Transcript

Yr Alun Wlaenau'r Qu Yr Alun Wlaenau'r Qu Rydyn ni'n mynd i weithio'r awdurdod ymlaen, felly, i bobl sydd wedi cael hynny yn y ffordd. Rydyn ni'n mynd ymlaen i item 8, i item 7. Felly rydym ni'n mynd â'r cwestiynau a'r fformanaethau. Felly rydym ni'n mynd â'r cwestiynau a'r fformanaethau. Felly rydym ni'n mynd â'r cwestiynau a'r fformanaethau. Felly rydym ni'n mynd â'r cwestiynau a'r fformanaethau. Felly rydym ni'n mynd â'r cwestiynau. Felly rydym ni'n mynd â'r cwestiynau. Felly rydym ni'n mynd â'r cwestiynau. Felly rydym ni'n mynd â'r cwestiynau. Felly rydym ni'n mynd â'r cwestiynau. Felly rydym ni'n mynd â'r cwestiynau. Felly rydym ni'n mynd â'r ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd ffyrdd Y cydweithmon Strawberry Fel wnaethon, mi am gobeithio ar ei gaelis ag Walladhorwedd noda buat Lucky N prolonged Roedd wedi bod canolbwynt iawn ar yr etholiad Sefydluarydd yma amad tirel asaf wrth gwrs ar yr etholiad yma nesafnolÖ moes i cofio ar y mae cyiliary aphorydd yma y system yma, nid oeddwn i'n credu. A allwn i ddweud pan fyddwch chi'n mynd i ddweud, byddwch chi'n gweithio'r botwm ar y rhan diwrnod o'r ddweudwrnod a yna pan fyddwch chi'n mynd i ddweud, os gallwch chi ddweud hynny, byddwch chi'n bwysig iawn. A allwn i ddweud y bydd unrhyw ffonau diwylliannol yn mynd i ddweud ymlaen. Rwy'n ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwch chi'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud y byddwn ni'n mynd i ddweud Diolch, Jonathan Hully Diolch, Jonathan Hully Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Diolch, Jonathan Hully Deputy Cabinet Member Senedd Moonly Cabinet scarecode nid oes unrhyw beth. Felly, pan fyddwn ni'n mynd i unrhyw beth ar unrhyw beth, byddwn i'n gobeithio i'r ddau cyfrifoldeb cymdeithasol i ddefnyddio'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol Moran a Jonathan Wade, yn ymwneud â'r rhan hwnnw. Yn ogystal â'r ddau cymdeithasol hwnnw, bydd y cymdeithasol hwnnw'n cael eu cymryd ar 24 September 2024. Mae'r hynny'n dechrau. Diolch yn fawr iawn. Does any member have any interest to declare in relation to the items on today's agenda? No, thank you. Item 4 then, procedural matters. First of all, members' questions. There were no questions from any elected member, but there were seven questions from members of the public. And some of those, I think, have supplementary questions. So, Mr Godlinski, I don't know if he's here. No. So, nothing from him. Mr Shaw? No. Mr Daffan? Yes. Okay, would you like to come up to there and say if you please could restrict your comments to a supplementary question, that would be very helpful. Thank you. Okay, well, first of all, thank you for your response to my question about the sustainable movement corridor and the missing link. For everybody here, although the cabinet member does know this, I've been actively involved in responding to all these various cycle plans since 2012, when Mark Whittle, who was Surrey County Council, asked me to help with the Surrey County Council cycle strategy. So, I'm fully aware of the local cycle walking infrastructure plan, and a significant input in it is from me. I'd like to point out a three-year-old on a balanced bike can follow me on a three-mile circuit, and they've got lots of energy left, yet parents are forced to drive them half a mile to school. Is that right? So, really, my question goes, will all road and housing developments be refused until we get the sustainable movement infrastructure in place, so that Surrey County Council can actually deliver their zero carbon commitments? Thank you. Thank you. Matt Furness. Thank you, leader. Thank you, Mr Daffan, for your question. So, all planning applications reside with Guildford Borough Council as the development authority, so we are consulted on applications, and we will make those recommendations. I think the key point about the local cycling and walking infrastructure plan is it will give an absolutely comprehensive network for Guildford. In regards to sort of small people schools and everything else, we do actually fund both bikeability and feet-first training, which targets primary schools and infant schools, to be honest, all the way through to secondary, where we do encourage as many people to take that up as possible. I'm really pleased to say we've got about 5,000 to 6,000 students who are signed up, and we continue to do so every year. So, I don't think that the districts will refuse applications until we've got that comprehensive network in, but I would say it's probably an evolving piece where, as we get the new developments going along, we can improve the walk-in cycling provision as we go. Thank you very much. The next question is from Doug Clatt. Thank you. Just following on from my question about George Abbott School and their support, I want to ask, are the Surrey County Council Cabinet going to listen to 2,000 schoolchildren with no votes, or are they going to listen to a small group of objectors with nothing better to do than try and stop any progress on any schemes in Guildford? Thank you. I can't speak for my colleagues, to be honest, on that one, but what I would say is that we have done the public consultation, as you're aware. Both sides have been lobbying very heavily to all Cabinet members, so I think everyone is fully aware of the views on both sides of the argument. Sorry, Doug, I'll have to leave it at that. Thank you very much, Anne-Andy. We will hear from two of the students shortly. Then Mr Neartrow? No. Mr Purcell? No. And then Oliver Greaves. Thank you. Thank you for your reply. However, I'm surprised it doesn't actually address much of what I asked. Can I remind the Cabinet that any decision to proceed with Section 1 in its entirety needs to be fully taken into account all relevant matters relating to Section 1? It seems inconceivable that the impact on traffic, air quality and cost of Section 1 aren't relevant, because it would be absurd, for instance, if the scheme, which was hugely CO2-emitting, brought this part of Guildford to a standstill and cost ballooned to £20 million, then just because the 27th paper only asked to examine the width for HDBs to pass and shared-use paths in the narrow section, they wouldn't be relevant and Section 1 could be approved without considering them. So, please, can you answer whether you believe the impact on traffic, on air quality, the cost benefit and the needs of all road users are relevant matters for Section 1? If not, why not? And assuming you do believe they're relevant, how you believe you can comply with your constitutional obligation to fully take into account all relevant matters when you do not have a traffic modelling report for Section 1 on its own, no pollution report has been produced for Section 1 despite earlier work indicating higher emissions, no report has been produced considering the needs of all road users, including the 19,000 daily vehicle trip users, and no cost benefit analysis has been produced for Section 1 in its current form. Thank you very much. Maris, are you able to answer that? At some parts, yes. So, thank you for your supplementary question. What I can say is that, as part of the consultation, a number of the points that you have raised were published and considered as part of the report. The whole route, including Section 1, has been modelled. There was traffic modelling. It was shared with the stakeholder group and it was also published as well. In terms of air quality, we wouldn't be looking to worsen air quality or congestion. The district councils are responsible for the environmental health, which includes air quality as well. I would say that any reduction in car usage and an increase in walking and cycling would only improve air quality. It would also improve congestion as well along the route. So, pretty much everything that you have asked for has been published. But if you are struggling, do let me know and we can point you in the right direction. Thank you very much for those supplementary questions. We'll just move through some of the formalities and then come to the substantive items. So, item 4c, there are no petitions for D, no representations received on reports to be considered in private. Item 5, there was a report from one of the select committees in relation to additional needs and disabilities. There is a Cabinet response to that report from the select committee, which I am sure will go back to the select committee for further discussion. Item 6, decisions taken since the last Cabinet meeting, there are six. Now, let's just go through those. So, the first one was a consultational admission arrangement. Just shout, Cabinet Members, if you wish to speak on any of those. The second was to do with disposal of a property in Oxstead. These are all recorded here as individual Cabinet member decisions. The third was then, as your funds say, an award for Christchurch Gateway Project in Woking. Thank you, if I may, Leader. Yes, so this was number 46 of 47 projects which have been awarded over the last four years. This was to Christchurch Gateway Project, a youth and community centre in Woking. This will provide a dedicated hub for young people and vulnerable groups. There's a real shortage of these facilities in the area. It will be seven days a week. It's an area of high deprivation and will provide mental health and wellbeing, community events and activities. So we're very pleased to see this awarded. Thank you. Thank you very much. The fifth related to the integrated transport scheme prioritisation. No. And then the sixth was the revision of the charge for