The East Herts Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee met to discuss resident permit zone policy, registered housing provider communications, and the committee's draft work programme. The committee agreed to consider and provide comments on proposed changes to the Resident Permit Zone Operational Guidance. They also approved a project plan and the establishment of a task and finish group to review registered providers' communication methods.

Review of Resident Permit Zone Policy

The committee considered and agreed to provide comments on proposed changes to the council's Resident Permit Zone (RPZ) Operational Guidance. The proposed changes aim to:

• Reduce barriers to RPZ implementation
• Support the council's strategic goals around sustainable transport, air quality, and town centre vitality
• Reflect best practices from comparable councils
• Better reflect the lived experiences of residents in areas with high parking stress
• Better align the requirements and language between the Operational Guidance and the Resident Parking Policy.

The specific changes being considered were:

• Amendment of the requirement for non-resident parking: Currently, non-resident parking must exceed 40% occupancy at peak times for an RPZ to be implemented. The proposal is to reduce this to 10% and allow officers to exercise discretion in exceptional cases. The rationale is that the rigid threshold can prevent necessary schemes in areas with clear parking stress and that other councils have shifted away from this model in favour of more flexible approaches.
• Removal or reduction of kerb space provision requirement: The current policy requires that there be sufficient kerb space to enable 75% of households in a proposed area to park one vehicle on-street. The proposal is to remove or reduce this requirement to a minimum of 50% to reflect practical constraints in historic, mixed-use, or high-density areas. The rationale is that many zones struggle to meet the current requirement due to constrained street layouts and competing demands for limited road space.

The report noted that these proposals are grounded in public consultation findings, benchmarking of best practice, and an independent review of East Herts' guidance conducted by Citisense. They aim to ensure the council's RPZ approach is responsive, inclusive, and aligned with broader strategic objectives, including improving air quality, enhancing local economic vitality and promoting fairness and accessibility for all residents.

The report also noted that there is a current road map to create RPZs based on previous requests from residents. As the current policy refers to only being able to progress two schemes in any year, due to Parking Service staff resource constraints, the current programme will end in 2028. It is possible to begin the process of implementing more RPZs, however that will be contingent on bringing additional resources to the Parking Service to enable public consultation and project management of multiple schemes simultaneously.

The report included a list of historical requests for RPZs by location, including Park Road, Tamworth Road, Gladstone Road, New Road, West Street, Stortford Hall Park and Edens Close, and The Copse and Woodlands.

Scrutiny of Registered Providers' Communications Methods

The committee approved a project plan and the establishment of a task and finish group to review methods used by registered providers¹ of housing in the district. The Overview and Scrutiny Committee identified a need to scrutinise how registered providers communicate with their customers, elected members and councils and, importantly, how effective or otherwise these methods are. Members have told officers that they have received a considerable number of enquiries from tenants about the difficulty contacting their landlord, with many members experiencing similar problems.

The aims of the review are to identify:

• Areas for improvement by housing associations and/or the council
• Examples of best practice that can be shared among housing associations
• Potential issues for lobbying national bodies, such as regulators or government, to improve housing association communications.

The review will examine the mechanisms, policies and procedures that housing associations use to communicate with customers (tenants, leaseholders, shared owners), elected members, and council officers. Specific areas to be explored include comments, compliments and complaints arrangements, out-of-hours and emergency contact arrangements, how communication channels are publicised, and the role housing associations believe elected members and officers should play in representing or advocating for customers' concerns. The handling of specific individual complaints is excluded from this review.

The project plan outlined a three-phase approach: fact-finding and evidence gathering, recommendation formulation, and reporting. As part of the fact-finding phase, a questionnaire will be issued to all housing associations with properties in East Herts. The task-and-finish group will gather further expert evidence. Survey results and evidence will be analysed by the task-and-finish group to identify key findings and proposed recommendations. A report will be presented to Overview and Scrutiny Committee containing recommendations for the Executive Member for Neighbourhoods.

Possible expert witnesses include local housing associations such as Clarion and SNG, the Housing Ombudsman and/or Social Housing Regulator, a nearby stock-holding local authority, and Citizens Advice East Herts.

Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Draft Work Programme

The committee agreed to the draft work programme, which includes topics for scrutiny at upcoming meetings. The key function of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee is to hold the Executive to account for its decisions, to review existing policies and consider proposals for new policies.

The following topics are in the work programme for possible scrutiny in 2025/26:

• Cross Party Working Group – Grounds Maintenance Contract
• Affordable Housing
• Sustainable Transport
• Development Management and Community Forums
• Local Government Reform
• Anti-Racism Charter and the Equalities Strategy