Transcript

First Environment, Overview and Scrutiny Panel of this term. I'd just like to welcome everyone for attending. And I am going, as Natalie is here, I'm going to rob a thing from your panel I saw at Children's. And if we could all go around and introduce ourselves as it's the first panel, I think that would be a good thing to do. So I'm Councillor Josh Robinson, Chair of this committee. I'm Councillor Matthew Jones from the St. John's Division. I'm the voice chair. Bill Hopkins, Divisional Councillor for St. Chad's in White Forest. Councillor Matthew Jenkins, I'm subbing for Louis Stephen today, he's away, but fellow Green, but I'm a different part of Worcester. Thank you. Carl Perks, County Councillor for Stoutport, Riverside and Army Kings and CMR for Highways and Transport. Rachel Hill, Acting Strategic Director for Economy and Infrastructure. Emily Barker, Head of Planning and Transport Planning. Sarah MacDonald, Senior Finance Business Partner for Environment, Economy and Corporate. Dave Corbett, I'm Performance Lead in the Performance Services Team. Natalie McVeigh, Malvern Hills Councillor, but just here to observe today. Councillor McEarsey, Representing Broadway Division. Councillor Linda Robinson, Presenting up to the Salisbury Division in Wicherville. Councillor Ante Upton, District Councillor for St. Barnabas in the White Forest. Alison Swirls, Scrutiny Officer. Samantha Morris, Interim Democratic Services Manager. Thank you all, and I say thank you to all the officers for attending, and to yourself, Councillor Perks, for being here. I understand Councillor Cresswell sent his apologies for this meeting. Have we got any apologies and non-substitutes, please? We have, so we've got apologies from Councillor Louis-Steven and Councillor Matt Jenkins is substituting. Councillor Gaynor-Jean Louis, Councillor Hannah Robson, and you've mentioned CMRE in Cresswell. Thank you, and is there any declaration of interest or party whip? Okay, so there is, from me, I declare that I work for National Highways, who are mentioned only briefly in the streetscape design, and as a, just a bit of interspection, and I've took advice, and I'm able to stay in for that part of the agenda. And then on the final bit on the work programme, we have a discussion about whether we want to talk about Applied Highways England in here, which is now known as National Highways, and for that part of the meeting, that will leave the room while the panel discuss that item. Is there any public participation? No, Chairman. And if we could just go on to the minutes, I have some bits to read, apparently. I acknowledge that this is the first meeting of the panel since the elections, and therefore we were not members of this panel, which went on the 6th of March, 2025. May I still sign, as a correct record, the minutes of the meeting, which was held on the 6th of March, 2025? Yep. Okay, so if we move on to Agenda Item 5, of the Streetscape Design Guide, and if I could hand over to Rachel Hill or Emily Barclitch. Yeah, Emily. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So just to give a brief overview of the Streetscape Design Guide. So why do we have a Streetscape Design Guide? So it sets out the detailed guidance and expectations and requirements for the local highway authority, i.e. Mr. County Council, for anyone proposing development which will impact the highway and transport infrastructure. And that has to comply with legislation and national guidance. It primarily covers both Planning Acts and also the Highways Act. So the current adopted Streetscape Design Guide dates from 2018. And that has been subject to some minor updates and amends over the last few years. And those have been done under delegated powers. However, there have been some significant changes, particularly in legislation, which required us to review the Streetscape Design Guide. Just a couple of three to mention. National Planning Policy Framework, which has been amended in 2023 and then at the end of 2024. Local Transport Note 1 of 20, which covers active travel, both pedestrians and cyclists, and the Environment Act 2021, which brings significant changes to a lot of legislation around biodiversity, nature's recovery, change of responsibilities around air quality. So the time was right to review the whole document. So what are the aims of the Streetscape Design Guide? It's to make streets and a highway that's accessible, safe and practical for all users, in line with the national guidance, which is that pedestrians and active modes are considered first. Then passenger transport. Then cars. And like goods vehicles with HGVs, heavy goods vehicles are considered last. So that's the national hierarchy within which we must work. We want to contribute to attractive places with high quality design, easy to maintain and built to last. Enhance local areas and respectful to heritage. And any existing conservation designations. And use the highway and our verges, et cetera, to contribute to green space, make the most of green infrastructure. And where we can contribute to habitats for biodiversity and ecology. So we set out a whole range of topics in the Streetscape Design Guide. I'll just run through the highlights and the headlines, really. Access layout and connectivity. Standards on road space allocations. Parking provision. Trees and landscaping. Street lighting. Active travel. Passenger transport, which covers things like bus stops, school drop-offs. Drainage and sustainable drainage systems. And requirements and processes for creating a streetscape suitable for adoption. And that latter point is quite critical. Because we need to ensure that if highways, roads, streets are being put forward to the County Council for adoption, that they are built to the correct standard. And that we're not incurring excessive cost to the public purse for either rectifying them or for having to undertake maintenance in advance of when we should have to undertake maintenance when they're well built. Also ensures that when they do come up for maintenance, that they're built of appropriate materials that are easy for us to source, et cetera, and to replicate the standard. So what process have we been through with a review of the Streetscape Design Guide? The draft has been to Cabinet, and it was approved for consultation in late 2024. The consultation was for 12 weeks from November 2024 into the end of January 2025. That took account of, obviously, the Christmas and New Year period when less people are available. And that was through online surveys for the public and for developers, land turners, district councils, and anybody else who was interested. And then we also held a series of workshops for which we invited to them, particularly the developers, land turners, and their agents, so it says that we could get any detailed feedback that they wanted to give on the document. Following the consultation, we've then been reviewing the themes that came up and the comments that were made. Now, there were a number of key themes that came up from the engagement exercise. There was quite a lot of comment around biodiversity, green infrastructure, use of street trees. There were also quite a lot of comments around safety, active travel, making sure that streetscapes were suitable for people to use them in that way with adequate provision. Developers were perhaps concerned with slightly different things in the general public. They were concerned with viability, that they could deliver the designs that were expected, and that there was some flexibility around the use of, for example, design codes, particularly with reference to the very big developments that might come forward, such as urban extensions or obviously the proposal for the new settlement at Worcestershire Parkway. There was comments on street lighting, both in terms of ensuring that street lighting was suitable for the public to move around, but also in connection with roles and responsibilities around biodiversity, particularly around bats, et cetera, and ensuring that we got the balance right. And there were also comments on viability as well from developers, ensuring that proposals worked alongside the viability of developments. So we've undertaken some amends to the streetscapes design guide following that consultation. There have been no significant changes, but there have been amends, particularly to clarify points where perhaps clarification wasn't clear when people were reading it as to what we were looking for. There's been an increase in the use of diagrams to set out visibility displays, to set out the road space requirements, to set out parking requirements. There is a street lighting design guide that sets out the requirements for street lighting and how we expect developers to bring that forward and the things that they need to consider. There are still some pieces of work outstanding which will form further documents that aren't embedded within the streetscapes design guide. The streetscapes design guide makes reference to them, but they will be separate documents. And the principal ones of that, one of those is on commuted sums, which is the funds that we will expect developers to pay for future maintenance. The streetscapes design guide embodies that as a principle, but the detail of that will be in a separate document. And the reason for that is because it will require annual update to reflect changes in cost of materials, etc. There may also be some further work required on trees in the highway and which trees are suitable and links to further advice on guidance on that. But again, that will be a separate document reflecting the national approach to that. So to conclude, following this meeting today, and depending on what comes out of this, the decision to adopt is delegated now to the cabinet member with responsibility and it is envisaged that that will take place later in the summer under the record office of executive decision. And then we will publish, subject to that, we will publish the streetscape design guide on our website later in the summer. It will be published in chapters rather than as a single document and that is to make it much easier to use for the public, the developers, etc. rather than having a huge document that's about 100 pages long, I think. It will also aid us if we want to do a minor amends to it before it comes back for, at some point subsequently, for full revisions. In terms of full revisions, we haven't set a formal timeline. We didn't feel that was appropriate. What we have said it would be probably need revisions indicatively every five years, but that will depend on other matters, such as revisions to national legislation again. Thank you. Thank you and I'd just like to invite Councillor Carpherts if you have anything to say on it. Nothing that would add to what Emily said. Thank you. Thank you and I'd look to some questions that we have. I'll start with Councillor Matthew-Jair. Yes, I have one question, Councillor Carpher. If I could ask the question, be in your opinion, please. How does the new guide align with the administration's focus on practical, visible improvements? I think my response to that would be the ethos of our party is family, community, country. This is putting the community into those new developments that is taking consideration of the greenery, biodiversity, the ease of transport links. And so, in that fashion, I would say it aligns quite strongly. Thank you. Just to follow up a little bit on that, if possible, this whole street scout design, obviously, was with your predecessor. I'm just wondering if, I mean, this whole document, is there anything that you would have wanted to say different or changed? Within the document itself, there's little in the way that I would look to change. I think one point, and this has been discussed with us as a team, is the number of respondents. I think the level of returns that we had, especially from members of the public, which is only 37, 38, sorry, is too low. And that speaks to how it was communicated in future. The onus absolutely sits with us as councillors to ensure that it is sent and reached to the people of the county. Actually, 600,000 populists, 101 returns, it's very poor. Thank you. And on that note, I'll bring Anthony in on about consultation. Yeah, thank you, Chair. To be honest, Emily and Councillor Carpenter have probably