Local Safety Schemes

Local residents within Essex County Council’s area can see details of all the planned and current road safety schemes in their area – as well as find information on the process for making a request for a scheme – by visiting the new Local Highways Panel web pages.

Members of the public who wish to request a scheme should first raise their concerns with their local County/District/City/Borough member, or their Parish Council, who will then process on their behalf.

Not all schemes are feasible or affordable within the annual Local Highway Panel budget, so will be validated and reviewed by the panel and if suitable, will be recommended on the annual prioritised scheme list.

Only once the list has been approved by the Cabinet Member and funding secured will the scheme be progressed.

What are Local Highway Panels?

All 12 borough, city and district areas across Essex have Local Highway Panels (LHPs), who are responsible for making recommendations and setting priorities for highways schemes in their areas.

LHPs are made up of elected members from the county council alongside representatives from the individual borough, city or district.

LHP members meet on a quarterly basis to discuss and consider highways concerns within their local boundaries. The Panels prioritise local concerns and make recommendations to the Essex County Council cabinet member for the implementation of highway schemes.

The LHP funding is intended for the delivery of road safety casualty reduction schemes as identified through collision analysis, and locally requested measures which meet the desires of the local community.

Casualty reduction schemes are identified and prioritised by the county council’s road safety team, and potential engineering solutions are developed. These are presented to the LHPs for inclusion in their annual prioritised programme.

The ‘community schemes’ – developed to address issues raised locally – tend to fall into defined categories, and there is an LHP toolkit to guide people through the pros and cons and the complexities, cost and timescales of different engineering solutions.

Local residents can select their LHP area from the map or list on the LHP web pages to find out more about the members, current and proposed schemes, types of schemes and how to make a request for a scheme.

Written questions can be submitted to the LHP which will either be answered in writing, or the questioner may be invited to attend the meeting to receive the answer orally.