At a meeting on March 26, City of York Council's Executive Member for City Strategy and Advisory Panel (EMAP) will consider how road safety funding of up to £250,000 per year will be spent.

From 2007/08, national safety camera funding has been integrated into the Local Transport Plan funding that the council receives from the government. This means that York is set to benefit from £246,522 in road safety funding in 2007/08 and £240,820 in 2008/09, with further funding allocations likely to be made in 2009/10 and 2010/11.

The primary aim of the council's road safety strategy, which was included in its second Local transport Plan (LTP2) is to reduce the number of casualties on the city's roads. Its target is to achieve a 45 per cent reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured by 2010 (from the 1994-98 average). The council has already made a good deal of progress towards reaching this target - in 2005 the number of people killed or seriously injured fell to 101 against a target figure of 102.

The road safety grant funding is made up of a capital grant (19.2 per cent), which will be incorporated into the council's programme of road safety engineering schemes, and a revenue grant (81.8 per cent).

The report to the EMAP will outline a number of proposed themes that will be the focus for the revenue grant allocation between April 2007 and March 2011. These include a proposal to spend a proportion of the grant on funding business travel planning to achieve road safety improvements and reduce the number of car trips to work. This project would promote 'green' travel and deliver cycling training for adults. A toolbox resource will also be developed to help businesses to review their occupational road safety policies and procedures. A series of targeted road sfaety campaigns aimed at the city's largest employers are also proposed.

Young drivers and passengers will be another key target group. Funding will be used to produce a DVD for newly-qualified drivers, which aims to influence their attitude and behaviour. This reflects the fact that, between January 2002 and September 2005, around 50 per cent of people killed on York's roads were 21 years of age or under.

Other proposals include promoting the Driving Standards Agency's Pass Plus driver training scheme and finding ways to communicate directly with younger drivers, as well as continuing the programme of road safety training in all York schools.

The success of these projects will be evaluated by judging their impact on the casualty rate, although qualitative evaluation will help to determine how effective they have been in influencing attitude and behaviour.

The EMAP will be asked to adopt the proposals outlined in the report to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on York's roads and improve road safety.