ABSTRACT
This Chapter examines transport policy-making in Lancashire, a county in the north-west of England, in the period 1987–2001. The central focus is upon the activities of Lancashire County Council (LCC), the ‘highway authority’ for the area, which has responsibility for maintaining local roads, co-ordinating transport provision and for devising transport policy in the county in association with district authorities. This Chapter, in common with the other two sub-national case studies, explores how transport policy was expressed in documentation in the period 1987–2001 and how this changed during this time. Interview material is used to supplement this policy review. Further empirical material was gathered through attendance at public meetings in the County. The premise for the three case study Chapters is that a ‘predict and provide’ discourse was being supplanted by new storylines and practices. In explaining such storylines and practices, focus is directed, following the sociological institutionalist perspective, at the stakeholders participating in policy discussions and the relations between them; the arenas in which transport policy is discussed; and the nature of the arguments discussed among stakeholders.
