Transcript

• Okay. (speaking in foreign language) I'll be supported by my vice chairman, Councillor Paul Rogers. This is a multi-location meeting. We have a number of members present in the room, which we haven't, as well as others joining remotely. In this room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. You more participants, please raise your virtual hand to indicate you wish to speak. When called, unmute your microphone and turn it off when you've finished. The microphone for the most participants is active to enable them to hear proceedings. Therefore, please only speak when contributing, minimize all background noise and turn off mobile phones. Non-committee members may be in attendance. These members are entitled to participate when invited to do so, but unable to vote. There are a number of officers in attendance, including the committee officer will be acting as a Zoom host for those members attending remotely. The meeting has been recorded and be published as soon as possible afterwards. Zoom participants may make a note of the meeting ID. If you experience any technical difficulties, this will enable you to be joined by telephone. If there's a short adjournment, be able to rejoin using the Zoom code. If the meeting is adjourned, you'll be informed of a revised date and time and a fresh appointment will be forwarded. In the event of an alarm sounding in the air, please evacuate as quickly as possible using the need of straight fire exits. Please then assemble via the gold oil reception all through in itself green. So turn into the first item on the agenda. Apologies for absence, I've received. Apologies for absence from Councillor Claire Lovers. Robert E. Williams may be a little bit late and Councillor Fred Robert said he was coming on Zoom. So we'll take that from that. Any more? No, okay, declarations of personal interest including with the declarations. Anything? No. The minutes to receive and confirm the minutes held on the meeting held on the 17th of April, 2024. So we'll go through them page by page for accuracy. So page three. Page four. And page five. Any matches arising? No, somebody care to move them. That's your seconder. Yeah. Sure. Can I have two more vans please? Thank you. Next item on the agenda is the work programme. I'll hand over to Greg. Thank you, Chair. Just briefly it's the work programme report. At 4.2 just outlines the changes that you made to the work programme at your April meeting. At 4.3 is a proposed change to the report that you're expecting at the next meeting in respect of role-attense enforcement. It's suggested that the information report in respect of state management be incorporated into this report as well. Members will be aware that a supplementary item was circulated last night with regards to a topic selection form in respect of grass cutting weed control. It's suggested that members are happy that that come to you at a further meeting that will be arranged in between this meeting and the June meeting. And finally just an update on something that's happened since the publication of the report in front of you. The information report on housing repairs has now been issued. Obviously that brings you up to date on the current position. And just to remind members that the main report on that one will be coming back to you for discussion at the July meeting. So if members are happy with those changes, I'll take any questions at the rise chair. Thank you. Paul? I raised this for the two previous, so I think it would be a miss not to raise it now. And that's the free-tonky items we got on the agenda next month. I'm just concerned about the time we've got to scrutinise them and free items. I know we did, I don't know if the lead member can maybe reduce one of the, get one of them items reduced. So we don't have to spend hours and hours here looking through all the items. I don't know, but... Any comment, do it? Yeah, can I say just what's on the agenda for the next month? Um... Oh, June. I don't want anything deferred, because we've already got quite a great meeting, you know, agenda in the future. I'm just hoping maybe accommodation report be... Yeah, can I just say, the accommodation project is... Um, a lot of that will be information. It's just an update for elected members of what we're doing with the new accommodation projects. I think it's just an update for elected members of what we're doing with the new accommodation projects. I don't think that'll be quite lengthy. Obviously the role of tenancy enforcement and estate management. I don't think that's lengthy. I mean, what we can do on the Welsh Housing Quality Standard, we have got a draft report, but it's up to members really. That's probably more significant. The implications of the Welsh Housing Quality Standard, because that's Welsh Government guidance. So the purpose of that report was to bring a road map to the scrutiny committee on what we're intending to do really. I mean, all local authorities have got to do it, but I'm in your hands. I mean, if you want to put that back to, you know, the next month after that, that's probably more lengthy than the other two. I'm in your hands. I'm just minded that we've got a full work programme going on from this. So it's a difficult one. I'm in members' hands, what do you think? I would support going ahead as we are and get on with it, yeah? Okay, thanks. Everybody happy with that? I can have a show of hands just to make sure. Okay. That's very much it. As far as I raise it, check if I raise it in the feed meter. Yeah, yeah, it's a valley point, but yeah, we are where we are. All I suggest is fetch a bottle of water sandwiches if you think it's going to be that long. Yeah. And you're happy with the work programme, otherwise everything's on good order, yeah? Okay. Right, agenda item five, improving public transport. David, I'll fetch you in first. Yes, thanks, Chair. Unless this report is to provide an update on where we are with public transport, both from a regional perspective and also from a local perspective. 