answered most of my questions anyway. But the one thing I wanted to ask is, is this a mandatory thing? Do we have to do this? Because on the Mr County Council website, the document is a guidance. So is it mandatory that we have to do this or is it just for our own purpose? It's not mandatory. We do not have to do this. However, it puts us in a stronger position if we do so. And the reason that it puts us in a stronger position is because it sets out the guidelines of our expectations, in particular of how we would expect developers to bring forward highways and the streetscape. If we don't have this, we will have less control over the designs and the proposals that they bring forward. So negotiations with them would likely take longer. It's also material consideration at planning. So it puts us in a stronger position. It puts us in a stronger position around ensuring that the designs that the developers put forward are not just suitable in terms of their visual impact, but also safety, which is obviously critical, and also in terms of our future maintenance of them. Because if developers put forward proposals either that aren't suitable because of the materials that they're proposing to use or their construction techniques, it puts us in a much stronger position to be able to turn around and say, this is not something that the county council would accept, stroke adopt, if they want us to adopt. And therefore, we can refuse to do that if they do not follow the guidance in the streetscape design guide. But it is only guidance, as I've said, in situations such as very large settlements, for example, or very large planning applications where there is a design guide. It might be that we would work with the writers of the design guide to have a look at what could be taken on board in that particular settlement. So it's guidelines, it helps us very much. Thank you, Emily, thanks for that. Just the question of, obviously, a poor response to 101 people. I mean, is there anything that we can do going forward on this that's going to make this really far more effective than it has been? I think in terms of a completely take on board what Councillor Perks has said, it's a difficult subject for the wider public, because it's quite a technical document. So I totally agree that from the wider public, there hasn't been a huge amount of engagement. But it is a very technical document, so it is quite difficult. We did produce a specific survey to try and make it as easy as we could. But in terms of the development industry, we have had quite good engagement, both from developers themselves and the likes of, many of whom, names that you'll know, Taylor Rimpie, the person and the history homes, many of you will be familiar with those from your individual divisions, but also from their agents, also from the land turners, the likes of Wellbeck Land, who buy sell, get commission and sell them on. And also from Homes England, who've been, and they came to a specific workshop so that we could have some discussions. We've also had engagement from the district councils as well, because obviously, because this affects planning, it is of interest to them. So we've had responses. It's been shared with all the district councils and we have had responses, which Aidan indeed asked to come to a specific workshop, which we put on specifically for them. Okay, thank you for that. I have more questions, but can I let somebody else have a go? Emma. Chairman, thank you. Yes, quite a few points to go back to, which I'm sure Emily is probably expecting from me. But before I do that, just a question to Councillor Jones, if I may. Clearly, you've been provided with a script, which I'm thinking that we might be seeing more of. But just really to understand more about your question around practical, visible improvements, I can't say I actually understood the question. Could you give us a bit more? Could you expand on that for us, please? Sorry, sorry. Just a little bit. Sorry, a little bit confused. The answer to the question of the vice chair is. Is that a question you want to ask to? But we're here to ask the question, sorry, of officers and the cabinet members. I mean, if he wants to answer the question, he can answer the question. But if we're all asking questions of each other, we'll be here all day, I believe. I think it's best to have the questions asked to officers and the cabinet member who will have the influence to be able to change things on it. OK, thank you. So, Emily, you've spoken in detail, obviously, about the streetscape, particularly around consultation and with the district councils. As you're aware, Witchaven has been extremely proactive in creating a design code, which obviously is very different to a design guide, because a code is exactly a code that it needs to be adhered to. And it's been very proactive as one of the few local authorities across the country that have created a design code and put extensive investment into that. And the idea behind that, which is particularly coming to fruition with the level of development that Witchaven is now needing to provide, but it's really designed to be an exemplar code to really create a sense of place for people. And as you'll be aware, Witchaven have engaged with developers, which I'm pleased to say that I was actually at some of those engagement sessions, and developers, I expected them to query things in the design code because they would say that they weren't viable. It was actually completely opposite. The developers very much welcomed everything that was within the design code, but their biggest problem and concern was that based on the streetscape, as it was, and I'll come on to in a minute the consultation, it meant that they could adhere to the design code, but then immediately not be able to have their roads adopted, which obviously developers don't want to have that case going forward as they build developments. So, at point 12, you confirm, as you've said, that Witchaven had a further workshop, but we then go on to say that there's been no substantive changes. So, I'm just concerned, really, is that where we sit with the streetscape to know where that would put the likes of Witchaven with their design code that it's been invested in heavily, because all we need is the first planning application to go in, and the developer can show that they don't need to adhere to the design code because it's not then viable to have the roads adopted. So, yeah, we did work extensively with Witchaven because, as you said, they have got a design code. So, following the workshop, there was discussion between us all, and we think that we've come up with something that meets the needs of Witchaven's design code and something that meets the needs of the streetscape design guide because there were elements of each that didn't quite marry up. So, there's been some tweaks to the design code. There's been some tweaks here as well. So, we have made changes. They're just not substantive changes where we've put in whole new things, which is perhaps what I meant by saying there haven't been any substantive changes. We haven't put in anything that was completely new. But we have made tweaks, and we have also said that where necessary, for example, if there's a need for innovation, etc., that that is something we will consider. It's also the case that sometimes developers do not want their roads adopted. It's not that common, and it's normally confined to perhaps very small developments, but we do sometimes come across that as well. And obviously, if developers aren't looking to have their roads adopted, then they have much more flexibility. Thank you, Emily. So, can you give me the assurance largely then that, because obviously the design code hasn't yet been adopted, because as you say, it's gone back for further reiterations on it. So, can you give me the assurance then that, as the streetscape stands at the moment, with changes to the design code, that you are happy that the design code could be adopted and developers would be able to have their roads adopted? Because I think, and certainly for Councillor Perks' benefit, really, the design code at Witchaven was far, far closer to residents. So, we have three lots of consultation in three different parts of the district where it was full-on residents' involvement, what they liked about design, what they didn't like about design. It was very much resident-centric, really. And that's how the design code was formed, which is why, you know, we feel passionate at Witchaven to make sure that the design code would be able to go forward. So, can you give me that assurance, Emily, that that would be the case? That is my understanding as we sit here today. But what I'm going to say is that I will take that away. I will double-check with officers at Witchaven. And if there are any outstanding issues, then absolutely we will seek to resolve them. Linda? Thank you. Emily, a couple of things that you said. Is it all right, then, to call this document a draft document, subject to adoption? Because I think there are members of the public that would like to be aware of its existence. You know, they're not. And the other thing is, you mentioned that it's only guidance, even when it is adopted. So, what strength will it have in the legislative terms? So, it is a draft. So, the draft went out for consultation. We've now made the amend. So, probably the best way I put it, it would be a draft final document. Obviously, Councillor Perks will want to go through it. If there's anything before we sort of move to adoption and following this meeting. So, there is an opportunity for, you know, tweaks, et cetera. And it will only ever be guidance. And it can only ever be guidance, if I'm honest. It has got material weight in planning terms. But, a document such as this cannot cover every single eventuality. So, although it has weight in planning terms, there may be situations where we need to, you know, something comes forward that none of us have anticipated. So, you know, there is a little bit of flexibility in there. Obviously, if it's a safety matter, that is a completely different situation. But, which is why we're saying there's still opportunities for innovation. We will still be looking, particularly around the very big developments, where there's design case, design guides, to slot the two together. Thank you. Well. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the report. I've kind of got a very broad question about, obviously, saying the report will be reviewed again in about five years. But my concern is maybe that potentially it's already out of date or it comes out that it needs to be more of a living dog. I mean, we've had today, top of the BBC news, about the Met Office report on the state of the UK climate. And, obviously, we've been through about three heatwaves. So, talked about trees. Obviously, the need for tree cover is getting more and more important. You know, it's a high street without any trees. And that becomes almost unbearable. And no one will walk on there. Damage, not good for shopkeepers, etc. So, and then we've got, so it's basically got, it's just going to be more extremes, isn't it? More flooding, more droughts, more heatwaves. And it's happening much faster than even the scientists were thinking maybe five, ten years ago. So, it seems to me that maybe this document needs to be almost looked at. Not immediately, I admit that, but looked at again to come and say, well, actually, how are we actually managing this? Because these things are just happening far quicker. And even, you know, a green person like me was even thinking ten years ago, it's just, you know, temperatures that are predicted for 2050 are happening now. So, it's more about how can we do that, then how can we look at this again, make it more of a living document to it in light of that whole, you know, climate emergency. Thank you. I'll just give a brief answer on that, and then I'll defer. In the initial introduction that I had, it was picked up and spoke about that there is a need for it to be a living, breathing document. There is, however, a need for standardisation, because otherwise, without, with constant change, nobody would know what code it is that they're working to, which I know you understand. So, yes, you're absolutely right, and it is something that we discussed, as I say, in my