Meeting documents

Venue: The Paralympic Room, Aylesbury Vale District Council, The Gateway, Gatehouse Road, Aylesbury, HP19 8FF

Contact: Craig Saunders; Email: csaunders@aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk 

Items
No. Item

1.

Election of Chairman

Minutes:

RESOLVED –

 

That Councillor Mrs Jenkins be elected Chairman of the Committee for the ensuing year.

2.

Appointment of Vice Chairman

Minutes:

RESOLVED –

 

That Councillor Everitt be appointed Vice-Chairman of the Committee for the ensuing year.

3.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 92 KB

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 27 March 2019, copy attached as an appendix.

Minutes:

RESOLVED –

 

That the minutes of the meeting held on 27 March, 2019 be approved as a correct record.

 

4.

Bucks County Council - Highways Update pdf icon PDF 1 MB

To consider the attached report.

 

Note: Councillor Paul Irwin, the County Council’s Deputy Cabinet Member for Transportation and Mr Keith Carpenter (Highways Asset Manager, Transport for Buckinghamshire) will be attending the meeting to provide Members with an update and to answer questions.

Minutes:

The Committee welcomed Mr Keith Carpenter (Highways Asset Manager, Transport for Buckinghamshire) who had been invited to give an update on Buckinghamshire County Council’s Highways Infrastructure Management Policies insofar as they related to Aylesbury Vale in particular and across the County generally.  These policies described the principles adopted and applied to achieve the County Council’s highways maintenance objectives.  Mr Carpenter was accompanied by Councillor Irwin, the County Council’s Deputy Cabinet Member for Transportation.

 

To give some context to the presentation, the Committee was advised as follows:-

 

·         The County highways network stretched from busy areas inside the M25 to the more rural north of the County.

 

·         There were around 3,200km of highways, over half of which were smaller roads, including 2,480km of footways, 6,000 illuminated signs, in excess of 28,000 street lights and 500 bridges.

 

The approved Asset Management Policy and Strategy set out how the County Council would maintain a safe road network, maximise carriageway availability, optimise the use of and protect natural resources and improve accessibility for all.  There were a number of performance measures against which the success of dealing with defects within previously determined timescales could be assessed.

 

Road condition was measured for the classified road network using nationally recognised methods which recorded the condition of sections of road as red (worst), amber or green (best).  Due to the timing of surveys they sometimes lagged behind the actual condition but the impact of increased investment was showing steady improvements across all classifications of roads over the last five years.

 

Unclassified roads were surveyed slightly differently, with categories being either poor or adequate.  In 2013/2014, 33% of unclassified roads were in a poor condition compared to 29% in 2018/2019.  Around 20% of footways were considered to be in poor condition, although for the more important footways, over 90% were either in good or fair condition.

 

 Works to strategic roads were data led and by engagement with various stakeholders, including local elected Members and the County Council’s own Local Area Technicians.  From the data sources used, a list of potential or candidate schemes was created.

 

Every year a proportion of roads were surveyed.  For local roads this involved a visual inspection which collected information such as cracking or subsidence.  For strategic roads, a more sophisticated approach was taken, using a specialist vehicle which deployed remote monitoring equipment.  The data was then loaded into specialist software and mapped against the condition of the rest of the network.

 

The data was converted to a scoring system as described earlier in this Minute.  The software used the defects identified to suggest an appropriate treatment and give an indicative cost of repair.  There were, at the time the Committee report had been prepared 1,393 potential schemes on the strategic network.

 

The maintenance strategy adopted by the County Council recognised that prevention was better than cure.  There were some types of defect which could not be left for safety reasons, whilst others could be repaired temporarily (and more cheaply) to prevent further deterioration.  The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.

Proposal Relating to the Scheme of Additional Licensing for Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) pdf icon PDF 177 KB

To consider the attached report.

 

Contact Officer:  Lucy Eaves (01296) 585028

Minutes:

House in multiple occupation could often be occupied by the most vulnerable in the community.  The risk of fire, public health issues and overcrowding was greater than in other types of accommodation and resources were, in the main targeted at those which represented the highest risk.

 

The Housing Act, 2004 had first introduced the mandatory licensing of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs).  The Act also provided for licensing to be extended by local authorities to include HMOs not covered by mandatory licensing, known commonly as additional licensing.

 

The Council had introduced an additional licensing scheme in September 2014.  The additional licensing scheme had designated the whole of the District and the additional component was the inclusion of properties where there were three or more occupants, as opposed to the mandatory threshold at the time of five.  Additional licensing schemes had to be reviewed to ensure that they continued to be of benefit to occupiers and the community.  Such a designation could last for a maximum of five years and AVDC’s additional licensing scheme would expire in September, 2019.

 

In order to make a new designation, the Council had to collect evidence to support its case, apply to the MHCLG, undertake consultation and then wait three months for the designation to come into effect.

 

On 1 October, 2018, mandatory licensing had been extended to include properties with one or two stories, so that the standard test would now simply include a threshold of properties accommodating two or more households and five or more persons in total.  In addition to the standard test, there were additional mandatory tests which remained unchanged, namely:-

 

·         Buildings converted to self contained flats comprising three or more self contained flats.

 

·         Buildings converted to be a mixture of self contained flats and non self contained accommodation.

 

Finally, changes introduced in October, 2018 had included new conditions for national minimum sleeping room sizes and waste disposal requirements.  These would all take effect when existing licenses expired and were renewed.

 

It was reported that none of the other Buckinghamshire Districts currently operated additional HMO licensing schemes and there was therefore the opportunity for the new Buckinghamshire Council to bring forward a scheme for either all of, or designated areas of the County in due course should it choose to do so.  The Committee report gave details of the differences in the standards tests for the old mandatory scheme, the current additional scheme and the new mandatory regime.

 

Of the 163 properties currently licensed by AVDC (mandatory and additional), only 43 would not be covered by the newer mandatory provisions...  These were predominantly three/four bedroom, three/four person properties with concentrations in the wards of Buckingham North (14) and Buckingham South (7).

 

Members were advised that there were two broad options:-

 

Option 1: That the Council allows the additional licensing scheme for the Vale to expire in September, 2019, without commencing the process to re-designate part of or all of the District.  As a result of the legislation change, and without the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.

Work Programme

To consider the future work programme.  Meetings are scheduled as follows:

 

24 September 2019

·                    Update on Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2019-2022

·                    Built Facilities Strategy

·                    Leisure Supplementary Guidance (subject to modifications consultation on VALP)

·                    Food Service Plan (for Cabinet Member decision)

 

3 December 2019

No items as yet

 

Members have expressed an interest in the following coming to Committee:

·                    Aylesbury Garden Town Update

·                    Update on HS2 Infrastructure work

Minutes:

It was noted that the work programme provided for the following:-

 

Meeting on 24 September, 2019

 

·         Update on the Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2019 – 2020

·         Built Facilities Strategy

·         Leisure Supplementary Guidance (subject to modifications consultation on the VALP)

·         Food Service Plan (prior to a cabinet member Decision)

 

Meeting on 3 December, 2019

 

There were no items identified as yet, but merit was seen in receiving reports on the following:-

 

·         Update on HS2 Infrastructure work

·         Impact of changes made to the domestic household recycling sites, particularly in relation to fly tipping.

·         Aylesbury Garden Town Update.