suspended bus stops in Surrey. No. Okay. Thank you. In that case, we'll come back to item seven and move to item eight, which is the London Road Active Travel Scheme and Independent Technical Assessment in section one for consideration to proceed. I think most, well, all members and most members of the public that are here are very familiar with this scheme and what has been almost two years, I think, of conversations around the three component parts. And just to remind you, the third leg, if you like, that was in front of Guildford High School, we agreed we would not proceed with because it was felt that the road there was too narrow. The second stage related to the Boxgrove roundabout. And there is now a more simplified scheme that is being progressed. And it may be that we discuss that in a little bit more detail if need be. But I agreed at a previous decision making that there will be some further work done in relation to stage one along the Birfham Road. And that is what we are now going to consider further. So what we will do is I'll take the speakers first and then Matt Furness as the Cabinet Member will introduce the report. And then the Cabinet Members will no doubt want to contribute. So can we start then please with the first speaker, Terry Newman. Terry, you have three minutes and you'll see the timer up on the big screens there. So if you could please just keep an eye on that, that would be helpful. Thank you. These contemplations have produced errors, erroneous claims, selective misuse of statistics and deliberate inaccuracies. Arabs accident data is inaccurate. Official data reveals five slight car and pedal accidents in the five years to 2023. One a year, not two. So the road is not worse than the rest of Surrey. Arab uses low usage as a reason for disregarding absolute minimum standards. Surrey highways projected 400 cyclists daily. Arabs report averages 57 cyclists daily, peaking at 101. Low usage thus ignores this projected increase. When is it not low usage? Absolute minimum standards, not best practice values, are used extensively. Rossford advised highway code separation should apply when passing a cyclist even on separated tracks. Without a 50 centimetre buffer space for the entire length of the route, one and a half metre separation is unreliable. And passing HDB mirrors are just centimetres away. Hardly active travel England's high quality. The highway code protects pedestrians by prohibiting cycling on pavements, yet still condones sharing. If mixing pedestrians and cyclists as a last resort for 45% of the length is thought high quality and acceptably safe, why not use footways to create 100% shared paths? DFT has spent £2.3 billion knowing far too little about what this spending has achieved. No evidence has appeared to enable an opinion about net zero achievement, but a 5% reduction in traffic would need the removal of 750 vehicles daily, only adding 300 more cyclists. Surrey highways actually wrote, the road will remain the same width as it is currently, and that is not correct. At the pinch point reviewed, existing distance between kerbs is 8 metres, and police officers observed an expressed alarm, stand by the old church and watch Charles vans, let alone buses and HDBs, cross into the space where the pedestrian cycle lane will be. And how do you define the majority at Birfham? The commonplace survey claimed 50% of 995 responses supportive, some from as far away as Oxfordshire. On the contrary, an official survey of likely users revealed twice as many against. Adding shared paths and narrowing carriageways changes risk levels. Is risk being transferred to pedestrians and motorists whilst protecting cyclists? Only time will prove if the balance of safety has shifted. But Cabinet must make a decision using only accurate facts, not desire and misrepresentation, and subsequently be accountable. LTN 120 is clear. Some infrastructure is actually worse than nothing because it entices novice cyclists with a promise of protection, then abandons them at the most important places. It discourages cycling and wastes public money. Thank you very much. The second speaker then is Yasmin Broome, speaker on behalf of the Surrey Coalition of Disabled People. Good afternoon. I'm Yasmin Broome, the involvement lead at the Surrey Coalition of Disabled People. We're strongly opposing the proposals of the London Road Active Travel scheme to build shared spaces at bus stops and on the pavement in Birfham. Blind, visually impaired, disabled, older and vulnerable bus passengers should be able to get on and off the bus independently, directly from or to the pavement, as they have always done. They should not have to cross cycle lanes or step into a cycle lane to get on and off the bus. These designs are not safe or accessible for blind, visually impaired, older and many vulnerable groups of bus passengers, and they never will be. They create a new barrier to accessing public transport independently, and we're against these being introduced in Surrey. Some of the arguments are that the shared bus stops are working in other countries. No, many people cite that these shared bus stops are working well in other countries. This is not the case. In Denmark, the injuries to bus passengers caused by cyclists went up from five to 73 after the shared style bus stop design was introduced. In 2016, a shared style bus stop was removed in Islington in London, as it did not take into account the safety and accessibility needs of blind and visually impaired bus passengers. Will zebra crossings across the cycle lanes help? No. In April, Living Streets published the long-awaited report, which was funded by the DFT and Transport Scotland, looking at bus stop bypasses. The report notes that zebra crossings do not perform as might be expected, based on their legal status. Consequently, they do not provide a reliable tool to help a pedestrian who feels like they need support to cross the cycle track. Flashing lights have been tried in Canada, Belisha beacons in London, neither changed the behaviours of cyclists who continue to travel too fast and chaotically. In suggesting some lesser used bus stops are less problematic, the author fails to understand that blind people won't know how busy the bus stop is because they can't see or hear cyclists. Although the data shows a small number of people that have been injured at a shared space bus stop, we are concerned that other incidents took place that weren't necessarily reported. BBC News reported on Tuesday 16 October that more incidents have been reported to them than have been reported to Transport for London. There is political support for a moratorium of shared bus stops. Lord Holmes of Richmond recently made a recommendation in the debate on transport in the House of Lords on 25 April 2024 for a moratorium on floating bus stops. Lord Holmes clearly articulated the dangers of floating bus stops. Professor Anna Lawson gave evidence on 15 October 2023 to the Transport Select Committee. I think disability does get overlooked, disregarded or regarded as not as important as it should be. That is really evident when it comes into potential conflict with other agendas like the Green Agenda or increasing cyclist travel. Please, please keep our disabled community safe and stop the development of these proposals. Thank you very much. The next two speakers then are William Clark and Charles Graham from the George Amber School. Hello, I'm Will, I'm a current student at George Amber School. Today I'm speaking from a few of the students who cycle in almost all my journeys. In terms of travelling from home to school, all of the road is London roads and I tell you it's quite dangerous. I'll try not to cycle with limes, especially when I start and end school because it's an absolute war zone. I do wear reflexive clothing and I have incredibly bright lights. There are still times when people just don't seem to recognise an incident between me and pedestrians. Worst incident I have has been cut up on a roundabout next to London roads and forced to stop in the middle of a roundabout. I'll pass on to Charles, who's going to talk about sustainability. I'm an alumnus of George Amber School. I left last year, but for seven years I cycled to school along London roads. When I was just 13, I got knocked off my bike by a car trying to overtake me on the road because I didn't have a cycle lane. I went into the hedge and I injured myself. It wasn't reported, so we were shopping for statistics or whatever, but there were a lot of incidents like that, I think. I was just worried about getting to school on time. Cyclists have to travel on roads that are not safe. They're not fit for our purpose and this is why I think this is a seriously important change to make. But the development isn't just about safety. Our school community has made a pledge to the environment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in any way possible. Students cycling to school is such an easy way to do that. You get so many cars going to the school and just a few bikes could make a huge difference. And that's why I chose to cycle to school every day. Last year at George Amber we did a survey of 740 people and almost half of them said that they would cycle to school if there was improved cycle infrastructure. We have to do something and this is our chance to help the people make the changes they need to make if they really want to save our planet. Help them feel safe to make the change. Thank you. Thank you both very much. And then the last public speaker is James Masterman on behalf of the Guildford Bike User Group. My name is James Masterman. I am a cyclist. You can see that from the jacket and I live 200 yards from the London Road in Bertham. Bertham is at the hub of an existing important bike lane network and I use it to cycle into Guildford for daytime retail and leisure purposes in the evening. I can turn off Down Parkway to Spectrum Leisure Centre, the Lido, Ladymead Retail Park, then onward to the Science Park, Royal Surrey Hospital and the University. I can turn up Walnut Tree Close to Guildford Station and I do all of that and every time I do that I do not add to the congestion on the London Road. So for Healthmark, for Environment Marissa, for Highways Matt, for children and families you've heard from the school, Claire, I'm doing what you want and what your policies are asking me to do. And I'm not adding to Guildford's problems, Guildford being the sixth most congested and polluted urban area in the country. I use my bike to travel from A to B locally in Guildford and over 250 people cycle with me along the London Road very frequently. But why don't more people do that? 1% of journeys on that road are by bike, pathetically low. 30% of reported injuries on that road are to cyclists. 