2.1 sets out some of the background papers from the bus emergency scheme. And you'll see in 2.1 of the report an additional 5.61 million was granted from Wales Government. That was facilitated by Flinshire Council. I've been involved in that on a regional level. That's been allocated now across the 6.0 Wales authorities. 2.3 of the report sets out the background to that. There is a slight 4% chance that some services may be at risk, but we are running. We decided across North Wales that we were going to run with a slight risk because we didn't want to diminish public transport across North Wales and all the 6 authorities supported that approach. So there may be an issue later on in the year, depending on bus costs, but we're hoping that we're going to report back to regional level in July. So that's the first part of the report. The second part of the report is to update members where we are really with the 200,000 pound investment that we put into the local network last year, which was part of the report. And it says in the report there on 4.10, the routes, which I won't go through. And also contained in the report under 4.13 is the patronage level to date since we introduced the evening services, which was part of the agreed program approved by the executive board. You can see there, service 3 to service 44, the patronage level from December, January, February, March, both for weekdays and Sundays, some of which are really good and others are slowly picking up. But generally, the patronage has been really good. So the first phase really was of the executive board report was to introduce the quick wins really, and we did that from December. And overall, I think generally the patronage level and the evening services have been well received, and we haven't had any negative feedback. In fact, we've had quite a lot of positive feedback from the introduction of them services that diminished some time ago. The other part of the report is obviously the budget in 5.2, just to remind members really that we invested 200,000 for local bus services in 2324. And we have got a further £200,000 as part of this year's budget, so the total investment for the network then would be 400,000 plus the money we get from wealth governments, which would take it up to about 800,000. So going back a few years ago, members will remember we never contributed at all to bus services. We only used to take the wealth government money, now we're much funding wealth government funding now, pound for pound effectively, because they put 400,000 pound in and we're putting 400,000 pound in. The next step really in the network is what we do with the additional 200,000, but that's in line with the executive board reports if members are aware. We took a report. The first one was to make sure that the services were sustainable and viable going forward and you can see in 4.13 that the evening services on the routes that were already existing are continuing to improve. The next step is to look at some of the rural communities, so we give a commitment to the exact board to look at some of the rural communities to see whether we can improve public transport in some of the rural communities. So officers are currently looking at some routes now, there's no decision being made where the additional money is going to go, but officers have been tasked to look at where we can improve services, especially in the rural communities. That is quite difficult because the cost of running bus services is not cheap, costs have increased significantly, and I know 200,000 sounds a lot of money, but in this day and age it's not significant. So we are looking at that. I can't give you any details, because to be fair, we've only just approved the new budget in this financial year. I think overall, I think it's a positive report. It obviously supports our decarbonisation work, and I think it's just like to thank members as well, really, because a few years ago, the bus services in Raxam were crumbling, and now we're in a good position where we're building up the bus network now. It is a bit slow, but to be fair, I think it's been welcomed, you know, generally across across the council and externally with passengers alike. Yeah, and I like all that. I get a lot of excellent feedback from the village, and I'm sure many others are the same. Rachel, what a fetch, members? Nothing much to add, really, Chair, other than I suppose just to say that Councillor Bithill covered it there, but the process of allocating that bus network grant has been undertaken regionally, and that's