the County Council.
| 1 | Vehicular traffic generated by a new development should not erode the environment, threaten people’s safety, or worsen congestion. Since small traffic increases can have a disproportionate effect on a congested network, the impact should be assessed not in isolation but in conjunction with other schemes approved or under consideration.
| Relevant to 'The value of good design', Section 1.6 Movements and Connections, and ‘Creating the Design’, Section 2.1.2: Movement Appraisal. |
| 2 | To prevent 'enclaves' of isolated housing, the layout should incorporate road and footway connections to neighbouring developments, and allow for connections to future developments around the perimeter.
| ‘Creating the Design’, Section 2. 2: Generating the layout |
| 3 | By means of a comprehensive, joined-up network incorporating routes for buses, pedestrians and cyclists, the development should allow and indeed encourage residents to use modes of travel other than the car. The network should provide safe crossings not only within the perimeter but across potential barriers around the periphery such as busy traffic routes and rail lines.
| ‘Creating the Design’, Section 2.3: Designing for movement |
| 4 | Residential roads should be configured with a design speed of 20 mph. Compliance should be encouraged with imaginative design rather than mandatory signs and road markings.
| ‘Creating the Design’, Section 2. 2: Generating the layout |
| 5 | Developers should assess the impact of the traffic generated by the proposed development on the levels of exhaust pollution and other particulate emissions over the wider network, and adopt measures for mitigating any negative effects. No development should be permitted to add to pollution on the wider network in places where existing levels are at or above the safe limits recognised by the World Health Organisation and the European Union. | ‘Making It Happen’, Section on Sustainable Solutions |
Faversham Society Board of Trustees, 28 November 2018
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