Area weight restrictions - stakeholder engagement

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Consultation has concluded

Oxfordshire County Council are currently conducting a study to investigate the feasibility of area based weight restrictions.

In this engagement activity, we are inviting local stakeholders to share their views on where there are existing or potential future challenges with inappropriate Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) movements to help inform the study.

Background

The county council adopted a new Freight and Logistics Strategy alongside the Local Transport and Connectivity Plan (LTCP) in July 2022. The Freight and Logistics Strategy provides more detail about the challenges associated with the movement of goods in the county, key principles and actions. Work is currently ongoing to progress the actions in the strategy.

The Freight and Logistics Strategy outlines that one of our priorities for local goods movement is to encourage use of the most appropriate HGV routes. In order to achieve this some action will be required, including restricting HGV traffic in exceptional circumstances.

Traditionally, this has been through point based weight restrictions. These are weight restrictions on individual roads or structures such as bridges. However, we have found that in many cases this approach does not address the issues with inappropriate HGV movement. This approach often causes HGVs to move onto surrounding roads creating a new issue elsewhere. An example of this was the Burford Experimental Traffic Restriction Order (ETRO), which is set out on pages 30-31 of the Freight and Logistics Strategy.

The Freight and Logistics Strategy therefore made the commitment to explore an area based approach to weight restrictions (action 10). This approach will consider how we can keep HGVs on appropriate routes across larger geographic areas to reduce freight traffic in our towns and villages and stop issues being moved from one road to another.

The first step in this process is conducting an area weight restriction study. This will assess feasibility and set out a proposed countywide approach. It is important that we conduct this countywide piece of work first to set out a consistent approach and consider the potential impacts of any restriction.

To help inform the study we would like to capture local stakeholder views about where there are existing challenges with inappropriate HGV movements. These suggestions will be one piece of evidence used, we are also analysing a range of data to ensure the outputs are evidence based.

Have your say

Please share your views by using the 'map' function below.

Oxfordshire County Council are currently conducting a study to investigate the feasibility of area based weight restrictions.

In this engagement activity, we are inviting local stakeholders to share their views on where there are existing or potential future challenges with inappropriate Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) movements to help inform the study.

Background

The county council adopted a new Freight and Logistics Strategy alongside the Local Transport and Connectivity Plan (LTCP) in July 2022. The Freight and Logistics Strategy provides more detail about the challenges associated with the movement of goods in the county, key principles and actions. Work is currently ongoing to progress the actions in the strategy.

The Freight and Logistics Strategy outlines that one of our priorities for local goods movement is to encourage use of the most appropriate HGV routes. In order to achieve this some action will be required, including restricting HGV traffic in exceptional circumstances.

Traditionally, this has been through point based weight restrictions. These are weight restrictions on individual roads or structures such as bridges. However, we have found that in many cases this approach does not address the issues with inappropriate HGV movement. This approach often causes HGVs to move onto surrounding roads creating a new issue elsewhere. An example of this was the Burford Experimental Traffic Restriction Order (ETRO), which is set out on pages 30-31 of the Freight and Logistics Strategy.

The Freight and Logistics Strategy therefore made the commitment to explore an area based approach to weight restrictions (action 10). This approach will consider how we can keep HGVs on appropriate routes across larger geographic areas to reduce freight traffic in our towns and villages and stop issues being moved from one road to another.

The first step in this process is conducting an area weight restriction study. This will assess feasibility and set out a proposed countywide approach. It is important that we conduct this countywide piece of work first to set out a consistent approach and consider the potential impacts of any restriction.

To help inform the study we would like to capture local stakeholder views about where there are existing challenges with inappropriate HGV movements. These suggestions will be one piece of evidence used, we are also analysing a range of data to ensure the outputs are evidence based.

Have your say

Please share your views by using the 'map' function below.