Transcript

and compared them to mentions in the report the BCIS register, which is basically industry standard costings for all types of work. So they have compared what RG Cartars have submitted and are comfortable and confident that what is quoted within Cartars estimates is reasonable and is achievable. And obviously when a contract is signed with RG Cartars, that is the price to which they will be held unless fundamentally there are issues around what we are requesting that may impact on the budget. Once that contract is signed, that is the price they will be delivering to. Thank you. Thank you for that. Still no one indicating so I'm going to move on then and come to a proposal. I'm going to propose that a designated scrutiny officer records the key findings and comments raised by the committee and I move that the committee supports the report and agrees with the recommendation to the Executive Councillor has set out on pages 73-74 and I ask that the committee comments raised by this committee be shared with the Executive Councillor for their consideration ahead of the decision being made. Do I have a seconder? Councillor Gibson, thank you. Would all those in favour please indicate? I think that is unanimous but just in case there is anybody against and have we got any abstentions? No. That is carried then. Thank you. I'll move on to the next item on the agenda then and we come to the Stanford Transport Strategy next and the report can be found on pages 89-162 of the agenda park and seeks to inform members about Link to County Council's initiative to develop and publish a new Stanford Transport Strategy. This strategy outlines a comprehensive vision for transportation and travel in and around Stanford up to 2038. Its objectives include expanding travel options, enhancing the transport network, addressing congestion, improving accessibility, promoting sustainable and low carbon travel and supporting the town's growth and resilience. Additionally, the strategy aims to preserve Stanford's unique character, enhance its vibrant atmosphere, facilitate access to local service and promote sustainable development. The strategy area encompasses the historic town of Stanford and its surrounding areas extending to Uffington and Newstead in the East, bordered by the A1 along the western edge. The committee is invited to consider a comment on the proposed Stanford Transport Strategy. The report will be presented by Sam Edwards, Head of Highways Infrastructure and Laboratory Services and over to you, Sam. Thank you, Chair and hopefully there will be a there's if I'm at it, Tom will prepare and there's the presentation. So I'm very conscious of your opening comments, Chair, about the busy, the agenda. So I'll go through this presentation quite quickly. But all this information is in the page. I'm just picking out the personal parts. So next slide, please, Tom. So, as you know, I come to the screws to give annual updates on transport strategy and how and how we approach them. This is the the eighth one from when we started this. So this is the final one to get all in that place. And it follows the same thread of the process we go through, which is what that slide is sharing about understanding the background and the sort of analytical technical elements of what's taking place, then engaging with the public about what they see as challenges, opportunities, things that are good to build upon. And then look at those opportunities where we might want to intervene, drafting the vision around that, and then finalizing the strategy, which is the step we're at here. Next slide, please. So engagement is a really key part of that. Like I said, there's a lot of information up there, but effectively, we haven't as officers gone off and done this by ourselves. This has been done, first of all, with a transport board, the Stanford transport board, which Council Richard Davies, the chair, and Councillor Richard Cleaver sits on as well, who's here today. It has district and county members, officers, and has a lot of input, like all the transport boards. As part of that as well, we went out with public engagement events, so actually it went out to the public for them to give their view of the number of places. And we got 512 survey completed surveys back, which is pretty positive, actually. And there were a number of stakeholder events with people like National Highways and many others as well. Next slide, please. So the key things that came out of that, I won't read it verbatim on there, but what was really slightly different about the transport board at Stanford one compared to others is it wasn't necessarily about hard infrastructure improvements, junction improvements, big roundabouts and the likes. It was more the things for me, although they're out there, was about protecting what it is now, building the economy upon that and providing alternative travel battles, things like walking, cycling, bus travel, things like that. So it's slightly different to some of the other towns that we've completed the strategies in. Next slide, please. So these were the four main challenges that we've sort of gone through all the information, which broadly sort of outlines what I just just said about folks on the environment, so protecting what's there, enabling the sustainable growth, which largely points towards Stanford North, but not in isolation as various others. Improving the access about that's alternative, not in place of, but alternative options around walking and cycling. And then changing because of the nature of being next to the A1 is the interaction between between the A1 and freight and retail. Next slide. So I'm not going to be painful and read that out, because it's in the report itself, but again, we've tried to pick up on those key features, which is about protecting the town's historic core and building in those travel choices, not taking away but trying to give a more balanced choice of how people do want to access. So that's the sort of the vision that we've put forward. Next slide. So again, concert time. I'm just going to pick up on what we call the key pillars, which aligns with the other strategies and the supporting interventions. I've cut short on the presentation on the strategic network enhancements, but that's effectively what we in the district and stakeholders, we can influence third parties like Network Rail, National Highways, others to try and do. It's not necessarily, well, it's almost certainly not on us to implement ourselves. So I'll pick on the key pillars. Next slide. So those are the five. Again, support what I'm talking about, sort of walking, cycling, and then, and then, so walking and pedestrian, then cycling, mobility hubs, local bus service improvement plans, which aligns with the B-sit work that Mike and Helen were talking about earlier, and then your more larger infrastructure and growth around this, the Stanford North. Next slide, please. I'll go through these quite quickly, because I'm conscious of their individual schemes, and what I should say within these, these are proposals. They are not promises, maybe that's the word, or plans to deliver. This is what we could deliver in the area, and even within those, those, they would need to be investigated about how much they might cost, what's the risk in delivering that, how long, what's the benefit you get out of doing it, and also being open. Some of these, by building, say, for example, wider footways and whatnot, you will take a road space, so you are having to balance back and forth. That's a careful balance to consider. But there's a number of walking and cycling proofs from crossings to footway improvements through that. Next slide. Equally, a number of cycles, so about the softer side thing, so the higher packages, the supporting infrastructure, and then, on the next slide, we get into more of the infrastructure, which could align with the foot, the pedestrian movements as well, so there could be one in the same, or there could be separate. And I love this, we'll link two potential Stanford North development, too. Next slide. On to mobility hubs, so we've looked at, and if you go on to the next one, actually, Tom. We've looked at three locations, one with the Stanford North, which could be integrated into the actual development site that comes along. One is looking at more centralizing the local bus, and then the other one is looking at more interchange with the rail facility. Again, principles of what people are saying and can be looked at, huge amounts of information would need to go, or process or would need to go through, whether these are taken forward or not. Next slide. Next one covers the last two. One is about the local bus service improvement plan. I'm not going to say