initial briefing. But there is a very large need for standardisation within that dynamic approach. And perhaps just to add to that, one of the other advantages of publishing it chapter by chapter onto the website is it does mean that we can pull a single chapter, subject to agreement, that we can pull a single chapter for review without having to review the whole document. And there is some, the Cabinet delegation, when we went in October, does give us some limited power to make tweaks against through the Cabinet member. Yeah, thanks for that. I think it's going to be needed, but particularly around that whole kind of how a street can be in this, you know, changing climate. And obviously, also I'll ask maybe more of a political question, but obviously we have a net zero target as well, and probably the design of streetscapes can help in meeting some of those, kind of reaching that target in terms of, you know, promoting active travel, making it easier for people to walk and cycle, therefore they don't have to drive, because obviously an issue is, if you're building lots of, you know, being asked to build lots and lots of housing, you know, that's a government directive at the moment, what we don't want is lots of housing where the only means of transport is a car, because even with electric cars, they still use up more energy than someone who's walking and cycling. So it's how we can tie that target in, which we have as a council, into this design. Well, that's the question or not, but yeah, thank you. I think it's common knowledge that as we form, we do not stand with net zero. However, what I would say is I've already made it clear that there is a big push to expand on the current working for the on-demand bus service and infrastructure for any new development. The two are intrinsically linked, but there's no need for it to be overly politicised. The standing of net zero is well known as two is my push for better infrastructure across the county. Just to come back in on that one, it is the council's policy for net zero. So I think what Councillor Jenkins were saying was that how do we, how is that being married up into this street-side design? It was aimed as a political question, Chair, which was aimed at me as a member of reform. I answered as such. From the council's standpoint, we're absolutely working to enhance the infrastructure, which will have its linked benefits that I referred to. However, the question was aimed at me as a member of reform, and I answered as such. I think we all, if someone's asking a question, it'd be good to let the person finish that question before we interrupt. So as a council, our policy is on net zero. That is currently still our policy. Can I ask how that is mitigated into the street-skate design, please? So in terms of elements of the street-skate design guide that will contribute to that, obviously, there's a number of them. The first being perhaps provision of infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, active travel, walking, cycling and wheeling, as it's sometimes known. So we've set out requirements for that in all new development. We've set out the, the designs that are needed, the design specification that's needed for that. And as I said, the movement hierarchy is always that pedestrians come first and cyclists, and so we go on through the hierarchy. And it is expectation that all new developments contribute to active travel, so they all include provision for that. We've also got options in there in terms of highway verges, how they are used, including street trees, and there could be other treatments that come forward that not only contribute to providing greater shade and improving flood risk, but also, sorry, I've lost my train of thought slightly, sorry. Yeah, so we've also got various treatments in that that are suitable for verges that include street trees and also include enhancements for biodiversity. And they could be very simple things like how frequently the grasses mown, so instead of mowing it every two weeks throughout the summer, it's left to go longer, which is an enhancement for biodiversity because it attracts more insects, et cetera. In terms of the other element, which is sustainable drainage, different highway verge provisions do contribute to sustainable drainage, although the council or council as a whole does not adopt sustainable drainage from developers, sustainable urban drainage from developers, but there is the option in there to look at different treatments for highway drainage. Thank you for that. I have one really specific question before I come back to Bill. if you want to ask your question, but I've got a specific question first on page 138 of the drafts, stripped out design on primary and secondary schools. You have one space per member of staff and then for further and higher education it's one space per two members of staff. I really don't understand why they would be different. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So for primary and secondary schools we would expect one space per member of staff but then for further and higher education we would expect one space per two members of staff and I don't understand the difference because it's still all the drive room at the same rate so it's all adults are. Thank you. So the reason for that is because at further and higher education there's a greater propensity for not just the staff to drive to locations to receive, it's also the case that we get students who may attend and arrive at the facility by driving. Sorry, but this is specifically on the staff isn't it? So if you had a college on its own I don't understand how that would be different from a secondary, a high school, sorry. Why you'd have a different number of spaces needed for a high school than you would need for a college. Yeah, I think we'll take that one away. Thank you, if you don't mind. Did you want to ask a question there? Yes, I was very pleased to understand the fact that this is purely a guide. Could you explain to me 106 monies, where do they originate from? How much guidance does Westerfield County Council have in ascertaining the amount of 106 monies? And how much does the government have? Thank you. So section 106 monies are all derived from developers, sometimes referred to as developer contributions. So there is national legislation on when section 106 contributions can be sought. And it's to offset the impact of development. So to mitigate development. What section 106 contributions cannot do is to solve an existing problem. It is about whether development will either exacerbate that problem or create a new one. So it is about mitigation. And it is generally, they are generally taken for infrastructure. Now, section 106 agreements are entered into post a grant of planning permission. And then it once signed, it is a legal document. And the triggers for receiving the funding will be set within that document. And depending on the size of the development, there can be several triggers. The size of the development can be several triggers within that point for points at which the County Council will receive the funding. Thank you. Yeah, answer there. Thank you, Chair. The next question is regarding the provisions for things like footways for pedestrians, cycle lanes, or so in some cases equestrian requirements. But I don't see anything in the docket that covers safe play areas, safe areas for children on these questions. Now, obviously, I can understand it's only going to probably apply to big developments, but are children not sort of considering this report at all in those respects of having safe areas so they don't have to wander down the streets, et cetera? So, play areas for children would be covered by the district councils as part of a planning application, so it wouldn't come into the streetscape design guide per se. What we would look for with any play area is that it is well connected with footways, et cetera, to allow the children and their parents to get there in safety, but play areas themselves are a district council matter. Thanks. But in rural areas, how do you bring this into a new development that's in a rural area and there are no parks or facilities around that development? So, depending on the size of the development and I have to get the detail of that from district council colleagues, they will set a requirement for the standard of play area that the number of houses requires and then if the development is of a sufficient size, then it would need to be designed to incorporate the play area and the movement strategy for that particular development would look to provide the links into that. But I can get those details from the district as to what the thresholds for the different design play areas are, if that helps. Thank you, Chair. I've got one question for any one of the officers or Councillor Carl Perks, if you could answer. The design guide has had a lot of work put into it and it's clear that you want developers to comply. What mechanisms are in place to ensure that they do comply with it? So, there's a number. So, the first one would be when a developer submits an application to the district for housing or employment. Highways are a statutory consultee, so that application would come through to us and the highways development management team would review the application and they respond with comments back to the district having comprehensively reviewed the application. So, they will be looking at that point to ensure compliance with the streetscape design guide. internally we have a process of consultation through all the different teams that are affected. So, we've got the highways development management team who would leave but then we'd also be talking to our passenger transport team and the highways development control team sometimes known as the 27838 team. So, we consult internally as a few of us as well. So, that would be our first point and if somebody if the developer is putting forward schemes which just do not comply with the streetscape design guide and the indicative layout doesn't comply and we think there are safety issues having looked at their general arrangement drawings at that point we would object to the development. Subsequently and moving on if a development has been given some planning permission the detailed design of the streetscape then comes into the development control team the 27838 team who then look at it in great technical detail and it has to move from sort of general arrangements to specific drawings that set out the geometry the visibility displays etc. And if they are not suitable then we will not enter into formal 27838 legal agreements Very good thank you Thank you chair just a couple of hopefully quick questions on the EV charging I know it is coming to cabinet on Thursday so if it gets kind of adopted will it then almost immediately plug into this document they are both intimately linked first question Yes but a slightly yes but if you don't mind because this document is really sort of primarily focused at future development whereas the EV charging infrastructure which is coming to cabinet will be primarily about existing development Yeah that's fine that makes sense and the other one in this same area it's looking at the consultation obviously low numbers but one for you Carl because I know we've discussed 20 mile an hour because the next one down is about the broad support for 20 mile an hour and the interesting because obviously every new estate as far as I'm aware tends to be designed with the 20 mile an hour it's the way that it's made so you don't have to add any speed bumps or anything it's just designed to be 20 and I've got a few in my division but obviously none of them have got 20 mile an hour signs because our current policy so that's more of an example to Carl about why I'd like to get kind of this review of our speed kind of speed limits up and running and then finished again so those kind of examples the cost of putting the sign up is fairly minimal if there's a new estate and we adopt it and it's designed for 20 it should be easier to put in at 20 mile an hour so it's more of a plea to a really good example of how it is supported though with limited comfortable teams but yeah I don't know if that's a question Carl but I was going to ask if you could frame it as a question there's organic speed limiting built into the