15% of traffic exceeds the speed limit by 10%. If a car hits me at 33 miles an hour, it's like a hammer hitting a ripe peach. In addition to that, that picture there is the road, that is Guildford's sustainable movement corridor. It's not very sustainable and behind that van on my bike I'm not moving. So you're here to decide on segregating the cycle lane from traffic between Newin Lane and the Boxgrove roundabout and improving pedestrian safety with better surfaces, signage and more pedestrian controlled crossings. And I would just ask why you would not do that when the public want it, as was shown in the public consultation in a ratio of 5 to 3. When your policies nationally, Surrey-wide with local transport plan 4, GBC-wide with carbon neutral and net zero support it, your own professional highway staff have redesigned the scheme following earlier concerns, professional consulting engineers Arup have now underwritten it from a safety point of view, Zoe Franklin RMP supports it, George Potter, the local councillor representing that part of the route, supports it, George Abbott School head and pupils support it, and the bus companies and emergency services and now the BCA, Birfyn Residents Association, have no objections to it. So I move you to vote for this active travel improvement for the majority of Birfyn's residents who want to cycle but are scared to do so as long as the bike lane remains unsegregated. Segregate that bike lane and deliver a safe local active travel choice for their educational, retail, leisure and work related activities. I leave you with one thought. Einstein when talking about his theory of relativity said, I thought of that whilst riding my bike. Thank you very much James. Right, so that then takes us to the two local division members starting with Fiona Davidson. Good afternoon everyone. I'm asking members of the cabinet to vote against the scheme. The cabinet report states the scheme has the support of the majority of local residents and that all the safety issues raised by those residents have been satisfactorily resolved by the Arab report. I disagree on both counts. By the way, the Arab report was a limited desktop exercise and the author never visited the road. Residents in my division, which covers three eighths of the road, are heavily against the scheme because they're not assured the new layout will be safe and they're not assured the outcomes justify the investment. In fact, there are legitimate reasons for believing that changes to the road layout will make it less safe for the majority of road users, including cyclists and pedestrians. The Arab report was a desktop exercise which relies on a highly technical and theoretic arguments to conclude that minimum standards or less are acceptable. It also uses national and county-wide accident statistics to support the argument. But how we live in the real world? In the real world, London Road is one of the safer arterial routes in Surrey. The actual accident statistics for the last five years show there were 18 slight accidents, one serious, not involving a cyclist, of the 18 slight accidents, five involved cyclists and cars. The Arab report states that HGVs, assuming they sit right in the middle of the new narrow 3.25 metre carriageway, will only have 4.9 inches clearance of the footway or cycleway. A 9.8 clearance from passing HGV further, 45% of the footway, some of it narrower than the minimum standard, will be shared by cyclists and pedestrians, which is likely to deter pedestrians who have few options, like the disabled, the elderly and those with prams. As a partially sighted person, I certainly wouldn't use this footway and it's not an improvement on what exists now. The report omits any mention of whether the vast majority of drivers and vehicle passengers, and there are on average 15,000 to 20,000 vehicle movements a day, will be safe. By comparison, the report doesn't envisage the number of cyclists increasing beyond 300 a day. It's currently on average 57. In fact, if the number of cyclists exceed 300 a day, Arab safety endorsements may not be valid. That was the maximum they allowed for. I would absolutely support changes that could accommodate pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles separately and safely, but the A3100 is narrow in places and this is the issue in creating a road that's an improvement for all road users. The safety of children, pedestrians and cyclists is important. There is, however, a significant risk that the changes planned for London Road will have the unintended consequence of reducing the safety for all road users. Do we really want to invest millions and take that kind of risk? Thank you for your time. Thank you, Cabinet. I won't repeat the statement I've provided in the appendix because I'm going to assume Cabinet members have read it. I want to introduce myself by saying that two thirds of this route are in my division as a county councillor, but as a borough councillor I represent the entirety of the route we're talking about, and I've done so since 2019. I want to be clear, there were many good objections raised to this scheme at the outset, the eight month, but all of these have now been addressed. The eight month road closure, the narrow, unsafe road lane widths, the floating bus stops, the safety concerns about some aspects of design, all of those things are no longer happening. What we have instead is a scheme that provides setting aside cyclists for a minute, major improvements to pedestrian safety, because at the moment this route is not safe for cyclists, but more importantly, it's also dangerous for pedestrians of all ages and all abilities, but particularly disabled people, old people and school children, because you have pavement that are too narrow to walk along in some places. You have people having to cross busy roads to access local amenities where there aren't any controlled crossing points just in order to get from one side of Bertham to the other. That is the key point I would make to you. This is not a choice between going ahead with this scheme or not. It is a choice between doing this scheme or keeping the status quo. With respect for all the people who are objecting, they do not represent the majority of people. The majority of people in an independent survey overseen by the Conversation Institute in the area itself were quite clearly majority were in favour, but objectors also are not saying what they would like to see instead. We do not have a massively wide road here, we have a limited width of carriageway. It has been identified as a gap in the cycle network, it has been identified as a key part of the Sustainable Movement Corridor to enable new development in Guildford Town, particularly on the Gothen Hill site, and something needs to be done to make it safe because all the independent reports say that the current set-up is not safe. As anybody who knows that road will say, cyclists are not safe, pedestrians are not safe, the existing shared usage is narrow and not wide enough in many places, and you often have cyclists riding on narrow pavements because they do not feel safe on the road. Nobody is saying what they would like to see instead of this scheme, so therefore it is a simple choice between either having this scheme, which is independently assessed by Active Travel England, by Arup, by the county's own engineers, in compliance with National Guidance, as being the best scheme that is possible given the physical constraints of the route. It would be a major improvement in safety, not just for pedestrians, not just for cyclists, but for pedestrians along the current route. We are incredibly lucky in Birmingham to have so many facilities, and we have a chance here to do something that would improve access to facilities, local travel, sustainable travel, for all pedestrians and cyclists without any detriment to vehicle users. It really is a no-brainer, and there is no alternative to this scheme on the table, so I would really please ask you, on behalf of my residents, to give it your support, and to accept the recommendation put forward to you by officers who have spent two years coming up with the best scheme possible. Thank you. Thank you very much. I now ask Matt Furness to introduce the report, please. Thank you, leader. Just a couple of points, if I may, before I start from the speakers. Firstly, can