Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed all attendees to the meeting, and made a safety announcement in relation to the fire/emergency evacuation procedure.

Apologies were received from: Cllr Weston (Cllr Carey substituted), Cllr Fodor (Cllr Bolton substituted) and Cllr Breckels 

To note any declarations of interest from the Councillors.  They are asked to indicate the relevant agenda item, the nature of the interest and in particular whether it is a disclosable pecuniary interest.

Any declarations of interest made at the meeting which is not on the register of interests should be notified to the Monitoring Officer for inclusion.

Cllr Brook declared that he is employed by Atkins

To agree the minutes of the previous meeting as a correct record.

Please note: the previous meeting minutes refer to the Place Scrutiny Commission from July 2017.

The minutes were noted by Members

To note any announcements from the Chair

The Chair commented that she didn’t want the Commission to be just a ‘receiver of information’ only but wanted it to really achieve something.  This was something that she would be monitoring.

Up to 30 minutes is allowed for this item

Any member of the public or Councillor may participate in Public Forum.  The detailed arrangements for so doing are set out in the Public Information Sheet at the back of this agenda.  Public Forum items should be emailed to democratic.services@bristol.gov.uk and please note that the following deadlines will apply in relation to this meeting:-

Questions - Written questions must be received 3 clear working days prior to the meeting.  For this meeting, this means that your question(s) must be received in this office at the latest by 5 pm on Friday 20th July 2018.

Petitions and Statements - Petitions and statements must be received by the working day prior to the meeting.  For this meeting this means that your submission must be received in this office at the latest by 12.00 noon on Wednesday 25th July.

Statement received from D Redgewell (in attendance). 

Key points of discussion with Commission Members:  Mr Redgewell raised concerns about some of the Wessex Bus operated routes that will very shortly cease and how the effects would be felt by some communities for example students unable to travel to college from September.  It would appear that nothing was being said about the situation and that it should at least be discussed at a West of England (WoE) Joint Committee as soon as possible.  The Cabinet Member for Transport said she would be attending a meeting the following day and would.

ACTION: Cllr Threlfall to raise the above issue on behalf of the Commission. 

• Vice Chair of the Commission: Cllr Brook who was nominated by Cllr Jackson and this was seconded by Cllr Bolton.
• The Terms of Reference for the Commission were noted
• The Commission’s work programme items were noted

The Chair asked the other Members to consider the following section of the 26th July 2018 Audit Committee papers:  APPENDIX A - SUMMARIES OF COMPLETED AUDITS: E. GROWTH AND REGENERATION; E1 and E2 (G&R Boards draft TOR and the Investment Property Portfolio)

ACTION:Members to inform the Chair if they think the Commission should be looking into the above issues in more detail

Joint Local Transport Plan (WoE) and the Bristol Transport Strategy

The Cabinet Member began by stating that the draft plans were the beginning of the process and that she welcomed a discussion on the policy.  Unfortunately the Joint Local Transport Strategy (JLTP) wasn’t quite ready to be shared with Members at this time.

The Head of Strategic City Transport took the Members through the published report slides:

The consultation process will begin late September / early October.

Members stated that the consultation process should be carefully tailored to ensure targeting of a good cross-section of communities.  It was suggested that engagement would be enhanced by planned face-to-face consultations at venues such as shopping centres and community events.  

Members request a copy of the planned schedule of events to complement the on-line survey?

ACTION:  Officers to confirm schedule and provide details to members

Cllr Jackson requested officers take the consultation to a festival in Fillwood on the 23^rd September.  ACTION: Officers to confirm arrangement with Cllr Jackson

Members were interested to know how some choices on the priorities would be made. Cllr Threlfall said that a formula existed that provided a weighting to the hierarchy of transport priorities and that Members would be able to review this.  ACTION: Officers to confirm when Members can expect to receive this?

Members highlighted the need for reliable and varied bus services.  They would like to receive more information on what exactly is going to happen with the bus services in the short term and what is in the pipeline for longer-term? Members would also like to understand who’s responsible for doing what between WECA and BCC.  ACTION: Officers to provide the above information.

The ‘funding gap’ was discussed and officers said they welcome Members views this aspect of the draft plan.  Members said they would like more explicit details on the funding required for delivery of the separate elements of the plans.  It was reported that most of the financial information would be in the JLTP but it would also be referenced in the Bristol Transport Strategy. Members suggested that direct links to the JLTP should be added to the Bristol Transport Plan to make clearer.  ACTION: Officers to confirm if this suggestion will be taken up.

Some members questioned if the strategy was visionary enough and designed with an awareness of the speed of change that technological advances are making.  Some areas related to this were: 

-        The advent of autonomous vehicles. 

-        Planning for change i.e. shopping habits, more flexible working practices and last mile logistics, planning applications, etc.  

