Today (Monday) CPRE{1} launches a challenge to highway authorities{2} across England to commit to save the countryside from the creeping urbanisation of excessive signs, road markings and poorly designed street furniture.

The countryside campaigners are calling on authorities to be more sensitive to the surrounding character of the countryside when designing new schemes and in their management of rural roads – and to take out unnecessary clutter. 

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NOTES TO EDITORS
A copy of CPRE's Clutter Challenge, along with some local examples of clutter from across the country, can be downloaded from CPRE's Website.

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Paul Hamblin, CPRE's Head of Transport Policy, said:

'Highway authorities have an important job to do in the countryside. Traffic is rising faster in rural than urban areas{3} and the speed of vehicles is a real problem for many villages and country lanes. But responding to these challenges needs to be done in ways which are sensitive to the character of the countryside.

'At its worst, small hamlets can resemble a shop window for traffic calming manufacturers, while the painted lines along country lanes can make them look like race tracks. Each intrusion on its own may seem innocuous, but overall we lose a sense of rural character.'

CPRE highlights the following causes of clutter:

• slavish following of national standards which themselves fail to account for countryside character;
• concern about litigation which means authorities feel the need to sign every conceivable danger;
• pressure on budgets which means the cheaper 'bog standard' design is bought in bulk for the entire county;
• failure to ensure contractors and engineers working on the ground are working to reduce clutter; and
• failure to give sufficient priority in transport policy to protecting countryside character at national and local level. 

Paul Hamblin continued:

'With a renewed commitment, highway authorities could make a significant positive difference to the countryside.  This will require a willingness to change current approaches – from senior decision makers right through to the engineer working along the country lane. It challenges restrictive standards, inflexible working practices, simple cost cutting exercises, and poor design. 

'While some authorities have tried to develop a more enlightened approach{4}, such schemes are few in number and often limited to protected areas.'

CPRE's Clutter Challenge commits the local highway authority to:

• develop a policy and seek funding in its Local Transport Plan{5} to help protect countryside character;
• produce a traffic management manual and design guide which helps the authority develop less intrusive ways of managing traffic in the countryside;
• undertake a 'clutter audit'{6} across the authority's area that leads to unnecessary clutter being removed;
• promote a 'clutter free' pilot scheme for managing traffic in the countryside{7}; and
• publicise the fact that it has committed itself to CPRE's  Clutter Challenge.

Paul Hamblin concluded:

'Reducing clutter is not to resist change or to argue against tackling the problems caused by rural traffic, but to insist on a better kind of progress.  We hope highway authorities will rise to this challenge.'

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NOTES FOR EDITORS

1. CPRE exists to promote the beauty, tranquillity and diversity of rural England by encouraging the sustainable use of land and other natural resources in town and country. We promote positive solutions for the long-term future of the countryside to ensure change values its natural and built environment. Our Patron is Her Majesty The Queen. We have 59,000 supporters, a branch in every county, nine regional groups, over 200 local groups and a national office in London. CPRE is a powerful combination of effective local action and strong national campaigning. Our President is Sir Max Hastings.

2. Highway Authorities in England are County Councils, Metropolitan or Unitary Authorities.

3. The Government's Ten Year Transport Plan Progress Report indicated that traffic would increase by between 24-29% between 2000-2010, even with the implementation of Government policies.  This is higher than the rate of growth in urban centres.

4. Examples of authorities which have tried to reduce clutter include Norfolk CC which has piloted 'self explaining roads' which take out heavy traffic engineering in villages to create a more natural environment where people live; Cumbria CC who worked with Friends of the Lake District and the parish council to remove 13 signs and replace two finger posts in Martindale village; Devon CC which undertook a signs audit when introducing a 40mph speed limit in Dartmoor National Park and successfully removed 120 superfluous signs; Surrey CC which is examining driver psychology to develop alternative ways of managing traffic in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; Derbyshire CC which has produced its own guidelines on sensitive traffic management; and Wiltshire CC which has stopped painting white lines along country lanes after it found they were an ineffective means of reducing speeds.

5. The five-year Local Transport Plan is produced by the highway authority and submitted to the Department for Transport. It includes a range of policies on transport, as well as a bid for funding to implement it. All highway authorities need to submit a new LTP to the Government by July 2005.

6. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Select Committee recommended in a report, 'The Department for Transport should reduce all its requirements for signage to the absolute minimum allowing councils greater freedom to design streets and install appropriate signage and street furniture, which fits into the locality, whilst not compromising on safety' (Living Places: Cleaner, Safer, Greener report July 2003).  In the same report, they went on, 'here are clearly opportunities to review the provision of other signage to reduce clutter'. Oxfordshire CC has recently undertaken a clutter audit with the help of CPRE Oxfordshire. The CC have accepted approximately half of the 170 proposals that CPRE Oxfordshire have made so far for the reduction of signs and poles.

7. There are a variety of ways in which local highway authorities can reduce the intrusion of traffic, without resorting to hard engineering. The concept of 'self explaining roads' is geared around showing drivers that they are about to enter a village or use a country lane where residents and other more vulnerable road users (walkers, cyclists and riders) are likely to be. Narrowing rather than widening roads, using natural materials for traffic calming and overall  creating a more natural environment are all important parts of the self explaining roads approach.