Meeting documents

Apologies of absence were received from John Cartwright.

Hedley Cadd attended as a local Member and the Chairman granted permission for the local Member to ask questions.

There were no declarations of interest.

Contributors

• Michael Edmonds, Chairman of the Winter Maintenance Task and Finish Group

Purpose

The Chairman of the Task and Finish Group will outline the purpose of the Task and Finish Group, including the background, aims and the reporting process.

Papers

• Winter Maintenance Scoping Document

The Chairman of the Task and Finish Group outlined the purpose of the Task and Finish Group. He highlighted that during the extreme weather there were 30 days of sub zero temperatures. The gritting teams went out both during the day and night. The Chairman recognised that there were problems with public services and complaints received regarding the conditions of the roads. At this meeting the purpose of the task and finish group is to examine the County Council performance against the Winter Maintenance Policy and Operational Plan.

Members were advised that a winter maintenance questionnaire had been sent to Parish, District and Town Councils, County Councillors, public transport providers, emergency services and Buckinghamshire residents have also been invited to contribute to the review through published press releases.

Members were asked to concentrate on winter maintenance which primarily involves keeping the traffic moving as road and footway maintenance including potholes will be discussed at a future meeting of the task and finish group.

Contributors

• Val Letheren, Cabinet Member for Transportation
• Jim Stevens, Head of Transport for Buckinghamshire

Purpose

This is an opportunity for members to question the Cabinet Member for Transportation and the Head of Transport for Buckinghamshire on the strategic issues relating to Winter Maintenance.

Papers

·         (To follow)

The Cabinet Member for Transportation and Jim Stevens, Head of Transport for Buckinghamshire attended the meeting to provide Members with a strategic overview of issues relating to Winter Maintenance.

The following points were highlighted:

·         Last winter was the worst winter experienced in the last 30 years.

·         Buckinghamshire salt over 40% of roads. There is an annual review undertaken at the end of the season where some changes may be made to the winter maintenance plan.

·         Buckinghamshire have Primary and Secondary gritting routes.

·         There were discussions with Parish Councils to ensure that the routes to the main roads were salted.

·         Buckinghamshire County Council has now entered a partnership with Ringway Jacobs, who operate contracts in Scotland where snow is more prevalent, so they bring this experience to Buckinghamshire.

·         The actual stock of salt had been increased by 20% over the normal start of season quantity, in view of the experience of February 2009 snow event.

·         Buckinghamshire had full salt stocks and went into the winter fairly confident.

·         The worst of the cold weather started before Christmas. Due to the rate of salting, supplies began to run low. On January 6 routes were re-looked at to preserve salt stock and the decision was made to concentrate salting on Primary routes – this decision was in line with the winter maintenance operational plan and influenced by national guidance, low salt stocks (local and national) and emerging/predicting weather forecast conditions.

·         Salt is cheaper if purchased in the summer, which is when Buckinghamshire stocked up. More salt was on order during the winter but the supplies ordered did not arrive due to national demand and available stocks.

·         The grit bins proved very popular. As quick as they were filled they were emptied. The use of grit bins need to be addressed as some members of the public were taking salt from the bins for personal use, which is not the purpose of the bins.

·         The current grit bin policy is that Parish Councils are required to fund the bins, at a one off cost of £450, and the County Council will ensure the bins are maintained and topped up from that point.

·         Farmers are longing to help by clearing roads and there is good community spirit.

·         Salt is not the answer to everything as it has a corrosive effect on the roads and can have negative environmental impacts.

·         In Germany they try to use salt as little as possible.

·         The Cabinet Member said she was glad that Members had paid tribute to the staff involved in winter maintenance as they worked very hard over the period.

·         The winter maintenance policy is on the internet, which has been reviewed as an effective Local Authority (LA) winter maintenance policy.

·         The Department for Transport (Dft) Transport Research Policy have previously said that Buckinghamshire has a good plan.

·         The winter maintenance policy was developed inline with national policy guidance.

·         The delivery of the plan can be demonstrated on the ground as the plan describes the process and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Contributor

• Tim Fowler, Area Maintenance Manager North, Transport for Buckinghamshire

Purpose

Members will have the opportunity to question the Area Maintenance Manager North about operational issues. These may include how the service was delivered on the frontline, what went well and what could be improved upon.

Paper

• (To follow)

Tim Fowler, Area Maintenance Manager North, Transport for Buckinghamshire and Erik Meek, Area Maintenance Manager South, Transport for Buckinghamshire attended the meeting to discuss the delivery of the winter maintenance service on the frontline.

