The Cabinet Members and Corporate Director will update Members on areas relevant to the remit of the Committee.
Minutes:
Mr Brazier, Cabinet Member for Environment & Transport, gave a verbal update as follows:
Highway Operations
(1) The extremely wet weather through January and February had caused severe damage to the road network. Between January and March over 7200 emergency jobs were raised with Enterprise compared to a little over 4000 for the same period last year, with the highest weekly pothole enquiry rate of 1339 recorded in mid-February. The wet conditions hampered initial repair work meaning it was not always possible to undertake first time permanent repairs on all potholes, however progress has been made on the latest Find and Fix campaign as drier weather returned throughout March and now April.
(2) Government had granted a total of £8.6m at the end of March towards costs incurred. £7.025m would be allocated directly to highway repairs, with £1.5m funding the 2013/14 emergency response, and £75k allocated to Public Rights of Way (PRoW).
Safe and Sensible Street Lighting
(3) The County Council was responsible for the maintenance of approximately 118,000 street lights and has implemented its Safe and Sensible Street Lighting policy to reduce the annual energy bill, carbon emission and light pollution. Implementation of Phase 1 of the initiative, the trial switch-off of approximately 2,500 street lights, has been completed.
(4) Phase 2 of the scheme would consist of conversion of around 70,000 street lights to part-night lighting which involved installing a sensor in each street light that would switch them off at midnight and back on again at 5:30am (1am and 6.30am during BST).
(5) Work on conversion to part-night lighting began in early December 2013 and suitable street lights in Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge & Malling, Sevenoaks, Ashford, Dartford and Gravesham have been completed. Work in Swale, Shepway and Dover began in mid-April and work in the remaining districts, Maidstone, Canterbury and Thanet, would begin in May. The entire programme would be completed by the end of the summer.
(6) These measures when fully implemented would deliver an annual saving of around £900k.
Annual Resurfacing Programme (Repair & Renewal) 2014/15
(7) This year KCC would invest around £18m in the resurfacing programme focusing on three main programmes of works; Machine Resurfacing, Surface Treatments and Footway Improvements.
(8) Data collected from a range of sources was being used to develop a priority list of sites for inclusion in the Annual Maintenance Programme. Given the available funds and to achieve value for money prioritisation was largely based on economic ranking to ensure that sites that would need costly repairs in the future were treated sooner, before they deteriorate further.
[A table showing the spend for each activity is attached as an appendix to these minutes.]
Highway Drainage Infrastructure
(9) In recent years there had been an increase in prolonged and heavy rainfall events, the most recent being this winter. Between December and February there were a succession of storms bringing 340mm rain; double what would normally be expected. The ground was already highly saturated prior to these storms and as the highway drainage system was also running at full capacity, widespread flooding occurred. Customer enquiries increased accordingly, with around 10,000 enquiries related to drainage and flooding during the year, twice that of 2009.
(10) Much of the highway drainage system was reliant on soakaways with an estimated 8,000 across the county. These large perforated or deep bored chambers collected the water from the road drains and allow it to disperse into the surrounding ground. KCC had allocated an additional £3m to this and are in the process of developing a list of priority schemes to protect areas that frequently flood, especially residential and business properties.
Mike Austerberry, Corporate Director Growth, Environment & Transport, gave a verbal update as follows:
Flooding and Emergency Planning
(11) The new Growth, Environment and Transport (GET) directorate, and the Environment & Transport Cabinet Committee, had within their remit the Emergency Planning function which played a prominent role in dealing with the immediate consequences of the extremely severe weather over Christmas and which had continued well into January and February.
(12) An integrated Kent Resilience Team comprising emergency planning staff from Kent Police, Kent Fire and Rescue Service (KFRS) and KCC, based at the KFRS HQ in Tovil, came into operation on 14th April.
(13) There were clear lessons to be learnt from the events of the last winter, although answers would not be quick nor inexpensive in relation to the worst incidents. The capital costs of dealing with flooding in Yalding and other highly vulnerable communities were considerable, and beyond the resources of local government. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, on his visit to Yalding, had pledged that government funding would be available. Until this funding was confirmed feasibility planning for capital schemes led by the Environment Agency would be proceeding.
