Agenda and minutes

At this point Members are asked to declare any personal or prejudicial interests they may have in the business on this agenda. A list of general personal interests previously declared are attached.

Members were invited to declare at this point in the meeting any personal or prejudicial interest they might have in the business on the agenda. No further interests other than the standing list were declared.

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 31 October 2006.

RESOLVED:             That the Minutes of the meeting held on 31 October 2006 be approved and signed by the Chair as a correct record subject to the addition of Cllr Jones as having submitted his apologies to the meeting.

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 Panel’s remit can do so. Anyone who wishes to register or requires further information is requested to contact the Democracy Officer on the contact details listed at the foot of this agenda. The deadline for registering is Tuesday 5 December 2006 at 10.00am.

It was reported that there had been no registrations to speak at the meeting under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

This report is to update members on progress on their scrutiny topic examining the contract school bus service and to consider their programme of work for the duration of this review.

Consideration was given to a report which updated Members on progress with their scrutiny topic examining the contract school bus service. Representatives of the Committee had visited Top Line Travel of York on 27 November 2006, an existing contractor for school transport, when Members had discussed the following issues

h. Have they seen a deterioration of the behaviour of pupils on buses since they have been a contractor?

Detailed comments received from Peter Dew, Managing Director of Top Deck Travel in relation to all the above issues were circulated to Members at the meeting.

The Chair then welcomed the following representatives who had been invited to attend the meeting to give their views and answer Members questions in relation to the above list of issues

• George Peach, Regional Manager of the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT), Yorkshire Region,
• James Crook-Williamson, Alpha Bus and Coach of Hull (a new contractor for City of York Council),
• Nigel Rowe, East Riding of Yorkshire
• Tom James, K & J Travel.

Arising out of discussion the following points were raised by the representatives

• Generally the CPT supported the use of seat belts by primary school aged children but it was down to individual choice with older children
• The fitting of seat belts was not an issue but ensuring that children wore them was, although a number of services had attendants/conductors which could enforce their use
• No responsibility could be put on drivers morally or through legislation for passengers to wear seatbelts
• The cost of fitting seatbelts to a single decker bus would be in the region of £5000 with ongoing maintenance costs e.g. vandalism
• There was little evidence to suggest that fitting seatbelts in buses made journeys safer, rather the lack of seatbelts was a perceived problem.
• It had however been found that seatbelts did save lives if buses rolled over as they prevented the occupant being thrown out and suffering major injury
• BUSK (Belt Up School Kids) a school transport organisation dedicated to helping reduce injuries and fatalities on school buses had found no evidence to suggest that seatbelts on vehicles made them safer. Independent research had shown that transport by bus was one of the safest forms of transport.
• Buses used  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.