design whether that is twitchy 20 miles an hour or not is debatable I think suddenly if you reach 20 miles an hour that would be excessive the working group is being discussed but for the benefit of all I'll state again that there will be no changes unless it is backed by data so that will be my answer I've got a couple of other questions but is there anyone else who's got any questions so yeah one more and then yeah yes thanks just a general question where obviously you say things like planting trees to green spaces to improve air quality climate change and promote diversity biodiversity I mean how do you balance this on a green field site that you've taken away to build on is that a question again if there's more to be added I'll be fair but that relationship exists at district as to where planning is given for consent we are involved after the fact as part of that statutory review our voice doesn't need to be heard we give it and it is advised but planning is given by district not ourselves at county I don't want to wait until has everybody asked their questions because I realise I'm only a guest okay it's just a couple so the first one relates to I'm not sure if you're aware that the roads on Malvern Vale which is over 10 years old still haven't been adopted by the county council so and actually that does have its own child's play area right in the middle but please can we talk about why that is and come up with a solution as soon as possible because it affects residents it's something that I'm contacted about quite a lot and then secondly on Friday just gone 10 adults safely rode with 6 children to 2 primary schools in Malvern by way of our first bike bus so I wondered if you're committed to active travel options for children and young people and do you agree that they should form a part of a wider school street strategy especially when there's appetite from the school the parents and the children thank you so I'll just take the point about adoption we'll follow that up with our section 278 3018 and get back to you yeah I'll obviously answer the point on active travel again this seems to be a politicised point against the stance of net zero however I will okay well thank you for confirming it isn't yes it absolutely is a part of the wider view across Worcestershire what developments and very much is a part of the conversations that I'm having with offices not just around home school alternatives but in general about developments thank you I have just a couple of questions and I don't think this one will potentially come as a surprise to Emily but on on the street set design one of the things we have on A, B and C roads is that you if someone asks for a drop curb we wouldn't really like them to be either reversing onto that road if it's 3 mile an hour or the other way around but how does that match up with the beginning part of the street sex I was talking about the Equality Act so then we would go to our TROT if a resident wanted a disabled bag put outside their house because they don't have because they live on one of those roads and don't currently have a drive or drop curb I don't know how those two match up because if a resident applied for planning permission we would as the Saturday consultee sit there and say no because you can't turn around on the drive but our TROT would also say there's space for somewhere to build a drive so I just don't know how that matches up properly I think probably the best one is if we take that away because I know there specific circumstances with which you're concerned Councillor Robinson so I think we take that away because it is across the two teams between if you like highways development management but also the network control team and the TRA team and we'll come back to you with an answer okay thank you another one that's mentioned in there is about the use of mirrors and how we don't allow it but it's one of those ones that residents will contact councillors I presume quite a lot because they do to me and it seems like a common sense solution to them but there's a whole long list of safety reasons why we don't think it is do any other highways authorities across the country allow the use of mirrors are we following the trend or are we an outlier so in terms of the streetscape design guide this is we are focused on new development new development should not necessitate mirrors having to be put onto the highway because they are always a suboptimal solution because of the way they distort images vulnerability to the weather etc so we should never be allowing development to be built where you need a suboptimal solution of that nature obviously most of situations where we have allowed mirrors are where there is existing development and there are some issues and we know that there are issues where things have been permitted in the past that wouldn't now be permitted generally other local highways authorities do take a similar approach to ourselves they wouldn't permit them on new development in the case of retrofitting I'm not aware of anybody who's got a blanket ban but I am aware that nobody thinks it's an optimal solution okay thank you and if there's no more questions I think we've gone on time for something which is a remarkable achievement for my first bit of chair I think there were some recommendations that I think came out of that obviously that would speak to which havens to ensure that the design code was matched up and just a bit about the live it being a continued to be a live document so that we can continue to review this over time and then obviously that bit I requested about the difference in high schools and further education in terms of their parking but if I've missed anything else please shout at me now but if not I think we're happy and yeah thank you for that and we'll move on to agenda item 6 which is the performance and 24-25 draft year and budget monitoring and I will hand over to Dave I believe thank you chair thank you everyone the performance summary that starts in the pack of papers you have on page 19 where the contents are is also replicated on the outperformance page of the county council website so it's a dedicated power bi report the content is the same it's just obviously with power bi functionality is there for you to be able to look at the data in a different way and of course I think you mentioned that the induction meeting will retain the report in this format because it meets accessibility requirements as well but we'll always make sure both versions are available in terms of the content the report goes up to the end of the previous financial year so within that as well there will be certain other indicators where there's a further delay because some of those indicators such as the ones around waste condition of highways they will only be reported once a year the update might come perhaps two-thirds of the way through the financial year and that's the only major update what I've done is retained the layout that was used in the previous panel's last report how did take on board any sort of changes and one of the elements of that though was on page 20 there's three areas of success and three of challenge and I'd be honest that a lot of those they're not quite standing items in there but they wouldn't change too much because we know what the priorities are you've mentioned about what sort of almost coming into your inboxes or you get the most queries about and obviously a lot of those items there on the successes and challenges would condition of highways elements to do with recycling waste collection and so on but within that there's a couple of the figures to focus on was that where we've got something on both sides of the equation both the household waste and the reuse and recycling there was an improvement there in the latest set of figures which cover the 23-4 financial year so those percentages increased which is what we want and then an area of challenge in the sense that on the other side we've got where the amount of waste kilograms collected per resident has increased during the 23-4 financial year and the I suppose the challenge around that is the learning around that is really why is there any change whether it's good or bad in terms of the amount of waste that's collected what are the factors that impact on that do changes in economic conditions or the amount of packaging that's being used for all sorts of items now does that impact is there anything that we can do further through campaigns like less waste composting and so on that will further reduce that but in terms of the other elements in that report and in lieu of going through every single table in the report the public inquiries you hear it referred to as pens but it's the outstanding public inquiries where the amount was reduced and also not necessarily corollary of that but associated with that is the fact that the percentage of inquiries raised by members of the public the response of that there was more than 85% were responded to within the 28 days in the last financial year and that exceeds the service level agreement level but also the number of outstanding payments at the end of each month has been going down it is seasonal it can be subject to big increases if we have a major weather event in the winter equally this time of the year I'm not saying that the extreme weather we've got now won't cause an increase in reports for example of issues on highways but we tend to see less and the figure has come down March this figure at the end the number of payments outstanding was 870 and that was down from just over 1,000 it was 1,034 at the end of December and at the end of March the previous year it was 894 very similar figure but that's good it's nice if that figure can keep reducing but it's something that we can be subject to the winds and caprices of nature but also as well it's about what people report so we tell people please contact us so if we do see a big increase in the number of inquiries coming our way that might be a good thing because it means the message is getting across if you see something reported and then another area on the challenge side that's just as a reference was really on the public rights of way reports on the previous panel there was a focus there because the number of reports was consistently increasing there will be elements around that to do with vacancies in the team but also there's a prioritisation I think would go on in there so a lot of the as I mentioned in the text some of the increases will be relatively small from quarter to quarter but also some of the items that are raised are they don't want to be dealt with but they're not going to be ones that cause serious concerns for the safety of network users that might be to do with signage and signposting and waymarking and so on but the other elements as well it's a little bit the subject of how the data can come out I mentioned about manual updates we used to include the information about greenhouse gas emissions both the corporate ones and also the county generally outside the county council's control in the papers for this panel and also for the economy panel and I guess because obviously in there there's information about industrial emissions but I think the focus is that it should really appear under this panel reading it and funnily enough the other day there was an update from I think it's Net Zero Department for Net Zero and Energy Security as the annual update has just come out after these papers went around the amount of greenhouse gas emissions across Worcestershire as a whole not to corporate emissions that's a report that comes out in the late summer or the autumn each year from the sustainability team but the greenhouse gas emissions the long-term trend continues so the figures have gone down again across the county in terms of the amount per head of the population that's reduced but it's how meaningful that is as an indicator or it's a measure really because of so much of it is covering activity that's outside our area industrial activity emissions domestic emissions and also emissions on site that aren't owned by the county council but I think it's still meaningful to have it in here because their figures are often quoted in the press but it's another example of where an update only comes out once a year and in this case it came out just after the papers had been published I