Transport, Environment, Communities & Climate Change Select Committee - Tuesday 3 February 2026, 10:00am - Buckinghamshire Council Webcasting

Transport, Environment, Communities & Climate Change Select Committee
Tuesday, 3rd February 2026 at 10:00am 

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  1. Cllr Penny Drayton
  2. Cllr Penny Drayton
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  1. Sally Moore - Senior Scrutiny Officer
  2. Cllr Penny Drayton
  3. Cllr David Carroll
  4. Cllr Penny Drayton
  5. Cllr Anja Schaefer
  6. Cllr Penny Drayton
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  1. Public Questions
  2. Cllr Penny Drayton
  3. Public Questions
  4. Cllr Penny Drayton
  5. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  6. Hannah Joyce - Head of Service for Planning, Growth and Sustainability
  7. Public Questions
  8. Cllr Penny Drayton
  9. Sally Moore - Senior Scrutiny Officer
  10. Cllr Penny Drayton
  11. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  12. Cllr Penny Drayton
  13. Sally Moore - Senior Scrutiny Officer
  14. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  15. Cllr Penny Drayton
  16. Sally Moore - Senior Scrutiny Officer
  17. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  18. Cllr Penny Drayton
  19. Cllr Penny Drayton
  20. Public Questions
  21. Cllr Penny Drayton
  22. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  23. Cllr Penny Drayton
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  1. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  2. Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager
  3. Cllr Penny Drayton
  4. Cllr Caroline Cornell
  5. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  6. Hannah Joyce - Head of Service for Planning, Growth and Sustainability
  7. Cllr Caroline Cornell
  8. Cllr Penny Drayton
  9. Cllr Anja Schaefer
  10. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  11. Cllr Anja Schaefer
  12. Cllr Penny Drayton
  13. Cllr Maru Mormina
  14. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  15. Cllr Maru Mormina
  16. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  17. Hannah Joyce - Head of Service for Planning, Growth and Sustainability
  18. Cllr Maru Mormina
  19. Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager
  20. Cllr Maru Mormina
  21. Hannah Joyce - Head of Service for Planning, Growth and Sustainability
  22. Cllr Penny Drayton
  23. Cllr Thomas Broom
  24. Cllr Maru Mormina
  25. Cllr Penny Drayton
  26. Cllr Andy Huxley
  27. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  28. Hannah Joyce - Head of Service for Planning, Growth and Sustainability
  29. Cllr Penny Drayton
  30. Cllr Michael Collins
  31. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  32. Cllr Penny Drayton
  33. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  34. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  35. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  36. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  37. Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager
  38. Cllr Penny Drayton
  39. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  40. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  41. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  42. Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager
  43. Cllr Penny Drayton
  44. Cllr Justine Fulford
  45. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  46. Cllr Justine Fulford
  47. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  48. Cllr Justine Fulford
  49. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  50. Cllr Penny Drayton
  51. Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager
  52. Cllr Penny Drayton
  53. Cllr Anja Schaefer
  54. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  55. Cllr Penny Drayton
  56. Cllr Maru Mormina
  57. Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager
  58. Cllr Penny Drayton
  59. Cllr Michael West
  60. Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager
  61. Cllr Penny Drayton
  62. Cllr Michael Collins
  63. Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager
  64. Cllr Penny Drayton
  65. Cllr Andy Huxley
  66. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  67. Cllr Andy Huxley
  68. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  69. Cllr Andy Huxley
  70. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  71. Cllr Penny Drayton
  72. Cllr Caroline Cornell
  73. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  74. Cllr Penny Drayton
  75. Cllr Justine Fulford
  76. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  77. Cllr Penny Drayton
  78. Cllr Justine Fulford
  79. Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager
  80. Cllr Penny Drayton
  81. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  82. Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
  83. Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager
  84. Cllr Penny Drayton
  85. Cllr Penny Drayton
  86. Cllr Penny Drayton
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  1. Webcast Finished
  2. Cllr Steve Bowles
  3. Cllr Penny Drayton
  4. Cllr Steve Bowles
  5. Cllr Penny Drayton
  6. Cllr Anja Schaefer
  7. Cllr Steve Bowles
  8. Sophie Payne - Service Director, Communities
  9. Cllr Steve Bowles
  10. Cllr Anja Schaefer
  11. Wendy Morgan-Brown - Head of Partnership and Communities
  12. Cllr Penny Drayton
  13. Cllr Michael Collins
  14. Cllr Steve Bowles
  15. Cllr Penny Drayton
  16. Cllr Maru Mormina
  17. Cllr Penny Drayton
  18. Cllr Steve Bowles
  19. Sophie Payne - Service Director, Communities
  20. Cllr Maru Mormina
  21. Wendy Morgan-Brown - Head of Partnership and Communities
  22. Cllr Penny Drayton
  23. Sophie Payne - Service Director, Communities
  24. Cllr Penny Drayton
  25. Sophie Payne - Service Director, Communities
  26. Cllr Penny Drayton
  27. Cllr Ashley Waite
  28. Cllr Penny Drayton
  29. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  30. Cllr Steve Bowles
  31. Cllr Penny Drayton
  32. Cllr David Carroll
  33. Cllr Steve Bowles
  34. Cllr Penny Drayton
  35. Cllr Anja Schaefer
  36. Cllr Steve Bowles
  37. Cllr Penny Drayton
  38. Cllr Maru Mormina
  39. Cllr Steve Bowles
  40. Cllr Maru Mormina
  41. Cllr Penny Drayton
  42. Cllr Michael Collins
  43. Cllr Steve Bowles
  44. Cllr Penny Drayton
  45. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  46. Cllr Penny Drayton
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  1. Mr Steve Bambrick
  2. Cllr Thomas Broom
  3. Cllr Peter Martin
  4. Mr Daniel Gigg
  5. Mr Richard Barker
  6. Cllr Penny Drayton
  7. Cllr Thomas Broom
  8. Cllr Penny Drayton
  9. Edmund Waddelove, Senior Sponsor - East West Rail, Network Rail
  10. Cllr Penny Drayton
  11. Natalie Wheble, External Affairs Director, East West Rail
  12. Karen Hope, Chiltern Railways
  13. David Heathfield
  14. Cllr Penny Drayton
  15. Public Speaker
  16. Cllr Penny Drayton
  17. Cllr Thomas Broom
  18. Cllr Penny Drayton
  19. Cllr Thomas Broom
  20. Natalie Wheble, External Affairs Director, East West Rail
  21. Mr Daniel Gigg
  22. Cllr Penny Drayton
  23. Cllr Andy Huxley
  24. Cllr Thomas Broom
  25. Cllr Penny Drayton
  26. Cllr Anja Schaefer
  27. Karen Hope, Chiltern Railways
  28. Benjamin Rule, East West Rail
  29. Edmund Waddelove, Senior Sponsor - East West Rail, Network Rail
  30. Cllr Caroline Cornell
  31. Benjamin Rule, East West Rail
  32. Cllr Caroline Cornell
  33. Benjamin Rule, East West Rail
  34. Cllr Caroline Cornell
  35. Benjamin Rule, East West Rail
  36. Cllr Caroline Cornell
  37. Benjamin Rule, East West Rail
  38. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  39. Benjamin Rule, East West Rail
  40. Natalie Wheble, External Affairs Director, East West Rail
  41. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  42. Benjamin Rule, East West Rail
  43. Natalie Wheble, External Affairs Director, East West Rail
  44. Cllr Michael Collins
  45. Cllr Maru Mormina
  46. Mel Banks, East West Rail Alliance Director
  47. Natalie Wheble, External Affairs Director, East West Rail
  48. Cllr Thomas Broom
  49. Cllr Caroline Cornell
  50. Natalie Wheble, External Affairs Director, East West Rail
  51. Cllr Thomas Broom
  52. Cllr Penny Drayton
  53. Natalie Wheble, External Affairs Director, East West Rail
  54. Cllr Penny Drayton
  55. Cllr Peter Martin
  56. Natalie Wheble, External Affairs Director, East West Rail
  57. Cllr Michael Collins
  58. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  59. Benjamin Rule, East West Rail
  60. Cllr Penny Drayton
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  1. Cllr Ed Gemmell
  2. Cllr Penny Drayton
  3. Cllr Caroline Cornell
  4. Cllr Penny Drayton
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7 East West Rail

Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:00:00
Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning. This is the third of February
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:00:14
Transport Environment, Climate Change and Communities Committee. Welcome to council
members, officers, members of the public and those watching the webcast. Can I remind everyone
throughout if you're speaking to turn your microphone on is to enable us all
to hear clearly and also for those watching on the web on the webcast to be
able to hear you as well so it picks up all the comments like to remind you as
well it's a scrutiny committee we're here to ask questions often especially
this morning we've got some topics which may open up some quite detailed
questions but can I remind everyone to remain respectful and I don't want to
limit any discussions but if I need to jump in to do so I will. Also if we can
keep it minded to not be political as we are here just to scrutinise the topics
which we are which are on the agenda. So first of all agenda item number one

1 Apologies for Absence

Sally Moore - Senior Scrutiny Officer - 0:01:18
apologies for absence and any changes in membership. Thank you Chairman we've had
Apology from Councillor Greg Smith and Councillor Mary Morin is substituting for him
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:01:27
Cllr David Carroll - 0:01:30
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:01:33
Cllr Anja Schaefer - 0:01:37
And counts Schafer, I'm aware you have to leave at half 12 as well
Thank you
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:01:39
And I also got a message from council again more that he is running late, but is intending to arrive. Hopefully shortly

2 Declarations of Interest

Declarations of interest, has any member got any personal
or pecuniary interest in any of the items of the agenda
that they need to declare?
Mr Steve Bambrick - 0:01:57
Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:01:59
No? Thank you.