I thank everyone who has come and spoken. Just on a couple of points that have been raised in response to Mr Newman, with your point on the one count by Arup. Arup did one count, but we did numerous counts throughout the modelling. And on your point about the width, that excludes the advisory cycle lane, so all the facts that have been published are correct. Just in response to Ms Broon, we, at a very early stage in response to your comments, we removed all floating bus stops and there are no floating bus stops, no zebra crossings around the bus stops as well. We did, at the request of the coalition, move to share spaces behind the bus stops so that there wasn't any interference at the point of unlighting or disembarking. And then I have to say thank you very much in particular to William and Charles. Hearing personal experiences about cycling and walking on this section, but also the fact that, like you, like many other cyclists and people who do have incidents, do you just get up, brush yourselves off and head, in your case, into school or in others, they head to work or with their journey. So we do put a lot of investment around how to use our network very safely, starting at an early age in schools, but we do need that infrastructure as well. As we know, this Active Travel Scheme is funded by Active Travel England Grants. It's a government grant. And as we've heard, it has progressed through design and decision-making processes as three separate identified schemes. It was previously considered for a decision in February. You yourself took that decision on 27 February and asked officers to review the design of Section 1, specifically for the use of large vehicles and the shared use path. Officers engaged with an independent professional engineering organisation to undertake that. And the review concludes that the design does allow HGVs to pass safely and that the shared use paths comply with LTM 120 guidance. And the technical support is very clear that the clearance is based, in addition to that, on wing mirror, not the vehicle itself. So proceeding with the delivery of Section 1 following the outcome of this review will enable key links to be made with the existing cycling routes and key local destinations throughout Guildford. The balancing the infrastructure supports the delivery of our policies, not only our Local Transport Plan 4, but also our climate change declaration and net zero targets of achieving this by 2050. Active Travel England, who is the government's executive agency responsible for walking and cycling, are fully funding this scheme as well and they have also endorsed the scheme and a section of their endorsement is in the report. In 2023 we adopted our Local Transport Plan 4. It sets out this Council's transformational ambitious roadmap to deliver the required 42% of carbon target reduction as set out for Transport and Climate Delivery Plan, while supporting our community, the economy and making sure that no-one's left behind. And it's a significant component of our contribution to deliver that net zero by 2050. Whilst many of the changes that are being proposed can be delivered as part of our network responsibilities, we have gone through a period of two years of engagement with the community. This isn't statutory, but we have chosen to do it as it is best practice and it is supported by Active Travel England as well. And the proposal itself actually originated as early as 2015. It's been in several joint Guildford Borough Council and Surrey County Council documents. The Guildford Cycling Plan of 2015, Guildford Borough Transport Strategy 2017 and the Guildford Cycle Routes Assessment in 2020. So it's not a new proposal, it has been around as a key arterial route and corridor that will link to a strategic development site in Guildford, which is an important housing site for the delivery of Guildford's local plan, as well as the local economy. Community engagement, as I said, has been held for 12 weeks from September to December last year in 2023. We had just under 1,000 individual submissions for each of the three sections of the scheme. There was broadly pretty much the same in each section, 50% agreement for section 1, 2 and 3, 31% disagreement and about 19% who didn't give an opinion. They neither agreed, disagreed or said they didn't know. And as you've referenced, you, on 27 February, agreed to commence with section 2, the simplified roundabout section, not proceed with section 3 and defer the decision for today on section 1. So just on the shared use path, which has been a large proportion of the debating points so far, the proposed shared use path is a minimum of 1.8 metres in width, which is adequate for two adults walking side by side or for a double buggy, including additional elbow room. It's also wide enough that a wheelchair user and a pedestrian can also pass one another. So AXA Travel even have acknowledged that whilst this is not perfect, it is acceptable in principle to accommodate needs of a diverse range of pedestrians as well as people on bikes. And I would point out that this 1.8 metres is only 5% of the entire 1.2 kilometre length. It's only 70 metres. It's a wider shared use path for the remainder of that route, over 3 metres in some cases. So the conclusion of the technical review does find that the principle to reduce shared path for short stretches in section 1 is acceptable. But a number of measures are suggested to minimise the risk of conflict, such as no street furniture, coloured services, which highlight the difference of the use, markings to indicate bikes are guests, not the priority, pedestrian symbols on the paths for the sharing with slow. We currently have over 128 miles of shared use path in Surrey, where pedestrians and cyclists do share space. 25% of that is equal or less than 1.8 metres and the remaining is greater. And the scheme has 40% of shared use path. Average width is actually over 3 metres. It's only that small section of 70 metres which is actually 1.8 metres. Just on the points that I've raised earlier, we aren't proposing any floating bus stops or any issues in reference to the Surrey Coalition disabled concerns. We did take those on very early on and took them out of the scheme. So we've removed those completely, as personally I actually do not support floating bus stops anyway, as an able-bodied person who can get around. I do still believe that this will be a high quality route improvement, serving not only the local community, but also a number of schools. George Abbott Secondary School, and I'm going to live on that as well over there. It is a very large school and a number of people do use this route to get to and from school, but there are other schools in the area. The school has also committed to taking on an educational programme for pupils about using the shared path. As we've heard, the students are very much in favour. So, as per the recommendations of the report, Leader, I would support that and ask the Cabinet to do so also. Thank you. Thank you very much, Matt. So I'll open it up for discussion. Who would like to speak? Sinead first. Thank you very much, Leader. As the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, I would like to speak against a proposal in front of us today which recommends that section 1 of the London Road Guildford active travel scheme should be constructed. Whilst I, of course, recognise the benefits of active travel schemes for communities, I feel that I must advocate for our vulnerable residents. I'm afraid I cannot endorse this current scheme, which proposes shared use of facilities which many members of our vulnerable elderly and less able communities don't feel are safe. The proposal, as it stands, could deter them from accessing and using local facilities. I'd like to, if I may, Leader, thank Claire Burgess, the Chief Executive of Site for Surrey, for contacting me to highlight her concerns about this proposal. Site for Surrey works with between 8,000 to 10,000 residents every year across the county, people who are blind, partially sighted, deaf, hard of hearing and deaf-blind of all ages. Nicky Roberts, the Chief Executive Officer of the Surrey Coalition of Disabled People, also contacted me and echoed the issues raised and we've heard from Natasha very eloquently about those issues. We're coming back to adult social care. The service itself supports in excess of 20,000 residents at any given time and it is important that the guiding mission of no-one left behind and tackling health inequalities are not forgotten in considering these proposals. These residents are a sizeable part of our local communities and already face many hurdles in accessing services and getting out and about, particularly on foot and on public transport, and this scheme does not support the ambition of this pledge. So on that basis, Leader, I'd like to reinstate that I won't be supporting this proposal. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll go to Demise next and to Mark. Thank you, Leader. I'd like everybody present to know how much time and deliberation we've all given to this. I mean, we can all recognise the immense benefits of having adequate cycle facilities. You've given a very clear testimony of the retail offer, the leisure offer, all of the reasons why you need this route and we all live in fairly congested areas and we all recognise the safety issues that we all have to manage when we're navigating our roads and pavements. I think with anything we can talk about the local economy, we can talk about quality of life, we can talk about air quality, but actually I think safety has to be paramount and unfortunately for me, through the discussions that we've had, I will always home in on the weaknesses in any proposal and it's stated in the report that there may be an element of discomfort and giving way when the users are passing one another, albeit in frequent circumstances, but we always have to look at those that would be affected by that situation. My children attended a school with a very narrow pathway with a very narrow road and quite often I would see wing mirrors of HGVs skinning the ears of children walking along the path and I can just visualise, and I've obviously looked at the location, that being a potential with this proposal. So even if it was a really low probability of that happening, the restricted element that is given in the road actually creates for me a higher propensity for that to happen. The report states site constraints, a lack of parallel alternatives and accepting a compromise and that's from the Inspector of Active Travel England and also cites a short stretch of less good provision. So even though the benefits are clear from this proposal, there are pinch points. We have driver behaviour and driver error to consider and with the increasing number of HGVs on our roads, even though this proposal does create a safe route for users, there are pinch points where there would be a compromise and that narrows the carriageway and I can't support a proposal that carries that risk, so I'm afraid I will have to vote against the proposal. Thank you very much Mark. Thank you leader and welcome everybody. First I'm going to say thank you for the engagement. The number of emails has pleased my inbox to no end over the last few weeks, so thank you for that. I've kept them and I've looked at them. I'm speaking today as Cabinet Member for Health, also as a trustee of Active Surrey and as a resident of Surrey who used to ride to school in the 80s and was consistently knocked off his bike. Maybe because of traffic or just not very good at riding my bike, but I have a bike at home and I don't use it very often because I'm not confident to go out on some of the roads that I live near in and around Chertsey because they're very congested. But I think these arguments always stem from the fact that we are as a nation a nation of car drivers. We can't get away from that fact. We have grown up with cars. Cars have increased no end over the last 20, 30 years. The roads are not designed for the level of traffic that they take nowadays and perhaps for the way that some of us drive on them. I think change has to come. The Government changed the pyramid, if you like. Cars were knocked off the top spot. Now pedestrians and cyclists take precedence over the car driver. And although change is never genuinely accepted very easily, a change we must. I think over the next 10 years we will start to see more and more efforts by Government from lobbyists to reduce down the amount of cars on the road and to increase the amount of cyclists and pedestrians. And if we don't change that won't happen and I think it has to happen. What this scheme does is I think it gives more confidence to cyclists. It will encourage more cyclists. I think the figures aren't great at the moment but that's not the point. What we're looking for is for the future and the past is past. We must look forward. Be that for a greener, better air to breathe, we need to be fitter. We are growing older. We are a nation of older people. As Sinead said there from adult social care we look after 20,000 odd people there. But just because we're growing older doesn't mean to say we're growing better. We need to be more active. We need to feel safe being active. We need to walk or cycle to the shops. We need to encourage our kids to ride and walk to school in the hope that as they grow older they will encourage their kids to walk and ride to school and to work etc. We are a nation now, half of which are working from home two or three days a week. Our activity is dropping, not gaining it. So any encouragement we can give to people to get out into the fresh air and use their bodies to propel themselves, be that by foot or by cycle, that's got to be a good thing. We as drivers, and I include myself, I have to drive here to Rygate, we will have to change. We will have to change how we drive. Our speeds will have to reduce. We will have to be more accommodating for other people on the road. And I think change will make that happen. I remember being in a conference with Chris Boardman, the famous English cyclist who said, if we don't make cycling and walking the easiest way to get from A to B, then people won't do it. And it's for us in public office to sometimes make decisions which are not always very easily accepted by the public to make those changes happen. We talk about risk. Every road comes with an element of risk. But risk shouldn't necessarily be, in this instance, the reason why we don't go forward with that change. So I will be supporting this, I think, and I accept both arguments for and against. But to move forward, to change for the future, for the better, I think we need to make these decisions which will make our residents' lives not necessarily safer. I think we need to all take the personal responsibility for that. But certainly we'll encourage people to be fitter, more active, and live a better, longer life and a healthier life. Thank you, Mark. Maybe I should ask everybody to declare an interest in terms of whether they are cyclists or not. I too cycle to school and indeed I'm a social cyclist now. I'm going to go to Kevin next. Thank you, leader. I think Mark said his inbox was really grateful for the emails he'd received. I think I've read every single one that's come. I have to admit, the ones that had personal views, I took more notice. I think many were just cut and paste. I think I probably had a hundred of exactly the same wording. But I'd like to thank those who actually put their own personal views in and who actually put their addresses. Because you can actually then see the impact from those individuals rather than being somebody from another part of the country. It did feel like it was which group can send the most emails. But to me it was about the substance, personal views and about us doing the right thing. I think it's interesting how we've got so many different views just within this cabinet. Thank you for the speakers. Again, it was very interesting. I think Fiona spoke first and put some very good points across. And then George Potter, who's obviously the councillor for the other part, put an opposing view across. So even councillors who are ward members have very, very different views. What concerns me about this is the road space, the width of the road and the impact on people who are visually or hearing impaired with the cyclist as well. I hear what Councillor Furniss has said, but I also hear what my colleagues have said as well. I accept again that this isn't Surrey County Council money, but we still have a responsibility to ensure that we spend the Government's money wisely, best value. And taking that into account with my concerns about the width of the road, I'm sorry to say I cannot support this scheme. I'd love to see a scheme, but it has to be the right scheme, a safe scheme. And I'm not convinced it is. Thank you, leader. Thank you, Kevin. Marisa? Thank you, leader. We can either step forward into growth or we can step back into safety. I do understand the feeling that we should step back into safety here, especially when we touch on the HDVs and narrowing of passing points. It is a serious issue. But so is the fact we're trying to make Surrey a better county with more sustainable travel and with better air quality. Taking cars off the road, helping young people see the benefits of cycling and giving people choice is a fundamental and key part of this. Now, I declare I'm not a cyclist. I'm not particularly passionate about bikes, but I am passionate about clean air. And I am passionate about removing congestion as well. And I understand that to change to a more sustainable community, it's not going to be easy. It's much easier to go with status quo and to keep complaining about the problems of traffic, of delays, of lack of choice, of cost. Now, the evidence shows us broadly across the nation that the main barrier to cycling in this country is the perception that our roads are too dangerous and uncomfortable, largely due to high volumes and high speeds of motor traffic. So it seems like a bit of a vicious circle, and we know that that leads to really hard decisions. Being half Dutch, I can never resist touching on the Netherlands. Now, the Netherlands have got it right. They seem to have got it right, frankly, having done some cycling around there. But it didn't come easy to them. Yes, it's a flat country, but they didn't have cycle lanes installed from the beginning of time. There was actually a point in the 1960s when cyclists were under severe threat of being expelled from Dutch cities by the growing number of cars. It was thanks to some very decisive events and decisions when Dutch politicians became aware of the advantages of cycling that the Netherlands became the cycling capital of the world. And of course, they have further challenges. Some of their cycle paths now need to be reconstructed because they don't measure up to modern standards. And my point in referencing to that is that a shift in transport will never be easy. It will always cause disruption, and it will bring opposition. But what it will also bring is