Agenda item

To receive verbal updates from the relevant Cabinet Members for the Environment & Transport Cabinet Committee portfolio and the Corporate Director for Growth, Environment & Transport.

1.            The Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport, Mr Balfour, gave  his verbal update on the following:

(a)       Active Travel Strategy – A Members Group was to be set up to consider the government’s Public Walking and Cycling Strategy.  The Members Group would report back to the Committee in March 2016, and would tie in with the Local Transport Plan which would also be considered at that time to the Committee so that they can be in alignment.

(b)       Ashford Spurs - The signalling system that had been proposed for Ashford International Station had now been replaced with a cheaper and more easily installed technical solution.  Although this would result in the loss of some European funding, it would be a proven option and would cost less.  The project would be entirely LEP funded.

(c)       Contract tenders had now been received, of which one was acceptable.  Mr Balfour was confident that matter had been successfully negotiated and the successful tender would be published as soon as it was possible to do so.

(d)       The Airspace Review - Gatwick Airport Ltd had appointed Bo Redeborn, aviation consultant to lead an independent review of Airspace architecture. As part of the review a wide range of key stakeholders including community groups and local residents would be consulted.  Members were assured that KCC would respond to protect the interests of  local residents, particularly in the West of the County from noise and air pollution.  Bo Redeborn would report to GATCOM in January 2016.

(e)     Kent Environment Strategy Member Group - This would be discussed later on in the agenda.

(f)       North Farm – This had been a successful project largely due to the cooperation of the land owners, who had dedicated land to Highways.  He commended Mary Gillett and her Team for their excellent work in running the project.

(g)       Growth and Infrastructure Framework Launch - Information was now on the Kent Website and work was being undertaken to tackle the £2 billion funding gap that had been identified.  Mr Balfour advised that he Chaired a primarily Senior Officer Group,(Cabinet Member, Mr Holden, also sat on this group) from all areas of the authority, that had been appointed to; (i) regularly review the Growth and Infrastructure Framework; and (ii) ensure that Kent County Council responded with one voice when negotiating Section 106 and 278 agreements with developers, district and borough councils.  He welcomed any other Cabinet Members whose portfolio fell within the remit of this Group.

(h)     Operation Stack – The Operation Planning Group had met and future meetings were planned.  Highways England were currently finalising their informal consultation document which should be in the public domain on 11 December.  Following the publication there would be a variety of public meetings, showcases and KCC would request that Highways England meet with the County Council to brief all county councillors that wished to attend.  Mr Balfour advised that other invitees will be the Police Authority and the Fire and Rescue Authority. 

(i)     Mr Balfour reported that Highways England was intending to put average speed cameras along the A21.

(j)     Lighting Consultation – The public consultation on street lighting had ended in November 2015.  The consultation sought views from the public regarding preferences for street lighting following the planned conversion to LED.  The external Consultants would be reporting back on the findings of the consultation and an extraordinary meeting of the Cabinet Committee would be convened in February 2016 to consider the matter and make recommendations to the executive.  Mr Balfour requested that once Members had received meeting papers, any questions they may have be put forward for a response before the meeting.

(k)    Buses – Officers from KCC Transport had been working with bus operators to identify the potential for transferring some KCC supported bus services back into commercial operation.  This was being carried out to enable KCC public transport to meet its 2016/17 budget of £5.25 million which had over the past two years been reduced by £2 million.  The service had already delivered £1 million of saving with only a marginal impact on service users and needed to deliver a further £1 million of savings.  Local bus operator partners had identified £680k of service initiatives which could deliver savings to KCC and only have a marginal impact on service users.  This was welcomed and operators were commended on their proactive approach to the matter. Initially, from April 2016 £260k of 14 KCC supported services would be absorbed by local bus partner operators with no change in the service provided. 
KCC would consult from early February on a further £420k of service initiatives affecting 16 services which would see supported services absorbed but with some change to the current service be it different timings, less journeys or slightly revised routing.  KCC public transport and its local bus operator partners were commended for their collaborative working which had made significant budget savings to KCC but retained the shape of the current Kent bus network and the level of provision.  It was accepted that in some areas of the County there had been change but to services and journeys which were poorly used.  KCC public transport would continue to identify further savings which would enable it to meet its 2016/2017 budget without significantly impacting service users.  Members were assured that it was KCC’s intention to enhance  community bus services including Ashford, Wealden Wheels.