3 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

Cllr Peter Martin - 0:02:01
And item number four is public questions.
We do have a few public questions today,
mainly on the first topic on the agenda,

4 Public Questions

which will come forward afterwards.
So if I invite members of the public forward to answer their questions and members which
cannot be here will be read out by Sally.
First of all, can I have Councillor Stutchbury up please?
Public Questions - 0:02:38
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:02:41
Just to point out for all the items today on presentation intros and questions, we are
having three minutes per person.
Public Questions - 0:02:45
I've just got to make this come live, if you give me a minute.
Thank you, Chair.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:03:09
I'm here today because, to reinforce and validate a public record, members will be
that the question circulated, which was the response
to a question about flood alleviation
in Buckingham and Tinduit Mill.
Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:03:25
After that question was submitted,
there was a further discussion and correspondence
as I have between the cabinet member,
the leader of the council and the owner of Tinduit Mill
about the information given to the council
not being exactly accurate and not in keeping
what the owner knows who should know
because he owns the mill.
Therefore, I'm here today because it's important
to understand after the meeting of the 22nd, which took place,
which was a flood alleviation meeting, there was,
which was in the concrete tower or Polias Folly,
we discussed it was raised by the owner
with the cabinet member on the 22nd of January
about the situation of the Tindrick mill
and information given to the council
by the environment agency not be in keeping
with these public records of what he'd actually done.
So therefore, the purpose of the question today
is there was alluded within the meeting, which
there will be no public minute of, is why I'm here,
is that there would be a meeting organised
between the environment agency and the owner of Tindall,
Mr. Cole Jarrett, to sort out the difference
of the correspondence, because the information they gave to the council stated that they
were in correspondence, and that wasn't the case.
They were in correspondence over a separate matter.
So I'm here today to seek an understanding, because this is flooding and the cabinet member,
deputy, obviously, that they will correspond with the environment agency to make sure that
that meeting is actually booked in and takes place.
Those here who don't live in Buckingham,
you probably would realise Buckingham floods
every three years, and the scheme in Water Stratford,
if it was to be taken forward,
would return the flooding situation
to what it was in the 1970s,
and Buckingham did not flood so much thereafter.
All this information's within the council,
and within correspondence to the cabinet member,
and within correspondence in previous questions.
So basically my request today is to ensure that we get the support of the Council to
get that meeting between the landowner and the Environment Agency so that they can discuss
the disparity in the correspondence between the two of them so we can move this matter
forward because Buckingham's been waiting for a very long time for flood relief and
just for information there's been about a million pounds spent on looking at things
and not a penny spent on resolving it.
So I think we need to start turning that pendulum back
the other way.
So I hope that can be answered.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:06:13
Thank you, Councillor Stutchbury.
Councillor Chock, would you like to respond?
And this question has been sent through.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:06:20
I believe Councillor Bossebogen will know better than me
about this because he attends the Buckingham flood meetings.
But I don't know if any of the officers have anything further
to say on that.
Hello, my name is Hannah Joyce.
Hannah Joyce - Head of Service for Planning, Growth and Sustainability - 0:06:34
I don't have a name at the moment.
So basically, through the Flood Action Group at Buckingham,
we have these monthly...
I am not the Flood Action Group at Buckingham.
I am a Buckingham local member, please.
Yes, you attend the Flood Group meetings in Buckingham,
which are now set up on a monthly basis,
which invites the Environment Agency along,
as well as ourselves, where we discuss things like tingemic mill
and all the impacts on flooding in Buckingham.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:07:01
Through that route is how we are going to manage the questions.
I've seen the correspondence around misinformation and I am aware that we have arranged to meet
Councillor Aussie -Bogan to discuss how we're going to take that forward.
Public Questions - 0:07:18
Thank you for the response. I look forward to it being moved forward. We've waited long enough in Buckingham for some action.
Thank you.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:07:27
Edmund Waddelove - Senior Sponsor, East West Rail, Network Rail - 0:07:35
On to further public questions. I think the first two or three have been sent in and Sally is going to read them.
Sally Moore - Senior Scrutiny Officer - 0:07:38
Thank you Chairman. The first question is from Monica Dent.
How does the Council intend to deliver the climate change and air quality strategy when the climate response team is down to just three offices and departing positions not replaced?
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:07:57
Would you like to offer an answer on this?
Yes, thank you, Chair.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:08:02
Achieving the aims of the climate change and air quality strategy, that's a responsibility
shared by all Buckinghamshire stakeholders.
So the Council has control of activities which leads to its direct emissions, but it does
not have that same ability with all of the carbon emissions across Buckinghamshire.
So the Council is responsible for delivering the objective strategy, and the climate response
team has a coordination function.
Insurely subjects are delivered through a range of projects
and they work across many council services.
So it's not just within that team
that we deliver the objectives, it's through lots
of council operations.
A more detailed response can be provided at the end
of the meeting, a full written response.
Thank you.
Yes, I think member of public would
like a full response to that.
Thank you.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:08:54
Sally Moore - Senior Scrutiny Officer - 0:08:57
Thank you Chairman. The second question is from Alan Thorley.
The electrification of the Council's fleet appears to have stalled as apparently only
one electric vehicle was added over the period in question out of a total fleet of 166 vehicles.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:09:15
This seems strange given the cost savings achievable by running EVs. Is the Council
still conducting a robust cost calculation each time a vehicle in its fleet needs to
replaced, as well as taking into account the emissions savings that would result from electrification?
And is there a plan to address the significant proportion of emissions generated by HGVs
now that the pilot scheme to electrify a refuse collection vehicle has dropped off the radar?
Natalie Wheble - External AffiarDirector, East West Rail Company - 0:09:40
If you'd like to respond, please.
Yes, thank you, Chair.
Hannah Joyce - Head of Service for Planning, Growth and Sustainability - 0:09:43
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:09:46
Again, this crosses various portfolios, but every time a vehicle reaches the end of its
life cycle, a full cost benefit analysis carried out about the emissions.
And we consider electrification where it's feasible, reliable, and also financially affordable.
That's why some smaller and lighter vehicles have already transitioned to electric power,
where there's a case to do that.
There are cost savings by operating electric vehicles where the cost of energy is less
compared to the cost of an internal combustion engine.
But that normally happens at sites where the owner operator
manages the energy supply, such as within operation buildings,
and fully controls any additional costs
that make up the electrical vehicle charge point user tariff.
Assessments have been carried out.
Some council sites do not currently have enough grid capacity
to support even a small number of high capacity or electric HEV charges.
The upgrades would involve significant additional cost and long lead -in times, and sometimes
may not be technically feasible without relocating operations entirely.
In the MTFP and capital programmes, there are commitments to increase investment in the
replacement of L3 waste vehicles and trialling new electric alternative fuel vehicles where
possible.
But there are significant financial, operational, and
infrastructural constraints that limit electrifying large parts of the fleet,
particularly HEVs such as refuse collection vehicles.
So, but we remain committed to exploring alternative low carbon fuels,
hybrid technology where it's appropriate, future EV trials, and infrastructure
planning to ensure readiness when heavy duty EVs become more economical and
operationally capable.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:11:42
Thank you. If the answers can also be sent through to all these questions, thank you.
Sally Moore - Senior Scrutiny Officer - 0:11:50
The third question is from Heather Haydock. It is disappointing and frustrating to see
so little progress in decarbonising the Council's estate and vehicle fleet. At the equivalent
Transport Environment Communities and Climate Change meeting last February, I asked whether
the council receives so much more funding from government public sector decarbonisation
scheme and was told Buckinghamshire doesn't have enough resources to bid for funding.
In discussion at the meeting, one of the committee members suggested recruiting volunteers to
help with bidding and the council agreed to look into this. I subsequently offered my
services as an experienced public sector bid writer specialising in energy and climate
change and I followed this up twice after that and have still not received a
response. Please can the council say why they do not want to pursue this option
and how they plan to assess the much -needed resources without external
help. The results of the fourth round of the public sector decarbonisation scheme
have been released recently and councils like Oxfordshire and Surrey have been
awarded even more funding adding to the millions they have already secured.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:12:55
So in respect to that question, the council is looking at a wide variety of options regarding
the building's portfolio.
This is informed by corporate plans affecting the makeup of the portfolio.
Karen Hope - EWR Mobilisation Lead, Chiltern Railways - 0:13:11
Natalie Wheble - External AffiarDirector, East West Rail Company - 0:13:13
And we take into account the challenging financial climate and the increased demand for critical
services.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:13:19
Decisions to invest in retrofits of our existing building stock
with stable energy needs to be made very carefully.
It's understood that the public sector decarbonization scheme
Karen Hope - EWR Mobilisation Lead, Chiltern Railways - 0:13:32
is closed and won't receive any investment.
That scheme required much funding
and provided short delivery time frame
for the delivery of funded projects.
For the reasons stated above, coupled with HR constraints,
It's not been practical to pursue this option.
There's also insufficient capacity to source and manage suitable volunteers or
consultants to undertake feasibility assessment and bid writing work.
So we continue to explore options to sustain and
enhance teams to undertake the decarbonization of the council's assets.
The council's missions account for
a small proportion of the overall carbon emissions in Buckinghamshire.
Considerable work has been undertaken to support emission reductions relevant to
two largest source of emissions in Buckinghamshire, transport and domestic, and that's been captured
in the progress reports to date.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:14:22
Thank you. Fourth question, we have the member of public here in order to ask their question.
I'd like to invite to come up to the table. It's a random are sure place. Thank you
Public Questions - 0:14:41
Hello
According to the report no the progress report this is
No significant energy efficiency upgrades were made to the council's estate last year and no heat pumps were installed
Given that gas accounts for 40 % of the Council's emissions,
and this proportion will only increase as the grid continues to decarbonise,
can you commit to doing something to address this through the installation of heat pumps?
Heat pumps can generate not just carbon, but also financial savings,
particularly in combination with battery and solar systems.
David Heathfield - Head of Corporate Affiars, Chiltern Railways - 0:15:26
Surely this could be addressed in line with the Council's Invest to Save approach.
It would also demonstrate that the council is leading by example and would encourage more of Buckinghamshire's householders to switch to heat pumps.
Thank you.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:15:39
Thank you.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:15:41
Thank you for the question.
So I've already talked a bit about investing in retrofits of the existing building stock and how we need to make that very carefully.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:15:56
But we do continue to explore all options to sustain and enhance teams trying to take
the decarbonization of the Council's assets.
Heat pumps, they have to be financially viable.
This occurs where the cost of running them is less than the cost of running an alternative
system for instance where energy demand has already been reduced by reducing heat loss
and it can be mostly met by onsite renewable electricity generation and storage systems.
Some of our operational sites have got solar panels, battery storage, and air source heat
pumps already installed, along with other sustainable measures, including those mentioned
in the report from 2324.
Restrictions such as limited space or listed building status sometimes mean measures are
not viable.
In line with the energy hierarchy, our focus, capacity permitting, is on measures that will
to reduce energy demand first.
And also to mention that air source heat pumps
Public Question - 0:16:52
in eligible households are currently supported
by the Warm Homes local grant in Buckinghamshire
that's delivered by us.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:17:01
Okay, thank you.
Thank you for attending.
You'll get a full answer sent through.
Okay, thank you. Welcome, Councillor Collins, and moving on from public questions.

5 Climate Change and Air Quality Strategy

3 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

Minutes from previous meetings. Ask all members to approve the meeting on the 4th of November, and if you are all happy with the minutes as attached to the agenda.
Thank you.
Thank you.