what Mike and Helen did that they've already done, far better than I will, but it's along those same things about providing better frequency or better facilities. And then as I've touched on these Stanford North link road, making sure that it's not a development that integrates with Stanford doesn't sit separate to it. And then the next slide is just showing roughly where that road may go as the development. Almost there on the next slide. So this is more the supporting infrastructure. So this is more the sort of, I guess, the construction works, all the things that we could look at. And again, I do suggest the could look at. There's a number of things through their EV part charging, speed limit reviews, parking packages, parking stride, and then the behavioral management. So if we just quickly go through, next slide. These are some of the EV charging hubs that some of these are being looked at by the Levi, and the Levi two bid already is on street, but they could be developed further if there's an aspiration and like mostly saying, whether there's a business need and the reinforcement to the electricity network to support it. Next slide. Some of the, there was a request in the local community about 20 miles speed limits low and speed limit changes reviews. Again, we'd need to be considered in the whole rather than in isolation and guidance coming out from central government on things like LTNs and things like that, that are up in the air. But there's certainly, there was a lot of noise around wanting to review those kind of elements around that, which, again, would probably link in with things like walking and cycling and providing the network's fault for that. Next slide. This one, again, connected with that was about reviewing parking. Some of that was about restricting parking or putting in residence parking parking zones to incur almost the stick to that carrot, to encourage altar to transport and things like that. And, again, review of the on-street parking review, and I'm sure Councillor Cleaver would agree that there's probably, I know, a specialist with the district council reviewing the parking arrangements around there as well. Next slide. Almost there. So this was more of the bread and butter, I guess, that's something which was on the minority for this particular transport, which I agree with from an analytical perspective. But these are junctions and traffic signal improvements that could be investigated into. But the benefit isn't necessarily groundbreaking compared to the altar to travel pattern reviews. I think the next slide is the last slide, which is looking at the supporting infrastructure, so this is like parking stride. So, again, going back to what the feedback was very much about wanting to encourage walking and cycling in the area, is having areas to park on the outskirts and walk in, not just about bus travel and so forth. So I think that brings the presentation to close. There's lots more information in the documents and so forth, but I just thought I'd try and pick out the key elements for discussion, so I'd invite any questions at this point. Thank you for that, Sam. Thank you for presenting that good report. I'm going to come to Councillor Rich Cleaver now as the local member, not member of the committee, but it's us to speak. So, I'll give you your three minutes at the start of the debate. Over to you, Councillor even. Thank you, Chairman, for allowing me to address the committee on this item, the Stanford Transport Strategy, which is a great importance to the residents and businesses in my Stanford West Division. First of all, I'd like to thank our Council officers, both in the public engagement team and in the Transport and Highways teams for the highly professional and thorough work they've done in putting the strategy together. I hope the committee will formally record and pass on my thanks. I'm very pleased to see that we've produced a strategy which is so thorough and so comprehensive. It covers all the issues, road, rail, cars, lorries, buses, cyclists, pedestrians, mobility buggies, EV charging, school travel, mobility hubs, congestion, parking, road safety, accessibility, future proofing, and enhancing choice and progress, I've seen active travel, et cetera, et cetera. And it does not shy away from mentioning the difficult and controversial issues either. It doesn't have all the answers, but it does ask all the questions and commits to coming up with answers to appropriate assessments, which is good. I'm a great believer in open evidence-based decision-making. The strategy isn't prescriptive, it's enabling. I think we all see the constant arguments that are crudely labelled as the pro-car faction and the anti-car faction, which is fine. I always welcome debate. One of the under terms of this strategy is that doing nothing is not an option, and I agree with that. So we mustn't shy away from taking action for fear of setting one faction or another. But I truly believe that we can come up with actions from this strategy, which will help Stanford to thrive more whilst improving the quality of life of its residents and improving the attractiveness of the urban environment. And unite most, if not all sides of the debate as well. And this belief was bolstered by a representation I received only two days ago from the Stanford Civic Society, which expressed support for many, many aspects of this strategy. In conclusion, I'd just about to lobby the committee, gently lobby the committee, on two issues, which come out in the strategy. The first is improvements to rail services. As a council, altitude is not, I believe, lobbied strongly enough for improved rail services across the county, and I hope that this will improve. Second, the strategy speaks of investigating a number of 20 Marana zones, which Sam has alluded to. And I hope that LCC will adopt a sensible and measured policy, which will enable such gains to be requested and adopted, not just in Stanford, but where appropriate in towns and ledges countywide. Again, thank you very much for allowing me to come and speak. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor KIDDING. Right, we are the other members wishing to speak on this. Councillor Vairnan. Thank you, Chairman. I've read this report, and I think it's really, really interesting. I visit Stanford frequently, and yeah, I think there's some really good points on there. And sort of notable points that I've picked up, I think extending the Call Connect Services into Peterborough will be great. I agree that EV charging points do need to be looked at to be increased. I'll be sort of honest. I'm not entirely sure this stage about sort of pedestrianising areas of Broad Street, but I'll wait for further information on this. I just think that's something that sort of we do need to look at quite carefully. I love the idea of cycle high hubs, and I think that they would be brilliant, especially to have the joined-up approach with local Rutland water. I think it would definitely take some joined-up working, but there's a real opportunity here to have people turning up on the improved railway services into Stanford Station and being able to get off into sort of the countryside and beyond really. So I think that's fantastic. The park and ride the stride cycle, I also think it's great. And I think there's a lot of capacity there to work with the bus operators to streamline the amount of traffic that is actually entering Stanford. It can be very, very busy in the mornings coming through Royal Road and coming from Uppington. And I think if there's an opportunity to try and sort of move people off one bus, perhaps onto another or perhaps for them to stride or cycle, fantastic. So yeah, I'm just really impressed with the result report. And I think, as you say, it's a really good starting point to move forward on. