Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence from Councillors.

Apologies were received from Cllr L Dedman and Cllr C Goodall.

To receive information on any changes in the membership of the Committee.

Note – When a member of a Committee is unable to attend a meeting of a Committee or Sub-Committee, the relevant Political Group Leader (or their nominated representative) may, by notice to the Monitoring Officer (or their nominated representative) prior to the meeting, appoint a substitute member from within the same Political Group. The contact details on the front of this agenda should be used for notifications.

Cllr M Phipps substituted for Cllr L Dedman and Cllr A Chapmanlaw substituted for Cllr Goodall.

Councillors are requested to declare any interests on items included in this agenda. Please refer to the workflow on the preceding page for guidance.

Declarations received will be reported at the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest made on this occasion.

To confirm and sign as a correct record the minutes of the Meeting held on 29 January 2024.

The minutes of the meeting held on 29 January were approved as a correct record subject to the following amendments:

•         Clause 41 - To include the relevant agenda item number in the declarations of interest made.

•         Clause 43 - To include the full response from the Portfolio Holder to the second public question.

•         Clause 45 – To amend the adjournment start time from 7.54pm to 8.54pm.

To receive any public questions, statements or petitions submitted in accordance with the Constitution. Further information on the requirements for submitting these is available to view at the following link:-

https://democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeID=151&Info=1&bcr=1

The deadline for the submission of public questions is midday 3 clear working days before the meeting.

The deadline for the submission of a statement is midday the working day before the meeting.

The deadline for the submission of a petition is 10 working days before the meeting.

There were no public petitions or questions on this occasion. There were 2 public statements received, as follows:

1.     From Mr Adam Osman – Local Resident, read out by Democratic Services:

The proposal to maintain the default speed limit on residential streets falls short.

The average walk to school is 2km in the UK; a 2km radius of every school in BCP would cover the entire conurbation. Children need protection via 20mph speed limits. A piecemeal approach

would merely confuse drivers, half solve the issue and would cost more, with on and off

signage.

I question the figure of £300m to retrofit speed limits. I believe this figure is disproportionately large and must be reviewed.

I query the need for enforcement of 20mph limits being a barrier to implementation. This is far from the case as we know 30mph limits aren't enforced. There is no reason we cannot work towards enforcement while implementing 20mph now. Do authorities not allow 20mph without enforcement? If not so, this is a major barrier to progress, and should be tackled.

2.     From Mr Nick Greenwood – Local Resident:

'Dorset Police and GSC Morebus have expressed concerns about the 20 mph limit according to notes for the Cabinet Meeting on 6 March 2024.

Data produced in support of 20 mph limit cannot trusted because of  Political eco-warrior bias to the 2030 Agenda. If the data could be trusted then there should be a case for 12 or15 mph limits which should be debated. The likely pragmatic difficulties of not using these lower speed limits could be argued for the reduction from 30 mph.

The 20 mph limit are part of a bigger scheme and are tied in with 15-minutes Neighbourhoods from the 2030 Agenda designed and implemented by the UN and World Economic Forum in the pursuit of World Governance.

Hence the subjectivity of those making biased decisions on an unwilling or uniformed Public. This should be exposed so the Public can make objective decisions.

The Chair agreed to vary the order of business to take agenda item 7 Wessex Fields Update next.

For the Board to consider a verbal update on Wessex Fields.

The Leader of the Council and Portfolio Holder for Dynamic Places provided an update to the Board. It was explained that at the time of the request being made for an update to the Board on this issue there were no plans to change anything which had previously been agreed. The Wessex Fields site had been handed over as a project to FuturePlaces and all FuturePLaces work was being wrapped up into bundles and would be presented to Cabinet at a future date. It was confirmed that as of the end of 2023 Wessex Fields was not being considered a priority site.

Since then, BCP Council had been approached with an offer to purchase the land. The Cross-Party Strategic Asset Disposal \working Group was due to consider the offer at a meeting on 8 March. If the group endorsed the proposal, it would be considered by Cabinet on 10 April and then by Council depending on the valuation level. The meeting was advised that until anything was agreed by the working group there was nothing further to report. The Cross-Party Working Group had a set of agreed criteria against which it would assess the offer. A number of issues were raised by the Board in the subsequent discussion including:

·     Whether the arrangements for phase 2 of the A338 works for the northbound slip road and roundabout within this area would be affected. It was noted that it could not be confirmed until heads of terms were agreed.