5 Climate Change and Air Quality Strategy

Agenda item number five on climate change
and the air quality strategy.
I'd like to introduce and welcome cabinet member,
Councillor Jess Paul -Dutroka,
and the deputy cabinet member, sorry,
cabinet member, Councillor Osbourn,
could not make it this morning.
I'd also like to welcome Hannah Joyce and Alexander Beckett
and I believe Rich Barker and Lindsay Vallis may join us,
but in the meantime we will continue with the meeting.
So we have had an extensive report shared
with the agenda pack.
Is there anything you would like to add
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:18:33
to that before we move to questions?
There's nothing particular I'd like to add unless you want me to introduce it, but if
you've already read it, I'm happy to go to questions unless officers want to add anything.
So in the agenda pack, it's set out as a scenario where the council may not purchase 25 % of
its electricity from renewable sources.
Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager - 0:18:57
So since that paper came to the tech agenda, there has been a decision made on the procurement
of energy supplies from October, well, to its supply commencement from October 2027,
where the Council has reaffirmed its commitment to procuring electricity with 25 % of it coming from
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:19:19
renewable sources. Thank you. And so does that affect the trajectory on the chart that we've got?
Yes, it does. Okay, I have a question on that to come to later, so that's helpful to know. Thank you.
If I open to the floor and any members that would like to ask a question, if you can please
indicate and we'll start with Councillor Cornell.
Thank you, Chair.
Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:19:41
Thank you very much.
Mine's a slightly controversial question because we're looking at renewables, but we have a
huge amount of housing going on in Buckinghamshire at the moment.
And one of my things is in future energy supplies, have we considered MNRs?
I know they're controversial in our way, but they are clean, cheap, and energy efficient
and small, which we could site outside villages or towns.
We haven't then got to have acres and acres of solar farms, etc.
And we have the same result.
And we can get rid of the wind farms,
freeing up farmland and stopping birds being killed, fish being killed.
And I know it's controversial, but I'm a great believer in nuclear energy.
Thank you, Councillor Cornell.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:20:27
I think that may be more of a local plan related question.
Hannah, did anything you wanted to say on that?
Hannah Joyce - Head of Service for Planning, Growth and Sustainability - 0:20:32
No, I think that's the answer.
I will take it away because we've been very much looking at renewable energies and how
we can embed that in new developments, making sure the homes and any land uses are as energy
efficient as possible.
That is within the gift of the local plan policies.
In terms of looking at site, I think you're talking about site allocations for this particular
purpose.
The answer is no, I haven't looked at that particular type of energy.
But I can find out and get back to you.
I'd be great if it's not that.
Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:21:06
It's looking at every source of energy that we can get.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:21:11
And with our island being reduced in size farmland wise, I was thinking instead of having
these huge farms, we could have small reactors.
Thank you.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:21:20
Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:21:23
If you like to go back afterwards, that would be great. Thank you.
Councillor Schafer.
Cllr Anja Schaefer - 0:21:34
I would say good luck with trying to get public buy -in into small nuclear reactors instead of solar farms.
But that wasn't my question.
My question, okay, which one to ask first?
My question is about the tree planting strategy.
I have further ones if we have a second round.
Obviously, the council has made progress towards its goal
of planting a tree for every resident,
so that's just upwards of half a million trees.
Now, the tree planting in the most recent year has tailed off because of a lack of sight,
so I'm familiar with this.
I have noted, and I'm only giving one example, but I expect it's not the only example.
It's just the one that I happen to know, a replanting of trees in the Heartlands Park
in Buckingham.
Most of these, the vast majority of these, not absolutely everyone, but most of these are replacements on a site that was planted in 2022.
If I remember rightly, as part of the Queen's Jubilee canopy project.
Now, obviously it's good that they have been replanted.
It's a shame that it was necessary, but it's good that they have been replanted.
I am in favour of that. However, what I would like to know, are we going to count these against the
target of five hundred thirty four thousand off the top of my head? And did we
count the original ones planted in 2022? And if so, does that constitute double counting?
and if so, how many of the trees that we're going to plant in this year,
which aren't in the report yet, are going to be replacement trees for ones that have died?
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:23:44
Thank you for the question.
Inevitably when we do the planting, some trees will not survive and need to be replaced.
But my understanding is any trees planted under Buck's tree mission that are replaced
are not counted as an extra tree.
But if they were maybe perhaps planted in another scheme,
then they would be counting the Bucks tree mission.
But if they were originally done on the Bucks tree mission
and replaced because they died,
they wouldn't be counted again.
They wouldn't be double counting.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:24:14
Cllr Anja Schaefer - 0:24:16
I'll take that as an answer for now.
I'd like that confirmed at some point.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:24:19
Thank you.
Thank you.
Welcome, Councillor Gemmell.
in the meantime who's joined the meeting I've got Councillor Wamana to ask the next question.
Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:24:33
Yes on the topics of trees I have several questions but I'm going to start following up
from the previous question because it's good to see new woodlands being planted in council land
and to read that these are thriving.
But in terms of overall tree gain across Buckinghamshire,
do we measure and count trees that are lost in other sites,
for example, through development or changes in land use
and other factors?
Because surely a report on net gain would be more useful
than just overall numbers of tree planted,
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:25:17
which is what I've read in your report.
Thanks for the question.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:25:23
The tree planting scheme is run by Buckinghamshire Council.
So we measure the trees we're planting.
As far as I know, and I don't know if the planning department does this,
we don't track trees that are felled under any other scheme.
But this is the Buckinghamshire Council tree planting scheme.
So we measure the trees we are planting.
Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:25:44
So, we don't know whether we are having an overall net gain in Woodland.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:25:49
I know there was some talk about, previously about canopy cover tracking, but Hannah, do
you want to talk about that?
Hannah Joyce - Head of Service for Planning, Growth and Sustainability - 0:25:57
Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:26:00
Sorry, surely it would be useful, can we agree that it would be useful to have an indication
of the overall net gain?
Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager - 0:26:08
I think the challenge that we have is being able to devote resources to the principal
aim of the scheme, which is to plant 543 ,000 trees.
The difficulty with looking at a kind of net gain approach is there would be an awful lot
of administration in terms of collecting information from even those who have undertaken kind of
singular tree felling within Buckinghamshire.
So it is about kind of focusing on trying to create
the best positive outcome with the number of officers
that we have currently.
That was my question.
Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:26:46
My question is can we agree that it would be
a useful measure?
I wouldn't.
Sorry.
Hannah Joyce - Head of Service for Planning, Growth and Sustainability - 0:26:52
I think what Alex is saying is,
ideally in an ideal world, yes it would be lovely
to have that information, but we don't have resources
available to set out the baseline data
about how many trees currently exist in Buckinghamshire.
Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:27:05
We are doing a bit of work, as Jeff Bell mentioned,
on what's called the tree canopy cover.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:27:13
And that is a, it's looking at canopy cover
Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:27:18
across Buckinghamshire and looking at trends in that.
That is the best data we have available
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:27:22
because it doesn't require us to go out
and ask every single person who's ever felled a tree
in Buckinghamshire where and when they did that.
Natalie Wheble - External AffiarDirector, East West Rail Company - 0:27:28
Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:27:29
Okay, so I take that we don't really know
the effectiveness of these tree planting mission.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:27:37
So, Councillor Mormann, I'm going to stop going back and forth.
The officers have given an answer on that, but perhaps take it up afterwards as well if you want on sort of a slightly
deviated question. Thank you.
Councillor Huxley, please.
Cllr Andy Huxley - 0:27:50
Thanks, Chairman. It's really on the same sort of subject regarding
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:27:57
tree planting, how we
factor in
Natalie Wheble - External AffiarDirector, East West Rail Company - 0:28:03
the likes of Hamilton Fields and these sorts of bigger projects into the scheme of things,
if you like.
I know there's a huge amount of trees.
Are they part of the 500 before the 3000, or are they totally separate from that?
and at what stage do we find out how many have taken,
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:28:27
Daniel Gigg - Strategic Sites & Specialists Team Leader - 0:28:31
how many haven't taken, and what's the situation, please?
Yeah, thank you for the question.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:28:35
I mean, did the Bucks Tree Mission Counts
treat at the council supports?
In respect of that particular scheme,
Hannah, did you want to talk about that?
Hannah Joyce - Head of Service for Planning, Growth and Sustainability - 0:28:43
Well, it is currently, as a result of the decision
late last year to extend what we call
an extended scope of Bucks Tree Mission
and looking at what other trees are facilitated
by the council.
We've included any new development sites
where trees are being planted in that scope,
that extended scope.
So we would count any trees planted as a result of influence
from through the planning process
on Hampton Fields development site,
they would be counted, yes.
How we're doing that is we're still working out the process
by which we can report on, collate that information
and report on that information from development sites.
That's not there yet.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:29:22
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:29:22
Thank you. Thank you. I've got Councillor Collins next.
Cllr Michael Collins - 0:29:30
Thank you Chair. First thing I apologise my previous meeting was over running and I eventually managed to get away.
Cllr Andy Huxley - 0:29:37
It's again relating to tree planting.
Andy will be aware that we had a large number of trees that were pulled away or pulled out of the
the site just by the Holiday Inn, the Red Rose site.
When we spoke with the professional that was actually going to pull the trees out and replant,
we were told, and I don't know this to be a fact or not, that often the floodplains
are not specifically specified within the plans.
And in this particular area, the floodplain extended slightly beyond what they thought
it was going to be. As a consequence, those trees that were pulled out were
basically in floodplain and after four years they were taken out and disposed
of and replanted. The question that the company then asked is why are we putting
trees back in the same ground that we knew was part of a floodplain? And I
Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:30:36
think you know this is a bit concerning because we know with floodplains it's
very difficult to define the exact boundary of them. So there is an issue
and trees don't likely be planted anywhere near flood plain.
Thanks for the question.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:30:54
When any trees are planted under the Bucks Tree Mission,
there is a proper assessment carried out by officers
to ensure they're in a viable site and that they will survive.
I don't know the specifics of this case.
I don't know if you know about that one.
I don't know.
But I'm happy to look into it further, that specific case.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:31:16
Thank you. Perhaps Councillor Collins if you can send through the details they'll
be able to come back to you on that site. Thank you. I have Councillor Gemmill.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:31:32
Great. So two things. One climate to start off with. Our climate change
strategy says that we will look into getting to 2030 net zero subject to
resources, which we have never done.
And we've had a swear word explanation from Thomas Broom
