Transport plays a critical role in the life of Lancashire, by connecting our people with our places, and with each other. These connections enable a stronger economy, more vibrant communities, better access to life opportunities such as employment and education, and a more sustainable future.
We have identified three major challenges that this LTP will tackle to unleash Lancashire's potential. These have been identified using a wide range of evidence, which we have brought together in our supporting evidence base document, our 'Green Paper'.
Closing the productivity gap between Lancashire and the rest of the country could boost the UK economy by up to £10 billion per year. Transforming travel choices across Lancashire will improve the lives of our residents through better access to work, education, services and leisure. Conserving and enhancing our natural and built environments, supporting improved resilience to evolving weather patterns, and reducing pollution from transport will improve Lancashire as a place and bring benefits for everyone.
Improving transport will play a major role in tackling all three challenges:
- We need to create a stronger economy: We are not meeting Lancashire's full economic potential, with a large productivity gap between our economy and the national average. This is related to business performance, workforce health and skills deficits, levels of innovation, and transport connectivity. Closing this gap could boost our economy by up to £10 billion per year.
- We need to create a fairer future: Our social challenges include significant health inequalities and social exclusion contributing to poor early years outcomes, challenges with education, limited travel choices and low-paid jobs, which are concentrated in many of our towns. Transforming travel choices across Lancashire will better connect our communities and improve the lives of our residents through better access to work, education, services, leisure and social connections.
- We need to plan for a more sustainable future: We need to ensure our networks are resilient and to rapidly reduce polluting emissions - transport is one of the major sources of emissions in Lancashire. We will conserve and enhance our built and natural environments, support improved resilience, and reduce pollution from transport across Lancashire.
Lancashire’s diverse communities, shaped by unique industries, geography and transport links, require tailored transport solutions. With more than 1.5 million residents living in distinct areas, a one-size-fits-all approach is not good enough. Our transport policies adopt a place-based strategy to address local challenges.
Our challenges are inter-related, and effective transport policies can help tackle them to build a stronger economy, with fairer opportunities for all, creating the foundations for a more sustainable future.
The following sections explore our economic, social and environmental opportunities in more detail, and how transport can help to realise our vision through the LTP’s goals.
Economic opportunities for a stronger future
Through this LTP, we will support the delivery of our Growth Plan to strengthen our labour markets by better connecting people with jobs, provide strong connections to markets, supply chains and customers to meet the needs and support the ambitions of different sectors, and unlock strategic growth sites across Lancashire to create the right conditions for growth and attracting new investment.
Strengthen our labour markets by better connecting people and jobs
Our biggest opportunity is to better connect Lancashire’s local economies. Around three quarters of our population live in the 'Central Belt' between the Fylde Coast and Pennine Lancashire, following the M55 / M65 and east-west railway lines, but the connections between the key centres are very limited. Transforming east-west public transport will help businesses to recruit and retain skilled workers, and more people will have access to education and training to improve workplace skills.
Provide strong connections to markets, supply chains and customers
All sectors of our economy are reliant on local, UK-wide and international supply chains, which depend on effective strategic road and rail connections. Many sectors also require effective access to regional innovation clusters to support research and development activities, which are critical to developing new products and increasing competitiveness. Ensuring that future transport conditions are reliable and accessible for people and freight will improve productivity and drive growth.
Unlock strategic growth sites across Lancashire
Our Growth Plan targets strategic sites in town and city centres, plus four Enterprise Zones focused on key sectors like defence, cyber, science and technology, and energy. Alongside new housing through Local Plans, these developments will drive economic growth.
We will align spatial planning and transport through a vision-led, integrated approach, supporting regeneration and sustainable communities. This will help upskill the workforce, attract talent, and deliver high-quality residential and employment spaces.
Social opportunities for a fairer future
This LTP will improve connectivity to tackle inequalities and deprivation, improve people’s health and wellbeing by supporting active lifestyles, and create flourishing communities and a sense of belonging. This will be critical to delivering our economic ambitions: by tackling inequalities and improving health and wellbeing, we can enable more people to access work and well-paid jobs.
Improve accessibility to tackle inequalities and deprivation
Lancashire experiences high levels of transport related social exclusion, contributing to poverty and poor health and preventing residents from entering the workforce. By improving local bus services, community transport and other affordable and accessible travel options, we can help to tackle exclusion by supporting people to access education, training and job opportunities. It will also help people to find better jobs, have better access to services, and find new ways to improve their lives. Improved accessibility will also increase social interactions and help our town centres flourish.
