Agenda and minutes

The Committee’s membership is set out below:

Cllr Albury

Cllr Ali

Cllr Baldwin

Cllr Britton

Cllr N Dennis

Cllr Greenway

Cllr Kenyon

Cllr Kerry-Bedell

Cllr Oakley

Cllr Payne

Cllr Quinn

Cllr Sharp

The Committee is asked to elect a Chairman for 2023-24.  If the election is contested, a secret ballot will be held in accordance with Standing Order 2.17.

1.1        Cllr Britton was proposed for the position of Chairman for one year by Cllr Ali and seconded by Cllr Greenway.

1.2        Resolved – that Cllr Britton is duly elected as Chairman of the Communities, Highways and Environment Scrutiny Committee for a period of one year.

The Committee is asked to elect a Vice-Chairman for 2023-24.  If the election is contested, a secret ballot will be held in accordance with Standing Order 2.17.

2.1        Cllr Oakley was proposed for the position of Vice-Chairman for one year by Cllr Baldwin and seconded by Cllr Quinn.

2.2        Resolved – that Cllr Oakley is duly elected as Vice-Chairman of the Communities, Highways and Environment Scrutiny Committee for a period of one year.

Report by the Director of Law and Assurance.

The Committee is asked to review the membership of the Business Planning Group in view of the Chairman and Vice-Chairman appointments.  Since 23 January 2023 the membership has been Cllr Britton (Chairman), Cllr Oakley (Vice-Chairman) and Cllrs Kenyon, Milne and Sharp.

3.1        Resolved – that the Committee appoints the following members to its Business Planning Group: Cllrs Briton, Oakley, Kenyon, Kerry-Bedell, Sharp.

Members and officers must declare any pecuniary or personalinterest in any business on the agenda. They should also make declarations at any stage such an interest becomes apparent during the meeting. Consideration should be given to leaving the meeting if the nature of the interest warrants it.  If in doubt please contact Democratic Services before the meeting.

4.1        In accordance with the County Council’s code of conduct the following declarations were made:

4.2        Cllr Kerry-Bedell declared a personal interest as a project manager for the Bourne Community Bus.

4.3        Cllr Sharp declared a personal interest as a member of Chichester District Council.

4.4        Cllr Britton declared a personal interest as member for Littlehampton Town and that the Littlehampton library sits within that division under agenda item no 9.

4.5        Cllrs Payne and Oakley declared a personal interest as a member of the Executive Task and Finish Group for Active Travel under agenda item no 10.

Items not on the agenda which the Chairman of the meeting is of the opinion should be considered as a matter of urgency by reason of special circumstances, including cases where the Committee needs to be informed of budgetary or performance issues affecting matters within its terms of reference, which have emerged since the publication of the agenda.

5.1        No urgent matters were raised.

Members are asked to indicate at this stage if they wish the meeting to consider bringing into Part I any items on the Part II agenda.

6.1        Committee Members agreed they were happy for agenda item no 16 to remain under Part II of the agenda.

The Committee is asked to agree the minutes of the meeting held on 6 March 2023 (cream paper).

7.1        Resolved – that the minutes of the Committee held on 6 March 2023 be approved as a correct record and that they be signed by the Chairman.

The Committee is asked to note the responses to recommendations made at previous meetings of the Committee.

8.1        The Committee noted the responses to recommendations made at previous meetings.  The Committee asked why recommendation 4 under the National Highways consultation on options for the A27 at Worthing and Lancing had not been carried through to the final County Council comments that were submitted.  The Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport/Assistant Director Highways Transport and Planning were asked to provide a response.

8.2        The Committee were further updated that there had been no Government announcement on plans for food waste collection.

Report by Director of Finance and Support Services, setting out the finance and performance position as at the end of March 2023.

The Committee is asked to examine the County Council’s corporate performance, finance, savings delivery and business performance for services within the remit of this Committee and to make any recommendations for action to the relevant cabinet member.

Members are reminded that only the performance data on Community Support in section 4 (Community Support, Fire and Rescue Portfolio) falls within the remit of this Committee.

9.1        Members of the Committee asked questions and a summary of those questions and answers follows.

Environment and Climate Change

9.2        The new Environment Agency guidelines on disposal of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) came into force in December 2022 and work was underway with the contractors and other waste disposal authorities to establish how much it might cost and find the best way of working.  Members asked if this might give a renewed focus for reuse hubs across the county and were informed that the formation of another workshop at Worthing was being looked into.

9.3        The County Council had been ranked fourth out of 29 waste disposal authorities in 2021-22, up one place from the previous year.  Members congratulated the Cabinet Member and officers but asked what we could learn from other authorities to increase our performance and ranking.  The Cabinet Member reported that higher ranking authorities were those which gone ahead and introduced food waste collections.  Announcements were still awaited from the Government on the compulsory introduction of food waste schemes.

9.4        Members were encouraged to attend the Carbon Literacy training programme for which the County Council is a Bronze award holder. 

9.5        Members were very pleased to hear about the continuation of the collaborative project with Chichester College, Crawley College and Chichester University to improve engagement with 15-24 year old residents to encourage recycling and waste reduction behaviours. Members received assurance that the work would be a permanent feature as the student population changed over the coming years. 

9.6        Members were very keen that school children be able to visit the Material Recycling Facility (MRF) and the Cabinet Member confirmed that primary school visits did take place, but it was often harder to attract secondary schools and that any support Members could give to encourage schools to visit would be welcomed.  The cost of staffing and transporting children to the MRF had become more of a financial problem for schools and Members were very keen that information videos could be shared with schools and were informed that some already existed and could be revisited.  

9.7        Grant funding for the Local Nature Recovery Strategy was for setting up but not running schemes.  Officers would see what other Government funding was available, see what areas they were to focus on and what could be done in those areas. 