over the years about the fact that we don't have enough
cash to do it.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:31:52
So that's why we haven't bothered doing it.
And we've got all this rubbish about officer time being
spent on stuff.
Cllr Anja Schaefer - 0:31:58
Can we get somebody to now look at whether we can get to
net zero in 2030 and come up with a back of the envelope
chat GPT explanation of whether it's possible or not
rather than keep putting this off and having me have to say
this every single time?
That's on the climate thing.
The other thing is a quick one to those who work on climate here.
Are we aware that we've had the 11 warmest years on record in the world, that we've
had the three warmest years on record in the last three years, that last year was the warmest
year on record in the UK, that the government brought out a biodiversity security report
only last week saying that the biggest threat to national security is the degradation of
biodiversity across the world and in the UK?
Are we actually aware of that?
And then a more minor question on trees.
Are we considering tree moving?
Do we ever look at it?
And I think it is appalling that we don't know how many trees
we've got here, and yet we're planting all these trees.
And I think it's ridiculous to be spending the money on it
and not know the baseline we're starting at.
Alex, I'm sorry.
But in terms of that as well, we should
be looking at moving trees.
I mean, we have managed in Hazel here
to get the developers on one of the big sites
to agree that in principle, they would give us
every single tree they're going to cut down and we can try and replant it.
So instead of cutting it down, they're going to dig it out and give it to us.
Are we considering that?
Can we get it into the Buck's plan?
Are you pushing for that?
Okay.
Thank you.
There's three questions there.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:33:24
Three can work through.
Yes, thank you.
Yes, well, the first question about 2030, of course, we would like to,
but we have to be realistic about the resources the council has.
You know through the budget -scooting process the difficult decisions we're facing with the fair funding review.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:33:47
I suppose cut across, but we say in our strategy, subject to resources, that has already been said there.
When are we going to work out if we have the resources rather than having to have people give these rather meaningless explanations that get us nowhere?
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:33:58
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:33:59
Karen Hope - EWR Mobilisation Lead, Chiltern Railways - 0:34:03
I think on this one I'd rather the team got on with delivering reductions of emissions,
which will help with the climate change across our estate, and looking to measures how we can support residents with that.
So we're not going to look into it. It says it in our strategy, but we're not going to cheque it.
Sorry, Councillor Gemmell, if we can just let him answer.
Yeah, well, I think the position hasn't changed since my predecessors have also given a similar answer.
So I'm sorry I can't give you a different answer this time.
The more specific stuff about the rise in temperatures,
Alex, did you want to talk about that?
So I'm aware of all of that.
Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager - 0:34:39
Thank you, Councillor Gemmell.
I think the question about knowing the baseline about trees,
I think we've kind of addressed that in the answer to the previous question raised.
in that the resources that we have need to be focused on planting trees.
And in terms of the overall picture, there is possibly an opportunity to do that if resources were devoted from elsewhere,
potentially to support citizen science projects.
But at the moment, one of the purposes of the tree planting mission is to help achieve net zero by 2050 across the Council's operations.
So the woodlands that we planted, the ones that we effectively own and operate,
are generating woodland carbon units that will offset our residual emissions.
The question with regard to replanting trees,
it's something we would have to look into.
Benjamin Rule - Railway Operations Director, East West Rail Company - 0:35:42
But since the expansion of the scope, the team is basically tasked with intelligence
gathering as to how best it can support stakeholders.
So stakeholders will have a range of different needs.
So we know that some organisations have commitments to plant masses of trees across their own
estate.
We're aware of the commitments made by the likes of the National Trust.
Equally, we are also aware that individuals also want to plant trees as well.
So there are going to be different needs there, so we're going to have to tailor our supports
to meet those differing needs, whilst also trying to achieve credible numbers of trees
being planted in the years going forward for the programme.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:36:19
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:36:21
Thank you.
Thank you.
Edmund Waddelove - Senior Sponsor, East West Rail, Network Rail - 0:36:25
Was there, that wasn't all three questions or are you happy with those responses?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:36:27
Sorry, can I just in a very gentle way come back.
If we don't have the money to do these essential things and set up this baseline, why don't
you tell us how much money you need to do it and let us decide about whether or not
we can get it or if we can go out to charities to look for it.
Tell us how much you need and to get to 2030.
both.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:36:52
Well, you're welcome to put those suggestions in when the next budget is set about where
we should get that money from or what we should take it out from.
How much do you need?
That's all we need you to tell us.
How much do you need?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:37:03
So how much do you need to get this baseline done, Alex?
Tell us how much and let us say if we can find it from somewhere.
Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager - 0:37:15
So, I think what I'd have to do is go back and consult with the cabinet member because,
again, it's not just a case of asking the market about an assessment.
It is about writing a specification which does take time.
It does take resource to do that.
And we need to be very, very certain about what the outcomes of that assessment are going
to be, what outcomes we would like to see from that assessment.
So we need to be specific about the questions that we're asking, because it will have an
implication.
You will be interested in the outcomes of that assessment.
So we have to make sure that it's right.
So it just goes back to the point being made that if my time is being spent on going out
to the market and engaging them and writing the specification, it is time being spent
away from decarbonizing Buckinghamshire and the Council's emissions.
Can we get a consultant?
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:38:05
Thank you. Sorry, Councillor Gimel.
Leave that one there for now.
Councillor Fulford, please.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:38:12
Cllr Justine Fulford - 0:38:14
My question was really about the reporters on council operations,
Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:38:21
but doesn't take account of third party contracts.
So it's back to that procurement question.
Have we got a robust policy when we go out to tender?
Why isn't that the offer from the member of the public?
I mean, I'd like a little bit more clarity about that,
but why don't we have it within our own team?
But also, we've got a base, we're looking at things,
we're not, there are so many more things
that could be included, like the transport to water
and electricity, which should be included
in the decarbonization strategy.
Benjamin Rule - Railway Operations Director, East West Rail Company - 0:38:55
Our third party contracts should be included in that.
I will comply with our own policies.
So I think this could be a little bit more ambitious.
And we'll get back from, you know,
we'd be able to hit our targets much sooner than 2050
if we're honest about what this council is actually
contributing to carbon emissions from now.
Thank you for the question.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:39:24
When we make our contractual decisions,
There's a lot of factors we have to take into account.
Emissions is one of them, but value for money and
Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:39:35
other things have to be taken into account.
So it's certainly in our minds when we make these decisions and
the cabinet makes decisions on this.
But it's not necessarily the sole factor, but
I don't know if the officers want to add anything further on that.
Benjamin Rule - Railway Operations Director, East West Rail Company - 0:39:52
Cllr Justine Fulford - 0:39:56
So my question really was, if you don't have a policy, if value for money is more important,
I mean, it should be in that.
Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:40:10
I mean, it's part of the environmental emergency.
The climate emergency is that we reduce our carbon.
Benjamin Rule - Railway Operations Director, East West Rail Company - 0:40:19
So we should have a policy automatically for procurement that any third party contractors
meet or exceed our own ambitions.
And our own ambitions are pretty, you know,
pretty weak at the moment.
They're not ambitious enough.
Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:40:30
They should be much, I would say, 2030's ideal.
But come on, 2040, bring it down, 2035.
You're not going to get that
unless you have robust procurement policies.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:40:44
I think whenever we look at any procurement decision,
we will take that into account.
That's, as the Deputy Cabinet Member for Environment,
Benjamin Rule - Railway Operations Director, East West Rail Company - 0:40:51
Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:40:53
I can say that I will push for that, but there are other factors that have to be considered when we make these decisions.
Cllr Justine Fulford - 0:40:59
It has been considered, it is part of the policy?
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:41:02
I think with every contract that we enter into we do consider the environmental impact on that.
But as I said that has to be weighed against other factors as well.
Like earlier we had the public question about refuse vehicles.
They have to be able to get up hills and things like that.
Benjamin Rule - Railway Operations Director, East West Rail Company - 0:41:21
So we have to weigh these things against each other.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:41:24
Can I suggest we have a look into that a bit more
and possibly a response outside of the meeting just
so that there's more understanding
of if there's possibly why there isn't
or where we can go with that.
Thank you.
I have just moved on.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:41:43
I'm trying to get around to...
Oops, sorry.
I've turned my own microphone off.
We have got time for a couple of second questions.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:41:57
I just wanted to question at the start when you mentioned since the report,
there has been a commitment in order to invest here,
which will affect the chart and our emissions.
Obviously, as it stands with the information we have in front
of us, and as has been mentioned,
we're looking a long way off that.
So with the updated information, can you tell us
where that is now looking at the trajectory
of whether we will be getting closer to our target?
Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager - 0:42:32
So I can provide an updated graph following this meeting.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:42:35
If you could send that round, that would be great. Thank you.
Cllr Anja Schaefer - 0:42:41
Councillor Shafer, if you'd like to come back in with a second question.
Thank you.
I mean, one thing that I'm hearing a lot at this meeting is all the good things that we could potentially do,
but that we don't have the resources.
And I'm not blaming, you know, officers can only spend their time once,
but it is very concerning that we don't have resources for baseline work,
we don't have resources for bidding,
we don't have resources for bidding, for goodness sake.
But that isn't my question.
My question does relate to the climate change strategy and the data.
Now, our goal for 2050, be that as it may,
but it is for becoming carbon neutral to get to net zero
for the Council's own operations.
That's correct, isn't it?
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:43:39
So in the report, there is quite a lot about working with stakeholders,
doing outside work, working with householders, for example,
through the Warm Homes grant, the energy doctors.
Benjamin Rule - Railway Operations Director, East West Rail Company - 0:43:49
All those are great things, don't get me wrong.
They're good things.
I am slightly confused, or I have just a question of how that enters the figures of the Council's
own operations and carbon neutrality.
Is that in the figures or is that just in the report because we're saying there are
additional things that we're doing?
And it goes quite a bit through the report.
I can't give you every single page number off the top of my head.
I just would like some clarity on that, please.
Yeah, thank you for the question.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:44:28
There is the aim to get to net zero for the council for 2050,
but there's also, if you look at the report, other objectives.
I mean, aim one is to work alongside the national government
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:44:45
to get net zero emissions for Berkshire as a whole.
Natalie Wheble - External AffiarDirector, East West Rail Company - 0:44:52
And then we have objective B, which is to support communities to achieve net zero carbon emissions.