(14) As the lead local flood authority KCC would continue to promote improved management of local flood risks which arose from surface water, groundwater and ordinary watercourses, and which have a part to play in mitigating the worst impacts of the kind of flooding seen this year, and in delivering local flood risk improvements.
(15) Later this year KCC would inherit a new role as the drainage approval body for new developments in Kent and was working with partners in the southeast to deliver guidance for planners on the integration of sustainable drainage into those developments. KCC’s flood risk management work would be informed by the experience of recent months and the local vulnerabilities that had been exposed.
Transport Strategy
(16) Kent and Medway, as part of the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), has submitted its transport funding infrastructure bid from the Single Local Growth Fund for the period 2015-21. The transport bid for Kent and Medway for this period is £359.5 million with a total scheme cost of £709.5 million. The outcome was expected to be announced by Government in July.
(17) The EU RoCK project; an important rail scheme to improve the signalling system to enable continued longer term operation of international services at Ashford had been granted 50% funding from the EU towards the planning & design stage, with the balance provided by KCC, Ashford Borough Council, High Speed 1 & Eurostar. This was an important milestone towards project implementation.
(18) The rail scheme to improve journey times from Ashford to Ramsgate via Canterbury West had also progressed with receipt of Regional Growth Fund funding from the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills.
(19) Finally, from the Environment side of the directorate, Low Carbon Plus is an integrated programme of financial assistance and business support to increase demand for low carbon technology, increase efficiency and grow businesses in the low carbon and environmental goods and services sector was currently being progressed via Cabinet Member Decision.
(20) The proposed decision sought to approve the delivery of the Low Carbon Plus project and included the acceptance of the funding agreement from the Department of Communities and Local Government. The project would be 50% funded by the European Regional Development Fund with further financial input from the private sector and KCC. KCC had secured a £2million grant pot to be administered before June 2015 and should the decision be agreed KCC would become the accountable body for the dispersal of grants up to the value of £20,000 to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in the low carbon and environmental goods and services sector across Kent and Medway.
(21) The project supported both the Kent Environment Strategy and Unlocking the Potential: Kent and Medway’s Growth Plan which highlighted the low carbon sector as an opportunity for growth and jobs creation, and it was hoped that the decision would receive the support of Members as it was currently published online for comment.
(22) Members raised the following points in response to the verbal updates and received assurances as follows:
· That where plans to reduce street lighting in particular localities had caused concern for residents, particularly in relation to the potential for increased criminal activity, all complaints and correspondence were logged and responded to. Mr Brazier assured Members that there was no evidence to support the assertion that reduced lighting would have any impact on crime.
· That the Police had been consulted on all proposals to switch off street lights and proposals only progressed where no concerns were expressed.
· That areas selected for switch off were generally in residential streets with low traffic use. If an area had traffic calming measures in place it would not be part of the programme of reduced use.
· That a report would be brought back to the Committee in the future reviewing the reduced street lighting programme to ensure that crime or road traffic accidents (RTAs) had not increased as a result of the new policy
· That work continued towards the objective of switching the light stock to LED; the cost of switching 50,000 lights to LED was £20m and the cost of switching all the stock over was £40m. EU funding sources were being investigated to facilitate the switch.
· That some of the recent issues with flooding had been the result of field run caused by failure of farmers to maintain land drains on their land.
· The Cabinet Member agreed that run off from agricultural land had been a large contributing factor. KCC would work with farmers to try to ensure that any issues were resolved but had the power to enforce against those that would not amend bad practice should this become necessary.
· Frustration was expressed by one Member of the Committee that dams could not be maintained at capacity for longer in order to ensure that water use in the summer was not restricted. Further information on the matter was requested and officers agreed it would be provided.
(23) RESOLVED that the Cabinet Member’s and Corporate Director’s verbal updates be noted.