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, that Councillor Vernon. Are we any other members wishing to speak? No. I just got quite one for Sam and it speaks about collaborative efforts in the report. And could you enlarge a bit more on the collaborative efforts between the County Council and South Casteven District Council, as far as developing the transport strategy and all that will work going forward, please? Yeah, like with all the transport strategies, we've approached us from a perspective of the public who do not care whose county or districts, they don't care about barriers. It's about what they want to utilize in the area. And most of these, some of these difficult change principles can't be done by one party or the other because there is a synergy that goes between, say, parking and road travel. So it's very clear that the districts in the county need to work closely together, which they have. And thank you for the say on all the transport strategies we do across the county. It's got that common theme that all wanting to work in one direction. It can't work any other way, otherwise when it comes to want to do a project or an initiative or a drive, you have challenges before you've even started. So there's nothing that we've put in this in this document that hasn't already been through the transport board. There's no surprise as with all the other transport strategies that everyone's aligned to the principles at both a political and officer level as well on both sides. So I feel that's sort of true collaboration about where, now when it comes to implementing these things, now that it will need its own, you know, a project wants to be taken forward. The right party needs to be picked when you get into the detail about who is best to lead that going forward based on their skills and abilities and funding maybe. But that's the other thing I suppose I didn't talk about. And here is similar to what Mike and Helen talked about is having the basis in place so that if a funding opportunity comes along, you've got the base of the information to support that. That's exactly what this is about. So this isn't somebody's idea or my idea. This is grounded in evidence of what people want. So you've got a much greater opportunity to secure funding in what you're doing. Thank you, Sam. And just on the point that Councilor Cleaver made about lobbying for rail service improvements, how are we going to do that going forward? Because it is difficult on that. I think yes, it is very difficult. That comes as part of the bit that I didn't go through in the presentation is that strategic supportive interventions around lobbying to national highways, for example, around eight improvements, the A1 to the rail authorities about providing more facilities or improving the infrastructure there as well. We do that regularly as a county council through our rail officers and meet regularly with them. And I think there's an item in the future about know what rail coming to this scrutiny committee as well. It's one of those things. It is lobbying. It needs to go on for a period of time and come from various different routes, not just the county council, but the district, but stakeholders, businesses, all those that demand it and build from an evidence base, rather than it being a motive, we really need the evidence to prove that it's needed and what the benefits are to all. Thank you, Sam. And on the 20 mile hour zones, we have a scrutiny panel, B, who are looking at those policies at the moment. And so, we'll have to leave with that with them for the time being. Councilor Wright, I understand you would like to speak. Thank you, Chairman. Yes, Sam. Speaking of what you said about relationships with people working together authorities, that's great. And they say the public don't care. But the public also don't understand policies and regulations that actually stop us from doing things. So, this isn't just the Stanford. This is across the transport plans. There is a real aspiration for cycle routes and walk routes. But we know that the regulations on the width for cycle paths now, meaning that a lot of our historic towns and villages that can't be realized because we simply can't fit it into the space required. So, I'm obviously thinking of another town where we know we've now got a choke where we can cycle most of the way in and then it stops. So, is there any possibility of really lobbying government with regards to its fine having designs that fit big urban cities that can just shave a bit of a road off a road and they've got the space? But it means that these will be forever aspirational in our towns, in our parts of rural Lincolnshire because unless they change it, we know we can't attract the government funding to help us implement them. So, it remains an aspiration and that's not really great as it trying to explain to the public why we can't realize their aspirations. Quite a wide discussion topic. So, what we're going to get is there's a document came out couple of years ago called LTM120 from the DFT that suggested a design standard which, as you say, council right, has very wide footways which is almost impossible to implement within, for example, has a historical town like Stanford. There's been a lot of national pushback against that particular document. I think the principles are sound about connecting sort of communities but there are restrictions, there are genuine physical restrictions around building something to attract people to it and knocking someone's house or a number of historical houses down that may be listed. The DFT are listening to that pushback but as you say, some may argue it's been written for large metropolitan urban environments which Lincolnshire is not and there is a there is a drive and a call for better rural or bespoke rural guidance for things like this. What I will stress is LTM120 is a guidance document, it's not a regulatory document, there's nothing to say that you can't go outside but at the moment the DFT are saying if there is funding going towards a scheme that well, a scheme that they funded they would expect to see this implemented. What I would say is I'm starting to get fields of relaxation towards there because things aren't happening in certain areas just as you as you described so I suspect things will move further with that over the coming years not months in years. Thank you. Are we any other comments? No, I'm going to move forward then and I will thank officers, members of the Council and everyone involved in preparing this strategy and developing and preparing it along the lines that Councillor Cleaver mentioned in his comments and so if we could combine that into the minutes of the committee meeting please that would be good and I'm going to move that the committee endorse the report and strategy and I ask that the comments raised by this committee be shared with the relevant officers in support of the strategy implementation. Does anyone dissent? No one dissents so that is agreed then so we'll move on to the next item on the agenda which is the Transport Quarter 3 Performance Report 2023 24. This quarterly performance report is found on pages 163 to 168 of the agenda back. The report provides the committee with a summary of performance for quarter three in relation to the Council's transport services including local bus services and education and education travel. The committee is invited to consider and comment on the detail of the report and recommend any changes or actions to the Executive Member for Highways Transport and IT. Mike Reed Head of Transport and Helen Reeks Support Services Manager will present this report so over to you Mike. Thank you Chairman. I won't go through the report word for word because I assume you've read it and you're interested in the kind of a wider debate so just to give you the general picture regarding passenger transport it is a very challenging landscape. We have very big substantial budgetary pressures. This is mainly due to increasing operator costs and the increasing number of children who have been classified as special educational needs which is problematic for ourselves. Obviously each child is different and has different needs but that is something that we have to deal with on the ground on a daily basis and it does create this financial pressure when we're having to go out very last minute looking at which operators can move children from home to school. So it is really challenging. It's not just a local issue, it's a national issue but we still managed to successfully move 19,000 passengers per day and that's something that we don't discuss enough and we don't promote that as a big positive and we do obviously we get a lot of kind of scrutiny about budgets but I think we can't forget that we are actually enabling 19,000 kids to get to school, kids and adults to their place of education on a daily basis. So in that context we do receive complaints, we do receive relatively minor amount of complaints. I think many of the complaints are around eligibility and parents arguing that they should be eligible for home to school transport where our policy doesn't meet that their initial requirement. So where the complaints escalate into more of a formal approach this is where we see it in the figures which are represented on the graph but it's one thing that is obviously is looking at this report, this is essentially it's an overview of what the service does and what I want to do and what I've challenged the team to do is come up with more performance measures that we can report into scrutiny committee. So we're working at the moment to produce better KPIs which are evidence-based