Agenda item

This report outlines the development of York’s Third Local Transport Plan (LTP3) to cover the period from 2011 onwards.

Please note that this is a provisional decision as this item has been called in for consideration by the Scrutiny Management (Calling In) Committee meeting scheduled for Monday 8 March 2010.

RESOLVED:            That the Executive Member for City Strategy agrees to:

i) Note the content of the report, particularly the analysis of the Stage 1 consultations and Annex C which sets out the four options to put forward for the Stage 2 consultation in April 2010;

ii)                  Approve the options proposed in Annex C, to form the  basis of the Stage 2 (options and impact) consultation;

iii)                That Officers be requested, if possible, to publish the results of the Traffic Congestion Scrutiny Committees recent survey, in the April edition of Your City in order to provide background information for residents as they respond to the second stage of the consultation on LTP3.

REASON:                  To enable the commencement of the second stage of consultations required to prepare the City’s Local Transport Plan 3.

Consideration was given to a report, which outlined the development of York’s Third Local Transport Plan (LTP3) to cover the period from 2011 onwards. In particular it summarised the findings of the first stage of consultation in respect of setting the context for transport in York, the future transport challenges it faced and the possible actions that could be taken to tackle the challenges.

The report also set out the approach for undertaking the second stage of consultation for putting forward four options, together with an overview of their likely achievements against objectives and their impacts, to generate support and agreement for the strategy and the degree of the strategy’s application in LTP3.

The Executive Member reported that this matter had been called in for further consideration by three members for the following reasons:

(i)                 The report fails to take into account the recommendations from the traffic Congestion Scrutiny report and the current household scrutiny questionnaire that is being undertaken on the long term strategy for the city, contrary to assurances given by the former Assistant Director that they would be.

(ii)               The 10 year strategies in annex C do not match the Government's LTP 3 guidance (paragraph 4) which is looking for a twenty year long term strategy and shorter term policies and implementation plans.

(iii)             The outline questionnaire in annex C is extremely confusing and unlikely to produce useful results in its current form.

He confirmed that he would be making an in principle decision on the report which would be reviewed by the Scrutiny Management (Calling In) Committee at their meeting on 8 March 2010.

Officers confirmed that the proposed options had originally been intended for consideration as part of the Local Development Framework but that the draft strategy would go towards any longer term strategies. In relation to the consultation document and its distribution within the April 2010 issue of Your City he referred to the tight deadlines involved which required the final version to be available for printing on 23 March.  He pointed out that a paragraph had been included in the draft confirming that the results of the Traffic Congestion Ad Hoc Scrutiny Committee had not yet been analysed but that if additional information became available in time it would be included. He also referred to correspondence received from Yorkshire and Humber Government Office in support of the approach taken by Officers.

Councillor Merrett referred to the concerns specified in the reasons for the

call in of this report. He questioned how the results of the Traffic

Congestion Ad Hoc Scrutiny Committee would be taken into account as no

acknowledgement was made of their work in the LTP3 strategy - the committees short/medium term recommendations had been agreed two months ago so as they could be taken into account but hadn't been brought forward to the executive for some reason. He also felt that residents would find Annex C confusing with the overlap in short and longer term options. He stated that earlier agreement had been reached that the Traffic Congestion and the LPT3 surveys would not overlap and that there would be clear distinctions between the two. Finally he stated that he felt this questionnaire was seriously flawed in relation to the four options whose components were then subject to a separate yes or no multiple choice. He was concerned on the effects of this on the overall validity of each main option - knocking out key components would make the assessment of the effects of that option completely wrong.

[As amended at the City Strategy Decision Session on 6 April 2010]

The Executive Member referred to the call in and to difficulties in analysing feed back from the Traffic Congestion survey but he confirmed that if this information was available he would ask Officers to include it if at all possible.  He went onto refer to the high response rate of stage 1 of the consultation exercise and to there being very few surprises in the results with a general wish to avoid worsening congestion levels as a general concern. He referred to the Officers suggestion of 4 packages and confirmed that, at this stage, it was important for residents to have the option to ‘mix and match’ initiatives. He confirmed that any consultation on the final document in the autumn would be via Ward Committees and the Council’s website.

RESOLVED:            That the Executive Member for City Strategy agrees to:

i) Note the content of the report, particularly the analysis of the Stage 1 consultations and Annex C, which sets out the four options to put forward for the Stage 2 consultation in April 2010;

ii)                  Approve the options proposed in Annex C, to form the basis of the Stage 2 (options and impacts) consultation;

iii)                That Officers be requested, if possible, to publish the results of the Traffic Congestion Scrutiny Committees recent survey, in the April edition of Your City, in order to provide background information for residents as they respond to the second stage of the consultation on LTP3. ^1.

REASON:                  To enable the commencement of the second stage of consultations required to prepare the City’s Local Transport Plan 3.

Please note that this in principle decision no longer applies as it has been superseded by the decision of the Executive (Calling In) meeting held on 9 March 2010.