don't think there were any other major concerns that have been raised and the information is seen by the leadership team the graphs that go in from page 21 those are basically the ones that are lifted from the director leadership team monthly update so that's what they're seeing and that reflects a two-way conversation because some of those we've added to the director leadership team report because the panel previously had said we'd like to see this information and we want to make sure that obviously you're seeing what DLT is seeing and the other way around so we've included that but all of this it's in the content and the layout as I suppose the previous panel so I'm happy to take away any changes this panel may want now or in the future and any other queries I'm happy to try to answer them or to defer or to take away and come back to you with an answer thank you Sarah did you want to add anything or I've got me down on my notes since I passed to you if I can just help we normally take questions on performance then we'll pass to Sarah she'll do finance and then questions to Sarah is that okay every day is a small day so there you go thank you do you want to start a little thank you thank you chair I have a question for Carl and Councillor Carl if you could help you with this given pressure on reserves how do you anticipate that core highway services especially given what we have inherited as a council basically almost being bankrupt that we'll be able to deliver value for money without compromising quality or safety thank you thank you the majority of the services that are provided within my portfolio are funded through ring-fenced through ring-fenced monies and so there will be no well we're certainly not discussing it there'll be no shortfall in the services standard services provided nor safety element safety is a key aspect there our duty is to make the environment safe and not return to as was unless it's specified elsewhere in our agreement but irrespective of the council's financial standing there will be no deficit in our performance thank you chairman thank you yes I would like to ask councillor Perks a question in a similar vein to councillor jones although we clearly see the picture very differently so as we can see from the report and as we talk to residents you know every day really Worcestershire's roads are very highly thought of and the way that they've been maintained representing a division that is bordered by two other counties residents regularly say you know when you drive out of Worcestershire because the roads aren't as good and as we can see from the report it's one of residents top priorities and the previous administration has made sure that it's one of the previous administration's top priorities which is why we get such good feedback from residents and we always made sure that we're in the top quartile nationally so really to confirm I know that you've accepted obviously the budget and everything from the previous administration but to confirm that your priorities will be as residents priorities as was per the previous administration yes thank you councillor yeah just to reaffirm the budget has been accepted there has been no discussion on my part or that of the officers to reduce those services across the county so just to confirm is it still the council's policy that wants to keep highways in its top quartile currently is that still your policy that you want this is sorry to you sorry sorry it was to councillor perks it's a political part of the question is your policy still to keep that at the in the top quartile again thank you for the opportunity to answer the same question I think for the third time the aim of the council is to deliver the best possible service within the agreed financial position so whereas I don't feel that I can comment as to whether we will stay within that percentile the goal is not to move backwards by any means service delivery within that will be an element so too will other extreme factors be it hot cold wet but the goal is not to move backwards the goal is to continue to deliver the same excellent service thank you chair thanks for those answers similar question but more for officers just on that kind of maintenance budget it's kind is a revenue budget how much on the maintenance just the maintenance of roads and highways do we spend a year and what percentage is that roughly of our highways budget yeah I'll have to take away and look at percentages but the majority of maintenance is capital so it's DFT maintenance grant there is a small value that is revenue I'm going to say two million but I need to check that figure but the majority of the maintenance is full maintenance program is funded by the DFT grant another question around the point about household waste in the three good three bad bit so features in both so I was just wondering obviously over the coming years will council will be collecting food waste not quite sure when but that's the expectation is that will improve some of these figures so do we have any more idea around how that's going to be implemented when it's going to be implemented and then what impact do you think it'll have in terms of specific time frames no so we know it's coming obviously the collection of food waste is the responsibility of the district councils as the waste collection authorities and then our role as waste disposal authorities to dispose of that waste so there are there are government aspirations in terms of time frame however a lot of that is conditional upon funding as you would expect the exact difference it will make to our performance indicators not specifically clear but it wouldn't take too much to work that out however the challenge with food waste collection is always take up as we've seen in many other areas where they already collect food waste and also examples within Worcestershire where there have been food waste collections in the past it's around take up our drive really is to prevent it happening in the first place yeah follow back on that obviously yeah I know the one in was it which haven I think tried it but I suppose the point is because that was not a full roll out I suppose it is a different kind of scheme I suppose examples where it has worked there are some good examples I suppose it's how well you promote it and do it isn't it but I suppose if I know I think some of my colleagues at Worcester City are quite key to start collecting food waste but obviously the issue is if you're not going to dispose of it separately what will happen if say Worcester City collects food waste separately passes it to you what will happen to it if the food waste is collected separately then we will dispose of it it will go to anaerobic digestion we've got not necessarily firm arrangement but we've got some arrangements with a number of slightly out of county anaerobic digestion because there aren't the facilities in county so one's just over the border in Gloucestershire which is probably where the Worcester City food waste would go so absolutely if it's collected then we will make the arrangements for disposal and we've got those links to enable that that's great that's great to know brilliant one last one that's okay just about public rights of way so a separate one I've got one example in my division which is like argument over whether this tiny little footpath should still be a public right of way because people used it for years and it became a discussion because someone blocked it off it's well known to offices so it should be progressing it's just the fact that it got first raised with me before I was even elected as a councillor and I've been a councillor for 12 years so probably that's not a good example of how but maybe that's a good example of how slow the process is so how do we actually kind of improve that because it seems to be a lot of people say yeah it's kind of like there's a 10 year wait once you raise it there's a 10 year wait and that seems just crazy so it is it is a lengthy process around public rights of way in terms of the definition of public rights of way we do have some resource challenges in that area that don't help and we're currently working through those to think about what are the best ways of managing that including the role of volunteers as well so there's no magic silver bullet I don't think that will improve things from 10 years to something that people would see as as more reasonable but we are we are actively looking at resourcing in that area just to come back on what I'd also say over and above the resource constraints and the volunteers the schemes the programme is constantly under review and so it is prioritised unfortunately as has already been said it is a lengthy process and if there are those that are deemed as a greater priority it doesn't necessarily go in first in first out so if it is an issue and it hasn't been escalated I'd suggest that if it's within your ward you do so but other than that unfortunately as Hellspin said there is no quick fix just to come back in our public right of ways once we actually do the work do we go back and check to see that it's still the work that we left in so that is a long way and if we go and put a load of new styles in and make sure that they're to the standard we put them in do we go back at any point and have a look to make sure they are because you never want to waste that money Apologies can I take that away it's an area that's relatively new to me unfortunately I'll take that away and come back to you Thank you Chairman Councillor Perkis and I were in the same meeting last week for the local access forward and we do have representatives from the rights of way and football officers there and I was looking with interest at the work that the volunteers do and how many reports get resolved by then and I would just like to use this moment to stress that we have been told in previous meetings of that that they are struggling to get adequate training for these volunteers and many parishes are being held up they've got volunteers that want to go out and do the good work and they can't get the training but I know that one recently the training is coming through could we expedite that a little because it's in everyone's interest really thank you look at what we can do to expedite thank you possibly to Dave and really for all the panel hopefully will agree with me so we've got very comprehensive performance indicators which you said have been inherited to some degree from the previous panel as people have learned things and found their way around there's been several questions from new members with regards to planning now highways have a massive part to play in planning applications and obviously a statutory consultees for hundreds and thousands of planning applications so what I'd like to see within the dashboard or whatever that we see is the number of applications where highways have been a statutory consultee but also the time frames that they've responded so to know the number that have been responded within the time frame of the consultation there are quite a lot of cases where highways are the last ones to respond and quite often outside the consultation period which practically isn't an issue but because of its importance really I would like to see those figures to know how much is coming into highways and how quickly we're turning those around there sure if you can look at the data that's available on that and put that in as in the report for the future if there's any problem there and also all of the information the very detailed information developed there there's some graphs around the development control where it was devised I think where we had the dot graphs and that may be something that isn't great either so I might take a chance to include that but also perhaps just look at the way some of the other data there is presented thank you a quick question on pens when do you define it being complete the information that I'll get with the highways dashboard there's I could drill down it gives a bit of information about the current status and it's when it's been assigned and it's updated in the system that someone the office is concerned has said right it's completed then at that point the status just changes it either say it's been received or it's pending and the completion there and what we can do it'll give the date that that