Getting Started
Planning Applications are made through the relevant District Council (see links on the right). Somerset County Council will liaise with the District Council regarding the need to produce a travel plan and the measures needed within it.
You should discuss the measures you will introduce to reduce the car traffic arising from your development with the County Council's Travel Plan Coordinator. Our planning guidance sets out the requirements particular to the development control process for travel plans. These guidelines should be followed in the preparation of your travel plan, the process for which is outlined below.
Travel plan process
Submitting your travel plan for a planning application
Securing your travel plan and use of legal agreements
- Your travel plan should be prepared in accordance with Somerset County Council's guidance.
- Pre-application email or face-to-face discussions with the County Council's Travel Plan Coordinator during the preparation of your travel plan will result in a smoother planning process.
- You should submit your travel plan with your planning application.
- Your travel plan will need to include a site audit, an action plan and a monitoring strategy (including the setting of modal share targets which will not be allowed to be deferred). The specific requirements will vary according to the size of site, as set out in our planning guidance - or you should ask the Travel Plan Coordinator for further advice.
- Use the Contents checklist [.pdf 231KB] to check your travel plan covers all the important areas. This advice includes a list of common reasons that travel plans often fail the assessment process.
- To help you complete your travel plan to the required standard, Somerset County Council has developed the Manual for Travel Plans, a comprehensive guide to developing a travel plan, available on this website.
You can search for examples of travel plans submitted to Somerset County Council for developments since 2000 on iOnTRAVEL
Submitting your travel plan for a planning application:
- The travel plan should be submitted at the same time as the rest of the planning application, alongside the Transport Assessment and the Design & Access Statement [.pdf] (where relevant) and should be consistent with these documents.
- You should submit a copy of your travel plan directly to the Travel Plan Coordinator at the County Council, as it can talk several weeks for materials to be passed through the relevant channels from the District Council, to avoid delay.
Deferred submission of the travel plan will not normally be accepted, as planning and transport officers and committess will need to consider the content of the travel plan before making their decision.
- After submission of the travel plan, Somerset County Council will formally assess your travel plan and usually feedback comments using the Feedback form [.doc 984KB].
Securing your travel plan and use of legal agreements:
- You must also submit actions and targets from your travel plan using Somerset County Council's online travel plan monitoring tool - iOnTRAVEL - as soon as your travel plan document has been finalised. This must happen before full approvel of the travel plan can be issued.
- A standard set of Travel Plan Fees [.pdf] applies to the supervision and ongoing auditing of the performance of each travel plan by Somerset County Council. The guidance note sets out the level of these fees in relation to the size of development. This fee is payable through a legal agreement.
Travel plans will normally be secured through s106 agreement. Where they are, they will need to be accompanied by a full schedule prepared by the County Council in negotiation with the developer and District Council. The agreed travel plan will need to appended for reference to the agreement. This means that travel plans will need to be finalised in full prior to legal agreements being signed.