·     Whether the purpose of the site would be ancillary or compatible with the hospital. The Board was advised that without disclosing who the offer had been received from it would be difficult to give any further information.

·     Prior to the offer being made any report on this issue would have explained that this was a FuturePlaces site and that any work they had done would come within a future update to Cabinet about what the next steps would have been.

·     There were concerns raised that it had been heard that the Council had dropped its plans for the development of Wessex Fields, namely the aspiration for the area being a science/biotech type industry-based employment area. It was noted that the requirement for the area was to generate a certain number of jobs and it did not dictate a specific purpose for the site. The Local Plan identified it as a primary employment site.

·     The Working Group would consider issues around best value for the site and decide whether to recommend on to Cabinet and Council in accordance with the key principles as agreed by the working group in accordance with section 123 of the Local Gove3rnamnet Act 1972. The offer must also meet the independent red book valuation. The current offer was deemed to be credible and would be followed up.

·     It was noted that in general there was not a policy to always sell to highest bidder buy default. A site that would be of huge social and community value may be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52.

The Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Connected Communities and the Portfolio Holder for Response Environment and Energy presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'A' to these minutes in the Minute Book. The Board was advised that the purpose of the Cabinet report was to present the outputs of a review of local and national 20mph initiatives and to seek endorsement for a programme to enable the delivery of 20mph speed limits to create safer neighbourhoods across the three towns and make journeys by all modes safer. It was proposed that this would be achieved in areas through consultation with residents in priority communities, and through the reinstatement of a dedicated 20mph speed limit budget allocation within the Council’s Local Transport Plan (LTP) Capital programme.  The Board was advised that there were approximately 77 areas across the conurbation that already had 20mph speed limits and further proposed areas were outlined in the appendix to the report. There were a number of issues raised by the Board including:

·     What would be addressed by the £149k budget and would this include any legislative changes required? It was noted that this budget would cover approximately three of the areas outlined on the map in the appendix to provide signage and roundels. There would also be a need for Traffic Regulation Orders for each 20-mph area introduced. Rolling out the process in area zones rather than by streets would be more cost effective.

·     The Deputy Leader confirmed in response to a question that it was their long-term ambition to create 20 mph roads as default for residential neighbourhoods, with some exceptions. This would be dependent upon the funding which could be achieved from the Department of Transport and based upon the advice from the RoSPA regarding the use of 20mph in residential neighbourhoods.

·     Some expressed the view that it was disappointing that all the areas could not be rolled out faster across the whole conurbation but appreciated that a dedicated budget was being introduced.

·     It was confirmed that there would be TROs introduced and the process for these followed in terms of consultation, for any of the 20 mph areas.

·     A member questioned why the money was being allocated for a number of schemes before consultation had taken place with the public on whether they wanted these to be introduced and commented that the public had lost confidence in Council consultations. In response it was noted that there were approximately sixty requests for 20mph schemes which had not yet been implemented. It was noted that a full consultation was expected to take up all of the money the report was requesting. A Councillor asked that if there was a consultation, everyone needed to be aware of it.

·     A member advised that they received lots of correspondence from residents seeking the implementation of 20 mph zones.

·     There was a need a flexible and sensible approach with a system of consulting  ...  view the full minutes text for item 53.

The Overview and Scrutiny (O&S) Board is asked to consider and identify work priorities for publication in a Forward Plan.

The Scrutiny Specialist presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'C' to these Minutes in the Minute Book. The Overview and Scrutiny (O&S) Board was asked to consider and identify work priorities for publication in a Forward Plan. The Board was advised that the O&S Board should be separate from the Cabinet and Administration but there would be arrangements made to meet with Cabinet quarterly.  The Plan was intended to help drive independence of the Board rather than the reliance on Cabinet items for scrutiny. It was noted that it would be useful to establish a series of informal briefings which could provide an early outline for issues and input towards the direction of travel.

Decisions from workshops were potentially also linked to pre-decision scrutiny. Proactive scrutiny could also be done through smaller working groups etc. and not necessarily done through Board meetings.

The Chairman confirmed the items for the next meeting of the Board which would include the Seafront Strategy, Pay and Reward and Wessex Fields -depending on whether it moved forward for Cabinet decision.

The Board RESOLVED

a)    That the Forward Plan be noted.

b)    That the agreements made in O&S workshops to develop a lens and a framework for scrutiny, as set out in Appendix E to the report be confirmed.

c)    That the next steps in developing the Board’s work programme, as set out in Appendix E to this report be noted.

Voting: Nem. Con