Agenda item

To receive verbal upadtes from Mr M Hill, OBE, Cabinet Member for Community and Regulatory Services and Mr M Whiting, Cabinet Member for Planning, Highways, Transport and Waste.

1. Mr M Whiting (Cabinet Member for Planning, Highways, Transport and Waste) commended the success of the 10^th Rail Summit held on 14 May 2018 at Kent County Council. A host of representatives from Southeastern Rail, the Kent Community Rail Partnership and Eurostar were present to discuss their ambitions for the future. He also noted his thanks to the guest speaker from Bexhill who praised Kent Members and officers for their assistance with the cross-border rail issues.

2. With regard to the Pothole Blitz, Mr Whiting said that six contracts had been issued to companies within the Districts to ensure quicker response times and that a short report would be sent to Members confirming the number of repaired potholes within each District. There had been additional resources deployed to Tunbridge Wells and following a review in June 2018, the Leader of the Council would determine whether the Pothole Blitz required further funding. Mr Whiting said that the number of reported potholes had reduced from 15,000 per week to 500 and that the project was due to finish in August 2018.

3. Mr Whiting informed the Committee that the Big Bus Conversation commenced on 19 June 2018. Kent County Council were in discussion with the Kent Association of Local Councils to ensure that a number of public engagement meetings could be held across Kent within each of the Districts, these would be held in the afternoon and the evening to ensure that as many people could attend as possible. Mr Whiting said that independent facilitators would be used for all 16 meetings for the purpose of consistency. Kent County Council had started discussions with providers which included commercial, Community Trust volunteers, taxi firms and other transport providers to ensure a comprehensive agenda for the public engagement meetings. The Kent Association of Local Councils would be advertising the events, Mr Whiting acknowledged that not all Parish Members were Members of the Kent Association of Local Councils so additional methods of communication were being reviewed by Kent County Council to ensure wide-spread advertisement.

4. In terms of the LED conversion, both residential and town centre conversions had been completed which had impacted on the reduction of Co2 emissions and generation of financial savings.

5. Mr M Hill, OBE (Cabinet Member for Community and Regulatory Service) provided an update on the work carried out by the Community Alcohol Partnership (CAP) which worked in conjunction with Kent Police, alcohol retailers, youth groups, district councils and health boards to promote responsible attitudes towards alcohol and reduce underage drinking. Mr Hill said that the CAP had recently been launched in Herne-bay where it was greatly received and promoted by students in both Herne-bay High School and East Kent College.

6. In response to comments and questions, the following information was provided:

(a)  In response to questions raised regarding lorry parking, Mr Whiting said that he had met with Tim Read (Interim Director of Highways, Transportation and Waste) and a representative from the Highways Authority in Leicestershire to review the scheme which had been imposed within the county and whether the infrastructure could be translated into the county of Kent. Officers were tasked with producing an options paper which was due to be presented to the Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee at the earliest opportunity. Further to this, discussions had taken place with Kent Police to review enforcement of laws on lorries, however, this become quite complex when dealing with the delivery of supplies to companies situated down B roads.

(b)  With regards to queries concerning pothole data, Mr Whiting said that it was possible to provide sub-divided pothole information however due to the extensive volume of work within the Highways Team, it may not have been feasible to request this at the current time, however, he was happy to liaise with officers.

(c)   In response to concerns around the transparency of definitions used in the Big Bus Conversation and the process of evaluation, Mr Whiting said that there was a policy in place which helped to determine which services fell within the criteria of those that required financial support. He said that when designing a service, it was important to understand that a service which worked for one area did not facilitate the needs of another and therefore Kent County Council had to ensure that the design and evaluation process took this into account when allocating public money.

7. RESOLVED that the verbal updates be noted, with thanks.