So that work you're talking about with stakeholders would fall under those categories separate from the council's own operations.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:45:02
Thank you.
Councillor Morgan.
Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:45:10
Slightly related,
question about the energy doctors, the energy doctors' visits.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:45:16
How do you measure the impact of those visits?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:45:22
Presumably, you know, the installation of your low -cost energy -saving works will be
measured, presumably, using national standards.
But in terms of the advice you give and the behaviour change, how do you know if households'
Benjamin Rule - Railway Operations Director, East West Rail Company - 0:45:42
action, the advice given.
Do we follow up with surveys or visits to see how it's been done?
Yeah, thank you for the question.
I'll let Alex answer that one.
Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager - 0:45:53
Thank you.
It's a really good question, and that is the question that is asked frequently around the
effectiveness of behaviour change interventions.
And it's precisely for that reason that the only emission and energy saving and cost reductions
Natalie Wheble - External AffiarDirector, East West Rail Company - 0:46:09
that are measured are against the low -cost, easy -retrofit resource efficiency measures
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:46:14
that are implemented in the home at the time that the energy doctor makes the visit that
Cllr Michael Collins - 0:46:20
are agreed with the householder.
There isn't any follow -up work in terms of the behaviour change and in terms of signposting
to other support, but we do get anecdotal kind of feedback from some of the residents
that we visited about some of the support they've been able to achieve either through
government funded schemes like the Warm Homes Local Grant or the Home Upgrade Grant Scheme
as a consequence of an Energy Doctor visit.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:46:48
Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:46:52
And the scheme also operates a happy or not survey to glean feedback from residents as
to how happy they were with the Energy Doctor visit.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:46:59
Thank you.
We have got 10 minutes left.
I currently have five more questions to work through so unless necessary I won't be going back on questions just so we can all have the opportunity to ask.
Councillor West please.
Thanks Chair.
Cllr Michael West - 0:47:15
Going back to your report, if we look at Figure 1, I'd just like it explained to me.
In 2023 -24 there is a large difference between net emissions and gross emissions.
Mel Banks - East West Rail Alliance Director - 0:47:35
Can you explain the difference and can you explain why in future years that difference disappears?
As the author of the diagram, I'll let Alex explain that.
Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager - 0:47:45
Natalie Wheble - External AffiarDirector, East West Rail Company - 0:47:49
Thank you. Essentially it all has to do with our energy procurement cycles.
So the energy supply period is between October and September.
So there is a mismatch between the energy supply period
and the emissions reporting period.
So the emissions reporting period
runs from April to March on a yearly basis.
Now, prior to the last time that we went out
to go and procure energy, we were
fortuitous in the sense that we had an energy supply,
Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:48:25
an electricity supplier come to us
and offer us an energy contract whereby the cost was more cost
competitive compared to the other suppliers as a result
of the procurement exercise.
And it just so happened that that energy supplier was,
the electricity supplier was backed 100 %
with renewable energy guarantee of origin certificates.
So subsequent to that contract coming to an end and us going back out to the
market we secure the services of an electricity supplier that supplied us
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:48:58
Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:49:03
with electricity with the 25 % of electricity supplied, sorry backed with
renewable energy guarantee of origin certificate. So that explains the the dip
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:49:11
Cllr Michael Collins - 0:49:15
in the growth. Thank you. Councillor Collins please. Thank you chair.
The Washington Table Parish Council are committed to planting lots of
Natalie Wheble - External AffiarDirector, East West Rail Company - 0:49:27
trees. They've allocated six thousand pounds within their budget and the
debate is what kind of trees should they plant. They've been out spoken to some
professionals and surprise, surprise,
I've got about 25 trees, different types, size, colour,
fruit trees, particularly keen to plant fruit trees
for the younger people.
And the concern is what trees should we, as a county plant,
is one of the decisions based on the level of carbon
emission by different types of trees, is that a factor?
Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:50:05
Natalie Wheble - External AffiarDirector, East West Rail Company - 0:50:09
Because we're looking at as a particular village, you would like to make it look nice and encourage
the local community to enjoy the benefits of
those trees. We've committed six thousand pounds, which is a lot within our precepts.
Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:50:28
I think we just need to be assured that if we chose different types of trees
we're not going to fall foul because we're not absorbing enough carbon.
Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager - 0:50:35
Yeah, I'll hand over to Alex for that.
Thank you.
So you make a good point that our Bucks tree mission does take account, obviously, of the
woodland carbon units that are generated, effectively the carbon sequestration units
from the trees that are planted in our own unmanaged sites.
However, we know that trees have multiple benefits.
So in terms of floodwater storage benefits,
in terms of supporting biodiversity,
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:51:08
in terms of reducing kind of ground level temperatures
as well.
So we're not just interested in trees
that can sequester the most carbon.
We are interested in actually any trees
that are being planted.
We would obviously support those trees
that probably follow tighter biosecurity,
so those that come from plant -healthy certified nurseries,
and ones really that are planted that are kind of congruent
with the landscape and the provenance of the trees
Natalie Wheble - External AffiarDirector, East West Rail Company - 0:51:40
that surround them.
So that is the kind of advice that we
could offer from the climate response team
or signpost a parish council to the appropriate sort
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:51:58
of advice if it's needed. Thank you and Councillor Mormann can you just switch your
Cllr Andy Huxley - 0:52:07
microphone off please sorry thank you. Councillor Huxley please. Thank you Joan.
First of all on slightly lighter note I just wanted to say that the site agent
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:52:19
at Hampden Fields is you know his name is Jake Tree Living so you know there is a
of hope there. On a recent site visit to Aston Reach, which is in Aylesbury, a number of
Cllr Peter Martin - 0:52:42
trees were found that were not planted. I think that has been rectified, but how do
we monitor any situation like that, that we know that trees have been planted or not,
if that's the case?
Thank you for the question. Were those trees to be planted under a planning condition?
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:52:57
No, they were part of the original...
Cllr Andy Huxley - 0:53:03
Use your microphone please. Sorry. Use your microphone.
Sorry, yes. Sorry. Thanks to you.
I think it was part of, they were part of the original, I'm trying to think how many houses were built, but there was about 400 houses built on the site.
So that was part of the original application.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:53:34
Natalie Wheble - External AffiarDirector, East West Rail Company - 0:53:37
I believe that would be for the planning enforcement team to take up, so if you let them know that the condition has not been complied with they can come and take a look.
Cllr Andy Huxley - 0:53:43
But do we, how do we do, if somebody says they're going to plant a thousand trees, how do we know they planted those thousand trees?
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:53:51
That would be the planning officers would have to cheque that as part of the monitoring of the conditions.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:53:56
Thank you. I've got three more questions, we'll try and get through as the next item is coming up.
I've got Councillor Connell, Councillor Fulford and then Councillor Gemmell and then we'll draw a line on that for today.
Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:54:08
Thank you, Chair. Mine's a very small one.
There seems to be much more planting in the south of the county than there is in the north.
And Jaspal knows all god about this, but we could do with some more in the north, I think.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:54:21
Thank you for the question. I wouldn't necessarily say that.
We've had wing wood planted in the north.
But if you know any sites, let the three mission team know,
and they'll be happy to talk with you about other potential sites in the north.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:54:35
Thank you, Councillor Fulford.
Cllr Justine Fulford - 0:54:38
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:54:39
Cllr Michael Collins - 0:54:40
Thank you. Sorry, going back to my earlier question, I don't think the part... firstly,
I want to praise the officers for an amazing job they do under really constrained circumstances
because of the lack of funding. But I did want to repeat my question about carbon costs
to delivering water and electricity.
And also, we have to be honest about where our carbon costs
are, because not only do we have the hottest
years in the last few years, but we've also had the wettest,
2024, 2020, 2016, and 2014.
This is a proper emergency.
We've had a lot of questions about flooding.
And I think we just need a little bit more honesty
about where our carbon costs lie.
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:55:28
Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager - 0:55:31
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:55:31
Thank you for the question. Alex, do you want to respond?
Thanks. Would you mind kind of clarifying what you mean by carbon costs?
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:55:41
Cllr Justine Fulford - 0:55:43
Can you use your microphone, please?
The delivery of our water and the delivery of our electricity.
Okay, so thank you for the question.
Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager - 0:55:51
So when we undertake our greenhouse gas calculations, we account for
transmission and distribution, which remains within scope three.
Benjamin Rule - Railway Operations Director, East West Rail Company - 0:56:03
We don't have to account for that, but we do.
We have voluntarily decided to do that.
Typically, organisations will only report on scope one and scope two.
Equally, we are reporting on emissions associated with our water consumption as
well, so we are accounting for that, but we don't have to.
Technically, that's not, that wouldn't be a standard way of calculating our greenhouse
gas emissions.
Again, it would just be confined principally to scope one and two.
The reasons for that, in terms of kind of transmission and distribution, is because
effectively what we're doing is we're kind of blurring our gate and the gate at which
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:56:41
the supplying organisation is supplying that product or that service to the council.
And just referring back to the earlier question that you made in relation to procurement,
again, there are specific responsibilities that the council feels that it has in terms
of how it goes about procuring its services.
There are responsibilities that need to be borne by other organisations in terms of addressing
the climate crisis as well.
So in terms of the delivery of their products and services to our gates.
So we would have to judge very carefully if we would want to take on board additional carbon emissions
and whether those are indeed carbon emissions that we feel we need to reduce or offset.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 0:57:30
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 0:57:33
Thank you. Last question from Councillor Gemmell.
Great, thanks very much. I read what was said about the energy doctors in the report.
Could somebody just say what is actually happening now with the energy doctors because it seems to be all historical and what's going on in the future?
Second one is a request. I mean and probably to Alex and Jasper together
Can we have a meeting to talk about tree moving what we could be doing and some ideas around it and?
potentially around this issue of baseline on trees and how we can fund it and
I put it into additional context as a general context, but also high Wicca look we'd like to be recommending
extra environmental regeneration progress in High Wycombe, where I'm
chairing the committee there. Everyone has been committed to it. Can we perhaps
look at those questions in the context of High Wycombe as a pilot
for Buckinghamshire? Thank you for the question. I'm happy to meet you with
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 0:58:23
Councillor Osso -Bogan as the cabinet member and deputy cabinet member to
discuss that further. Alex, do you want to talk about the latest on the energy doctor?

