To receive verbal updates from the relevant Cabinet Members.
Minutes:
1. The Deputy Cabinet Member for Community Services, Mrs Hohler, advised that the Cabinet Member for Community Services, Mr Hill, attended the Consumer Challenge Quiz for children with learning difficulties held at Wyvern school, Ashford. This aimed to give those children the opportunity to be more informed consumers.
2. The Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport, Mr Balfour, advised on the following:-
Local Growth Fund Round 3 update
(a) This funding would be allocated by the Government through a competitive bidding process. It was anticipated that £1.8bn would be made available nationally. In addition, there was also the opportunity for Local Enterprise Partnerships to bid for a limited amount of Large Local Major Schemes development funding which would be made available by the Department for Transport to support project development work for a small number of Large Local Major transport projects across the County. For the South East Local Enterprise Partnership, these schemes were defined as those with a scheme cost of in excess of £75 million.
LTP4 and GIF update
(b) The new Local Transport Plan 4 was undergoing a period of pre-consultation engagement with the districts to identify their strategic priorities for inclusion within the plan. A draft document would be brought to this Cabinet Committee in July before the launch of a statutory 12 week public consultation. The current engagement with the districts was also identifying projects for potential inclusion in the third round of bidding for the Local Growth Fund (LGF), a bid for development funding for potential Large Local Major Transport schemes and the update of the Kent and Medway Growth and Infrastructure Framework (GIF).
Specific Schemes:
Operation Stack Lorry Area
(c) There was no further news on Operation Stack. It was hoped that the Department for Transport would make an announcement by the end of May or early June.
Lower Thames Crossing
(d) KCC has sent a response to the Highways England consultation supporting the Western Southern Link and for additional mitigations, particularly to air quality and increased tunnelling. The Government’s decision was awaited on the final route as there was also to be an extra airport run way in the South East.
Department for Transport (DfT) and New Southeastern Franchise
(e) The formal DfT public consultation on the New Southeastern franchise would run from June to October 2016. KCC would submit a full and detailed response, which would be discussed at a Member’s Briefing on 21 July and by this Cabinet Committee on 7 September prior to Cabinet approving the final response on 26 September.
Highways Operations Update
(f) It was noted that the weather had been unseasonably cold for April. Our weather forecast advised that this would lead to colder road surface temperatures with the risk of ice and hoar frost which could pose hazards for road users. Therefore the winter service period was extended for an extra week to 29 April. On Wednesday, 27 April the road were gritted as road surface temperatures fell below zero.
(g) Around 300 road and footway resurfacing schemes during 2015/16 were delivered totalling £17 million. Members noted the Capital funding pressures and that safety auditing competing priorities for this investment was being carried out. The county would be publishing details of this year’s resurfacing schemes in two tranches. The first of which was shared with Members in March.
(h) In 2015/16 the County Council received 7,500 drainage enquiries. A quieter year by comparison as there were fewer weather events. The Drainage Team responded to 500 drainage and flooding emergencies. January 2016 was the busiest month. 45,000 gullies on main roads were cleaned on a scheduled basis whilst a further 3,200 reactive cleansing jobs were carried out in response to customer enquiries. The Drainage Team delivered 450 small and medium sized drainage renewals and improvements with a total value of £1.5m.
(i) In 2016/17 the Drainage Team plan to deliver a range of larger schemes, including drainage improvements to the Thanet Way and Sandwich Bypass. The scheduled cleansing programme would remain relatively unchanged with a focus on main roads and flooding hotspots.
(j) The street lighting team received almost 20,000 enquiries during 2015/16 and attended a little over 2000 emergency call outs and carried out over 27,000 reactive repairs in response to customer calls and faults reported by night patrols. Street light replacement works to a value of £2.65m were also carried out.
(k) The Street Lighting LED conversion project had commenced and has started well and a more detailed report was on today’s agenda.
Pothole Blitz
(l) A pothole Find and Fix campaign was starting in June and would continue through the Summer months. At the same time, the re-painting of white lines on the roads and cleaning road signs would take place.
3. Mr Balfour responded to questions by Members as follows:-
a) Following a request Mr Balfour agreed to circulate his notes on his verbal update outside the meeting.
b) Mr Balfour shared the frustrations of Members with the reduction of funding from the highways base budget. He considered that repairs would be carried out in a prioritised basis at a local level.
c) Members welcomed the news of white lines being repainted on the roads as there were concerns with safety at some junctions where the road marking were worn.
d) Members gave their support regarding the issues of the reduced budget.
e) Mr Balfour agreed to make enquires regarding the Key Street roundabout but supported local Members making direct enquires about matters within their electoral divisions as they had local knowledge.
f) Mr Balfour explained that a criteria was being defined on what qualified as local works. A report providing more information would be publicised.
4. RESOLVED that the comments and the responses to questions by Members and the information in the verbal updates be noted with thanks.