Improve health and wellbeing by supporting active lifestyles
Poor health contributes to 17% of Lancashire’s productivity gap, making wellbeing central to our growth plans. Safer, more attractive streets and paths encourage walking, cycling and other physical activity, boosting physical and mental health. Reducing heavy traffic in our communities can also improve air quality and lower noise, which is especially important for vulnerable groups. By supporting improved health and improving transport links for work, education, services and leisure, we can create a pathway to healthier, happier and more prosperous lives.
Create safe and vibrant communities and a sense of belonging
By listening to residents and developing tailored local approaches, we will improve personal security and road safety and create safe and vibrant communities. For example, through our Road Safety Partnership, we will apply behavioural science to tackle the root causes of collisions in different areas in Lancashire. This could include educational campaigns, enforcement strategies and engineering to progress towards a ‘vision zero’ approach to fatalities and injuries on our road network.
By creating safer and more welcoming places, we will help build more active, engaged and cohesive communities, and a greater sense of civic pride and belonging.
Environmental opportunities for a more sustainable future
This LTP will help to conserve and enhance our natural and built environments, increase our resilience to changing weather patterns and reduce pollution from the transport system and our infrastructure
Conserve and enhance our natural and historic environments
We must conserve and enhance our precious natural and historic environments. This includes, but isn't limited to, our National Landscapes, Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Biological Heritage Sites, internationally important designations in places including Morecambe Bay, our historic towns and cities, and areas of local environmental importance such as the Forest of Bowland.
We will support nature recovery such as through enabling wildlife corridors and delivering wider biodiversity net gain across our transport networks. We will work closely across multi-disciplinary teams to carefully consider the multiple functions of our transport networks and settlements, making sure that they work for everyone. Improving transport connectivity, including footpaths and bridleways, will also help more people to access and enjoy our natural and historic landscapes.
Increase resilience to evolving weather patterns
The impacts of more extreme weather patterns are becoming more apparent: from record high temperatures to more intense storms with stronger winds and heavier rainfall. This can be seriously disruptive for our transport networks and put our people at risk. We will identify the most vulnerable parts of our networks to weather-related disruption, and plan asset management and improvement strategies to tackle flooding, reduce wear-and-tear, and heat related challenges. We will also consider natural solutions to help protect our communities from the impacts of extreme rainfall and heat.
Reduce pollution from transport
We have an opportunity to improve the travel choices available for people who live, work and visit Lancashire, so that there are more convenient, reliable and attractive options available.
This will help to provide people with genuine choices, rather than having no choice but to depend on car travel. By increasing numbers of journeys by bus, rail, active modes and electric vehicles, we will improve our environment and our health by reducing polluting emissions.
For freight, we need regional and national support to boost rail use, zero-emission vans and lorries, and urban consolidation hubs where goods can be gathered and sorted before being delivered into busy urban areas.
We’ll also minimise ‘embodied’ carbon in infrastructure by using low-carbon materials and sustainable construction practices.
Cross-cutting challenges and goals
Lancashire is at a turning point. The LCCA signals our commitment to driving transformation, and this LTP sets out our 20-year ambitions for a modern, integrated transport system, contributing to economic, social and sustainability renewal. We have two cross-cutting goals that will underpin everything that we do in Lancashire. First, we will improve efficiency and value for money in our delivery, relentlessly focusing on delivering what is right for Lancashire. Second, building on these fundamentals, we will amplify our voice and strengthen our influence across the North, nationally and on the global stage.
Improve efficiency and value for money in our delivery
We are ready to take greater responsibility for our own future. We will continue to work with the Government to deliver real devolution to our area and greater powers, and we will establish the frameworks to ensure that we invest wisely for our residents and businesses.
We are determined to deliver on investments, and secure the benefits that are so needed across our sub-region. We will develop and deliver transport programmes that are effective in maximising positive benefits and efficient in managing costs and maximising value for money in our investments. This will address new infrastructure, maintenance and asset management, and day-to day funding of transport services.
The 20-year timeframe of this LTP will also provide long-term policy certainty to support the infrastructure programmes of the new Spatial Development Strategy and Local Plans, which are looking forward over the next 15 years.
Amplify the voice and strengthen the influence of Lancashire across the North of England, nationally and internationally
We will project Lancashire and our vision on the regional, national and international stage. By building on the greater opportunities for strategic engagement and partnership from the formation of the LCCA, we will be a leading voice across the North, looking outwards to make the case for wider transformational investments to benefit Lancashire and the wider region. This will include close collaborative working with our partners in Transport for the North, Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester, West and North Yorkshire, and Cumbria to tackle the gaps in regional connectivity that are at risk of holding us back.
We will work together to improve strategic rail, road and bus connectivity in all directions. We will also share best practice and drive continual improvement in all that we do. For example, we will explore innovative solutions to common challenges such as improving travel choices in rural areas.