and it measures performance within the service and that's something I'm hopeful that we can have within quarter two of this year and it's something that we're working closely with our corporate teams to actually produce these for the corporate plan and have a series of key performance indicators which come out for the public to see so that we can actually give that wider context. So I think it's fair to say that we have got a lot of work to do, we do work extremely hard, the team are working extremely hard but it's something which we are continuously trying to improve and in future committees we will be a bit more, provide more transparency in terms of those KPIs that I've mentioned but for now it's just kind of we're doing the work behind the scenes. So I'll leave it there, I'll leave the floor open for comments but it's something that I'm very conscious that we are doing a lot of work that may satisfy future needs of how we transparently talk about what we're doing and how we perform. So thank you Chairman. Thank you Mike for the report and we've got any members wishing to speak on this. Cass Clark. Thanks Chair, one of the issues I've got with buses is when a bus don't turn up for some reason it's you know me being the counter-council it's my fault. When I try to explain to them that bus companies, private companies, they don't seem to register that, they seem to think that the counter-council are in charge of you know everything. This goes back to the evolution thing where all these examples were given about Manchester and our wonderful will but I believe their bus companies are controlled by their own authority. So if we did that there would be no problems or would there still be problems? Over to you Mike if you can answer that one but I think it's fair to say there will always be problems issues always occur with breakdowns or traffic works and you can never completely guarantee that a service whether it's a local locally delivered service by the local authority or whether it's a private sector company issues always occur unfortunately but I think part of the issues we talked about earlier in tracking and monitoring on an app base system and real-time information that will help in future if we've got any kind of issues and disruption on the service but unfortunately I think we've got to be pragmatic and admit that there will always be failures and it's ultimately there are a lot of moving parts in this whole service. Thank you. Thank you for that Mike. Thank you. Any other comments on this? I mean there's obviously a lot of work going into the transport and everything and especially with educational travel. I mean there's a lot of challenges there. What work is going on to mitigate the impact of the external factors such as national living wage, inflationary pressures, etcetera, on educational transport? How are we sort of trying to mitigate those issues? Please. It is extremely difficult, thank you Chairman. It's extremely difficult because we are at the behest of what operators want to charge but one thing that we're doing is we're reviewing very regularly the contracts we've got and essentially shopping round so I don't want to say that we're kind of playing operators off against each other but we're looking at more e-option type software, a bit like eBay, a greater rollout and usage of that where we can get more real-time reflective bids coming in for particular transport needs and it's something that we're hopefully if we can promote this wider and use a different platform to the one that we've already got we'll have more ability to deal with that but one thing another thing that we need to we need to engage better with taxi operators to understand what their pressure points are, why they're not providing more competitive prices I think in the past we have been quite treated them at arms length but we need to engage with them better and understand what their issues are because we want a kind of really narrow band of prices actually reflected back to us but at the moment we get prices back which are 100 200 times each other on a daily basis which is it shows that for some of these businesses we're not that attractive and it's understanding from the operators how we can get them to be more competitive so it is really challenging because ultimately we don't control how many kids come into the system and a lot of the time we're reacting to that on a daily basis but it's all about talking to the the different operators in different areas and just having that kind of engagement where they understand our pressure points what we need and we understand what what their issues are okay thank you for that now I can just one more quick one of me it's really good that the number of complaints has gone down and is there anything in particular that we've been doing that you could say have resulted in that reduction in complaints I think I'm not particularly comfortable with the with the way that this is presented as complaints because these are not necessarily complaints about staff or performance or anything that the service is doing wrong there a lot of this is complaints which are based around the policy so it's parents which who don't agree with the policy I don't understand the policy one thing that we are looking to do is engage better with schools and parents up front so that they can understand that when a parent makes a preference on a school they have to appreciate the policy on home to school transport and factor that into their decision making because what we're finding is that parents might be choosing a school which is 10 miles away and not realizing or realizing too late that actually there are a lot of schools closer which could provide a similar provision of education which may actually it's more sustainable but they they may actually be funded and be eligible for for home to school transport but choosing a school based on purely the the merits perceived merits of the school to me is is is not sustainable because people need to be made want more aware that there's a consequence when it comes to to transport their their children so it's something we we will be work we've started working closer with schools and we need to do more engagement and better education with parents thank you for that that's a good point and it's good to see that those are the sort of steps we're taking to have people more informed more informed decisions thank you no more indications to speak so i'm going to move on then and i'm going to move that the report be received by this committee and that satisfaction be recorded on the performance achieved to date and i ask that the comments raised by this committee be shared with the executive council for his consideration by for his consideration by relevant officers does anyone dissent no so nobody indicating that that's agreed thank you we'll move on then thank you very much thank you mike and helen for that right the next item on the agenda is the road safety partnership and your report and this route near report is found on pages 169 to 212 of the agenda pack the report aims to update committee members on fatal and serious injury uh ksi casualty figures for lincolnshire highlighting trends comparisons and priority areas the report highlights a significant challenge of fatalities and serious injuries recorded on lincolnshire's rows in 2023 and provides insight into the financial cost in addition to the devastating consequences to our residents and communities additionally the report underscores the importance of road safety promotion and support aligning with key priorities outlined in the community safety policing and criminal justice plan for lincolnshire 2021-25 published by the lincolnshire police and crime commission the committee is invited to consider and comment on the report and highlight any recommendations or further actions required and seek assurances on the work being undertaken by the road safety partnership to reduce the number of people killed and injured on county roads and the report will be presented by steve bachelor the link to your own safety partnership senior manager so over to you steve and welcome to the committee thank you mr chairman good morning everybody key points from the report um this year is that we continue to see a steady decrease in the number of people killed and seriously injured on the roads of lincolnshire to 426 in 2023 this is the lowest figure we have seen since 2015 however there was still 48 people killed last year which remains far too many and clearly demonstrate there's much work still to be done the majority of our serious and fatal accidents in lincolnshire occur on the rural road network as opposed to the urban casualties are more likely to be male collisions