Appendix 2 – East Sussex County Council’s ATE Local Authority Capability Assessment 2025

The assessment required the provision of evidence covering the following four key elements. Please see below a summary of County Councilresponse.

1. Budget and staff for transport and active travel within the local authority

A summary of the financial information that was reported is as outlined in Appendix 1.

2. Leadership and organisational capability

This section required local authorities to demonstrate the extent to which local authority leaders and elected members support active travel as outlined in an authority's related transport and planning policies and approaches related to value for money and monitoring and evaluation of active travel schemes.

With the adoption of the East Sussex Local Transport Plan 4 by Full Council in October 2024, which has an integral chapter setting out our ambition for active travel with supporting policies, we were able to demonstrate a strong policy context for active travel that has political leadership. This enabled us to rate ourselves overall as a level 2 for this element. 

The key pieces of evidence that were provided related to:

· East Sussex Local Transport Plan 4,

· East Sussex Healthy Weight Plan and Partnership work, 

· Public Health - Planning for Health Memorandum of Understanding (MoU – which Infrastructure Planning and Place team are signatory of alongside the district and borough councils,

· MoU with the SDNPA on Exceat and active travel,

· Active Travel and Healthy Streets training with officers

· East Sussex Climate Change Road Map – specifically references the action the authority is taking in relation to active travel,

· Planning committee’s approval - school street schemes,

· Lead Member for Transport & Environment (LMTE) reports and design work Eastbourne Town Centre and Hastings Green Connections schemes, and

· Transport Development Planning guidance for developers – outlining required use of national guidance and tools relating to active travel.

3. Network Planning

With regards to this section ATE required an understanding of the level of progress an authority has made with their Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans (LCWIPs). Within this section we are able to provide evidence supporting an overall level 2 rating. This is because the existing East Sussex Local Cycling & Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) provides a comprehensive coverage of the county within our key centres of population. We are also able to demonstrate that we have been able to progress several of the prioritised schemes within the existing LCWIP and that we undertake comprehensive inclusive engagement when consulting on all active travel schemes.

However, one critical area we are currently addressing through the review of the East Sussex LCWIP is to develop a stronger pipeline of deliverable active travel schemes that meet with Department for Transport and Active Travel England guidance and tools. This will place us in a stronger position to seek future funding. We were able to provide evidence outlining how the approach will support this and that the review of the East Sussex LCWIP is a priority project and that the updated plan will be available in early 2026.

4. Scheme Delivery

In regard to this section ATE required an understanding of a local authorities track record for delivering capital and revenue active travel schemes from any funding source over the past three years, and to understand delivered scheme complexity. 

ATE have now applied a higher weighting in the assessment of this section. It requires evidence relating to the delivery of schemes on time and budget, complexity of schemes, stakeholder engagement and scheme quality.  Within this section overall we are able to rate ourselves a Level 1. 

We were able to demonstrate the delivery of more low complexity schemes that meet with national and ATE guidance and tools. We also used this section to demonstrate that many of the actions that we have either taken (i.e. adoption of the East Sussex LTP4, Active Travel Training with officers), current actions (i.e. review of the LCWIP, scheme development – Eastbourne Town Centre, Hastings Green Connections, Peacehaven and Telscombe Active Travel neighbourhood scheme) and proposed actions (i.e. developing a monitoring and evaluation framework – potentially with WSCC and BHCC) is beginning to filter through to support scheme development and delivery.

The actions that we are taking are providing a step change in the development of schemes that are more complex and are of a better quality for people walking, wheeling and cycling. Whist we need to caveat that scheme development and delivery will take time, it is proposed that this will result in enabling us to move to a level 2 rating in future ATE Capability assessments.