choice, better health, less congestion, cleaner air. I think those things are all hugely valuable. Now, I know there's a lot of people in this room and who've emailed us who are opposing the proposal today. And I won the risk of them telling me I haven't read through and listened to their very reasonable arguments and views. But I assure you I have. I've read every single one of them, and I thank them all for their emails. I also especially recognise the concerns of disabled residents with my best friend being blind and having spent a huge time recognising the challenges she faces on our public highways full stop, not just this, but more broadly. Nonetheless, as the Cabinet Member for Environment and one who advocates strongly for sustainable transport, I think it is the future. It has to be the future. I'm going to be supporting this proposal and the use of £6 million coming into this county, £6 million that this county deserves. Thank you. Thank you very much. Just checking, I've got David Lewis. Does anybody else wish to speak after him? No, Sir David. Thank you. Thank you, Leader. Just to declare an interest, before being elected as a county councillor in my professional life, I, for many years, was a board member and chaired the Global Road Safety Partnership, which is a road safety partnership organisation hosted by the Red Cross, working globally. So when I looked at these proposals, I looked at it partly as a professional viewpoint, but also with a propensity to favour anything that ultimately improves road safety, which is what I spent a lot of my professional life working on. It's clear from the very many submissions that we've received and which have been referred to today, plus the arguments we've heard this afternoon, that the pros and cons for this scheme are pretty evenly split. For every argument in favour, there's an equally valid argument against. In terms of the submissions and the hundreds of emails that we received, and I don't claim to have read every single one of them, but I try to read the majority of them, one of the things that did strike me, which I don't think has been mentioned so far, is that there was quite significant opposition from members of the public who are cyclists, who felt, for a variety of reasons, that the proposed scheme was not suitable for cyclists. They did not support it. That, in a way, surprised me as I read the submissions. Going through the papers and the very supporting documents and the ARIC report, and I think we've probably touched on it pretty thoroughly this afternoon, the two key issues, it seemed to me, really was firstly the width of the carriageway, particularly for two HGVs passing, and it seems to me that two HGVs with their wing mirrors out need six metres of road space, and in places this proposed scheme would be six and a half metres, leaving just 250mm between vehicles. That didn't feel safe or right to me when I read that. The other second key factor, and we've spent time on it this afternoon, is this whole issue around shared space, and in principle I'm not totally against shared space. In my division in Cobham, we've recently introduced a shared space for the Cobham Free School, where we have successfully got cyclists, mainly pupils, attending the school, and pedestrians using the new shared space. But it's wide, it's clear, it's straight. You can see exactly what's going on. When I read in the report that in places, and I accept what Matt has said, that it's relatively small sections of the scheme, but in places there's a minimum width in this scheme of only 1.8 metres that concern me. When I read the Arup report, and Denise has referred partly to some of the comments in it, where it talks about the elements of discomfort and having to give way when users are passing one another, but it also talks about wheelchair users, and it said that while a wheelchair user and cyclist could physically pass to each other, it may not be comfortable, and then it talked about the issues of two cyclists, and it said for two cyclists to pass to each other, one cyclist would be required to yield to the other. So it seemed to me that, albeit small sections of the road, sorry, small sections of the pavement of shared space would be this 1.8 metres, but there are some key safety issues if that were to be introduced. And then I took note, particularly of the submissions made by Site for Surrey and by the Surrey Coalition of Disabled People, and I thought, well, these groups represent users who have a certain amount of challenges, if you like, in terms of using this space, and we've got to be absolutely certain that if we make changes, it actually benefits everyone and doesn't act in an unsafe way for people who perhaps have certain disabilities, whether that's seeing or hearing or whatever. So taking all those factors into account, and I also read a number of people talked about the disruption caused by the construction of such a scheme, and for me that isn't an argument for not going ahead, because if we make changes, if we make improvements, there's got to be a degree of disruption. So I didn't take that into account, but ultimately, as I say, taking into account the arguments about the width of the carriageway, the amount of shared space, the submissions by Site for Surrey and the Coalition for Disabled People, I have somewhat reluctantly, I say, but I have come to the conclusion that I also cannot support this proposal. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sir David. So I'm not going to run through the same points that have been well made by both the speakers and the Cabinet. I would say, though, that Surrey County Council is very supportive of encouraging people to be more active. We have a reducing life expectancy across the country, and indeed a reduction in healthy life expectancy as well. It is really, really important from a health perspective that people do lead as unactive as life as they're capable of doing. And of course, part of this Council's ambition clearly is to reduce the volume of traffic, the volume of cars on the road for climate reasons and other reasons as well. So I think that that was our starting point. That is why this scheme was originally proposed, and indeed we have rolled them out successfully in many other parts of the county. But the schemes have to be appropriate, and indeed they have to have local support. This scheme has now been significantly amended from the original proposal. It is nearly two years now, or two years since we had the public meeting, and a recognition certainly on my part that there hadn't been a full and perhaps appropriate consultation with residents. There were two competing consultations, and luckily we haven't spent any time debating what the results of those consultations were. But I think Matt did read out the fact that I think 51% were supportive, and the rest either didn't give a view or were opposed. I do go back though to Active Travel England and their manual, and it's been raised a number of times, and LTN 120, which does state that in general, shared use facilities in streets with high pedestrian or cyclist flows should not be used, and in urban areas the conversion of a footway to shared use should be regarded as a last resort. Others have made the point that in the ARUP report it endorses this scheme on the basis that there will be less than 300 movements. That of course is not what we want to do at all. There are 2,500 students all thereabouts at George Abbot School, there are 1,500 students at Guildford High School. If we were going to do this, it would absolutely be on the basis that there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, cyclists, using that footpath. So for me, where we have landed now, accepting and adjusting the scheme to reflect the genuine concerns around the ability of two HGVs to pass safely on the road, that has then caused a compromise to the shared pathway to a point where I don't think that this is safe. Somebody has made the point that if we're going to do something, we have to be absolutely certain that it is safer than what is already there. We are proceeding with the more simplified scheme for Boxgrove roundabouts, which is a key junction. We are also putting in a safer crossing at Nightingale Road and a crossing in Winterhill Way and London Road as well. We will continue to work with Guildford Borough Council to see if we can improve the route for cyclists through Stoke Park. I, like the others, have to take on board the genuine concerns of those who represent some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The Surrey Coalition and Site for Surrey have made out a strong case, I believe, that this would cause genuine concern for those individuals, either with short hope, with hearing impairment or sight impairment. This scheme as designed would require consideration by all users of that footpath. That would mean, I suspect, cyclists having to get off at some point where it narrows down to allow a pushchair to come through or a wheelchair. I don't think necessarily I'm afraid we can guarantee that that would be the case. I think we've had a very full discussion, not just here, but over the last two years. We now have to draw a line under this. As Kevin has said, this isn't county council or Surrey taxpayers' money. It is coming from central government, but at the end of the day that isn't in itself justification for not using that money appropriately. Can I thank everybody for all of their contribution? There have been many of you that have attended lengthy stakeholder group meetings in very