Area weight restrictions - stakeholder engagement
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.
Challenges map
You can add a pin to the map where there are challenges with inappropriate HGV movement. These can be current challenges or potential future challenges and can refer to:
- Safety
- Environmental
- Road network performance (e.g. congestion)
- Physical constraints (e.g. bridges)
- Technology
- Other sensitive receptors (e.g. schools)
- Any other challenge
To add a pin click the + icon on the left-hand side of the screen to reveal a list of pins. You can then choose which pin is most relevant and drag and drop this pin onto the relevant location within the map. If there are multiple challenges in one location please choose the primary concern. Further information about additional challenges can be added in the comment box. Once you have provided this information click 'submit' and the pin will be added to the map.
Please note that you cannot delete a pin once it has been added, but you can move the pin and edit the description. All information you provide via this map will be visible to other users and therefore we encourage you not to reveal any personal information about yourself or others.
These suggestions will be one piece of evidence used to help inform the outputs of the study. We are also analysing a range of data to ensure the outputs are evidence based.
