Agenda and draft minutes

To receive any apologies for absence from Councillors.

There were no apologies received for this meeting.

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

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 25 February 2025.

In relation to Item 8 the following amendment was made:

The Head of Transport and Sustainable Travel advised that there had been a recent announcement regarding active travel funding called the Consolidated Active Travel Fund.  The council had been indicatively allocated £1.459million which would come to a future meeting of TAG on route to Cabinet with timescales to be confirmed.  

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 Wednesday 30 April 3 clear working days before the meeting.

The deadline for the submission of a statement is midday Tuesday 6 April the working day before the meeting.

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

The Group was advised that there had been no public questions or statements received on this occasion.

To elect a Chair of the Transport Advisory Group for the 2025/26 Municipal Year.

Nominations were sought for the election of Chair. A nomination was received and seconded for Councillor S Bull. No further nominations were received.

RESOLVED that Councillor S Bull be elected as Chair of the Transportation Advisory Group for the 2025/26 Municipal Year.

To elect a Vice Chair of the Transport Advisory Group for the 2025/26 Municipal Year.

The Chair sought nominations were sought for the election of Vice Chair. A nomination was received and seconded for Councillor S McCormack. No further nominations were received.

RESOLVED that Councillor S McCormack be elected as Vice Chair of the Transportation Advisory Group for the 2025/26 Municipal Year.

The Council has been allocated and accepted £1.459m Consolidated Active Travel Fund (CATF) grant from Active Travel England (ATE) for walking, wheeling and cycling improvements to deliver schemes aligned with the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) approved by Council in May 2022.

The award comprises £1.128m of capital and £331k of revenue funding. 

This report recommends how the grant award should be invested and seeks delegation to facilitate delivery.

The Head of Transport and Sustainable Travel welcomed the Senior Engineer to present 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 Transportation Advisory Group (TAG) was advised of the report and recommendations being submitted to Cabinet at their meeting on 13 May 2025.

The Council had been allocated £1.459m Consolidated Active Travel Fund (CATF) from Active Travel England (ATE).  This award comprised of £1.128m capital and £331k of revenue funding.

The report set out options of how the grant awarded would be invested.

It was proposed that as part of the funding new crossing crossings would be implemented in the following locations

Coy Pond. 

Highcliffe Road, precise location TBC.

Parkstone Road

It was also stated that there was an allocation for deign and programme management fees. There was a specific allocation for design development for proposals around Christchurch Infant and Junior schools to improve road safety for children walking or cycling to school.

There was a question regarding some of the funding being used to support an air pollution officer.  It was stated that the air pollution officer was an officer already in post who had air pollution as 1 part of their work.

It was stated that there are some air quality monitors in place and some monitoring was done around air quality in association with School streets.  TAG was informed that a secondary school tool kit, which was part funded through the DEFRA grant was being published.

As part of the funding there was £60,000 which would fund 2.5 full time equivalent posts, which was funding for the officer.

As part of the Coy Pond scheme footway improvements were factored in as the footway was very sub-standard for users who would be walking, wheeling or with a vision impairment.

A crossing at Alder Road was already planned for 2026 delivery to be funded through the Active Travel Fund 5, which was previously discussed.

RESOLVED that the report and recommendations contained within the report were noted and the Transportation Advisory Group agreed the following recommendation be forwarded to Cabinet on this item:

(a) Recommends to Council delegation of the investment of the £1.459m of Consolidated Active Travel Fund 2025/26 to the Service Director for Planning & Transport in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Climate Response, Environment and Energy

The Head of Transport and Sustainable Travel introduced item and invited the Operations Director for Morebus and Go South Coast and General Manager of More Bus to update the Committee.

At the last meeting of the Transportation Advisory Group there was a debate around the availability and cost child fares and that the child fares were only available through the app as opposed to a smart card or other option.

Handed over to Morebus to discuss.

Morebus were the largest operator in the conurbation and operate around 200 buses in and around the conurbation and into from surrounding areas.

Passenger numbers increased since 2023 by 8%.

