Council and democracy

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 1, Civic Offices, New Road, Grays, Essex, RM17 6SL. View directions

Contact: Wendy Le, Democratic Services Officer  Email: Direct.Democracy@thurrock.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

1.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 71 KB

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the Planning, Transport, Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committeemeeting held on 12 March 2019.

 

Minutes:

The minutes of the Planning, Transport, Regeneration Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 12 March 2019 was approved as a true and correct record.

2.

Items of Urgent Business

To receive additional items that the Chair is of the opinion should be considered as a matter of urgency, in accordance with Section 100B (4) (b) of the Local Government Act 1972.

Minutes:

There were no items of urgent business.

3.

Declaration of Interests

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

4.

Integrated Transport Block Capital Programme 2019/20 pdf icon PDF 89 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Andrew Millard, Interim Director of Place, introduced the report which covered the Council’s Integrated Transport Block (ITB) Capital allocation and the Maintenance Block (MB) allocation that was assigned to the Council through the Department for Transport’s (DfT) annual settlement of £971,000 (for ITB) and £1.938 million (for MB). He highlighted the key drivers as the bullet points at the top of page 12 of the agenda.

 

Mat Kiely, Transportation Services Strategic Lead, highlighted the areas of spending in appendix 1 of the report and pointed out that the priority areas included congestion, road safety and tackling air quality issues in the borough. Table 1 on pages 13 and 14 of the report identified the funding allocation of £971,000 spread across 7 areas of the ITB works programme. The service was looking to identify a long term programme particularly in Safer Routes to Schools (SRTS)

 

Peter Wright, Strategic Lead of Highways and Infrastructure, highlighted the MB programme in appendix 4.

 

Councillor Gerrish questioned how the ITB and MB Capital allocations fitted in with other funding allocations that related to Highways. Mat Kiely explained that other funds could be made available and gave the example of section 106 (s106) funding (under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 that was processed through planning obligations). S106 funding could be used to mitigate some of the highway works and programmes. There were also internal capital bids that could be used for traffic congestion issues and the surplus funding from capital programmes could be used to apply to other works.

 

Adding to this, Peter Wright said that the MB had been successful in acquiring bids which had been allocated to schemes such as ‘Tidy Up’ and to areas such as Stonehouse Lane. DfT had also provided a funding allocation, with a figure around £100,000, for fixing potholes and the service had recently run jet patching programmes to fix potholes.

 

Councillor Gerrish commented that a broader set of works was likely to be a part of the capital programmes indicated in the appendixes and that what was provided was a general overview. He went on to say that £971,000 sounded like a lot of money but did not stretch very far. Councillor Gerrish mentioned discussions in previous years regarding the deficit in bringing highways up to date and asked for an update. Peter Wright replied that nationally there was a deficit on highways judging from reports from organisations such as RAC and so far, 1.7% of carriageways works had been undertaken and 2.5% of footways works had been undertaken. He went on to say that the service had been successful in demonstrating the need for funding of Stonehouse Lane through capital bids.

 

Councillor Gerrish thought that bids could be pursued in certain areas and asked what the sufficiency of funding and capital bids were. From a maintenance perspective, Peter Wright said there were discussions on how funding and bids to services could be allocated. Adding to this, Andrew Millard said that from a capital  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.

Work Programme pdf icon PDF 44 KB

Minutes:

The work programme was updated as follows:

 

  • An updated air quality report that incorporated past actions and their outcomes (Andrew Millard stated that The Local Development Plan Task Force Update – Issues and Options 2 Consultation Report would incorporate air quality management).
  • Freight Services report to be amended to Freight Strategy and to encompass how this was applied throughout the borough.
  • Parking hotspots.
  • An update on the modes of transport – identify what trends and changes there has been.
  • c2c update.
  • Delivering the Homes Thurrock Needs report – to include the case study of Belmont Road with detail on engagement strategies and protecting open and green spaces.

 

Voicing further concerns on air quality, the Vice-Chair said that Tilbury had a big issue of dust and through an independent survey, a magnetic substance had been identified. He went on to say that Tilbury was surrounded by industries and questioned how other particles in the air could be monitored when monitoring equipment monitored pollution. In response, Andrew Millard said that he was aware that there may be new monitoring equipment for air quality and he could liaise with the Environment Team on the Committee’s concerns. A note would be circulated to the Committee to address those concerns.