are distributed throughout the whole of the county but the highest percentage is in east lindsey and the highest risk groups remain high-powered two-wheel motor vehicles young drivers between the ages of 17 and 24 years and mature road users over the age of 60 plus years and despite an overall decrease in the number of people killed and seriously injured we did see rises in pedestrian pedal cycle and child ksi casualties however we did also see decreases in some of the other high priority groups including the motorcycle riders 60 plus year old drivers and 17 to 24 year old drivers the report also outlines the planning that we're currently undertaking for the 2025 road safety strategy which looks to introduce the safe system approach to road safety in lincolnshire trying to ensure that everybody who has any potential influence over road safety works together to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured few key points in terms of the actions that we've taken in the last year we continue to deliver accident investigation and prevention engineering works throughout the network we continue to see an expansion in the community speed watch scheme with now more than 1,350 volunteers monitoring vehicles on the side of the road and those monitoring sessions resulting in warning letters being sent to motorists who are straight above the speed limit we delivered the DFT safe road project on the a631884 and a18 and they've all been completed and we've introduced since 2021 and seen a continual growth in operations snap which last year saw 2,182 submissions from members of the public putting forward dash cam footage of perceived offenses and this did result in 652 of those being processed as offenses and an additional 583 warning letters sent to drivers types of offenses that we're detecting through that system include due care and attention not being in reasonable sorry reasonable consideration to other road users failure to comply with traffic light signals and red crosses and failure to comply with solid white lines of mobile phone use so as you can see there's a wide range of serious offenses that could potentially lead to devastating consequences that we're now being made aware of and we're now able to take action on last couple of points then is that we delivered national driver offender retraining courses to more than 20,000 people last year we've reintroduced bike safe into the county which allows for assess rides and theory training to be given to motorcyclists and the biker down training was started in 2023 being delivered by Lincoln Shafire and rescue through the road safety partnership and we continue to do a wide range of primary and secondary education in in schools as well as delivering our too fast too soon theatre production to people between the ages of 16 and 18 thank you mr chairman thank you Steve thank you for the report and it is truly great that there is a decrease in the number of people killed and serious injured you know on that start and really pleasing to hear that are there any other members of the members of the committee council right would like to speak thank you chairman and thanks for the report Stephen on one level it's good news isn't it really it reports on you know it's this is this is straight data rather than other things that could happen so a couple of questions really one with i think it's page 180 with regards to what we teach or try to get older pupils to take on board with regards to preparing for driving does that do you cover within that about drug driving and drink driving because i find if you go and ask young people at the moment you could take a selection of young people and ask them what's the limit to what they can drink before and drive and you will get some absolute urban myths out there about what actually constitutes a safe level that it doesn't seem to be robust from what i can see a lot of young people don't realize that drug driving is just as bad as drink driving not that it's just young people that take drugs but it's about that awareness again and this obviously your report covers accidents but seen as the police are a partner could the report not also include just the raw data on convictions for road offenses that it included especially drink and drug driving because that paints a slightly different picture but whereas it's by the grace of god go i is with regards to there could have been actually you know worst stats because i think that's very important for being able to be able to take on board the extent of what's still going on across the county with regards to the level of drink and drug driving thank you cancer right uh steve thank you very much counselor yes um those topics of drink and drug driving are raised with that age group we're trying to tackle all of the potential issues that people are going to be faced when either a driver or as a passenger because of course that can have a big influence on whether collisions occur and and what's going on in the vehicle as well so those topics are um are covered in in schools and yep absolutely happy to assuming they'll let us have it all um publish uh offense data alongside the other information we have in the road safety partnership report um some of our police staff are a part of um specialist ops and the uh roads police in unit within uh link and ship police so it is relevant i've always tried to not take credit for what that we're not doing so um just focus on the things that we we are doing or being done through the road safety partnership but i think building that picture and showing the other work being done by our parent organizations and partners is also really important so i'll make sure that's in for next year as well thank you steve and thank you for that suggestion uh counselor right thank you um counselor Vernon thank you chairman um thank you for your report i'd like to just ask a little bit more about how we are excuse me targeting specific groups so obviously we have this over 60s group who are sort of not at school probably not sort of necessarily in academies colleges universities and whatnot how are we actually reaching out to educate them more about the dangers that are on the road and alongside that i think there is a place here for more widespread community engagement rather than just being in schools and academies i hate to say this my daughter is obviously an angel but she is 10 years old and i suspect that as i move into the teenage years there's a chance that she may not pay as much attention in her school lessons as i would like her to but as a parent if there were to be a road safety partnership event taking place in a local community hall that was open to all i can absolutely assure you that she would be there and paying attention and so i wonder if there is sort of scope here to look at slightly more outside the box where you could then engage on sort of obviously over 60s perhaps coming along to a community location just to try and increase engagement further i think what you're doing already with sort of local employers the NHS cycling and walking groups is great but i'd love to see a little bit more taking place to access other aspects of the community thank you thank you councillor Vernon Steve thank you councillor we were having this discussion around mature drivers this morning before i left the office actually and it remains one of the hardest target groups for us for lots of different reasons but of course Lincolnshire continues to be an attractive place to come and retire and we do have a higher percentage of people of retirement aged than the national average and with it being a large rural county clearly travel is such a significant part of and continue to to having you know flourishing life even even after retirement so how do we make sure that that that is safe we have and continue to deliver driving courses train the courses that we've delivered free to mature drivers although we do have some debate about somebody being over the age of 60 being considered mature i think it's simply because it aligns with the department for transports and statistics but that physical training and allowing people to go and speak to other people understand some of the issues and the problems is really important we also put out information through GP surgeries working with our NHS partners because again it's a good way of getting in and getting those messages across but it still is challenging and there's more that we can do so we will continue to look at what we can do to improve on that area for sure in terms of children we have the direct engagement through schools as i've highlighted we do have a dedicated events team at the road safety partnership so their job is to go out and find places where they