8 Work Programme

Alexander Beckett - Energy and Climate Change Manager - 0:58:31
Thank you. So I think we're all of one mind, or at least I certainly am, that the Energy
Doctor Scheme has been a tremendous success. Year on year it has delivered visits to households
that are in exceedance of targets that were agreed with the Ministry of Housing and Communities
in levelling up. It has achieved greater carbon emission savings, again that were agreed with
that government department and it is considerably affected the kind of
alleviated cost of living pressures by those who
who it served and
The scheme has been in funded entirely entirely by the UK shared prosperity funds. So that from a
proportion of the the funds that was given to the council and
and I went about bidding for part of that money internally.
So following really the kind of the apparent news
that that fund isn't going to be continued
going forward into the future,
the scheme will discontinue as of the 31st of March, 2026
because it can no longer be funded, unfortunately.
However, we do have support in the form
of the Warm Homes Local Grant,
which will perpetuate support for eligible households,
hoping that it will help alleviate fuel poverty
and, again, cost of living pressures.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:00:03
Thank you.
Thank you for attending this morning.
That's been a really informative session.
And thank you for all the questions.
There are a few points which I think
we are going to look for responses back on,
which will be circulated to the committee.
A lot of interest in the tree planting mission,
canopy cover, it's a topic
which this committee is always interested in.
I think it's an opportunity for us to look at,
possibly doing a sort of further look into it separately,
which we can discuss at the end of the meeting as we look
at the forward plan and possibly set up a deep dive
into what can be done more
because I think there's still a lot of questions and a lot of ideas which we can explore.
And we'll talk about that at the end of the meeting.
We are going to move on to the next agenda item.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:01:00
It has been requested that we take a comfort break at some point this morning.
I will do that after the next item if there is the opportunity.
But in the meantime, thank you again for attending.
And have a nice day.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:01:21
.
Cllr Caroline Cornell - 1:01:50
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:02:11
.