taken an awful lot of work and an awful lot of time and been quite complex in terms of different local authorities going out to tender on different routes at the same time to make sure that we can take an overview of the entire pot of funding available. And I suppose what we didn't want to do was rush any decisions around the additional investment from Raxam Council without knowing where we were going to land up with existing bus services and the allocation of that regional pot of funding in terms of the bus network grant. So that's done, albeit with a 4% risk which we've committed to review in year. There's lots of permutations and ways that that can change throughout the year, so we'll keep a watching brief of that. And as Councillor Bithill said, the next thing then is to look at that additional £200,000, we've got this year and make sure that we're allocating it as effectively as we can. Thanks, Chair. I feel very much both of you. I've got Emma first, she's got to land up. Hello, I just wanted to know whether you are going to start looking at increasing services around peak hours. So where bus services are very busy and they maybe run every half an hour, whether that could be brought down to every 20 minutes, which I think would help to reduce traffic on the roads as well. Yeah, thanks for the question, Emma. I think at this stage, we're not looking at reducing some of the commercial routes down from 30 minutes to 20 minutes. I think we did take a report to the Executive Board and the Executive Board was quite clear that we would look to increase bus services where they've been lost. So 4.13 sets out some of the routes which are previously operated and they've lost. The next stage in the process is making sure that the routes that we've got are sustainable. And the second part of the commitment was to look at the rural communities because we've had lots of feedback over the last few years. People feel isolated in their homes and we need to make sure really that to be fair to rural communities that they get a fair share of the bus services as well. So I think we may be in a position, perhaps if we keep investing in public transport where we can reduce travel time down, but I wouldn't say it's a priority for the Council at the moment. I think people would rather have a bus service than a bus service every 30 minutes. Okay, can I just ask, looking at the figures at 4.13, David, if you look at some of them and outstanding, you know, like the one that we were pushing for, going up to Panakai and you look at the Monday to Saturday evening, 4,248, well, you know, that just proved to me that service was needed, you know, in a big way. And also the Sunday daytime, you know, 2, 3, 2, 0. And you're looking at the service 44 on a Sunday daytime, 3, 0, 8. Can I, I'm going to be a bit green here or appear to be green, but I'm looking at them figures. Would that be down to the frequency of the buses on each particular evening or Sunday, or as service 44 got the same amount of services per hour or half hour or whatever that service three years ago. And I'm just trying to get in my head while I figured is that small and the other is that large. Yeah, I mean, just, I think it's really difficult, really. Some routes, like the number three is being really, really successful. And then you look at the service 44 and the figures are not as good as obviously service three. So I think what we need to be bad in mind as well. We introduced these services part through December. So we've had January, February, March and we've had April and May. These are these figures are only till March. I think what you've got to do with any introduction of new bus service, you need to give it at least six months to see. On to public transport is really difficult to base a decision based on part three and a half months. You need to give it at least six months to see whether that service is viable or not. And it could well be that, you know, in six months time, then some of them services are not as good and we may need to come back to the table because clearly we're subsidizing these routes. We're subsidizing all them in 4.13. That's why we're able to get the figures because we're paying for them. You couldn't get the figures for commercial services because of, you know, that they belong to or even, and they wouldn't supply the figures to you. So I think you've got to give at least six months before you make any decisions. And it could be that we come back to say, well, listen, you know, some services are not as good as possible. And we may need to either alter the route. So I don't think it's about how many times they're operating. I think some services are obviously going to be better than others, really. But I would certainly give it six months. I don't know whether Rachel wants to comment. Yeah, I would agree that you need to give it a significant amount of time. I think one of the things to be mindful of is that we're not necessarily comparing apples with apples. So what we did with that first lot of investment was to add to additional services and those existing daytime and Saturday services weren't all the same across the board. So, for example, and I don't have the timetables in front of me, but if there is a route with a higher level of frequency and a higher level