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The following changes have been made to the NI 195 website and Guidance Manual, operative from 1st April 2009:
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Menu – Link to BV 199 Website
The BV 199 website will be closed on Friday 1st May 2009. Authorities who wish to access the BV 199 Guidance Manual may do so by submitting an email request to info@ni195.com.
Homepage – Sub-District Surveys
Please note that advice on sub-district surveys can be accessed via the website Homepage. This is designed to assist authorities that wish to carry out surveys at neighbourhood (or similar) level. |
| 2.7 |
Unitary Counties
Defra will be working with the new Unitary Counties during 2009/10 to trial different approaches to the NI 195 Survey. These will be reviewed at the beginning of 2010, and may be reflected in the next annual update to the guidance for NI 195. |
| 4.2.6 |
Social Housing
Although the housing land uses now reflect differing degrees of potential obstruction, surveyors should make sure that the transects surveyed reflect the balance between existing and former social housing developments, and purpose-built private housing, present in each ward included in the NI 195 survey. |
| 4.7.1/2 |
Main and Other Retail/Commercial Areas
Do not forget that these areas can contain office and other commercial uses (e.g. leisure), as well as retail activity.
Definitions of Housing Land Uses
The basic criteria have been clarified as follows: |
| 4.7.3 |
High Obstruction Housing - less than 50% of dwellings have purpose-made off-street parking/garaging facilities; |
| 4.7.4 |
Medium Obstruction Housing – more than 50% of dwellings have purpose-made off-street parking/garaging facilities for 1 or 2 family cars;
Footnote: Medium Obstruction is a broad and varied category. One way of looking at it is that if a housing area does not meet the criteria for High Obstruction Housing, and also does not fall within the Low Obstruction category, then it must be Medium Obstruction Housing. |
| 4.7.5 |
Low Obstruction Housing – more than 50% of dwellings have purpose- made off-street parking facilities within the property boundary for 3 or more family cars. |
| 4.7.8 |
Rural Roads Some authorities, because they are heavily built up, appear to believe that they do not contain rural roads. In fact, there are very few authorities that have no roads at all that do not fit into this category. The definition has been redrafted to make it clear that this land use covers all roads outside built up areas, whether they are ‘rural’ in character or not.
Guidance in relation to ‘rural roads’ on the edge of built up areas has also been included. |
| 7.2.1 |
Timing of Surveys - General The advice has been amended to make it clear that authorities may carry out their NI 195 survey between 8 a.m. and dusk on all the days when the Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse is operative. |
| 7.3 |
Timing of Surveys - When You Should Not Survey Advice has been drafted advising authorities to avoid surveying lengths of highway on which there are major road works. |
| 11.0 |
Flyposting Advice has been be drafted to clarify how long public notices should be up before they are counted as flyposting. During 2009, Defra will be seeking the views of interested parties on how Roadside Memorials should be treated within the NI 195 survey. |
| 13.0 |
Data Input
Minor amendments have been made to clarify the guidance, based on feedback from local authorities. Some new screen shots have been included. |
| 15.0 |
Making The NI 195 Return To Government
The guidance has been revised. A local authority will no longer have to make a return to Government, but simply aggregate the results from their three four-monthly surveys, using the NI 195 database facilities. Defra will use the aggregated results as the authority’s return. |
| 16.0 |
Using The Results Of NI 195 Surveys
The national benchmarks have been updated to show figures for 2007/8.
FAQs
FAQS have been updated as appropriate. |