Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on local newspaper revenue of any proposal to remove the requirement on local authorities to advertise Traffic Regulation Orders.

A discovery or user research project, carried out by the Department for Transport, Geoplace, Ordnance Survey and the British Parking Association earlier in 2019, estimated that the estimated annual advertising costs for traffic orders and temporary traffic orders across all authorities in Great Britain is approximately £49m, which accounts for 34% of the total cost of making a traffic order and 46% of the total cost of making a temporary traffic order. The discovery project findings suggest that the average cost to an authority of advertising a single traffic order is £1,021 and a single temporary traffic order is £769.

The Department for Transport has not at this stage made any wider assessment of the impact on local newspaper revenues of removing the statutory requirement to place adverts for traffic orders or temporary traffic orders in local newspapers. The Department is now reviewing the legislation that applies to traffic orders with a view to consulting on proposed amendments in 2020. This may include proposals in relation to advertising, in which case this would form part of the impact assessment that will accompany the consultation.