9 Date of Next Meeting

6 Community Boards

Okay.
onto item number six which is community boards and I would like to welcome the
cabinet member, deputy cabinet members who live a room and Sophie Payne and Wendy
Bournemouth -Brown. We have received your report which has been circulated around the
committee. Would you like to add anything to introduce the topic or should we move
Webcast Finished - 1:03:13
on to questions? Yeah I just wondered if I could do a quick overview introduction
Cllr Steve Bowles - 1:03:14
if that's okay.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:03:16
That's absolutely fine.
I did say at the start of the meeting today,
any introductions and any public questions,
everything's got a three -minute limit
because we have got a lot to get through.
So if you can do your introduction in three minutes,
that would be perfect.
Yeah, okay.
Cllr Steve Bowles - 1:03:29
I'll go as quick as I can.
As we know, since April 25, a new community board model
with eight community boards has been in place.
The model delivers the required 1 .5 million MTFP saving and aligns boards to member boundaries.
And the boards have moved from being funding led approach to a collaboration led sustainable model.
Engagement is strong, 362 community conversations, 1761 stakeholders,
and improved participation from most members, parishes, and the VCS.
The boards have 49 priorities.
You'll see in the report to para 2 .14 for a schedule of those high -level priorities and current actions to achieve them.
As I've said, there's more emphasis on collaboration with the new model.
Meetings are more interactive, held three times a year.
The majority of work takes place outside of those meetings, supported by a budget of 250K,
local priorities budget.
And there's community boards now sit within the partnership and community service, so
there's no longer a separate community board budget.
Refer to community conversations.
If you look at Para 219 in the report, you'll see some real positive comments from parish
councils and VCS.
Our priorities are strengthening communities,
young people, health and well -being, older people,
environment, and public realm.
How do we measure the impact?
We've got a reporting dashboard which is being
developed in conjunction with Business Intelligent,
which will focus on demonstrating outcomes,
particularly where work is led by partners or wider
networks.
Benefits that I'd like to highlight, the MTFP savings delivered while strengthening community
presence, a clear local footprint, high engagement from most members, parishes and VCS, early
signs of improved collaboration, working with internal services.
Challenges that we've got, the model is still in the early stages of implementation, needs
time to bed in and time to operate, need to continue strengthening networks and developing
measurable outcomes and peer review recommendations that we've recently had will help refine the
model further.
So what next steps?
Boards will integrate recommendations from the corporate peer review and produce an action
plan.
Annual report will be produced in 12 months time on the achievements and impact and will
bring that back to yourself.
So I've got some key messages I'd just like to get across,
and then that will be it then.
The new model demonstrates that we
can deliver real local impact while being financially
responsible.
Community boards are now rooted in collaboration,
not transactions, bringing partners, residents,
and members together to solve local issues.
Scale of engagement in just six months is impressive.
shows that communities do want to work with us.
The priorities being delivered reflect general,
local, genuine rather, local need,
and many successes so far have been driven through collaboration
and knowledge sharing and have required little or no council funding,
such as exploring responsible dog ownership,
looking at the set up of street associations.
So I'm really confident as the model matures,
as we continue to strengthen impact measurement
and embed the findings of the peer review.
So over to yourselves.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:07:33
Thank you for the introduction.
Thank you for the report.
I would like to open the floor to questions.
And we can start with Councillor Schafer.
Cllr Anja Schaefer - 1:07:43
Thank you.
So obviously, we're slightly less than a year
through the new model and
It's still heading in so that's you know. I want to preface with that I
Have two questions
One of them it should be quite straightforward. You've mentioned
250 K for work
Is that still in addition to the salaries of the community board managers?
just to confirm that and as a second part of that question, how many community board managers do we have?
I know we have eight community boards, but I'm not entirely sure whether each of them has a full -time manager attached to it.
And the second question which relates to what you just said, measuring impact.
So far we've had engagement, we've had conversations, we have
have flushed out some issues that local communities,
and they are a little bit dependent on who happens to be
in the room at the time, I must say,
because particularly if you compare them,
there isn't any particular logic why some communities
should have so much more emphasis on certain aspects
and others less so.
So I think we need to be aware that there is a, you know,
that this will be contingent on who
you happen to be able to have the conversation with.
But I would really like to know what
the plans are by which we can come to measurable outcomes.
So how can the community boards, certainly
within a year or two, I would like
to have some pretty clear measures of this
is how people feel, or this is how we can measure,
that the life of people in West Buckinghamshire or North Buckinghamshire
or wherever it might be in that community board area has improved
and this is the evidence we have for it.
I think there were questions in there that you probably were able to discern.
Yeah, no, that's fine. If I miss one, you'll have to come back to me on it.
Cllr Steve Bowles - 1:10:03
I think your first question was the budget that was mentioned.
And does that include staffing costs, et cetera?
Well, no, it doesn't.
I think the second one was how many community board managers are there.
There are nine.
And I think your final point was regarding how do we report back to you.
Well, as mentioned, we are working on this dashboard, reporting dashboard that will come
out will actually show what we're managing to achieve.
And I think the first one of those will be
out shortly, won't it?
I think. Yeah.
So we're working on that and obviously developing
Sophie Payne - Service Director, Communities - 1:10:53
that with expertise from our BI colleagues.
And I think you made some really valuable points
about the observation that the local priorities will evolve
and that that's also part of the developing the local networks,
the relationships, the trust, to turn that into action, which is absolutely part of the
model going forward. So although there have been a certain range of people that may have been in
the room at the outset, that's absolutely something that continues to develop outside the meetings,
as Councillor Bould referred to, as part of that ongoing process, and something that we will want
to be capturing around how are our stakeholders and how are our residents feeling about this and
Cllr Steve Bowles - 1:11:32
the difference that it's making. And I think just to come back on the final point about engagement,
And I think it's incumbent on us as members,
when we go to our parish councils,
we talk to the voluntary sector to encourage
them to engage if they aren't already engaging.
But we've got evidence of most parish councils
are now engaging.
We've got a lot of the voluntary sector engaging.
And as I mentioned in the actual report,
there's some good testimonials there from parish councils and voluntary sector.
Cllr Anja Schaefer - 1:12:10
Can I have a super quick clarification question? The community board managers,
are they full -time? Does each community board have a full -time manager? And
another clarification about the dashboards, what's the timeline on this?
What are we envisaging?
Richard Barker - Corporate Director for Communities - 1:12:33
So the, not all the community board managers are full time.
Some work four days a week.
Wendy Morgan-Brown - Head of Partnership and Communities - 1:12:36
Some work less than that.
And in terms of the dashboard, I would imagine within the next six
to eight weeks we'll be able to start using it
and start recording our data from it.
So when we come to you this time next year,
we should have a full year's worth of data
to be able to share with you.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:12:58
Okay, thank you. I have Councillor Collins next.
Cllr Michael Collins - 1:13:00
Thank you, Chairman.
I am the Chairman of the County Civilian Military Partnership.
We've created a task group, and I think we need to be talking directly with the community board.
The task group's initial objectives are to encourage activity
for former and current military personnel,
with a particular emphasis now on the youth movements
and cadet movement, because we know there's a huge demand.
We've got, we need to encourage these kind of activities.
And I think outside this meeting,
I'd like the opportunity to meet up with the team
to see whether they can be integrated
within this one programme.
It's a task force that I think has a tremendous amount
opportunity to support these. So if we can agree, I'd like to arrange a meeting with
Councillor Moles to discuss it.
Cllr Steve Bowles - 1:14:00
Yeah, thanks for that question. I mean, that's one of our priorities is working with young people.
So, I mean, that slots really well into that. And I'm a big supporter of our Armed Forces, as you know.
And I'm more than happy to meet with you to discuss how we can work together.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:14:20
Thank you.
Councillor Mormann, please.
Thank you.
Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:14:27
You've referenced several times the positive feedback that you have received.
So for balance, I've got here some feedback collected from one community board.
The meeting and the community board model in general lacks focus on directions.
It feels merely a talking shop.
I just felt there was random chats and unfortunately no real takeaway value.
Without funding it's hard to see the purpose.
It appears that we're being what the issues are and how we will respond.
There was no inquiry into our priority or needs as parishes.
Community board members are box counsellors.
The rest of us are only in attendance.
So the council appears that the feedback is mixed.
So, it seems important to outline metrics to actually measure impact rather than rely
on hand -picked feedback.
The question of engagement, I think, is important, and I'd like to know how representative these
community conversations are of the full demographic of the area, and in particular, marginalised
or hard to reach groups.
And on the issue of engagement as well, as we all know,
it's not a one -off event, but it has to be sustained over time.
And I'm not sure how is the Council ensuring this
continuous engagement, given the reduction in available staff.
Thank you.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:16:00
Can you switch your microphone off, please?
Thank you.
A few questions there if you'd like to go back.
Cllr Steve Bowles - 1:16:04
Thank you.
No, but some people are always going to have different views of community boards.
And I think, as I said earlier, it's incumbent on all members to play a really active part in their community boards.
There are some members I know that don't.
Perhaps there are some members sat around this table that don't, I don't know.
But they should do, because they're really important.
And I can only refer, you know, this isn't, these aren't hand -picked.
We've, you know, we've had quite a few real positive feedback.
And as I said, you'll see in paragraph 2 .9, I mean, one of the VCS have said,
thanks so much for having me at the North Bucks Community Board meeting.
It was run very well, had a fantastic turnout.
Two new parish council attendees commented how worthwhile the meeting has been.
They had no prior expectation.
and they enjoyed the workshop exercise where
they got to meet their ward councillors,
discuss their ward priorities.
There was a good rapport in the room with the chair needing
to call time on the meeting.
So there's a lot of positive stuff going on out there
with some members playing a really positive role.
Do you want to comment on some of that?
Sophie Payne - Service Director, Communities - 1:17:23
So just to reassure on some of your points,
Absolutely, we understand that community engagement,
the need for that sustained relationship building
is key to this.
We are engaging with a wide range of groups at the moment.
So that's everybody from town and parish councils
to very specific community groups that
might be focused on litter picking or activities
for older people or specific health conditions, schools,
and many, many more.
So that's obviously something that we're
really mindful of, tracking the types of groups
that we're engaging with and thinking about that representation, as you've rightly said,
from the wider community that exists in that patch.
That is something that we will be continuing to evolve.
Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:18:10
Sorry, but you have one community manager for a large area.
How are you expecting that one person to reach out to a vast community, particularly those
who don't come forward, don't come to meetings, you have to go to them?
It takes time.
It takes resources, it takes skill.
Are these community managers trained in engagement?
Wendy Morgan-Brown - Head of Partnership and Communities - 1:18:38
So in your final question, yes, they
have had training in community engagement.
They've had several courses, one as recently as late last year.
We've obviously got the resource that we have,
and we have to do the best that we can with that.
We don't have as many staff.
They're with half what we have before.
So our staff are doing the best that they can in terms of getting out to communities and engaging as widely as possible.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:19:05
Thank you. A point kind of following on from that and Councillor Mormann's point, but progressing on with it.
How are we actually monitoring the success of this across the board with all the community boards?
because the comments that Councillor Bowles said
where there was positive feedback
because parish councillors got to meet
their ward councillors.
I mean, I actually found that quite surprising
because I couldn't understand why the ward councillors
hadn't met the parish councillors previously anyway.
But I guess the community board's now being so large.
We've gone from 16 down to eight.
And we do know that when we had 16,
there was a large disparity on the engagement
of the individual managers and coordinators.
So how is it now being monitored that each one is performing
and each one is reaching a level that is worthwhile rather
than it just being across the board,
we're getting an amount of feedback?
Sophie Payne - Service Director, Communities - 1:20:17
I've got a number of reflections on that.
So I think the benefit of the new model is the single team working on a localities basis
and that provides opportunities for us as the management team with the oversight to look
across the patch and understand it.
As we've said, we'll be developing those dashboards and metrics so we're getting kind
of that regular monitoring of that.
But it also is a real advantage in terms of being able to share best practise either in ways
of working or indeed in terms of some of the projects,
the ideas that are coming through
from different communities.
And we know because it's never a perfect science, is it,
that for some of those different groups
or those different strategic partners like health,
that the geographies don't match exactly necessarily
to our ward boundaries.
But again, that's having that single team with the connexions
and the relationships into those, that landscape,
if you like, that localities landscape,
which will always continue to evolve.
You know, we're seeing a lot of work going on in health
around integrated neighbourhood teams, for example,
and that's absolutely something that we are plugging into
as the partnerships and communities team
to make sure we're abreast of that.
So hopefully that helps give you a bit of reassurance,
but it's perfectly reasonable to say
and there will be differentials as we've described
and that's something that we will need to be abreast of
and seeking to work to address if there's less engagement
in certain patches or we evolve our model accordingly.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:21:39
Okay, thank you. So in summary because there are now less managers, it's easier to work together
Than when there were more so that's the benefit of less boards
Sophie Payne - Service Director, Communities - 1:21:52
I think it's also because our focus has shifted the work of the managers has shifted previously
There was a lot more administration of formal boards
administration of financials and grants whereas now the scope of the role is absolutely focused on that collaborative working that developing local insight
reaching out, unblocking issues across the council
in different services, you know, it's really helpful
from a kind of, with my broader hat on,
from a council service perspective,
to be hearing from those local board managers
with the relationships and networks and the feedback
that's coming up from different places
to be able to feed into the wider services
and then we can, you know, bring people together
to resolve issues as well as kind of
where the board managers have got relationships
with some of those community groups,
which again, the wider service offices
may not have the capacity to do as well.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:22:40
Cllr Ashley Waite - 1:22:42
One of the challenges here, and obviously there's
a common theme on basically are the boards effective?
Are the boards actually doing the right thing
and doing the right job and everything else no problem?
One of the key aspects is obviously
the board, which myself and obviously council, is basically the Haddonham Friday Club.
Now the Haddonham Friday Club, the need was identified out of the community conversation.
The networking and bringing in other stakeholders and other suppliers came again out of the
community conversation.
The development of the club came with the direct involvement of the community board
manager, the outside funding was again outside with the community board manager.
A notebooks council for proper funds were, were, were demonstrated in order to
basically create this club.
That whole process has taken nearly a year to go from conception all the way through
until our own, until an actual club that's now running and functioning and everything
else.
So we've gone from zero to 60 plus people a week attending a club to basically fulfil a need.
That is what the community boards are now doing. Facilitating and bringing people in and together rather than just writing cheques.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:24:18
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:24:20
Thank you. Councillor Gemmell please.
Great, thanks very much.
Just a first one, actually, general compliments actually to the officers, both the ones I
know here and those who are involved in both Hazlemere and High Wycombe about, I do think
they're doing or trying to do a great job.
So no criticism there.
And now I think a question directly to sort of Steve and Ashley.
These are community boards.
They're meant to be collaborative and they're meant to be for the community.
How do we pick the chairs of them?
Is that a political appointment or is that done because these are the best people for
the community?
And if we are doing the latter, which I don't believe it is,