Members would like to know if these future changes can be modelled. ACTION: Officers to confirm

Members questioned the feasibility of the mass transport initiatives and asked for a business case to be presented i.e. some worked figures for some or all of the proposed routes? Officers responded that they would be preparing the business cases after feasibility studies were complete (and if they were favourable) so yes they would provide for Members. ACTION: Business cases to be provide  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

No paper for this item

Cllr Threlfall provided an overview of the three significant areas within her portfolio.

1. Bristol Transport Strategy & Joint Local Transport Plan - getting the plans approved
2. Highways  - includes repairs potholes and resurfacing
3. Sustainable Transport – includes Traffic Regulation Orders (streamlining the process) and the 20 mile per-hour consultation  which ends on the 31^st August

Members were told it would be at around two years before the Chocolate Path reopens as there are three main points of structural failure.

Area Committee’s – ensuring the CIL (Community Infrastructure Levy) funding process is right and clearing the backlog of schemes was also a priority.

Questions were asked about setting targets for the transport strategies.  Officers responded targets will be in the JLTP which they will track and monitor these.  But it was important that the council was very smart about where it decided invest funding in the first instance.  In some circumstances, such as cross-border corridors, it will be also be necessary to gain consensus from the other four local authorities.

Members highlighted the dissatisfaction of some attendees at the Area Committee (AC) meetings; the Cabinet Member said she would soon be meeting with the Chairs of each AC.  

Members would like to understand more about the causes of the blockages in highways projects but due to time constraints it wasn’t possible to discuss this in detail.  ACTION: The Chair asks if written clarification could be provided.

Presentation slides to follow

Laura Pye – Head of Culture (presentation slides attached)

The Head of Culture took the Members through some slides which provided some background and examples of local trusts and mutuals including the Bristol Music Trust.  The presentation provided some idea of the pros and cons and included the direct views of staff of Bristol Music Trust and the Head of Culture.

Members were keen to understand how transferable these types of organisational models were to other projects, organisations and services such as libraries.  Members commented that they found the information provided very useful because of the way it was delivered, as it provided a balanced view of the different positions. Positive comments were also made that it highlighted the important matters for consideration such as Functions, Motivations, Scale, Cash Flow, VAT and TUPE.

Friends Groups were also discussed as a potential way of supporting organisations and services.  It was reported that these can raise funds in the region of £50k - £100k per annum.

Development Trusts were also highlighted as a potential way of helping to support libraries financially.  It would require a group of people /stakeholders of who were willing to declare that the ‘sole purpose of the development trust was to raise funds for libraries’. However, it was stated that there are pros and cons to every individual situation that need to be taken into consideration.

Members thanked Laura for the presentation and information.  They also wanted to register their thanks to Laura for her hard work and everything she had achieved whilst working at the Council. 

Report and Consultation Materials as Appendices

The item was introduced by Alex Minshull (City Innovation and Sustainability Service Manager) which consisted of two key areas.

1. Clean Air Plan -  consultation & engagement
2. Clean Air Fund – bidding process

i. Officers provided an overview of how the consultation process was progressing to date. Feedback had been generally supportive so far (more details of this are contained within the published report).  The current engagement plan was summarised i.e. target audiences, outreach activities and online presence (not so much social media) and the consultation materials. 

A Member asked about the validity of exploring the 5 options in such detail when there is a requirement  to gain compliance by taking the quickest route.  However, it was explained that there could be more than one potential option are therefore ‘packages of measures’ could be put together, depending on the modelling.  

Officers confirmed that the focus of the Clean Air Zone is for it to be within the existing Air Quality Management Area.  It was also explained that just because some things won’t be within the eventual Clean Air Zone it didn’t mean they wouldn’t still benefit from it.

Members asked to see the assumptions in modelling that the decisions are based on and, if that is not possible, to have a couple of exemplars.  It was explained that there are technical assessments being conducted in parallel to the consultation and engagement process and that it might be possible for members to look at the key parameters being used.  Action: Officers to feedback about if/when this might be possible.

ii.  Officers explained that the Clean Air Fund is a central Government fund that requires a competitive bidding process.  The councils bid for funding will be submitted alongside the Clean Air Plan Outline Business Case later this year.  The purpose of the funding pot is to ‘mitigating the impact’ of the Clean Air Zone on residents and is primarily focussed on low-income households but also small and medium size enterprises (SME’s).

Members were presented with some additional information during the meeting and a brief discussion was ensued about the pros and cons for the different options for mitigating the effects. 

The Chair suggested that Members might like more time to further consider the potential schemes and that any further feedback would be passed any back to officers in due course. 

Action: Members to forward any further feedback on the options back to the Chair and Jacob Prior by the 10^th August.