The Local Transport Act (2008) placed a new duty on local transport authorities (LTAs) to have regard to the government’s adaptation policies and guidance in their local transport plans (LTPs).
The LTA Act (2008) is reinforced in the Department for Transport’s LTP3 Guidance, which states that:
In addition to measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is important that local authorities put in place measures to improve the resilience of local transport to the impacts of climate change, such as flooding and the deterioration of roads, in line with the government’s Adapting to Climate Change Programme, NI188 (Planning to adapt to Climate Change) and the UK Climate Projections* (DfT, 2009)."
Coinciding with the Climate Change Act 2008, NI 188 reporting was introduced. The overall aim of NI 188 was to embed the management of climate risks and opportunities across the local authority and partners services, plans and estates and to take appropriate adaptive actions where required.
NI188 was a ‘process based’ indicator. This was not typical of most of the National Indicators, which were ‘outcome based’. NI 188 both recognised that the understanding of the adaptation agenda was not yet sufficient to specify outcomes, but also that climate impacts are local and it is impossible to have a generic outcome indicator at the moment which is applicable to all areas (Defra, 2009).
The indicator measures progress on assessing and managing climate risks and opportunities, including incorporating appropriate action into local authority and partners’ strategic planning. The impacts might include increases in flooding, temperature, drought and extreme weather events. These could create risks and opportunities such as: impacts to transport infrastructure from melting roads or buckling rails, increases in tourism, increased damage to buildings from storms, impacts on local ecosystems and biodiversity, scope to grow new crops, changing patterns of disease, impacts on planning and the local economy and public health.
The rationale of NI188 was to ensure that local authorities were sufficiently prepared to manage risks to service delivery, the public, local communities, local infrastructure, businesses and the natural environment from a changing climate, and to make the most of new opportunities. However, following the announcement to end central performance monitoring via Local Area Agreements and the National Indicator Set, Defra has reviewed the value of continuing to report NI 188 data to central Government and concluded that whilst local authorities may wish to continue to collect the self assessment data for their own adaptation purposes, they should no longer be required to report the data to central Government. Therefore authorities were not required to submit Year 3 self-assessment matrices at the end of the 2010/11 financial year.
*Please note that the DfT’s Guidance on Local Transport Plans (2009) has been archived, but is still available via the National Archives website.
Local Authority powers to act on climate change
The Local Government Association (LGA) recently undertook a review of the powers available to local authorities to tackle climate change. It identified the key powers as:
- The power to promote wellbeing;
- Powers to change own estate and operations;
- Community leadership powers;
- Powers to involve local people;
- Joint working powers;
- Planning powers;
- Transport powers;
- Housing powers;
- Financial powers;
- Emergency planning powers;
- Environmental protection powers;
- Powers under the Sustainable Communities Act; and
- Subsidiary powers.
Perhaps the most important of these, is power of wellbeing, introduced in the Local Government Act (2000). Local authorities can use this legal power to promote the economic, social or environmental wellbeing of their area. To provide advice on Local Authority powers, the LGA published the report: Cutting through the Green Tape: The powers councils have to tackle climate change (2009). Within this document, the LGA:
- Highlight the key powers (some popular and some less well known) that local authorities can use to tackle climate change, for both mitigation and adaptation activity;
- Signpost some tools, organisation(s) and resources which can offer local authorities further help and support in tackling the green tape issue;
- Offer some practical examples of those councils that have successfully applied some of these powers (LGA, 2009).
The report offers information specific to a local authority’s transport powers and offers details of further reports related to climate change reduction and adaptation.