Agenda and minutes

To note any apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from Cllrs Klara Sudbury and Suzanne Williams.

Members of the Committee are invited to declare any pecuniary or

personal interests relating to specific matters on the agenda.

Please see note (a) at the end of the agenda.

No declarations were received.

Members to consider the attached report and presentation on the results of the public consultation for the Local Transport Plan Review.

3.1       The Chair invited Simon Excell, Lead Commissioner for Strategic Infrastructure, to present this item. Members were shown the attached PowerPoint presentation and noted the following points.

Background

3.2       Members were reminded that at a joint meeting in September 2019, both Committees considered and commented on, the draft Local Transport Plan (LTP). This draft was then signed off by Cabinet and went to public consultation between January and March this year.

3.3       Due to the onset of the pandemic, today’s session had to be delayed from July and therefore the timeline had adjusted accordingly. Today, members were asked to comment on the revised LTP, following comments received from the public consultation. The final LTP would be presented to Cabinet in January 2021, with an aim for the full adoption in March 2021.

3.4       Members noted that the LTP had last been adopted in 2016 and was now therefore increasingly out of date with national, regional, county and local priorities and policies. The review needed to bring the LTP inline with these changes, whilst also strengthening its climate change agenda and reflecting the significant progress in the district local plans e.g. the Joint Core Strategy and Cotswold Local Plan. It was highlighted that both the county council and all six district councils had now declared a climate change emergency.

3.5       Slide 4 outlined the new vision and objectives for the Plan, which officers believed reflected national and local plans, as well as the challenges we all face at present. Slide 5 reminded members of the three key themes that emerged from scrutiny’s feedback in September 2019.

3.6       Members heard that the public consultation response was very good. Officers made good use of social media to publicise the consultation which received over 14,000 hits and the dedicated LTP webpage received 8,000 views. In addition the team had 250 face to face discussions across the county and almost 500 written responses to the LTP Review. Feedback was analysed and themed in a three stage approach: headline categories, sub-categories and key theme.

3.7       Slide 7 & 8 outlined the responses received from the public consultation. In both the open and closed questions, the respondent’s main concerns could be categorised into: perceived lack of travel choice, safety concerns, congestion, frequency of public transport, environmental impacts and the need for sustainable transport (walking and cycling improvements). There were also several comments made about the length and complexity of the LTP document.

Proposed changes

3.8       The Committee were informed that officers had acted on all the comments received from the consultation, which were outlined on slides 9 – 14. Members noted the following points in relation to the proposed changes:

·         The document will be shortened and simplified, reduced in size by about one third and removed any repetition to provide a more user friendly LTP.

·         A merging of the overarching vision and objectives and shaping the way to 2041 will become a new ‘Vision Towards 2041’ chapter.

·         The overarching policy document had been shortened and strengthened.

·         The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.