can be of use be that big shows like the Lincolnshire show or Huntington show down to smaller things like bike nights etc so there's a there's a limit to what what we can what we can do but there's certainly scope for adding in some of those community engagement events we are currently looking at the content on our website because i think through social media channels and the website there's a way in which we can get much more across especially to the younger target audiences and we also have quarterly newsletters that go out to parents of every pupil in the county of both primary and secondary schools as well we took a pause for a redesign but that'll be coming back in in the next couple of months as well so that goes directly out to parents too so i agree with you there's more that we can do but i think we've got quite a lot that we that we are able to do at the same time yes of course thank you i'd just like to ask one further question on what you're saying about sending out newsletters to directly to the parents of children which i think is fantastic will you be also sending those out to children who are attending alternative provision and also independent schools locally as well we send them to all of the schools regardless yeah thank you sir thank you Councillor Vernan right i've got Councillor Ashton would like to speak thank you do we keep or do we have available a breakdown of our success measured in terms of individual locations and individual roads i appreciate in our papers we're referring to the average speed cameras introduced Burwell on the A16 and i think one of the most visual signs of activity in this area is the proliferation of average speed cameras on what are now many of our major routes around the county and i would just like to be able to understand more accurately just how successful those be i mean i feel they probably are feeding through into the headline figures that they are working but i think it would be really useful to understand to what extent they are doing so and say many of these routes historically have been covered by individual cameras which i see in our upgrade program now takes those to average where where we've been able to do it and it would be really useful to know whether that's working as well as i feel it probably is but we don't i can't seem to extract that data from what we've got in front of us thank you Councillor Ashton and Steve and what i'm saying me asking something later while you're answering that on speed cameras could you just outline how cases are made for to have a speed camera site because a lot of the public out there their solution to a problem as soon as there's accident is speed cameras and it would be useful to outline how a case for a speed camera is made and justified thank you thank you Councillor and for the initial question you're right the the upgrade program that we've been undertaking moving from wet film cameras to digital cameras has allowed us the opportunity to look and reassess locations and see whether or not the technology that was in place remains the best and on some occasions particularly where it's a rural road and a long straight road and we've been able to implement average speed cameras systems as an alternative to those fixed point cameras on average i will get the specific figures and make sure it's in the minutes but it's 40% reduction in the number of people killed and seriously injured at sites where you compare the three years before to the three years after some significantly better than that as well but that is the minimum in terms of all of our fixed and average speed camera sites and 80% of fatal accidents happened last year on amb road networks on the rural network and it was 96% in 2022 i think that's why so much of what we're doing in terms of the enforcement activity with average and fixed cameras tends to be on on those types of those types of roads in terms of getting speed enforcement as you've highlighted communities often tell us that the way you have they have concerns and the first thing that we do at every single site is that we will put a seven-day speed survey in that will provide us the number of vehicles and the speed of every single vehicle that traveled through in the time at which they traveled that allows us then to look at the average speed of those vehicles the number of people exceeding the speed limit the percentage that are going 10 mile an hour above and all of those types of factors so it gives us a real sense and in depth sense of what is happening we'll then assess all of the collision data if there is any for that location find out firstly how many there are in the location we're looking at but also the nature of them so what were the causation factors for each of those collisions we then apply the department for transport guidance on the introduction of speed cameras and it will either meet or it will not and that's how we determine whether or not a site would be suitable when it comes to mobile speed cameras we have a bit more flexibility we can factor in community concern and we do so but similarly there are so many locations that are raised to us we always have at least one collision within the boundaries that we're looking at and there's always some really high speeds so sometimes we're not able to service the requests because it hasn't met the criteria for the fixed or the average speed cameras and once you get down to mobile the problem just isn't as bad as they perceived it to be when they were making a request but on every occasion we will go back with a report outline our findings and let them know why we've made that decision thank you Steve. Councillor Ashton is in that's okay thank you. Councillor Clark. Thank you Chair. You answered most of the questions but the one about schools and targeting groups it don't matter if it's male, female, young or old when you get parents outside of school or everything about the highway code goes out the window you say about newsletters and I appreciate the fact you send newsletters but newsletters are only good if people's going to read them so it's an ongoing issue and you know I often hear it's all at all schools at Lincoln too that's no excuse it should be dealt with the police isn't a complete waste time if you bring them about anything outside of school but a question I was going to ask you it's someone asked me this on a speed camera if you're going downhill on a push bike at high speed will you set it off. Thank you guys there yes. Yeah we've had some high speeds not always wearing protective clothing as well but yeah in Lincoln as you know cross the cliff hills a good example where any vehicles going down will would set that off clearly there's no vehicle registration plate on a motorcycle on a pedal cycle sorry so no action can can be taken from that but it would do. Just coming back to your point in relation to schools we are currently investigating the feasibility of setting up a charter that schools can buy into that parents can then be asked to participate in whilst I accept some of the points you make in terms of authorities and agencies having a part to play I think fundamentally it is the role of the parents who are going to these schools who need to be aware of the safety of the pupils and the actions they're taking and the impact it has so I think the biggest thing that we can do is try and stop them from parking inconsiderately or legally or for exceeding the speed limits when they're going and travelling there where that isn't the case I think there's a reasonable expectation that some action will be taken be that through parking enforcement from the county council or Lincolnshire police when they're causing an obstruction or it's dangerous and we're working very closely with our partners to try and make sure that we do start to really make a difference in this area because it's one of the areas that we get the most correspondence about. Thank you Steve. Okay moving on then Councillor Gibson. Thanks Chairman and thank you thank you for the report it's um there's a lot of detail in there which is nice to see it's nice and easy clear and easy to read actually. I think you said I can't quite see it but I think you said that most accidents happen in East Lindsay or a lot of high percentage is that correct and then looking through the report page 193 says that most accidents happen between two and five page 194 says most accidents are when it's fine without high winds and page 196 say 21 so half nearly half of the accidents no sorry 21 out of 64 accidents are careless reckless in a hurry aggressive it all seems to be pointing in in one sort of direction people head into the coast on a nice day and not thinking and being reckless. I visited Skegnes last week