Since 2011 until a couple of years ago a smart card ticketing option called the key was available and customers could buy tickets, upload them to the card and use them to travel.

The technology behind that system was nearly 25 years old and was unreliable to the point it wasn’t reliable and the technology was not updated by the operators in the background which caused issues for customers uploading ang trying to use tickets.  Which caused frustration and complaints.

The app was launched around that time which enabled customers to track and plan their journeys and buy tickets.

An issue that was noted was the abuse of certain tickets by people who were not entitled to use them, such as adults using children’s tickets which was fraud.

Children and Young People were able to verify their age on the app which gave greater assurance that people were travelling with the correct tickets.

There had been a lot of discussion around children having smart phones in schools and some schools wished to remove them, would mean the children would not have access to their child tickets.

TAG were informed that to try and get around this MoreBus had a meeting with Smart Card applications management which would be a potential solution, where the contactless bank card would be uploaded with a ticket as the smart card did before.  There were few more things for MoreBus to look at with this option to see if it would work.

There was a £2 child fare available at the weekends, which would cover the BCP area and Upton which was available in paper form as well as the app.

A question was asked regarding pre-paid cards that young people may have such as Go-Henry and HyperJar, where young people have no ID to get those cards and it was stated that they would present a challenge that would need to be looked at to try to overcome it.

This report considers the outcome of public consultation on proposed alterations to parking and restrictions along Seabourne Road (and adjoining streets), Southbourne Grove and Southbourne Road aimed at improving journey times and reliability for buses and general traffic whilst balancing the needs of residents and businesses.

The report recommends full consideration of the consultation outputs and implementation of the measures proposed. 

The Head of Transport and Sustainable Travel presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'B' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

The Transportation Advisory Group (TAG) was advised of the report and recommendations that were submitted to Cabinet at their meeting on 13 May 2025.

The report considered the outcome of public consultation on proposed alterations to parking and restrictions along Seabourne Road (and adjoining streets), Southbourne Grove and Southbourne Road aimed at improving journey times and reliability for buses and general traffic whilst balancing the needs of residents and businesses.

In 2021 the government published it’s national bus strategy for England called bus back better which set out their vision to transform the quality of bus services across the country.  This included local transport authorities where possible pursue franchising or a statutory enhanced partnership with bus companies.  BCP already had strong relationship with the bus company so went for the statutory enhanced partnership.

The BSIP aligned with the corporate strategy and the 2022 Council motion to get 50% of journey’s within the BCP area to be done by walking, scooting, cycling or public transport by 2030 and BSIP was also a funding requirement.

BCP council was only 1 of 31 local transport authorities in England to be awarded funding as part of the first phase of BSIP. BSIP sets out the aims to make buses more frequent, faster and reliable.

Pokesdown and Southbourne were identified as routes that would benefit from improvement as services regularly suffered disruption.

The section between Pokesdown Station and Carberry Avenue, was being looked at, the journey was scheduled to take 5 mins, however analysis of data showed that some journey’s took over 20 minutes.

The proposals looked to remove some sections of parking at particular points along the scheme where congestion occurred and provided replacement parking on adjacent side roads as this would improve traffic flow.

A consultation was launched in January and received a total of 196 respondents commented, 59 in support, 110 in objection and 27 general comments. 

The objections were from residents that highlighted concern’s about the impact on businesses and residential addresses.  A 2018 report highlighted the fact that those people who travelled to businesses by means other than private car, increase their spend at local businesses by as much as £32.

It was raised that 1 hour parking restrictions cause people to not stay in shops or cafes as they would need to get back for their parking, which would have a negative effect on businesses.  The benefits of arriving by bus means people will stay as long as they want without the need to rush off.

The scheme had been worked on very closely with local bus operators as part of the enhanced partnership and lots of engagement with them and local businesses and obtained their views and where adjustments had been made the bus company was consulted again and they supported them.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9a

This report considers the outcome of the public consultation on proposed alterations to parking and restrictions in Purewell. These are aimed at improving reliability / journey times for buses and general traffic whilst balancing the needs of residents and businesses.