was updated to completed status and obviously then compare it to the date that it was actually first raised in the system so it's really a case of it being ticked off in a system as being on a highway dashboard system as being complete so if I gave an example of a drain being blocked resident says that drain's been blocked are we saying it's complete when the drain is unblocked or is it when we say it's on a four week order to be done it's really once that it's been judged that it's been completed and in the system it's been ticked off as well rather than a sort of thing as a particular judgment I guess it would still be the case that wouldn't stop anybody raising a further query about it but that particular case reference would then be regarded as completed but it could be a subsequent one that would be raised perhaps by a resident later on or even by an officer and inspector somebody going back to look at the work later but certainly from the point of view of the status it's once it's marked as completed in the system that's it sorry just just to clarify that so it's marked as completed when the drain is unblocked and how do we check that so I've had examples previously where you know you put things on and you'll get you'll get a response back from from highways to say you know we've reconfigured this road to make sure drainage is fine but the road's never been closed it's a single carriage one-way road so I don't understand how that could be possible so how do we check to make sure that these stats are worth to pay for the written answer just just ensure how do you check to ensure that the when it says it's complete so say the thing we say the drain's unblocked do we go around independently to try and check those those figures because I've got examples of times where things are being said they've been done and they haven't been done so I just want to be sure that there are checks so we can trust the data that's in front of us so there's a wide inspection regime on our highways anyway and also there's an inspection regime regarding drainage different gullies have different time periods for the inspections but in terms of when works are done if the team is saying the works are done then then the view is that the works are done we don't have a team that goes around checking afterwards to ensure that they've done those works if that's what you're referring to yeah because I'd expect we put this out to our contractors to go and we'd have to expect some sort of spot checking on some of this stuff to have it checked that these things are happening so in terms of spot checking yes but not in terms of every single instance yeah in terms of spot checking yes if I could ask thank you chair if I could ask questions to Dave Colbert not doubling up Councillor John Robertson has just said but I'm interested in the public inquiry management system and just like I would like your opinion on the efforts to raise public awareness of this system of the fault reporting system if there have been an increase in reports and if there has how you're measuring how the system is working please in terms of looking at the number it would be a case of there's a summary in the in the document that shows about the number that are received in each month and those are the ones raised by the public so it would usually be a case that same information that goes to the director leadership team if there's been a particular large increase or even a decrease during the times of COVID of course so we'd be able to monitor it in that respect then the monitoring system Rachel may have more information but from my point of view in terms of the reporting of it yes you're absolutely right there's the ability to say there's been a spike and it could be about a particular type of query because we can break it down as we do in summary to the most well to all of the reporting categories it tends to be and we've had discussions actually with the previous panel around are some of the categories too broad so that there may be something that I think members before had said well I've had a couple of queries that were raised about drain covers on the road and there was one report that we presented to the panel that didn't show any at all in that particular quarter and it had been put in reassessed when it was viewed the year and it was put under one of the other categories we've been able to get that altered to the category reporting is better now in this report but we can flag up and say there's a particular category of public inquiry where there's been an increase or the overall number is increased relative to last year or a long-term trend so from my point of view in terms of statistic reporting that's how I would do that there may be other elements operationally that major could refer to and the other mechanism part of the reporting that goes to the director of leadership team is that there's it's not quite the three successes and three challenges but I do the dashboard and there's a little covering note that goes with it and it'll just usually figure on anything where there has been a major change or we've had a major update on a particular set of data such as waste for example the annual update on waste so I could put that into there and say there's been a particular increase in public inquiries it's a bit odd and it's there for the director leadership team That's very good thank you I'd just like to go back to your question chair with regards to the validity of the reporting the question was framed as such whereby I imagine you have got specific examples where you don't believe the work was carried out yeah it's been raised through my heart ways as an officer okay I will work on that with you also because the checks are done in line with contracts the contractual agreement I imagine that if there is something to report back on on this it is the exception and not the rule any other questions just one more if we look at trends and traffic regulation orders going up I mean everyone thinks it's the solution doesn't it so I presume we get a lot of requests from members regarding it have we got any plans to try and address now is it just going to continue to rise I think it's one of those difficult areas where where there is no specific target around that and with the nature of our highways network I couldn't say whether it will continue to rise or not and the trend shows that it is it's one of it's one of those where where it is it is what it is to use that horrible phrase we don't have a specific target target around that yeah it was actually I should have made a point at the start actually Rachel's brought it to mind with that the I think this panel not so much the economy panel but this panel in particular a lot of the information here it is very difficult to come up with a with a target the information is all crucial and there'll be some where we have got a specific corporate target is in place or there are national guidelines we should adhere to and we can flag those up and say this is how we are performing relative to those there are others which as Rachel alluded to it very important information to see but they're not necessarily things that we can control so they're more measures than performance indicators whereas for example on Friday you presented reports the corporate and communities panel there's a lot in there where we can say there are specific targets but it is a good point I think the level of detail we've got in here around the TROs it is good it covers all of the key information about how long it might be taking us to complete them but then that would beg the question about how much we can actually control on the process or where we're waiting for responses to come back so I think it's that level of detail we've got in there hopefully provides a bit of context for the figures it's not such a group of performance indicators for them or measures of the demand that's being placed on the service thank you and if there's no further questions on that part we'll move to finance and Sarah thank you thank you chair so I'm going to report to you and the council draft out term for 24-25 so we'll look at the corporate position initially and so that you can get a feel of where the scrutiny areas fit into that and then we'll look at the scrutiny area on its own so just to be clear it's been called a draft out term because we've yet to go through the external audit process all the work that needs to be completed by finance has been and we're just awaiting external audit which is due to commence in September and obviously when they have completed all their works then it will become a final position so the next position that we presented to cabinet on in June was a position of a 6.2 million pounds overspend on a 433.4 million pound budget so within that budget when the budget was set there was an assumption that we would use 7.9 million pounds of reserve that had to be increased by the 6.2 million so overall there was 14.1 million pounds worth of reserve used in year the overspends were in the areas that were anticipated to be causing the overspend position so that's adult social care children social care and home to school transport that is consistent with the previous couple of years and also very consistent with other upper tier authorities that have the responsibility for social care those overspends were partially mitigated by underspending some of the service areas and also within the corporate centre so some of the as I've just said some of the areas did overspend but we did from quarter three onwards there was an improving position so the final eight term position was improved from the quarter three position that was forecast there was some one-off savings some of which were in this area so savings in highways and savings within waste management however I must stress that these were one-off so will not be recurrent moving forward there was some use of public health grants within adult communities and children services which helped with the overspends there and a number of areas were aware that they were going to have 25-26 target savings to deliver if those were around staffing if staffing if staff did leave in 24-25 those positions weren't replaced so that there were vacancy savings within 24-25 to try and get to that 25-26 savings target that was quite prevalent within HR and within the finance area so you can see on table the first table I can't see I think it's 67 you all paid 67 and you can see that 6.2 million at the bottom of column three and that's that was the overspend over and above the 7.9 and that we detailed within the budget there is a link there to a bigger summary so you can see a much bigger breakdown the detail behind that within 24-25 there was a huge savings target of 38.4 million 72% of those were fully achieved and all the savings identified for this scrutiny were achieved and you can see within the E&I line there were some that weren't achieved but those were around property so all those that were predicated in this area were achieved E&I reserve so at the end of where you need to focus is on the risk reserve line so this is the area these are the reserves that we've got available for general spend so the balance at the 31st of March was 28.7 million although there is a larger reserve balance a lot of those are E&I for specific things and the way grants have to be reported now we have to move those so if the grant has a number of years spent lying on it that move is moved into reserve and released in the year and also the school's balances are in there and they're quite substantial so the capital position obviously this this area has a large capital program around the highways maintenance and so there was the overall position for the for the for the county council was 97 million pounds spent in 24 25 and there's a breakdown there of where the funding came from and as you can see the majority is is from grants followed by and temporary borrowing and 17.6 where it says from third party contributions that's around the section 106 and then contributions from some of the districts where the districts have had capital grants and they're asking us to utilize them for them so within the overall and capital line the line that you're interested in is the environment line so you can see that there was 61 million pounds worth of spend within 24 25 and so we