Agenda item
Cllr Ashley Waite, Chair
· Buckinghamshire Council Update
· Parish Workshops update
· Proposal for an Energy and environmental event.
Minutes:
Regina Ichim, Berryfields Resident, was asked to provide some comments on her first experience of attending her local parish council meeting.
Regina fed back that communication is important, and this can be challenging. The Parish Council (PC) are trying to promote themselves locally and reach out to all residents. Regina has a WhatsApp group with other members of her street and would like to expand this and then feedback comments to the parish council. She highlighted that a lot of Berryfields residents are new to the area and were not aware of the PC or what they were responsible for. She said Berryfields felt safe, but speeding traffic and lack of parking is an issue. The PC did investigate a welcome pack for new residents and are going to revisit how they promote what the responsibilities are of the PC and BC. She felt notice boards were useful as another means of knowing what was happening and currently there was only 1 notice board in the whole of Berryfields.
Berryfields is a young/new area. Berryfields PC have set up a speeding/parking/traffic group to look at problems and solutions. It enables residents to be heard and to share with residents what is realistic and achievable. Engagement has so far been positive.
Rural Business- Cllr Ashley Waite highlighted his passion to support rural business- shops, pubs, garages but anyone that is operating a service (perhaps from home). Cllr Ashley Waite asked the board for their views on supporting local businesses. There were around 82 businesses on Westcott Venture Park alone.
Jane Perks from Waddesdon highlighted a business hub idea that is being developed for Waddesdon where local businesses are asked how they feel they can be supported locally. She is happy to offer support to other board members on the setting up of one.
Michael Heybrook supported the idea and its importance. Buckinghamshire exports graduates to other areas but wondered how Westcott is or could attract local graduates to retain our young people locally.
Cllr Ashley Waite highlighted that this would fit in to the Bucks Business First strategy.
The following questions were submitted in advance.
1. Nick Morgan – clerk to Aston Sandford Parish Council raised that the PC has received a notification that a single track, no through road into the village would be closed for 2 days in November for roadworks resulting in residents and businesses not being able to use their cars. The intended roadworks did not take place and the PC and residents were not informed.
Elaine had obtained an initial response from the Streetworks Team that the works were cancelled, to be rescheduled owning to the amount of rainfall and that updates are provided on One Network which is the UK cloud-based map that all local authorities use to alert residents to roadworks, diversions and road closures. Nick felt this response was inadequate and that One. Network did not reflect the status of activity on the road.
Action: Elaine has gone back to the Highways Service for a further response. Cllr Michael supported the escalation of a response to this issue.
Nick also commented that Streetworks alerts do not have the location in the title, which would be useful for PCs to know if they are relevant or not before opening them.
Action: Elaine to feedback to Streetworks team.
Cllr Michael Rand fed back on the progress of the new Highways Contract and that following an injection of £5 the number of roadwork gangs had gone up from 5, 12 months ago to 12 gangs. Utility companies are permitted to close a road with an emergency application if they get the application in for a diversion within 2 hours of starting work. He however accepted that the online mapping side of things was still catching up with the amount of work taking place on the network.
2. Colin Bloxham from Thame Green living, asked about the state of maintenance of rural tarmacked footpaths between villages alongside roads. He felt many were overgrown and rutted and unusable for pedestrians, mobility scooters and bicycles and asked whether a tiny fraction of the roads’ maintenance budget could be used to support walking, wheeling and cycling and whether an inventory of rural paths could lead to a monitored maintenance programme.
Elaine obtained the following response from the Highways Service prior to the meeting.
Tarmac in urban settings is inspected in line with our Highways Inspection Policy and we encourage any defects identified to be reported on Fix My Street. We have no overall capital improvement programme for funding for improving the urban footway network and any resurfacing is carried out in line with Member decision on a four-year rolling programme that identifies the most required areas.
It was generally felt at the meeting that all the parishes present, had some issues with communication from the Highways service. They were advised that the service was reviewed by Councillors and asked if recommendations were implemented.
Cllr Ashley Waite advised that the challenge is that there isn’t a budget for patching of footpaths. Defects are inspected and dealt with as part of a rolling programme. Cllr Ashley Waite was currently working with the Council at finding funding for the A418.
3. Cllr Greg Smith asked about Active Travel. His first question was regarding the Council’s performance indicator for this, which he felt was inadequate. This question had been passed to the Strategic Transport Team to comment on.
Elaine responded by email prior to the meeting with what the Community Board was doing in this respect, which was:
a. Launching a school road safety speed awareness poster competition in the Spring. Participating schools would be encouraged to work towards their school travel plan.
b. Working with the Climate Change Team to provide idling monitors outside some of our schools. We are currently waiting for the results of this pilot.
c. To hold an Environmental and Cost of living event in the Spring. A date of Thursday 29th February at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre had been booked. This would encompass active travel.
His second question was on progress with the Haddenham – Thame Greenway and asked when we could expect to have a decision on this.
The Transport Strategy Team is in the process of compiling data on which routes to take forward as part of the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure plan. A public consultation would begin in Spring 2024.