Only Three Changes per Year

To make a change to a public highway, for example to add:

• Double-yellow lines
• A pedestrian crossing
• A cycle lane
• A new parking space
• A new loading bay
• A taxi rank
• A one-way street

the Highway Authority, in our case West Sussex County Council, has to create a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO). This is a legal document that describes exactly what will be changed, and it has to be published for 21 days to allow people to object to the changes. If there are objections then these are discussed by the Transport Committee, who decide whether the TRO should be "sealed" and legally enforceable. If there are no objections, then the TRO can be sealed without any further discussion.

Oddly, West Sussex County Council limit the number of TROs each County Local Committee can apply for to just three per year. This low limit means that each District has a very long "waiting list" of things they'd like to do, such as introducing new pedestrian crossings where there's a great need.

The silly thing is that it's perfectly legal to combine many changes into a single TRO, especially if the changes are related. But WSCC don't appear to want to do that.

While West Sussex currently have just three TROs being consulted on in the whole county, Brighton and Hove are consulting on twenty!

It almost seems as though WSCC Highways and Transport don't want to see any change.

West Sussex Transport would be an awful lot better if WSCC could pull their finger out and process more TRO applications more quickly.