Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many vehicles will be affected by the proposed changes to Sections 19 and 22 of the Transport Act 1985.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Department does not record this information centrally. However, it is currently consulting on how Regulation 1071/2009 applies to users of section 19 and section 22 permits under the Transport Act 1985, and this serves as a call for evidence as to the impact of these clarifications on community transport operators.
The Government's response to the consultation will be accompanied by a full impact assessment.
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much has been spent from the public purse through the Access to All fund to make improvements to railway stations in each years since 2006.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
Since 2006, spending through the Access for All programme is as follows:
(£m)
2006/09 | £102.1 |
2009/10 | £57.89 |
2010/11 | £43.67 |
2011/12 | £54.1 |
2012/13 | £52.18 |
2013/14 | £105.28 |
2014/15 | £47.96 |
2015/16 | £43.19 |
2016/17 | £42.6 |
2017/18 | £15.4 |
Note that funding isn’t allocated on a specific annualised basis. Projects get developed and built over several years, so in some years more is spent, in some years less. We have committed to continuing Access for All in CP6.
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, of what factors Network Rail and his Department take account in deciding on allocations of Access to All funding.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
For the last tranche of funding, stations were selected based on their annual footfall, weighted by the incidence of disability in the area. We also took into account the priorities of the industry, the availability of third party funding and local factors such as proximity to a hospital, together with consideration of geographic spread across the rail network.
Although details of how we will select stations for future funding has yet to be finalised it is likely to be broadly similar to the process used for earlier tranches of the programme.
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what public funding other than Access to All funding is available for improvements to accessibility at railway stations.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
Aside from the dedicated Access for All funding, two funds are partly dedicated to improving accessibility - each of the franchised operators has around £100,000 to £600,000 to spend annually in making accessibility improvements at stations as part of the Minor Works Budget; and the Station Improvement Fund introduced in the Northern Rail and West Midlands Railway franchises can also be used to make stations accessible.
In addition, there are five other funding streams which may help deliver accessibility improvements insofar as any upgrades delivered under them would have to comply with current accessibility standards – the National Stations Improvement Programme, the Station Commercial Project Facility, Customer and Community Investment, Designated Community Rail Development Fund and Major Projects works (as per the redevelopment of Reading station for example).
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, which railway stations have received Access for All funding in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
Access for All funding is allocated in 5 year Control Periods. For 2014-19 a further 68 stations were selected for the programme. Details of all of the stations which have received funding since 2006 are available on the Network Rail website at:
https://www.networkrail.co.uk/communities/passengers/station-improvements/access-for-all/
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has made an assessment of the evidence base for traffic-calming measures introduced recently in (a) Derbyshire and (b) the rest of the UK.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Installation of traffic calming measures is the responsibility of the relevant local highway authority.
Traffic calming provides a proven and effective way of saving lives and reducing casualties. Its primary purpose is to reduce vehicle speeds in areas where inappropriate speed is a problem. It plays an important role in improving road safety, and each 1 mph reduction in vehicle speed resulting from traffic calming has been found to reduce accidents by around 5%.
Traffic calming has been the subject of extensive research. The Department publishes advice for local authorities on designing and installing traffic calming, in Local Transport Note 1/07: Traffic Calming, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/traffic-calming-ltn-107. This brings together a summary of the research commissioned by the Department and its predecessors, together with some research from external sources, to provide advice on the use of traffic calming measures today.