Projects

National Evaluation of Rights of Way Improvement Plans

Client: Natural England

Summary:

Section 60 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 placed a new statutory duty on local highway authorities (excluding inner London Boroughs) to prepare and publish a Rights of Way Improvement Plan (ROWIP) by 21st November 2007.

The problem:

By November 2007 it was apparent that not everyone had met the deadline and the ROWIPs that had been produced varied widely in their scale, approach and quality. Natural England wanted to know how authorities had coped with the process, the issues they faced and what could be learnt in order to advise authorities in the future. So in 2008 Natural England asked us to evaluate the Rights of Way Improvement Plans that had been produced and to assess the impact of the process in England.

Our input:

The main objectives of our research were to evaluate and inform Natural England on the ROWIP development process and implementation; advise Natural England of lessons learnt through the ROWIP process; pull together national and regional assessments of final ROWIPs; and to identify and develop further advice to share with Highway Authorities and other partners in the future.

Our research was carried out in three main ways. We designed a questionnaire which was emailed out to ROWIP contacts in all English highway authorities and outer London Boroughs. The questionnaire was designed to provide key quantitative facts, and to provide baseline data to build on with later research.

All final ROWIPs (whether published or awaiting approval) were read and assessed and we carried out ‘interviews’ over the telephone and spoke to others and at training events.

The result:

Overall, we reviewed and evaluated seventy-eight ROWIPs. We produced a comprehensive report for Natural England which assessed the quality and scope of the Plans, considered links with Local Transport Plans, evaluated the implementation of the ROWIP process and the role of key stakeholders in the process and looked at its overall impact. We also provided recommendations on how to address the issues that had arisen during the process. Our research found that two thirds of authorities had met the deadline – and most others were well on the way to producing their ROWIP. We found that overall 85% of ROWIPs are fit for purpose. To read the report click here.