The report recommends withdrawal of the original proposals, with the advertising of an alternative scheme designed to minimise impact on local businesses.

The Head of Transport and Sustainable Travel 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.

This report considers the outcome of the public consultation on proposed alterations to parking and restrictions in Purewell. These are aimed at improving reliability / journey times for buses and general traffic whilst balancing the needs of residents and businesses.

Purewell was also highlighted as an area which had been suffering with congestion by the bus services and was highlighted as an area for a priority bus scheme.

That journey was scheduled to take around 3 minutes but was taking up to 14 minutes.  Which had a significant impact on passengers and increased costs to the operators.

Where on street parking was considered for removal, it would be replaced with no waiting restrictions.  The restrictions would be enforced Monday – Saturdays day times only and no restrictions on Sunday.

A consultation was undertaken in January and received 201 responses, 20 in support and 181 in objection.  A petition with over 900 signatures objecting to the proposal was also received.

The group asked that changes to the scheme were clearly documented for future committees.

RESOLVED that a revised scheme (as per Appendix A) was engaged on with ward councillors, Christchurch Town Council and the community prior to being advertised by way of Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) for future consideration.   

Voting: Unanimous

As part of a national programme, the Council was allocated £1.89m of Safer Roads Fund (SRF) grant by the Department for Transport (DfT) for road safety improvements along the A35 between Iford roundabout and St Pauls roundabout in Bournemouth. 

The recommendation is aligned with the emerging new Corporate Strategy and the Council Climate Action Strategy 2023 to 2028

This report considers the outcome of the public consultation on the 20mph proposals in Boscombe and Pokesdown.

The Head of Transport and Sustainable Travel presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'D' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

This project stemmed from a nationwide study conducted by the Department of Transport and the road safety foundation which looked at collisions along roads in the UK.

As a result of that study BCP Council was invited to apply for funding to improve safety along the A35 corridor.

BCP Council were successful and was awarded 1.89m from the safer road fund.  In total there have been 165 collisions resulting in 178 casualties along that stretch of road.

As part of the bid process for funding BCP Council were required to use a specialist software tool called IRAP which was provided by the Department for Transport and Road Safety foundation.

The software looked at how likely the proposal is to reduce the severity of future collisions and cost effectiveness of the scheme.

A public consultation on these proposals took place last March and April.  The feedback was shared with local ward councillors, portfolio holders and the public. More information on that can be found on your say website.

Following the review of the consultation feedback and discussions with ward councillors, portfolio holders and morebus some adjustments were made to the original 20 mile zone extension proposal.

There were 56 objections to the TRA consultation, 16 in support, 37 objections and 5 general comments.

The scheme was funded by the Department of Transport through the road safety fund and was ringfenced money designed to address high casualty rates on a road.

Along that stretch of the A35 there were 165 recorded collisions and 187 casualties.  The scheme supported active and sustainable travel and lined up with BCP council’s goals for climate action and sustainable travel.

Pedestrian crossings were included in the money and some had already been installed in Pokesdown station towards the project.

TAG were informed that enforcement of the 20mph limit would be down to Dorset Police with their relationship with safe road partnership who BCP Council road safety team work on all speeding matters.

RESOLVED that the Transportation Advisory Group (TAG) recommends to Cabinet that the 20mph scheme is implemented as proposed. 

Voting: Unanimous

The Head of Transport and Sustainable Travel informed TAG that there were no items on the forward plan and any items that were going to Cabinet or Council would go to TAG first if appropriate. 

The group was also where any contentious traffic regulation orders were discussed when there were any.  There were no items on the forward plan.

It was suggested that the group could look at the speed indicator signs as there were some that were not working.  TAG were informed that the road safety team looked at those as a number had been vandalised or had reached the end of their life and a programme had been formulated which assessed and repaired or replaced.

It was suggested that the group could look at the use of ANPR cameras around the conurbation whether BCP use them or not.  TAG were informed that BCP did not use ANPR camera’s.

There was a suggestion that the proposal around BSIP funding for school children to get cheaper fares during the school week.  It was stated that would be an item better suited to scrutiny.