Local transport plans, divided into full local transport plans (LTP) and local implementation plans for transport (LIP) are an important part of transport planning in England. Strategic transport authorities (county councils, unitary authorities, passenger transport authorities and London Borough councils), are expected to prepare them as forward-looking plans covering a number of years (typically five years), and present them to the Department for Transport (DfT).
Different arrangements apply to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as transport is a devolved matter.
LTPs must:
Once an LTP is prepared it is submitted to the Secretary of State for Transport (England only); in London, the related LIP is submitted to the Mayor of London.
The LTP is a statutory transport plan deriving from the Transport Act 2000; its relative the LIP is much the same but derives from the GLA Act 1999. Both pieces of legislation were passing through the House of Commons and Lords at about the same time and sought to establish a statutory requirement for local transport plans on the basis that had been set out in the Government's White Paper The Future of Transport.
The LTP and LIP is subject to a Strategic Environmental Assessment that is undertaken in accordance with UK Regulations that are based on EU Regulations.
The plan is subject to public consultation, though not to an 'examination in public'. It provides the highway, local traffic, and transport authority with an opportunity to set out studies of, and make recommendations to improve, locations of trip attractors (trip destinations) and residential locations (trip origins), along with a range of demand management and public transport measures as well as supply measures, to provide for balanced use of roadspace, public transport integration and appropriate patterns and forms of development.