of usage during the daytime long standing timetable, you would expect that there's a higher population of people who are already used to that route, that bus, that journey, and being bus users to jump on evening bus. If you're talking about an area that's served less frequently anyway, and there's a lower patronage anyway, you're almost looking for new customers. So I think in any analysis that we do, it'll be partly looking at the complimentary daytime services that were already in existence and comparing their growth across the two, really. So it's a little bit more complex than just those figures there. Okay, and I do appreciate, you know, you haven't got the choice of operators that you had in previous time pre-COVID. There's a number of operators, sea-strading, and the difficulty there is great as opposed. But on the bright side, you're looking up from December to March, there's not one figure that's decreased. They're all going up, which is a really good sign, so I'm happy with that. We've got Jeremy. Yeah, thank you for the report. The problem we have down here is, David, that the service coming out of Rexham coming back to Bronnington and Hammer, the last service is at five o'clock in an afternoon. It means that people working nine to five can't use the bus service to get home. They can't get into Rexham in the evenings if they wanted to go on a bus and get back again. Is that something is likely to improve with this new funding? Yeah, so can I say that I'm aware of the 146 going back several years ago, the 146 was reduced and caught in funding. I think we are looking at the 146, we're also looking at the routes through Glencariot, down to Turk and via Vranta Sutley. They're them two routes, predominantly rural routes. I think what we need to do, though, is look at the patronage that we've got on them routes, currently, and see whether this scope to give you an example, the 146 operates four times a day. So the question is, do you increase that to six times a day? Is there a business case to increase that? So what I'd say, Jeremy, we're looking at it, and that's the decision, really, we need to judge, really. It's no good putting extra buses on if they're not going to get used. So I'm sure there's demand in some of them rural locations, but I think officers are doing some due diligence work on a number of routes. But what we did do, we give a commitment that we would look at rural communities. Stage one was to shore up some of our urban bus services, which we've done. Stage two was to look at the rural communities, but clearly, we've only got 200,000 extra. We can't put new routes on at this stage because 200,000 doesn't get here a lot. But what we can do is look at existing routes and extend existing routes like we've done with the evening services. And I think you get more value for money by doing the extension of services. Hopefully, when you look at the figures for service three, for example, if them figures continue to rise and rise and rise, it could be that the operator might decide, well, listen, it's fully commercial. And they might decide, listen, we don't need any subsidy to this now. It's paying its way significantly, and we can reduce the subsidy. I don't know, but you've got to give bus services a chance to operate. But certainly, we are looking at it. I can't say for definite, Jeremy, but we're looking at a number of options at the moment. Good to hear you looking at it, David. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jeremy. Paul? Sorry, thanks. Further to David's comment there about looking at existing services, I'm mindful that we operate a number of taxi bus services in the rural areas. Now, those in particular may have a lower take-up because of the type of vehicle being used on them. So, mindful of the large and most service, in particular, it used to be a proper bus on it. It's now more or less a mini bus, and many people don't see it as accessible. And it is a bit of inconsistency sometimes on the type of vehicle used on those services. So, I'm just wondering is there an opportunity here to improve the types of vehicle on those sort of smaller taxi bus services, and also consider increasing the number of days they operate. So, for example, that particular service only operates three days a week and three times a day. Well, that's no use to most people who require public transport because they need a service six days a week or five days a week. Thank you. Yeah, can I say, just in respect of the taxi bus, which is operated by taxis effectively, we are looking at them. Some are not value for money, I have to say, just to be honest. Some are really too expensive for the passengers that use them. Some are used, could we improve them? We could. So, to be fair, Andrew's looking at that. I do recall a few years ago there used to be bus services, and then we turned them into taxis because of the cost. But the caveat is what we can afford and what we can't afford. So, it is being looked at. I can't say any more than that really at the moment, but it doesn't mean that they're going to continue forever now. It might be in a different format. Thanks. Anybody else? Brian? Thanks for the good report. Just to look at the figures at 4.13 again, you could argue that service 44 is done better than service 3 on