slipped by about 10 million because by anticipating that there was going to be a 70 million pound spend so specifically for this panel and again as as Dave's alluded to we're reporting as the last panel wanted us to report the finances so this is the picture for E&I so not all the lines on here are relevant for this panel and I've assumed homeschool transport is on here as well again not relevant for this panel but forms part of the E&I business area as alluded to there was a big saving within waste and some of that was around contract savings but also when the waste budget was set so we're starting to set budgets now for 26 27 and we work on inflation so the contract is highly linked to the inflation targets so in October we're looking at what the estimate is for the inflation targets and actually at that point they were much higher than they actually were so that has created some of the saving within 24-25 we're correcting that now in 25-26 so as I say that was one-off saving that you won't be seeing again a small saving in road lighting again that was around a scheme to convert to LED that's now sort of petering to its end so there were bigger savings in previous years that's now coming to an end and some savings within passenger transport operations so that was due to around the driver training and that the team provide and also a use there there's a lot of grant money coming in and around BCIP and bus areas so we're utilising that that grant there to support the revenue budget we did have some areas of overspend and a lot of them underneath when you look underlying is around the change in capitalisation so we have a process where we capitalise staff salaries so if there's a person that's working in a revenue team and if they're working on capital scheme we can capitalise their salaries and put that charge to the capital scheme the way we do that change the zip for guidance change so we had to reduce the rate of capitalisation so that created a deficit in some of the budgets and so areas that were hit there were sort of major projects highways operations planning and reg so that's some of the underlying overspend there we did have some further overspends in planning we're having to use a lot of consultants just because of or just unable to recruit it's really difficult to recruit somebody with the experience needed for the specific areas and that's about where we are so if anybody has got any questions I'm happy to take those yeah thank you for that is there anyone with some specific questions thank you yes one to Sarah please just when you mentioned about the use of consultants and certainly when people have represented highways for example at local planning and whatever it seems to have been consultants which obviously is going to be a big heavy on the spend what are the plans because really highways consultants they're not that bespoke are they really there must be you know it's not that any particular scheme is is particularly unusual so can you give us an idea of how you look to go forward to not use consultants thank you it's probably better for me to answer that as the manager of that that particular team so this is an area of skill shortage nationally so which is and we have had in the past difficulties with recruitment we have tried and we have failed and that reflects the national picture however we are currently and subject to the necessary approvals before we go out to recruitment we are looking again to try and recruit particularly at those senior levels and that's where the problem lies and that's where we are predominantly dependent on recruit on the consultants so subject to the approvals we're looking to recruit at both the senior level but also to recruit at what I might call more of an entry level and to try and grow our own staff and so we hope to do that over the summer thank you chairman and a question to councillor perks if I may sorry I just wanted to come in on it was just a point thank you thank you chair just a point regarding use of consultants and agency there was actually a scrutiny exercise that I'm sure Sam would be able to provide details of that took place last year um a wider wider scrutiny piece across the whole of the county council actually looking at use of consultants and agency staff that may be of interest to the panel yeah just just to emphasize emily's point and obviously is a national problem and we did have a small and and when I say small small grant and last year to try and help with um recruitment and so it is sort of nationally recognized it's just that you know the shortage of the experienced people that are needed thank you chairman so back to uh councillor perks we've spoken earlier about how um worcestershire sit in the high quartile um across nationally and how the previous administration have always uh sought to achieve residents high priorities and how highways have performed to that high level to deliver for residents so could you agree with me when we look at this report and we look at this out term that would you agree with me to say that nobody could call any of this spending irresponsible spending just just to come in I'll let Carl answer that question but if we could try our best to keep the politics uh for the count of the actual main council chamber that would be great thank you I will agree in part there are certain capital schemes that I wouldn't have necessarily made the same choices with however within the capital program I will concede that that is not where the issue of EFS stems uh has anyone got any other questions so I have a couple but yep so we see the savings on highways operation so we're able to drill down to what those are what that means we haven't done um at all uh what uh what are savings within EO and I blames the property savings in highways operations what were those savings in our operations and what didn't we do that we expected to do at budget time so so the only thing that wasn't done was around property and that's why I'm saying EO and I that's why it's difficult to report for this panel so the property saving was around the fact that we had to come out of county hall and there's an assumed income around county hall campus uh so obviously we lost that that income um that income um because we moved into wildwood and then couldn't rent the space in wildwood so it's a bit of a really good property not highways operations but yeah yeah that's the issue with yeah yeah and then obviously we underspent on our capital budget are we planning on continuing to do those um things that we didn't do last term or are we looking at that as a as a potential saving because my understanding is everything in capital is being looked at currently so I don't want stuff that we weren't able to do last year being put off no the assumption is that the money will just slip into the future financial year so that's all my um questions if necessary some of anything else um I think it was just a couple of recommendations just looking at the training for public right away um and the data that I think Emma wants on the next thing but I'd like to uh thank the officers uh for the time on that and at that point we'll move on to uh the work program and I'll leave so yeah and if officers and cabinet member wish to leave for me that's final so um okay thank you everybody as councilor josh explained at the beginning it's declared an interest and we now need to move forward and discuss um works for national high rise would you like me to help me so um members if you if you have a look at the screening work program that you have in front of you um counselor robinson declared an interest because he works for national highways we have on there is a legacy from the previous panel um an item to invite highways england which is now national highways to come and talk to us about their five-year plan the previous chairman did try on several occasions and was unsuccessful to um invite national highways and the question for the current panel is would you like that item to remain on the agenda or is it something you would wish to take off for the time being understanding that there's total flexibility of adding anything back on at any time with the consent of the panel if i may i feel if we sorry is council robertson we should speak first no um my only worry when we take something off is getting it back on again they may have a will to do it but we're already sort of on their list and personally i would fear we should keep it there but okay and does anybody have any other questions yeah i agree with cats robinson if it's something that we've prioritized in the past then let's let's continue with that anybody with any other comments questions it's um this is something that can be put back on at any time um very quickly should we want to um maybe there's the priorities i mean panel members you can leave the item on the agenda and schedule it as you see appropriate so if it doesn't come forward immediately it can remain on the work program and that seems to be what i'm picking up in is the mood in the room yes so yeah if we uh look at the second part of this that's the writing stuff on the um work program and if anyone has any suggestions that they want on the work program i'm happy to hear thank you thank you chair um i did um have a question that i was going to pose to the officers but obviously we're here so i'll pose to everybody um would we consider prioritizing the flood risk management um for october especially given the overdue report and growing public concern about drainage uh i'll pass this um there is absolutely a recommendation that we do do the flood risk risk management annual report in um october it's an annual um report as it suggests and it's slightly overdue and officers are willing and ready to report so that can that was the recommendation coming forward today so yes if panel in agreement definitely would support that request is anyone else got anything to bring forward or things they might not want um um we don't need to under work programs just a reminder this is just a general point i've even seen my names on a recommendation from 2023 which i can't even remember suggesting because i wasn't on the panel so i must have come along like nathalie suggested something and people okay but there's quite a few on here that certainly been here a while and haven't actually happened so it's kind of like and i think they're probably all good things but maybe some of them got out of date are they still relevant so as i'm only on this panel probably this time feels like maybe it's not my job as you're going to be here regular people for you to look through but yeah it seems like you probably need it i mean i suppose that's your owner's chair to kind of go through but it's i mean the one i raise i think it's important local transport plan that's been waiting and waiting for ages so but yeah it's things like that we need to probably go through and check what is still relevant thank you i was just looking at the update on actual travel and i think with all this coming forward in worcestershire and the very large developments in hand that that's going to be very relevant it would be nice to see that coming up the agenda thank you i agree um yeah i'm yeah really following on cancer jenkins point is that i think potentially we could pass this to officers to look at some of these points because there is a lot of new legislation that's coming in and potentially demands on us or no longer having demands on us so i think it would be worthy of officers having a look at all of these items to see where we sit with current legislation and anything that's fundamentally changed so that we can then prioritize those accordingly so are we able to are we able to work with this work plan as it stands but then review it again at the next meeting when we've got further information yep this is our going to be now our um work program so i think this is a really good opportunity to see if people who are going to be sitting on this and invested in in this committee whether they think anything passionately that they want to bring forward um to do that that's why i think that's why it's important to do that now i have a couple while i was waiting for the uh members to see if they have anything they wanted to bring forward to scrutinize i think particularly we've spoken today about uh about planning and how