with my boss and she said it feels a bit like stepping back in tolling drive Skegnes because the road network isn't quite as good as the rest of our county. What do we have planned for the future to to try and improve that on obviously future and then short short term measures do we have any think bike type ideas for that part of our area of our of Lincolnshire you know the if we had signs up saying most accidents happen between two and five when it's dry and it might just make drivers think oh hang on a second that's me driving a bit too reckless just an idea. I have to use Steve. Thank you very much for your question Councillor. I just want to clarify that in the report it outlines that fatal and serious collisions are distributed widely throughout the whole of the county but the highest percentage was in East Lindsay I wouldn't want to give the impression that it's sort of most of them happening there in 2023 it was 27% that happened in East Lindsay to give you a comparison West Lindsay was 19.2% and North Costevan was 12.2 South Costevan 18.1 so there is a fair distribution but it is more you're right that that part of the road network does have unique problems I think primarily the mixture of vehicles and road users that are on there including agricultural vehicles heavy and light goods vehicles motorcycle users of varying power tourists who may not know the area so well caravan users there's such a mixture of vehicles using what is you know a road network as opposed to dual carriageways and things of that nature and it does make it very difficult for us to try and help reduce the number of people who are killed and seriously injured on there and we are working with our partners in that area through the police the local district councils for example but that I think every year I come to this committee and that still has a slightly higher percentage than everywhere else so clearly more needs to be done we do still use the sunny side up partnership motorcycle posters or signs that go on to the road network so what we do each year is look through and look at where the locations that the collisions have been happening involved in motorcyclists and then put up specific warning signs to highlight the type of causation factor that's happening in those locations but I think other than the education piece engineering out the problems where it's appropriate to do so and enforcing the locations where people aren't behaving in the way in which they should on the roads it comes a point where we're probably not seeing the reductions that we want and I don't have an answer other than to be doing more of those types of things and in the most targeted way that we possibly can I'm not sure if that entirely answers the question I think that the points you've raised in terms of you know point in this in the right direction and things we should be focusing on I think we are doing those but it's about doing as much of it as we possibly can and making sure it's targeted in the right direction so that we reach as many people as possible thank you Steve okay councillor Gibson move on then councillor Ashlee Morris thank you mr chairman um this is just actually going back to a couple of remarks ago do you actually use the electoral role to um locate and contact basically 17 year olds who are just coming up to voting age it's a very simple system that I mean I know a lot of political parties use in a hello welcome to our lovely MP but it's a very very reliable system for getting hold of 17 year olds who are potentially obviously young drivers with the sort of gypsies warning about you know try not to drive when you're hammered um that may be a really simple solution rather than bit in piece and I mean I'm sure there's a lot of value in schools and everything else but I mean to quote my youngest son who's a lecturer at college it the parents you see at school that take an interest and everything else aren't necessarily the ones you want it's tovers so maybe that might be a system that could be utilized and I mean it's sort of we certainly have copies of it thank you thank you for that uh Steve yeah thank you councillor no is the answer we don't use that but also that is something for us to consider in the future I think one of the points you made there is probably one of the most important points in terms of everything in this area in that in pretty much everything we do the ones that we really need to connect with the ones that we need to make the difference aren't the ones who want to come forward and be and be working with us and helping us so be that motorcycle training for example it's not generally the ones who want to come and pay to do training with us that with that concerned about it's the ones who really don't want to be involved and it's not the 17 year olds who will sit through our Too Fast Too soon theatre production and get quite you know emotional and impacted by it and really tell us how much it's it's made a difference to them going forwards it's the one who would probably sat there thinking more about what's on their phone and not wanting to engage as well so in every single area that's always our challenge is how do we really get through to these people and I think we've we various points throughout the curriculum primary secondary and through Too Fast Too soon we are having an opportunity to engage with every single pupil in Lincolnshire so I think it's probably a bit better than bitten and bobbing but one half an hour session for example may not be what is required to make the difference so every opportunity that we can get to keep repeating it and coming back again and doing it in interesting in innovative ways you know if we're trying to communicate with a 17 year old in the same way that we are for a 60 year old mature driver then clearly that's not got to work as well so I think the other thing is working with others throughout the whole of the UK understanding what they're doing in this area making sure that we copy some of the best ideas and come up with our own and then again trying to make sure we really get that repeated influence on that age group and make a difference going forwards thank you Steve thank you any other good cancer rights actually right thank you I just wanted to come back it was a it was going to be one comment but it's another one as well now Steve you talked about engineering out and when regards to motorcycle and students I don't think you can engineer out idiots that pull out at junctions and think your bike can stop inside six feet because that's where I find the most issues most people seem to think for some reason my motorbike can just stop and I don't know why but and this county seems to be far worse than anywhere else that are right as well so I don't know what that is but quite often they do they just pull out and they think you're on a bike it's some kind of magical machine so you'll never engineer that out and it's very rare that it is something that I think don't even go there we don't even waste any money on it and I'd like to know that the charter for schools is going to have zero cost because no matter how we use try to engage with and I don't want to label all parents people that drop pupils off at school let's call them that no matter what schemes you put in place they still do it so you can have walking crocodiles that you actually part fund it's a very nearby spot but the first drop of rain or a slightly dark cloud and it means that those yellow lines no longer mean nose parking it means I'm only doing it briefly what does it matter so for everybody that signs up to the charter all those that don't all carry on doing it because it's not enforceable it did come before this committee I'm not sure it was two or three meetings ago we were told it was being looked at about enforcement cameras that can be fitted outside schools that will be there on a permanent basis at the worst the worst of caring areas it's only by enforcing that we're going to stop it I will name a school the William Alvey school it's not the school's fault but there was new enforcement lines have been down weeks there and already they're starting to be ineffective with some people they now think that that what that means is it's provided a new parking space for them and other people aren't using so you know we've gone from maybe one or two when it first but the lines were extended so I drove past the day and there was eight cars again on clearly marked do not parkier lines and I would say that all of those dropping children off at school who will either sign the charter and lie or not sign it at all so unless we know that that as charters can be effective I would hate to think that too much too much time and resource has been put into