percentages terms. It was nearly 100% that it's gone up since December. But I asked a question in the pre meeting on how the 5.6 million was divided amongst the counties. And I was concerned about the 4% risk to the budget, but Rachel's already mentioned that. My figures were corrected. Something like a quarter of a million pound is a 4% risk. Obviously, there must be some confidence in that 4% will be managed. So, I also mentioned the fact that we never know where inflation is, do we? It's going the right way at the moment. How confident are you that we'll be able to, because it's not easy to go and pick up 225,000 is it? So, how confident are you on the budget? Again, how is the money split up between the 6.5? Is it by population? Oh, good. Yeah, so Rachel, correct me if I'm wrong, so it's a very complicated process, not all that I agree with. But the money was flinched under the bus emergency scheme, flinched with the lead authority. They were the lead authority on the bus emergency scheme. Since the bus emergency scheme ceased, this is probably the last payment from wealth government as of transitional funding. So, it hasn't been split up by authority, you know, on population or anything like that. It's been split up, in my understanding, on risk, on passenger services, the risk to which services in each authority. They scored in Red Amber Green. And then overall, we were £250,000 shot, effectively, i.e., that's the 4%. So, the North Wales cabinet members agreed to say, you know, nobody really wanted a bus services. So, they agreed to take the risk. The risk is approximately £200,000, £250,000. We've agreed to go back in July. If the contracts or prices have increased, then officers will come back to the cabinet members across North Wales and say, listen, we've got a problem here. You know, we need to address that. And then that would be readjusted via service reductions in the autumn. We're open, we don't get to that stage because we're opening all balances all out later on in the year, but there's always a risk. And that's why we put it in the report. I don't want to mislead you. There is a risk. There's always a risk. Paturing age or the financial contracts don't meet in with that envelope. But we're confident that we can. Officers are confident, and we'll have a better understanding in July. Do you want to add anything there? Yeah, just to confirm what Councillor Biffle said really, in terms of how that exercise took place, just to be clear that the funding available was to support existing services. So we weren't starting from a blank page and saying, here's the allocation for each local authority within the region. We were looking at the existing bus network. Each local authority then respectively, where tenders needed to be renewed, went out to tender. While those tenders were out, officers worked together across the region to sort of rank the existing network based on a number of factors in terms of number of passengers, linking of strategic sites, et cetera, et cetera. To come up with that red amber green, in the fear, I suppose, that we might have been in a position once the tender cost came back, that we couldn't fund everything. And we would have then been looking at a process where those that were ranked as least significant, least important across the region would have been the first to fall off. As so happens that once the tender exercises were complete, that gap of 250,000 is what we're left with. I think in terms of that risk, the agreement at the region was, there's a number of ways that the contracts can be let. So some of those involve the operator receiving the cost of delivering the contract and they keep the revenue from fares. Some of them work the other way around where the local authority carries the risk of there not being many passengers or if there's more passengers, the local authority keeps the revenue from fares. So depending on the type of contract that's issued and depending on the performance of those services, it may be that there's more money back in the pot from fair revenue than we anticipate, which would go towards that 4% gap. So I think that's why there's just a little bit of time to let services settle in and see where we are at kind of a midpoint in the year. But I would expect then that the plan would be once we get to the midpoint of the year and have some surety about whether that 4% remains at 4%. We revisit that prioritisation exercise to see if we need to make some changes to services to account for that 4% gap. We start with those that we've already identified as being the least significant. Hope that helped. Good luck, John. Yeah, thanks. I think we're coming close to the end now, but just to echo what Paul's mentioned about obviously comments in the village as well. And I'd like to echo that with some of the comments that I've had from Pentecai. They've all been extremely positive and it gives residents further opportunities now to visit the hospital where they couldn't do before to visit friends and family of a Sunday and an evening as well. And obviously visit the city centre and come back on public transport. So it's a positive story. And it's all about building blocks as well. This is the first stage. It's the second stage coming, et cetera. So it really is good. And