9.8        Members discussed the importance of recyclates being clean otherwise a whole load of recycling could be rejected and end up in landfill sites. Dry paper/cardboard only should be added to recycling bins otherwise there can be contamination and rejected loads. Members felt there was a balance to be had between cleaning recyclates and wasting water.  Members asked if plant pots could be recycled and were advised they could not in the current kerbside system but could go in hard plastic collections at recycling centres and that many garden centres collected and recycled plant pots.

9.9        Recyclate rates are subject to sharp increases and decreases due to many factors, e.g. bad  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Report by Assistant Director (Highways, Transport and Planning).

The Committee is asked to review and comment on the current draft Active Travel Strategy and consider plans for stakeholder and public engagement prior to the proposed formal adoption of the Strategy.

10.1     The Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport, Cllr J Dennis, introduced the report saying it sought support from the Committee to move to a phase of stakeholder and public engagement on the newly drafted Active Travel Strategy.

10.2     The Active Travel Task and Finish Group (TFG) had been chaired by Cllr McDonald and Cllrs Oakley and Payne had been members.  They reported that the TFG had met almost monthly over the last year and had considered areas of interest, reflecting on the changing Government and Active Travel England emphasis away from cycling to walking and wheeling to replace personalised motorised journeys.  They thanked officers for their work supporting members of the TFG.

10.3     Members of the Committee asked questions and a summary of those questions and answers follows.

10.4     The Active Travel Strategy is a strategic document, and an action plan would flow from this. Members asked what thought had been given to issues such as the lack of pavements in rural areas, parental concerns, fragmented communities with non-motor links, equestrian links including horse crossing places, changing behaviours, obstacles such as delivery vans parking on pavements and cycle lanes, increasing connectivity and fragmentation of the Rights of Way Network. Officers agreed to consider these matters for inclusion in the action plan and as strategic infrastructure plans for walking and cycling were reviewed over the coming months.  Specifically for rights of way however there was a separate strategy – The Rights of Way Management Plan - which should deal with these matters.

10.5     Members welcomed the move away from measuring the length of new cycling infrastructure to a target relating to the increased active travel at sites where new infrastructure had been introduced but would be interested to see more detail on the percentage of new or upgraded work done, and functional routes versus tourist/recreational routes.  Officers agreed to investigate measuring usage in these ways.

10.6     Members were keen that Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans (LCWPs) were linked to the Active Travel Strategy so that the County Council could understand what aspirations there were at local levels to feed into its delivery work as the highway authority. 

10.7     Members were advised that many schools had expressed interest in the School Streets Trial supported by Sustrans.  The schemes were primarily led by the schools and it took commitment and resources on their side.  A member highlighted that the entire journey to school needed protecting, not just the area outside school gates. 

10.8     The suggestion was made that consultation should be made with the West Sussex Youth cabinet, sixth form and college students, as well as schools, as these are the people Active Travel England were interested in targeting.

10.9     Members welcomed that electric bikes and scooters had been taken into account in the strategy, despite the technology still being in its infancy and scooters not being legal modes of transport in public places, and that thought would be given to how these modes of transport might work for the future.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

The Business Planning Group has agreed to scrutinise proposed changes to the Library Service’s Public Access Computers, as these are developed. The Committee is asked to note that the Group has agreed that a Task and Finish Group (TFG) be convened for this purpose.  The membership is: Cllrs Britton, Greenway, Kerry-Bedell, Oakley, Oxlade and Sharp.

11.1     The Committee noted the decision of the Business Planning Group to establish a Task and Finish Group to scrutinise proposed changes to the Library Services’ public access computers and the membership set out in the agenda.

The Committee is asked to agree its current draft work programme (attached at Appendix A and B), taking into account the Forward Plan of key decisions within its remit (attached at Appendix C) and any suggestions from its members for possible scrutiny taking into account the attached scrutiny checklist (attached at Appendix D).

12.1     Members reviewed the draft work programme from BPG and agreed to add:

·       the Rights of Way Management Plan to look at fragmentation of the network

·       the Highways resilience item scheduled for BPG to review in April 2024 should also cover any lessons learned

·       the Land Use policy to be discussed when the Climate Change Strategy is next considered.

There have been no requests for call-in to the Scrutiny Committee and within its constitutional remit since the date of the last meeting.  The Director of Law and Assurance will report any requests since the publication of the agenda papers.

13.1     There had been no request for call-in to the Scrutiny Committee within its constitutional remit since the date of the last meeting.

The next meeting of the Committee will be held on 20 September 2023 at 10.30 am at County Hall, Chichester.  Probable agenda items include:

·       Performance and Resources Review – Quarter 1 – April-June 2023

·       Digital Inclusion and Safety Strategy

·       Highways Asset Management Strategy

·       Major Schemes – Lessons Learned

·       New process for Traffic Regulation Orders and Community Highways Schemes

Any member wishing to place an item on the agenda for the meeting must notify the Director of Law and Assurance by Friday 8 September.

14.1     The next meeting would be held on 20 September at 10.30am.

15.1     Resolved – That under Section 100(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the item of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in part I, of Schedule 12A, of the Act by virtue of the paragraph specified under the item and that, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption of that information outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Exempt: Paragraph 3.

Report by Assistant Director (Highways, Transport and Planning) attached for members of the Committee only (yellow paper).

The contract terms for the various contracts covering the delivery of highways services are due to expire, and the County Council is developing a strategy for the reprocurement of these important services.

The Committee is invited to consider and scrutinise the proposed reprocurement strategy, and consider the points at which it should engage in the reprocurement process.

The Committee explored the County Council’s proposed approach to the Highways Contract procurement and posed questions to the Cabinet Member and officers.