2.            Mr Balfour and Mr Pearman responded to questions by Members as follows:

a)    Mr Pearman confirmed that both the Active Travel Strategy and the Local Transport Plan4 (LTP4) would be developed simultaneously and be reported back to this Cabinet Committee on 11 March 2016.  He invited the same Members that were on the LTP4 Member Group to assist with the Active Travel Strategy; these were Mr Baldock, Mr Caller, Mr Chittenden and Mr Wybrow.  Meeting dates had been fixed for the mornings of 12 January and 26 January.

b)    Mr Balfour advised that discussions were being undertaken with bus operators to identify and agree which services KCC could cease to support yet the service continue albeit with a potential impact on timings, route or frequency. He stressed that any proposals would be the subject of consultation with residents. The next tranche of services would be considered in January/February 2016.

c)     A request was made that when consulting on future bus service provision consideration be given to providing services that ran one, two or three days per week, which may mean that more services could be provided; it was claimed that many rural residents preferred this approach.

d)    Mr Balfour advised that he did not have the response figures for the LED consultation as they were with the consultants, but was aware that the figure was in the thousands.  The results would be published in the consultant’s report.

e)    Mr Balfour explained that there was to be both a non-statutory consultation and a statutory consultation on Operation Stack.  KCC was being kept informed but was any information provided was confidential until the consultation was published.  There had been suggestions that this may happen on 8 December.  Mrs Cooper advised that Members would receive a briefing.

f)     Mr Balfour did not disagree with the suggestion that there needed to be a cross party national debate on bus services to look at how to get people out of the private motor car onto public transport and making the best use of public transport.

g)    Mr Balfour responded to a question on the Ashford Spurs and read out a statement as follows: “the signalling solution to be deployed will be the French KVB used at St Pancras rather than the European ETCS system.  The reason for change was the technical problems with the ETCS and the removal by the Department of Transport of the need for derogation from EU law for the KVB system.  Although going KVB means that we lose the EU funding for ETCS, the funding gap is smaller for KVB without EU funding than it would have been for ETCS with EU funding”.  He clarified that this would allow trains to go in and out of the Ashford station.   Mrs Cooper added that the funding still needed to be sourced.  Members would be advised of the project timeline outside the meeting.

h)   A comment was made regarding the consultation process. It was advised that when responding to the online consultation respondents needed to sign in, therefore it was not possible to retain anonymity as it was when using the paper method of consultation.  In addition, if a household had one email address only one person in that household could participate online as a different email address was required for each response.

3.    The Cabinet Member for Community Services, Mr Hill, highlighted three information items.

(i)     The Kent and Medway Community Safety Conference, an annual event, was held on 3 November.  The theme of the event was dementia and was well attended, with Angela Rippon as the key note speaker who had a national role in dementia, working with the government.  

(ii)    The Domestic Homicide Review.  He explained that the local authority had a responsibility to commission these reviews which were important tools in establishing why incidents had occurred and ensuring lessons were learnt and communicated.  A seminar was held on 18 November, which was well attended with over 100 practitioners in attendance.  They considered a number of recent reports and drew out the lessons learnt.  It was hoped that the incidents of homicide would be reduced as awareness of potential triggers was raised; and

(iii)   Public Protection Annual Reports – The Public Protection Service had seven small services; Trading Standards, Community Safety, Public Rights of Way and access, Kent Resilience Team, Gypsy and Traveller Unit, Kent Scientific Services; and Coroners.  To highlight the work undertaken by those services their annual reports 2014/15 were now published on KCC’s website.

4.            RESOLVED that the responses to questions by Members and the information in the verbal updates be noted with thanks.