Agenda and minutes

At this point in the meeting, Members will be invited to declare any personal or prejudicial interests they may have in the business on the agenda.

Members were invited to declare at this point in the meeting any personal or prejudicial interests they might have in the business on the agenda.  Councillor Merrett and Councillor Simpson-Laing declared a personal interest in agenda item 4 as members of the Traffic Congestion Ad Hoc Scrutiny Committee.

To approve and sign the Minutes of the meeting held on 15 March 2010.

RESOLVED:That the minutes of the meeting held on 15 March 2010 be confirmed and signed as a correct record.

At this point in the meeting members of the public who have registered their wish to speak regarding an item on the agenda or an issue within the Committee’s remit can do so. The deadline for registering is 5:00 pm on Friday 25 June 2010.

It was reported that there were no registrations to speak under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

This report presents the revised final report of the Traffic Congestion Ad Hoc Scrutiny Committee regarding their review on Traffic Congestion in York.  Councillor Merrett, Chair of the Committee, will be in attendance to present the report.

Members received a report presenting the revised final report of the Traffic Congestion Ad Hoc Scrutiny Committee regarding their review on Traffic Congestion in York. 

In February 2010, SMC had considered the recommendations from the Ad Hoc Scrutiny Committee, which had resulted from their investigative work on the objectives of the review.  However, they did not include any recommendation around the testing of the scenarios identified from the city-wide consultation, as the results of the survey were still unknown at that time.  Since then, the Traffic Congestion Ad Hoc Scrutiny Committee had met again to consider the survey findings (Annex E to the final report), and had agreed an additional recommendation, detailed in paragraph 11 of the report.  Councillor Merrett, Chair of the Committee, went through the key issues. 

Having considered the findings contained within the revised final report and its annexes, Members were invited to comment on the findings from the survey (Annex E of the report) and the additional recommendation shown in paragraph 12 of the report.

Members made the following points in respect of the final report:

• It was recognised that the current funding situation was likely to impact on the implementation of the recommended short term recommendations and the suggested long term transport strategy.
• It was recommended that an additional bullet point be included in paragraph 18 to include “To seek to reduce levels of traffic in the city”.

• The “Smart Choices” approach (paragraph 22) was relatively low cost and could have a significant impact.
• The Executive was requested to give due consideration to the recommendations in respect of public transport, particularly buses.

RESOLVED:(i)         That the contents of the revised final report and its

                        annexes be noted.

(ii)That the additional recommendation relating specifically to the testing of the scenario preferred by a majority of residents, as identified by the results of the residents’ survey, be endorsed.

(ii)That the members of the Traffic Congestion Ad-hoc Scrutiny Committee, the scrutiny officer and the other officers involved, be thanked for the work that they had carried out and commended on the excellent review.

REASON:      To fully inform the Executive of the outcome of the Traffic Congestion Ad Hoc Scrutiny Review.

This report presents the annual scrutiny report from Scrutiny Services for the period May 2009 to May 2010.

Members considered the Annual Scrutiny Report from Scrutiny Services for the period May 2009 to May 2010. 

Members expressed their thanks to those involved in preparing the draft report.

Concerns were expressed that the work of scrutiny continued to be under resourced. 

RESOLVED:That the Annual Scrutiny Report for the period May 2009 to May 2010 be approved.

REASON:      To enable its presentation to Full Council, in line with Constitutional requirements.