·         The first precautionary salting took place on 29 November 2009 and snow was seen from 17 December 2009.

·         There were a further three snow fall events and continuous below zero temperatures.

·         It was difficult to make contact with the salt suppliers and on 30 December 2009 an order for more salt was made. Although there was no certainty of delivery.

·         On 6 January 2010 the Cabinet Member for Transport signed a non-key decision to postpone the winter maintenance policy.

·         The government introduced salt cell which took over control of the distribution of salt.

·         On 11 January 2010 Buckinghamshire received its first delivery of salt from salt cell.

·         1000tonnes of salt were received over the winter period which was about 20% of the amount ordered.

·         Ringway Jacobs through their purchase power arranged for delivery of some imported salt and 2000 tonnes were received from their suppliers.

·         17 January 2010 saw the end of the intense freeze period.

Members then asked questions. The questions and answers are summarised below:

Could Parishes be involved in clearing pavements as many residents sustained injuries?

Buckingham Town Council and Aylesbury Town Council were engaged to help clear pavements. As part of the TfB review Parish Councils will be asked if they are able to offer any support. It is very labour intensive to clear pavements and there needs to be greater engagement with communities. Wycombe District Council provided 8 free gangs to help with this, utilising staff who would normally carry out grass cutting and refuse collections.

Based on the Operational Arrangements detailed on P13 of the Winter Maintenance plan which shows target rates of Salt spread - what calculations are made to forecast the range of salt stock levels which might be required during the winter.

Calculations are based on the priority 1 network, not the whole network.

Action: Tim Fowler to supply information

There are no budget figures in the plan. How much extra was spent on the winter period?

The Policy document is not a costed document. There is a cost model based on the document which identifies man hours and quantity of salt estimated etc. There are specific additional costs such as the salt ordered by Ringway Jacobs, the District Council teams and the costs of not being able to undertake routine works.

Action: Tim Fowler to supply cost information

If there are only 60 mining days left, Buckinghamshire is unlikely to have the same amount of salt stocks as last winter. Why aren’t Officers working with other Councils to place a bulk order of salt from abroad or Buckinghamshire sourcing salt for themselves from other suppliers?

Ringway Jacobs are still in discussions with suppliers. The cost of ordering from abroad must be factored in.

A Member commented that costs was a decision for Members.

As a LA  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Contributors

Whole Committee

Purpose

This is an opportunity for members of the Task and Finish Group to draw out the key findings and themes from the consultations with key stakeholders. 

Paper

• Analysis of Parish Council Responses
• Summary of County Councillor Responses     
• Summary of Public Responses                (To Follow)
• Summary of Local Authority Good Practice        (To Follow)

Members discussed the consultation responses and research and made the following points:

·         There was a very high response rate, which should give greater weight to the comments.

·         Communication was highlighted as an issue. Consideration of how members of the public can be communicated with better needs to be looked at to find a system to feed down to residents and back up to through the 3 tiers of local government.

·         There is an assumption that Parish and Town Councils communicate the issue directly to residents.

·         The quantity of salt supply expected has not yet been established and it has been said that not all roads will be treated.

·         Clarification is necessary whether salt can be stored outside or whether this must be under cover.

·         If correspondence is sent to Parish Councils, clerks may not necessarily pass on to the Chairman. Correspondence to Parish Councils should be sent to the clerk and Chairman.

·         Members should insist that a minimum salt stock level is obtained.

·         Salt is ordered according to storage space not according to need.

·         There is a lack of information regarding the winter maintenance budget

·         There should be an extra point added on page 12 of agenda item 7, appendix 1 under the heading ‘Residents helping themselves’ that "Residents in extreme rural areas should be encouraged to self help".

·         Members should be consulted on the winter maintenance policy

·         Member suggestions on roads to salt should be given due consideration

·         Pavements should be gritted into the car parks. Drivers could access the car parks but then faced difficultly getting out as the pavements had not been treated. There was no strategic thinking.

·         The purchase of salt should be counted differently - perhaps treated as an asset rather than a commodity.

·         The County Council website crashed during the period when residents needed it most.

·         Councillors had no information for a period to pass onto residents. Members need to be kept informed on a daily basis during extreme weather.

·         The parties listed in the winter maintenance policy and operational plan’s communications plan does not include Members.

The Chairman suggested that a list of questions be drawn up and submitted to Officers with a deadline and that there be a pre-meeting on 15 June at 9.30am to discuss the responses.

Action: Policy Officer/Clerk