highways and everything link into that but there's so much that links into planning on this on this uh panel so particularly if we look across the county what's going to be happening in the next couple of years i think we can probably focus these items more around that and how the county is going to be affected but i think probably we do need a little bit more of a steer so if we think of that as a as an overview but if we can have a greater steer from officers as to where we're constrained or not constrained from a legislation point of view but if we think for example about the swdpr if we think about partway you know all of those massive things within the county i think we can we can steer this more to the things that make make the biggest difference yeah yeah been told we can do that so anyone else got anything sorry i know i'm really not an official panel member but is it time we looked at a food strategy it seems to me that you know looking at growing spaces biodiversity and food waste and and that kind of area we've never had a food strategy in the county i don't think and and perhaps it's time we looked at one i know it's ambitious but i don't know what others think any views i think again really that links into the to the planning point um because obviously we're seeing so much being forced upon us that is making us not the county that we were previously which has big impacts on those sort of things so that i think the the overall piece i think that does still very much link into planning because we're for a start with we're seeing the loss of best and most versatile land that we can't grow on that we then have to import things that have chemicals that we wouldn't use here etc etc you know the story goes on so i think if we have that overview of planning i think there's a lot of things and possibly a lot more things than we would necessarily think of immediately that come and come under that remit yeah okay i just never want to make stuff too broad because we'll never get any recommendations out of it but yeah yeah yeah anyone else so i've got three fun ones uh the bronze growth route enhancement plan phase three and phase four which is currently going on uh within bronze groves ab um if not um most major bit of infrastructure we've ever done it might be the second one uh i think if we've got that level of spend whether it's um all our money or not we should scrutinize what's going on with its current plans and what's going on in the future to ensure that we're spending uh uh taxpayers money um as best as possible and as it's currently ongoing now i think it's quite an urgent one to have a look at yeah i mean i i don't think that we should have that as a specific work item but obviously infrastructure in general because obviously if we're looking at things you know we obviously got parkway in the pipeline and whatever so there's a lot of schemes that would come under a remit but not particular schemes of that nature i would i would agree apart from it's as i say it's not the biggest bit of capital spend we ever done it would be the second most capital spend it's quite a unique uh part of it and what i'm not saying is to look at the whole thing i'm saying look at phase three which is the thing that's currently ongoing and phase four which is the thing that we theoretically kicked into the long grass uh awaiting further funding and to ensure that we're spending taxpayers money uh in an appropriate way and i believe that is something that we should be really looking at to scrutinize i do have two more one of them i think you're sort of half briefed on earlier i think the um the council really doesn't have a policy on what it wants to do about uh traffic speeds um you know we try and get ones down to 20 mile an hour and it doesn't have a proper uh policy does the council have a policy about um does it naturally want to have speeds lowered you know you go in any other county or around you'll see that the speed speed limit is lower and again the whole point of scrutiny is to get a whole load of different uh views on that to try and get something because at the moment we don't have a policy on it so if you try and get residents who desperately want a 20 mile an hour area or roads that have been designed 20 mile an hour but you can't even make them 20 mile an hour or national speed limit roads that someone went down to 50. there is nothing apart from accident data i think i think there should be a whole policy into looking at that and uh scrutinizing it probably to jump in because obviously some history um and what i mentioned to carl earlier back in 2021 and that was january 2021 so literally not the last administration but one before had a motion about reviewing speed limits and mainly focus on 20 but it wasn't totally so the plan was set up a member advisory group this was agreed at council unfortunately it's taken a very long time and some cabinet members were more keen than others and we've had well now into our fourth cabinet member for highways in those four years so i have spoken to carl about it so we've got so far we've had meetings we've got a kind of kind of a draft proposal that officers are drawn up but what i've asked carl is if we can speed that up actually get the group going that could in theory answer your questions and if we do set up the member advisory group again it will be politically balanced so there's certainly probably a chance for obviously i want to be on it and they can't be chairing it but it needs a few people it's not a massive group you know something it's going to be about five or six people i think we've had in the past so it may be someone from lived in group someone or two from conservative perform work just to kind of try and finish it off because it's just been dragging on so that might answer some of those it might not maybe if if we conclude that and you go that's not very good then you could maybe scrutinize it and improve it but that's specifically under 29 an hour um the main gist of that was on i'm telling you if i remember the motion correctly it was four years ago now uh and it's got nowhere and the whole point of these scrutiny panels is to ensure that we get policy and and stuff done correctly and in time and at the moment it just feels like it's being continued to be kicked away and that happened you know okay well i'll be happy for you to put it on your work plan because that might speed things up so i'm not going to argue with that that's my thinking thanks really i was thinking i still want to respond to you i just taking on board what you're saying about the the role of this panel um yeah i just wonder if if it's the right place for it to be with us until something else is done um but as you say whether it needs to be on our work plan for something to be done but it just it's it's bigger than there's so many factors that need to happen for that to be brought into play i just wonder if it's it's worthwhile it's sitting with us so if it's on our work plan to make sure that something's happening um and then or more importantly scrutinize something once it has gone through uh that committee that you suggested um i think that's probably a better place for us and there's probably other mechanisms that we as members can uh can bring to bring that forward to accelerate that that panel really and for it to then come back to us if you have to make an educated guess that's going to be impossible when do you envisage that group one meeting and two having anything to bring back to here or we're just again kicking it down into the long grass and we might as well put it on our work program so that we can look at it otherwise it would just forever just put it in there um well obviously i've spoken to the cabinet member a few times raising it with him initially just getting up to speed and then kind of at the moment he's exceptionally busy with so many other things it's not his highest priorities so i i would envisage hopefully we'd actually meet this calendar year and then i was kind of implying to him and i think it's the case that to some extent we've done most of the work so it could be that we meet maybe once have a look at this is a job proposal hopefully whoever's in this new group would give me that seems it seems quite reasonable because i think it isn't it's nothing particularly drastic it's not what i really want to come in a you know blanket 20 mile an hour we're absolutely shocking to a lot of people so i don't even i'm not even pushing for that so i i think it could be resolved quite quickly but like everything you're getting close to christmas then you get into budget and all that kind of stuff and there would be a probably very small possibly small cost it's not a big cost because the idea would be that actually some you know me as a council would contribute so ideally something set up end of this year yeah autumn this year to kind of produce something around about early next year but hey it's not i think it's it's not up to me that's that's the downside so i believe we can make the inquiries of this panel into um so when they but as you see a lot of these have just been put on to be confirmed can we put it on on the work program that in it might be that by the time we get to january next year it's not ever not even met and we might want to yeah we might want to do it but i will give it its 15th chance to try and meet and uh and get and get somewhere and my sorry my final one is on climate change we declared a climate emergency here in 2021 i'd love an update from officers about where we are what our plans are and how um we can um what we're doing um against that target people might agree might disagree on it but that's again the whole point of scrutiny that we all have different views and we bring them together to be able to do it and i'd love that to be brought up that's what so is that different to what's already on the work program or is that what you're saying you've got so you've you've got you've got net zero plan already on the work program you're bringing that forward doing that forward yeah what months would you like that well at the moment we've got only the annual update of highway maintenance for the next meeting haven't we oh no flooding we're just agreeing flooding and did it which which will be a biggish report um yeah let's do it in the cold month of the first of december yeah just i mean there's some really big priority items on here so i don't know whether i don't know whether it would need to jump over from a from a scheduling point of view some of the other ones that we've got on here because obviously active travel is key section one is six is key um you know there's so many things on there that are i understand the importance but we might what if we're looking at scheduling some of these things we might want to look at that if you if you want us to prioritize what's on here or whether you want us to just do the work program but i don't know whether that would be my first choice that was the whole point of me coming and asking people what they wanted on on the work program okay if we just if we just sit there and say it's going to be to be confirmed forever and then we wait till september for for trying to convince them all down with you know this council is going to be here forever is it so we need to make sure that we're every uh meeting we're we're actually that we're actually scrutinizing something and trying to improve the policies of the council thank you on the basis of that the section 38 agreements the doctrine of roads we're getting all these new estates built and um i've got some and they've been waiting to be adopted for four years now and it causes such grief to residents so i think that's one that we shouldn't let slip too far there again i have similar ones in my area and i was told at our induction that it was very easy to find out the answer why um things haven't been adopted and i'm sure and i've not got that answer yet so i i i am on board i'd love to challenge the officers on it a little bit more with some personal experience on local estates which i'm sure you all have as well well they have to bring them up standard to adopt them and their inlays there just just to remind them we're still being broadcast okay um if there's uh nothing else i'll close um the meeting thank you all for your attendance on this very warm day thank you josh