cold and damp rooms down in the depths of Guildford. I'm very grateful to you for that. In all seriousness, the quality of the conversation and the quality of the submissions has been outstanding. I know that we kind of do this as a day job, but I can assure you that we have seen some very impressive arguments both for and against, but at the end of the day we have to make a decision one way or the other. So what I'm going to do now is ask the Cabinet to vote. Thank you, George. Right, I'll now move to a vote. So let me read out the recommendation. Just to remind you, actually, if you're in favour of going ahead with the scheme, will you please put your hand up as yes in support? If you are against the scheme, don't do that. So the recommendation is that Cabinet notes the content of the independent technical review of section one and its conclusions concerning whether the scheme complies with current design guidance. Recommendation two proceeds with the construction of section one based on the strength of support from the local community alongside the conclusions of the independent technical review. All those in favour? That's three. And all those against? Six. So that's the nine Cabinet members that are eligible to vote on that basis, therefore we won't proceed with the construction of section one. Thank you all very much for joining us. You're more than welcome to stay if you wish, otherwise we'll just pause for a moment. Thank you. After that mammoth, I'll be really quick. So just looking at, I've focused on the achievements within the portfolio, starting with Debenhams, who unhelpfully went into administration. We've invested £3 million refurbished and we've secured three tenants for restaurants downstairs and we're bringing the upstairs into use and they'll soon be completed. That will obviously increase the value of the asset for our asset portfolio. In Brightwells in Farnham, we eventually got it over the line, achieved practical completion. As you know, many members who've been here for a long time, Surrey County Council stepped in for Waverley and secured, so we secured the funding. We funded this commercial retail element of the regeneration of Farnham and also the substantial infrastructure changes that are going on around Farnham Town Centre. So we've invested into the town and we've supported the local economy. If we go to our disposals, over the last five years we've achieved £150 million of capital receipts and we're on track to achieve another £55 million for 2025-26. I declared over £2 million surplus, which will also be sold contracts exchange just today in my Cabinet member decisions. We've moved to a new FM contract, so we've outsourced all our soft and hard FM. We reduced our headcount from 125 to 16. We're still bedding in with macro, I think that would be the nicest thing to say, Simon, and we're hoping that will be completed by the end of December. We've achieved ISO 45001 accreditation around our health and safety management in our workplaces. Moving on to waste, as many of you know, we're progressing a planning application for a MRF, a mixed recycling facility, which will sort our kerbside collectibles, so we're hoping to bring a planning application through for that over the coming months. We're also developing plans for a reuse hub on Ivy Dean cottage at the Eco Park, which will be a multi-use space with training, reuse hub, bike workshop. It seems to be growing by the minute, quite frankly, but I know that's something that Spellthorne members are really positive about. Our recycling rate in Surrey, we are joint second highest among the 26 waste disposal authorities, with only 0.25% of our waste now going to landfill. On infrastructure, we're progressing on the A320 HIFBID north of Woking, and we're looking to mobilise hopefully the end of November, December, and the project will be an 18-month duration. On the 308 corridor, the black dog signals are now complete, and the Shears junction is nearing completion with CCTV, and variable messaging signage has been installed. So you then move on to some really pretty pictures on an update on capital projects. You can see that we're really, really bringing forward a number of schemes that are on site and gives you when we're targeting practical completion. So I won't go through all of those, but I think you can see they're across all our services and across the whole of the county. All in all, I think it's a fantastic effort by the land and property staff. A special thanks actually to House of Garten Managing Director, I think Charles Maxwell Tomlinson's done a good job pulling that all together. Wasted infrastructure staff, all ably led by Simon Crowther, and of course myself. Thank you. Good stuff, well, and yes, it's very pictorial, so that is good. Does anybody want to make any comment on any of those projects? As you say, there's a lot of building activities, so hopefully a lot of those will complete probably now during 2025. Good stuff. Excellent. Okay, thank you very much, Matthew. Well done. We will move to, well, we won't move to item 9 at the moment. We're waiting for Theresa Bell, Chair of the Adult Safeguarding Board, actually, but she hasn't joined us online yet, so we'll come back to that item in a minute. I don't know if officers have given her timing. Yeah, she should be here soon. Okay, should we take then item 10 to use the Your Funds Sorry application? Thank you, Leader. So this is New Roliage Village Hall. They're seeking £800,000 for a new village hall, which is 26% of the project cost, which is overall over £3 million. The existing building is leaking and unfit for use, and the groups have actually stopped using it as it's inadequate with poor insulation and unaffordable maintenance costs. There are at least 100 new homes in the area, so there's increased demand with an anticipated at least 50% uplift in the use anticipated. Many of these households are in need of affordable activities, and the group very generously provides plenty of activities across all age ranges, providing a social space which is much needed in the area. There's a real shortage to combat loneliness and isolation in the elderly population, and the new hall has been designed and has planning permission already, and will provide a flexible space for children and young people and their activities. It's even big enough for a badminton court, so it can really cater for the community. There's considerable sill funding already from Waverley that's been provided, and the sale of the land and the buildings will raise in excess of £1 million as well, so there's quite a concerted collective collaboration when it comes to the provision of the funding for this facility. I mean, this is a classic example of a community facility. They've pulled together, rallied together, and supported by your fund, Surrey. They will be delivering a fantastic facility with potentially a 100-year lifespan, fit for now and the future, and I did mention earlier, we're up to 47 large projects, which are the significantly funded projects, but this fund has delivered 325 projects across Surrey over four years, over £21 million now being allocated, so I think, again, this is a classic example of that direct investment into our communities where it's most needed for our residents. This is a very quick point. I mean, I think it's a great scheme, and although it's not an important area, I was just really impressed when normally you've got the 80-20 where they're looking for 80 per cent and they get 20 per cent. It's almost the opposite way around on this one. It's a really good variety of funding that's been secured, so I'm happy to support. I mean, it's great, and I really like the way they're doing the funding. That was it, really. Good, thank you. Thank you very much. For the purpose of the minutes, there's a slight correction that I need to make to the report. If you look at the front page, where it's got the key message about capital, capital expenditure at month 5 was in fact £319.3, not £318, and that represents a £2.8 million more than the reset budget. Further on in the report, there is a more detailed table about the capital budget, and the figures in that table are correct, so apologies for that, but if that could be noted for the minutes. In terms of the position at the end of month 5, from a revenue point of view, we saw a £1.3 million deterioration in the forecast overspend compared with the end of month 4, which takes us to a forecast overspend for the year of £16.7 million. I think it's fair to say that that reflects the challenges that we as a local authority face and the sector face from a financial point of view. The reasons for the overspend are a continuation of things that we have discussed in previous months. In adults and wellbeing and health, we saw an increase as a result of increasing budgets for older people care and increases in the staff. In the staffing budget, in CFLL, there is a £8.8 million overspend. The vast bulk of that is the £7.4 million forecast overspend in home to school transport assistance. The good news with that is that that has remained stable throughout the financial year, and I do chair the oversight group for home to school transport assistance, and I think a lot of good work is being done to contain that overspend, and we're fairly optimistic that we might begin to see some benefits in the second half of the year from a financial point of view. On the environment infrastructure and growth, there was an increase of overspend of £3.4 million. That was an increase of just under a million compared with