Agenda item

To be presented by Councillor Alex Collingwood.

Cllr Collingwood, Chairman of TIRR, referred to slides 36-53 and listed the approved schemes which would be delivered by the autumn:

•       Pound Lane, Marlow – Bollards.

•       Bourne End and Wooburn Green – Various waiting restrictions including Watery Lane and Claytons Meadow.

•       Blind Lane, Bourne End – traffic calming.

The proposed schemes were:

•       Lock Road, Marlow – pedestrian refuge.

•       A community wide Traffic Regulation Order (TRO).

Combining several TROs would save approximately £20-25,000; detailed costings and designs would be provided by the end of June 2021 and implemented by the end of the year. 

However, the following three requests required public consultation and would take approximately one to two years to implement.

•       Outside Hunts, Station Road, Marlow – parking bays.

•       Outside no 6 Henley Road – Yellow lines.

•       Mill Road/Gossmore Lane, Marlow – residents parking zone.

Cllr Scott advised he was unaware of the proposed Mill Road scheme and requested more information before it went out to public consultation.  Cllr Collingwood advised that the regularising and legalities for the existing council-wide TROs for the five legacy councils needed to be finalised/approved; community wide TROs would then be possible. Cllr Collingwood had asked all the parishes in the Community Board area to put forward traffic schemes which would go forward as a combined TRO and save approximately £5,000 per scheme.  Any proposed schemes which were not junction protection required a consultation.

Active Travel

Trinity Road - residents would have full access to their houses.   A consultation was underway; feedback was due by 9 March 2021 with implementation of the temporary cycle path scheme due in mid-April for six months if it was taken forward.

Bike racks had been installed in Marlow; photographs were shown of the proposed locations in Wooburn Green and Bourne End after discussion with landowners.  Other cycle stands could be installed on the Council’s own highways.

Infrastructure – Marlow Bridge Protection Scheme - budget confirmation of £1.4million was awaited. 

Westhorpe junction improvement works – phase one was underway and more detailed designs would be provided to the working group at the end of March 2021.

Rural Broadband - Cllr Mark Turner advised that the remit of the subgroup was to assist the rollout of fibre broadband to the community and the main source of funding would be from the Government Rural Connectivity Gigabit Scheme.  Contact had been made with suppliers and several parish councils had received quotes for rollout schemes and some were underway.  The cut off date for the current funding was 31 March 2021 and information was awaited on the revised funding methods.  More information had been requested as it was a challenging task.

Regeneration – £23 million had been provided for the Local Grant Scheme for the self-employed and small medium enterprises.  A bid had been submitted to install an additional 33 electric charging points in the area. 

Be Your Own Boss (BYOB) – Councillor David Watson advised that, as a result of the pandemic, there was likely to be a rise in unemployment in the coming months and business representatives had agreed support should be provided for those people wanting to start up their own business.  The provider would be Bucks Business First and four other community boards had also supplied funding for the scheme – click here to see the video.  Cllr Watson requested that the members of the board publicise the scheme/training as widely as possible.

Re-opening of high streets – open air events would be the way forward in towns and villages.  The libraries would re-open on 12 April 2021 and would help support programmes such as BYOB with business information sessions.  Jacqueline Ford, Economic Development Officer, advised that Buckinghamshire Council had received an allocation of EU funding which could be spent on signage and temporary traffic restrictions and preparation works were underway to put together a list of what could be funded.  The High Street business survey would be carried out and discussions were underway regarding new planters to support social distancing, the supply of hand sanitiser stations and information graphics.