I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank the colleagues, officers, Rachel and Drew. And more so with David as well because I know he's been heavily involved with this. And I think his input has ensured that we've got to where we are today. So a huge thank you to the Council of Bristol. And long made to continue. So thank you very much. Thank you Paul. All I can say is at this moment in time as Council of Bristol knows I've had problems in hermitage, but thankfully we didn't manage to get a service back on stream. It's a very positive report. I'd like to thank the two officers for their support in relation to the 200,000. We're in the second need of the 200,000. Answer question really to both officers. Whether they can answer the question because none of us know about the future halls. But I'm pretty sure the question is in relation to. Once this second year has finished, can we have your assurances that you will continue in the fight to maintain the subsidies that you've currently got bearing in mind the financial constraints that the Council find themselves in. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Crystal Ball of David. Yeah, let's now be as open as I can. What I would say when we put the first 200,000 pound, that was the first time that we put that forward. And to be fair, everybody, you know, the administration supported that. The second 200,000, which was this year's budget to be fair, I think everybody in the room supported that, including, you know, the labor group. So everybody supported the 400,000. What I can't do. I can't give a commitment because I don't know where we are. As everybody knows, we've got to say 28 million pound over the next two years, my personal view. And I'll take a step back really go back to 2012. The decision was made back in 2012 to make cuts to quite a lot of services or 2014 and bus services were cut because we were chasing money. And it's turned out we've come back and put all the money back effectively into public transport. Given the climate emergency and the emergence of people wanting to travel on public transport, I would all that elected members would support the continuation of the 400,000. But that's not in my gift. I can make the case, but that's in your gift, not my gift. That's David. You want to come back real? Yeah, well, thanks. Thanks for an open and honest answer. I know it's not in your gift, but as an individual, right? I will support you in the period in less than what you can achieve in 12, 18 months time, whatever the case may be. Thank you. Any other members could be, I think we've got Rob Walsh here and I think Rob wants to come in. Any members would praise Rob? No. Holy boot, Rob. OK, thank you very much, Chair. Actually, I don't have a lot to add, really, because I think the only questions I had to ask have been asked and also without that prompt, Councillor Bittle has given an answer to one of the questions I would have asked. Anyway, I just want to really just say, I think it's an excellent report and I think we're going down the right route. And I can care with what Councillor Phillips had long made this continue. That's it for me, Chair. Is there anything else before we go forward with the recommendation? No. I've done a note. I don't know whether you'll agree with what I put down. I'd like to thank the officers and the lead member for the amount of work that they've put into this. And it's made a significant amount of benefit to people in rural areas and in the town centre. Like I said earlier, our ward up there and John's a punkie roast. It's been a hell of a boost, you know. And every comment is complementary, nothing, you know, nothing untoward. I'd like to ask for further information report in six months. For members to gauge the use and to look at hopefully not a possible shortfall of funding. And to have an update on any proposals for rural services as stated in 2.5. I don't know whether that will be possible in about six months now. I'll leave it with you. Yeah, can I say I've got nothing against them recommendations? We can come back in six months to give an update where we are on performance. We can come back and give an update on the regional situation. I'm sure by them we'll have an update on that. Just in terms of the proposals, what I would say, we have got an agreed decision from the exec board for the 200,000. That's already agreed by the executive board that the first stage would be to shore up services. The second stage is to look at enhancing where we can and look at some rural communities. So we're going to try and do that. And we might do that before the six months, but we can bring that back as well. Because that decision has already been made at the exec board. It was a two-year plan. Thank you. Thank you, Jay, just for my benefit, really. Just to ask the committee, when we talk about an information report, that would be one that will generally go out to all members and report back to the committee. Are we OK with that? Has anybody got anything to add to them recommendations? Are you happy with them or are you happy? OK. Can I have a show of hands in? Just for clarity? OK. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thanks both and have a good afternoon. Thank you. And Rob. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]