month four, and that was as a result of the cost of the soft facilities management. There were some backdated electricity charges and, as we have mentioned before, waste management and the cost of managing the dry and mixed waste recyclables. In terms of risk, we're talking about a £16.8 million risk against the overall budget that we've set for the year. That represents a slight reduction on month four in terms of the potential risk there, so that's good news. I think the key messages that we still need to consider are, firstly, the need to find mitigating measures to compensate for the forecast overspend. As you know, we've got a £20 million contingency in the budget, but at this rate of forecast overspend, the bulk of that contingency would be used, and really we would like to have some of that contingency that we can use to top up our reserves. It of course all plays into the budget for 2025-26. A lot of work is taking place on that at the moment, trying to close the budget gap, and that draft budget will come to Cabinet on 26 November at our next meeting. I mentioned the capital budget, so just to be clear again, the forecast spend for capital is now sitting at £319.3 million, and that's just slightly £2.8 million more than the re-profiled, re-phased budget. If you remember, at the start of the financial year, we looked at the capital programme, we looked at what was affordable, we looked at what was deliverable, and we've reset the budget. So, against that reset budget, we're just slightly above the budget by £2.8 million, and there's some slight changes, you know, the forecast overspend in capital in terms of the land and property infrastructure, and there's been some savings, just under £1 million in the IT budget. So, overall, I think the picture is similar to that of previous months. It has deteriorated slightly, and as I say, the key message and the challenge for us all as portfolio holders working with our directors and services is how we can find in the remaining—there's actually six months remaining, but in terms of reporting, there are seven months remaining. So, it's mitigating measures that we can put in place to try and pull back that forecast overspend in the revenue. I'll take any questions if anyone has any. Thank you, David. I think it's also important that we continue to make the point to Government that part of the difficulty in balancing our budget is the exponential increase in demand for both adult social care, particularly those working-age adults with disability and, of course, those with additional needs and disabilities, and the cost of home-to-school transport, which for this Council is now over £70 million a year and rising. So, it is really important that we are not alone in those pressures. All our material authorities are facing the same issue. So, we must continue to encourage the Government to engage with the sector. I'm hoping that we will get some good news in the budget tomorrow from the Chancellor, but in particular, we must continue to make out the case in the local government finance settlement in December, because it is not going to get any easier. This is the first year, really, that we've had in the last six, where we've had the continual pressure on our budget. So, I'm very grateful to Andy Brown, who sort of stepped in now as our Deputy Chief Executive and Section 151 officer and has got to grips with the budget straight away. You know, we are having the conversations around the budget for 2025-26, but we will need help from Government to help close that budget gap as we move forward. So, we will come back next month. That will be the main item on the Cabinet agenda to look at 2025-26. My understanding is that it will be almost a rollover for this next year, and then the new Government will be looking at a three-year budget profile from 26 onwards. At the moment, that's looking very challenging for this Council. Right, okay, good. We were just filling in time, Theresa, whilst we were waiting for you to arrive, so you're very welcome. Thank you very much for joining us. So, I know that it wasn't that long ago that we looked at the safeguarding report for the previous year, but I think that that was a little bit behind and this one is on time, which is what we've come to expect from you. So, thank you very much for joining us. I don't know if you want to just do a sort of short introduction, just highlight any particular things from the report that you wish to, and then Sinead, I don't know, do you want to follow, Theresa? Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Theresa. Thank you very much, and thanks for the opportunity to share the report. There's an overused phrase in my field of work, which is safeguarding is everybody's business, and it's one of those phrases that begins to lose its meaning the more it's repeated. So, the past year has been about trying to understand what that really should mean for the Safeguarding Adults Partnership in Surrey. And for me, what it means is that it's about recognising that every perceived risk isn't necessarily needing to be referred through the Section 42 process under the Care Act and then going into a lengthy deliberation, which leaves the person still waiting, but about multi-agency work. You've just been talking about budgets and the need for everybody to be working together in adult safeguarding is one of those areas that I believe, you know, we really need to keep pushing. So, it's about multi-agency work to identify and manage risk together. So, this last year has been recognising that safeguarding isn't achieved by one single agency acting on their own and then liaising with others, but actually by partners co-operating to prevent abuse and neglect, identifying it as early a stage as possible, and then responding in a proportionate way, and most importantly, with the person at the centre. So, you avoid risks escalating wherever possible to a safeguarding concern, but agree on when and how to take appropriate action as necessary and doing that in partnership. We've also been applying a new approach to our safeguarding adults reviews, which are one of our statutory duties and have consumed a lot of time and a lot of resource over the last few years. So, what we're doing is considering very carefully the appropriate response and methodology for each of the referrals that come in to ensure that we get the maximum learning in the timeliest way, avoiding wherever possible unnecessarily lengthy, unnecessarily lengthy processes, which can delay actions being taken to make improvements. This may take the form of a thematic review in some cases, particularly where a particular issue or concern is repeatedly being identified. I, as independent chair of this board and other boards, despair when I see the same issues coming through time and time again. So, it's how do we identify what's going wrong there? Why are we seeing the same issues coming through? What can we do to address them without entering into a review that might take two years? Let's just really confront this. So, I've really enjoyed working with the partnership over the last year or so to develop and progress this strategy. And as I'm at a council meeting, I'd like to thank in particular Helen Coombs and Luke Adams for their tremendous support to me and to the board over the past year. Hope you find the report of interest. Welcome any questions now or after the meeting, should you wish to contact me. Thank you very much. Excellent. Thank you very much, Theresa. Sinead, I think you'd like to say a few words. Yes, thank you, Lisa, and thank you, Theresa. Just really briefly, if I may, I think it's great that Theresa presented this report to us. It's really important that we as a cabinet see the report because the council does have a statutory requirement under the 2014 Care Act to have a board in place. And therefore, it makes sense that we see how the board is working, what their priorities are and areas of focus are. And I think Theresa's report highlights that really well. I said a brief, leader, I just want to end, actually, by thanking Theresa. I know she didn't thank me, but that's okay, Theresa. We're okay still. But I'd like to thank Theresa because I think since she's come into this role, she has been a breath of fresh air and she's really galvanised her partners across the safeguarding board and really brought them together as a cohesive team. So thank you very much for that, Theresa. And I'd add my thanks to you, Theresa, as well for our periodic catch-ups. They're very helpful just to get your steer on where things are going and indeed where we can help just prod the odd partner if that's what's needed. But I think you've done an excellent job in just tidying up, if you like, quite a lot of the loose ends that were causing people to spend quite a lot of time on things that weren't perhaps that much of a priority. So it seems to me that you've got the board into good shape and, you know, it's moving forward in a very constructive way. So thank you very much for that. Much appreciated. Thank you. And thank you, Carter Flamuni, I should have said before, for your support too. No, no, no, don't encourage it. Right, there is one recommendation and that is that the Cabinet consider the notes, the attached Surrey safeguarding adults annual report for 23-24. Is that agreed? Good, excellent. Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of the public part of this agenda. So we will move into part two. I think all members of the public now have left. So on that note, I'll close the meeting. Thank you very much.