Having given guidance and then statutory guidance to local authorities on how to deal with making traffic orders in the current pandemic, DfT has now surprised everyone by introducing a formal amendment to the order making regulations to relax temporarily the advertising and document inspection requirements.

The Traffic Orders Procedure (Coronavirus) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020, applicable in England only, came into force on 23 May and amend these three regulations:

• The Road Traffic (Temporary Restrictions) Procedure Regulations 1992

• The Local Authorities’ Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996

• The Secretary of State’s Traffic Order (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1990.

The new Statutory instrument can be downloaded here, and the accompanying statement here.

Councils are now safe to make what alternative arrangements they consider “appropriate for the purpose of informing persons likely to be affected”. In most cases these arrangements are likely to involve posting of notices online, both on the council’s own website and any local newspapers that are published virtually. With council offices and libraries closed, it will also be necessary to make the pack of deposited documents that would have been available for inspection available online.

Buchanan Computing are proud to say that we’re already providing an app as part of our widely-used ParkMap 7 cloud service. Authorities can publish their proposed traffic orders along with their deposited documents or the individual elements such as consultation plans and Statement of Reasons.

Members of the public can view the app over their smartphones, PCs or tablets and pass back comments on the proposed traffic order directly to the council. Map-based, the app comes with all the features that make accessing the data easy.

To learn more, visit www.traffwebdemo.co.uk/consult

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