them thank you Steve yeah thank you Councillor it's a it's a difficult balancing act because at the moment invariably what we do is go back and say either there isn't as big a problem as you think or is there's nothing we can do about it and I don't think either of those two things are particularly helpful or useful luckily the number of people children injured outside of schools is relatively low it's more of a perception of a problem than an actual problem now there are some and you know clearly we all want to protect children and it's tragic whenever there is an incident but the problem is not as widespread as people might expect so I think there is I'm not responsible for enforcement outside of schools for parking and but we do work with our colleagues who are very closely I do think it's vital that where we identify particular problems and there is a temporary traffic regulation order in place so it's enforceable that action is taken where that problem is identified because as you've highlighted otherwise people will just ignore it but I still also believe that we need to provide something a product a service to those schools so they can try and help themselves because at the moment they'll come to us and say what are you going to do and sometimes there isn't anything that we can do I think but if we can accept that as parents you are the ones who are telling us you have a problem with safety outside of our schools yet you are the ones who are making the problem in the first place so there has to be an element of social responsibility and I think giving schools something products that they can then talk to their parents with and about and get them to sign up and take an element of civic duty is something that's worth trying but also recognizing it's no substitute for undertaking enforcement when people aren't listening and aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing so I do think there should be a blend but it's not going to be something that costs lots of money it's more our investment in time to create content that people will want to get involved with and will want to disseminate and then making sure it's frequently updated so that it's fresh in the minds of the schools and the parents. Thank you Steve. Yes you want to come back just briefly yeah I'd like to be proven wrong if it's if that's the case so will there be an evaluation on where charters are put in place. I think it would make sense absolutely although what I would say is that there isn't going to be a criteria to sign up to it so it doesn't necessarily mean that just because you say you have a problem there is a problem we're not going to have a benchmark or a measure in that sense so this is more anybody like our community speed what scheme anybody can sign up and get involved through the schools assuming that they want to so measuring the sort of whether there was a problem before or after it's not as straightforward as like a speed camera location where there has been a number of collisions and they've now reduced but I think there are things that we will be able to measure and evaluate and we will do that as part of this. Thank you for that I'm going to go to Councillor Ashley Morris who wants to come back again. Yeah this is actually a slightly different point Mr Chairman. I recall at a previous meeting of this committee something was mentioned about cameras outside schools that would actually be enforceable because obviously all the yellow lines in the world and some of the schools in my area have got every conceivable thing but obviously it's not enforceable it can be occasionally but as we've all noticed the minute the enforcement cars sort of thinned out everyone goes back to normal behaviour is there any development in that direction because I did be delighted to let people know that it might be at some point and I think this would have meant that if anyone parks their car number is picked up and there is actually an enforceable I would presume penalty I think that is our enforcement side that looking at the cameras outside of schools and when they came to a recent meeting they say that was something that was going to be locked out going forward and the other thing is we've got the review of our traffic management policies ongoing with scrutiny penalty at the moment and where the results of that are going to be forthcoming at the end of July. There's a lot of stuff there that is being locked out. Steve did you want to add to that? As I say I don't have responsibility for that business area but we are a part of the traffic management policy reviews and are feeding in information about our concerns outside of schools and locations where there's problems where it's appropriate to do so and liaising with our colleagues who do have that responsibility too. Thank you. Councilor Clark who is to come in again. Thank you Chair. Not to prolong this and you realise we can go on about parking outside school all day long but when parents park outside of school it's gone off in whatsoever to do with school and the way the Council do have a responsibility where I believe they've failed in the past is when a school gets rebuilt or extended parking issues should be looked at and I believe in certain schools this hasn't been looked at which is causes a problem which we go round and round around but probably we can round around for years come thank you. Thank you Councillor Clark. I don't think there's any answer that's the planning process isn't it? Thank you. Right there are no more members indicated speak so I'm going to move on and I'm going to propose that our comments that be recorded and fed back to Steve's in here and listen to them but we've recorded them or feed those back to Steve. I mean the drink and drugs stats to be included in future reports would be good please and I'll move that the committee endures the report and that our satisfaction will be recorded on actions taken to mitigate challenges described in the report to date as well as future activity planned by the Rincature Road Safety Partnership does anyone dissent? I have no one dissenting so that is agreed and we'll move on then thank you Steve thank you for coming and presenting that it's much appreciated. I'll move on to the committee work program and this item is on pages 233 sorry 213 to 220 of the agenda back this item enables the committee to comment on the content of its work program and the report will presented by Kiara scrutiny officer. Thank you very much Mr Chairman. I'm pleased to confirm that since the publication of this agenda PAC there have not been any further changes amendments additions or omissions to the published work program for this committee. I'd like to just take a moment to reflect on our next meeting which is scheduled for the 10th of June 2024. We do four items for pre-decision scrutiny that's going to be a bit of a meaty agenda and we also have the item on the rail recovery and strategic role in providing connectivity supporting lincolnshire communities and economy presented by officers but also external partners and I'm highlighting this item because this is something that members of the committee have asked previously on various occasions. I would also like to inform you that in line with the requests raised at the previous meeting of this committee we've got two items now added on our October agenda one on the traffic regulation orders performance report and one on fix my street app and with this I would like to sorry the latter is on the third December agenda rather than the October agenda and with this I would like to conclude my update to you and I'm happy to take any questions or further suggestions for items to be included in your work program. Thank you. Thank you Cara. Are there any questions or comments on that? No. Well I'm going to move then that we note the report and approve the existing work program as detailed on pages two on three to two twenty and the additional items highlighted in discussion today. Does anyone dissent if so please indicate? No no on dissenting so that is agreed so that brings me to the end of the meeting. Just like say that I've decided to stand down after today's meeting as chairman of the eyes and transfer at scrutiny committee I'm going to light my load over the next year because I won't be standing again in 2025 so I'd just like to thank everyone all the members, officers and everyone for the support over that time. I mean get tremendous support from officers. Members are really good in the way that ask questions and respect the chair and so I'm really grateful for all of that over the time I've been chairman of the committee so thank you very much and I declare the meeting closed now and safe journey home to everyone. [BLANK_AUDIO]