but I'm interested in hearing the comments
from Steve particularly, but if it is the latter,
then why aren't we involving other individuals in it
and not just councillors?
There is nothing in our standing order saying
that we can't have other great people in the community.
I expect there's incredible talent there
that could be chairing these boards or leading these boards.
Why aren't we engaging with them
and why are they all conservatives?
Cllr Steve Bowles - 1:25:14
Yeah, thanks for that question.
The selection of chairman of community boards is obviously in the gift of the leader.
And previous administration when we had the majority, it's proportionality, so obviously it becomes Conservatives as community board chairman.
and they're part of the council community boards are Bucks Council so we
should have councillors leading those boards. It's not in standing orders.
It might not be in the standing orders but as I've just said they are
of Buck's council and they should have Buckinghamshire councillors.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:26:10
I'm just going to come on this because it is going to go a bit political there I think and
I had said at the start we won't keep this political. I do understand the point and I
know there's conversations but it is as the setup is. So are there any further questions?
Can I just have a quick...
Cllr David Carroll - 1:26:30
...complement again because you can only go on...
I've been around for 34 years, Steve, can you believe that?
And I don't... Well, thank you very much.
And Ed knows I'm still a bit runny and whatever.
Going back to the enthusiasm, our board officer manager is fantastic.
We went to a meeting the other day, she oozes enthusiasm
and she's getting around that area in so many ways,
But we need to point out to our managers where to go. We can't just say go here go, you know
It's not all about that. It's all about us as well. So can I just thank our particular officer?
She's getting about I bought the question. I've put a
Comment about can you go and visit this and she did so it's I think going back to Ashley's point
It's all about self -made doesn't it was trying to do this together. There's not only one particular thing
So it seems to be happening and what what's the outcome of this that will come in a year's time?
I hope, but most to me and others Councillors, it is all about engagement.
A lot of this stuff anyway. If you make things happen, it's all about engaging, getting people together.
So can I thank that particular manager?
Cllr Steve Bowles - 1:27:39
Yeah, thanks for that. And it is all about engagement. And I think the real clue is in the name community.
You know, it's for the whole community to come together.
And I think, you know, I was a cabinet member for communities
when community boards were first introduced
and they had the huge budget, this, that, and the other.
And I'm really pleased that we've now got this new model
that we're no longer a funder,
we're no longer just writing cheques.
There's a hell of a lot more engagement
and facilitating rather than just funding going on.
And likewise, you mentioned your community board manager.
I mean, Michael backed me up on this
with our community board manager.
So enthusiastic, worked so hard to deliver the priorities
and get the whole community together.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:28:36
Thank you.
I've got a couple more hands that popped up.
We will keep it brief because I don't want to overrun
to the next item, and we're having a comfort break in between, but I have Councillor Schafer,
Cllr Anja Schaefer - 1:28:49
then Councillor Murner, and Councillor Collins.
Obviously anything that I may have said before was not to distract from the work of the community
manager. I think I want to put that on record here. I want to pick up another point that
you made earlier, Stephen, that was about the peer review, the corporate peer review
and picking up the comments and, you know, an action plan from that. Will the recommendations
from the peer review be shared with us and the action plan?
Cllr Steve Bowles - 1:29:28
Yes is a simple answer to that question.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:29:30
Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:29:35
Councillor Mormann, please.
Thank you.
I'd like to ask a question about local priorities.
You mentioned the Haddanum Club as an example, which I happen to know a little bit about
it because I represent that area, which is a club that actually competes with two, three
other local initiatives that were already underway for the same demographic.
So, I'm not entirely sure how these priorities are being decided on, and going back to my
colleague here, it appears that it's whoever happens to be in the room, whoever turns up,
how the priorities are shaped.
So, I'd like to know how reflective do you think these priorities are of the needs of
each of the communities?
Feedback again from some areas suggests that flexibility for hyper -local priorities has
actually narrowed.
So, can you outline how the priorities have been chosen?
Has there been a wider conversation beyond those who engage with the community conversations,
Cllr Steve Bowles - 1:30:54
Priorities are chosen through the community board meetings that we said in the conversations.
And as I've said before, it's incumbent that all members play a part in that and play a
part in getting community representatives along to those conversations.
I know from my own experience on my community board, we've had two or three meetings to
set the priorities and there's been a broad spread of community organisations there from
parish council, voluntary section, ward councillors, etc.
So were you there for your community priorities?
Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:31:46
Of course, Implying Otherwise would be wrong.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:31:47
Okay, thank you. Last question, please, from Councillor Collins.
Cllr Michael Collins - 1:31:56
Thank you, Chairman. I've been involved with the Community Boards now for many, many years, as
Steve knows.
It is my experience, the Chairperson
has been there to control, to manage a group of people
who come with many ideas, many concepts,
but that meeting needs to be managed.
I have never ever experienced a situation
where that chairperson has any political input
or bias within the meeting.
I regard the community board meetings
as being less official,
but more a meeting of like -minded people.
We get the various parish councils,
we get the community members from across the board
that voice an opinion, so therefore you need control.
But I go back on the point that I've never ever experienced.
In fact, the vast majority of people
wouldn't know their political bias anyway.
And I think that's the way it should be.
Cllr Steve Bowles - 1:33:01
No, thanks for that, Mike.
No, you're absolutely right.
I mean, community boards, I keep saying this,
the clues in the name. It's about the whole community. It's not political. It's not political
whatsoever. It's the needs. We're there to represent the needs of our community and what
projects they want to push forward.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:33:21
Thank you. I think I need to leave that as a political, non -political point. I'm just,
I would let you after, I'm just finishing up what I'm saying and I'll close up. You
may have one comment as long as it's not political.
I think the point on the community board chair
is a separate matter.
It has been raised before.
And I think the argument across the table
would be, if it's not political, then why
is it all under one party that the chairs are there?
And I think that is what the misunderstanding was.
So I don't think we need to talk politically
because this is apolitical.
and community boards I think do operate in that fashion.
One comment.
Cllr Ed Gemmell - 1:34:07
It's just a related thing
and I've been wanting to say this publicly for a long time.
Ashley Wade, what you're doing for your community
with I'd like to borrow is absolutely fantastic.
You're absolutely the right person
that should be supporting Steve on this.
Thank you for all the work you do.
I just wanted to tell you publicly.
Cllr Penny Drayton - 1:34:22
Thank you.
Thank you.
That was a nice comment to finish on.
We will have a eight minute comfort break whilst we change over.
I think we want to prompt start to the next topic, which is the 11 .45.
Thank you very much for attending this morning.
Thank you for all your responses.
Can't get out of here quick enough.
If everybody would like to please be back by 11 .45.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good morning, everyone.
Thank you for joining us this morning,
and thank you for those that have already been here.
This is the 3rd of February
Transport, Environment, Climate Change, and Communities,
and we welcome the next topic, which is on East -West Rail.
There's a lot of attendees for this topic,
and there will probably be a lot of involvement and questions.
So just to cover the running of this,
because we obviously do only have a limited amount of time.
We do have a public question, which would normally come
at the start of the meeting.
However, it was relevant to this, so I have moved it to,
this particular question will be heard first
before we move to the committee.
I'd also, we'll be going around so that everyone gets the
opportunity to introduce themselves.
We have four introductions from the parties which are here,
which will be limited to three minutes each,
so that we can get through the introductions and move
on to the questions. The agenda pack has contained a couple of reports and also
the third report from East West Rail was circulated to the whole committee so
they have seen that as well. It didn't come in in time for the agenda pack. As
chair I do like to allow the opportunity to reply ordinarily. I am going to ask
anybody who wishes to reply on either side does ask for my permission first and we do want to keep
this respectful to everyone, non -political and try and get the best out of the meeting that
everyone's given their time for. So if I can start from my right and you can just give a quick
introduction to yourself and then we can move on from there. Thank you. Thank you Chair. Steve
Bambrick, I'm the Corporate Director for Planning, Growth and Sustainability at the Council.
Thomas Broom, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Transport.
Peter Martin, Deputy Cabinet Member for Transport.
Good morning, I'm Daniel Gig, I'm the Council's Infrastructure Delivery Manager.
Good morning, I'm Hannah Austin, I'm the Council's Service Director for Infrastructure and Major
Projects.
Good morning, I'm Richard Barker, I'm the Council's Corporate Director for Communities.
Good morning, Edmund Roddylove, I'm a senior sponsor from Network Rail.
Good morning, I'm Mel Banks, I'm the Alliance Director for East West Rail Alliance.
Ben Rule, I am the Rail Operations Director for East West Rail.
Natalie Rebal, I'm the External Affairs Director for East West Rail.
I'm Karen Hope. I'm the WR mobilisation lead for Chiltern Railways.
Good morning, I'm David Heathfield. I'm the Head of Corporate Affairs for Chiltern Railways.
Good morning, I'm Graham Dyke, the depot subject matter expert at East West Railway.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you. So we have four introductions to the topic. If I can ask Councillor Broome
to go first and take it from there. Thank you very much, Chair. Yeah, so obviously
it's an opportune moment to have an update session with East West Rail, given what we've
learned in recent days. There is a body of sort of ongoing work in the background, which
I'm sure the committee will be aware of in terms of preparations for the opening of Winslow station
Making sure that we've got a a good competitive pricing in the car park there
And plans for that the handover on that side of things
As well as
The spending of our WIC funding that we're getting out the door very successfully
And I think that some of the details that have been circulated
But given the importance of the citing of the Train Makers Depot, I'm going to propose
to leave details of that for now.
And if anyone on the panel has questions, obviously very happy to answer them.
And if anybody wants to follow up, then please do get in touch and we'll come back to you
on email.
The Council was, to put it mildly, surprised when we were informed of this decision to
the place the train maintenance depot in North Buckinghamshire.
As I've mentioned publicly in the last couple of days,
I think Bucks Council was notified about an hour and a half before this was made
public, which is very much not typical of the generally quite good relationship
we've had with East West Rail at earlier stages of the project.
Obviously, it's disappointing for us, but it's distressing for
local residents to suddenly find that what is effectively a massive industrial
site is being dumped into the countryside very close to a small
village well outside of the borders of Milton Keynes. This distress and this
disappointment has only continued as we have tried to dig further into the
decision -making process around sizing this here and the elements consultation that's taking place with local residents.
As far as we are concerned there has been no meaningful consultation with local residents in terms of the sizing
of the train maintenance depot. There are no plans for any meaningful
consultation with local residents about the sizing of this depot.
It is an enormous facility that is going to require effectively
excavating pretty much an entire ridge line in order to site it and because
obviously you can't run a train up 150 foot rise in the terrain. We are engaging
with East West Rail and asking for further details but I think the most
important thing that we are going to need to see is the decision -making
process for selecting this site, is what other sites were considered and what
factors have gone into making this decision because at the end of the day if
We're not going to have meaningful consultation with residents because the consultation that is happening now is happening after
The decision has been taken and so he's not really consultation at all
The very least we can do is ensure that local residents are properly informed as to what has happened
And why these decisions have been made I'll leave it there because I know you want us to stick to three minutes
but I'll come back later.
Thank you, I did let you run on for a moment, thank you.
If I can please ask Edmund, would you like to introduce as well, thank you.
Yeah, thank you very much and thank you for having us.
I represent Network Rail, which just to recap, led the delivery of the first stage of East West Rail
for reopening of the Bicester to Bletchley line, contracting that to East West Rail lines.
The mics can be moved if you can put that closer.
And we now own and operate the Bicester to Bletchley line in common with the rest of the UK railway network.
We'd first of all like to acknowledge that this has been a really disruptive period through the last few years as we have reconstructed and reopened the Bicester to Bletchley line.
So we'd like to thank communities for their support and patience through that period.
The line reopened in late 2024 and last year in June of 2025 we saw the introduction of freight traffic.
The vast majority of the construction works are now complete.
Our focus has been completing some minor additional works at Winslow Station
to support our operator colleagues in future operations
and also responding to some feedback from Buckinghamshire Council to complete the car park.
Those works and our final stages have been completed.
A lot of our focus is now
moving to
realising the benefits of the infrastructure and
specifically from an infrastructure infrastructure perspective in
accelerating what we call connexion stage two, which is the upgrade of the railway from
Bletchley over to Bedford and
anticipate that you know there will be limited impacts on Buckinghamshire specifically in terms of construction and
Possibly around the Bletchley area due to some of the works which we are planning there
But we'll continue to engage with the council on that as we develop our plans
But we hope to can realise those further benefits and that further connectivity from Bicester Winslow and Bletchley
Incoming years and I'll leave it there
Thank you.
Thank you.
Could we please have Natalie Webull to introduce on behalf of East West Rail.
Thank you very much.
Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting us here today.
So my name is Natalie Webull and I'm the Excel and Affairs Director at East West Rail and
I'm joined by my colleagues Graham and Ben who are here from our operations team and
Ben, who's our Railway Operations Director.
We're here to provide an update on East West Rail
and to explain some recent developments,
particularly in relation to connexion stage three,
and to engage with your questions and your concerns.
I want to start by saying that East West Rail
is planning for a more ambitious railway
than was originally envisaged.
The government is challenging us to deliver more benefits
at an earlier stage, to drive growth,
and to accommodate the increasing importance of the Oxford to Cambridge growth corridor.
Housing, jobs and opportunities are already starting to spring up across the route
and this is requiring us to reassess our plans and designs,
most obviously with the Universal UK Resort being constructed near Bedford.
Internally, we reflect that the confirmation of the Universal's theme park is, in many ways,
a good problem to have. It means more people will want to use the railway, which speaks to the
strategic importance of East West Rail and the role that it can play in supporting growth across
the Oxfam corridor. However, that increase in demand also presents new challenges. More
passengers place pressure on existing capacity and we are very conscious of the risk of local users,
particularly those travelling for work and education, could be displaced by
tourism demand if we do not plan appropriately. That is why we are
progressing work to increase both the number of services per hour and the
length of those services by additional carriages. Our aim is to ensure that we
can accommodate growth while continuing to provide reliable, accessible service
for local communities, not just visitors.
But more carriages means longer platform length and more services mean more space required
at our train maintenance depot.
And that brings me to our recent announcement of our preferred location for a train maintenance
depot west of Bletchley and across the parish boundaries of Newton, Longville and Mursley
and the passing loops that will be added in close proximity to that train maintenance
depot.
It may be helpful to briefly explain why these proposals are coming forward now.
While we have been exploring the need for a train maintenance depot for some time,
it is only with confirmation of increased service frequency and capacity and changes
in projected demand across the corridor, in part due to universal, that we've been able
to define our operational requirements in sufficient detail to identify a preferred location.
Community engagement is of utmost importance.
Last week we were in Bletchley to continue our engagement with residents, landowners and parish council representatives on our proposals, including the train maintenance depot.
And soon we'll be going out to Newton Longville to continue this work.
Sorry, it has gone past three minutes. Could you wrap it up please?
Sure. Thank you.
So, as part of the ongoing conversation, we see being here today not as a one -off experience,
but an opportunity for us to engage with you and to continue that engagement.
We could have waited until the design on the TMD was further developed before bringing
these proposals forward.
However, we have chosen to engage earlier so that local knowledge and expertise, particularly
around transport, the environment mitigation and cumulative impacts can help inform the
development of the design.
Thank you. Thank you. And David Heathfield of Chiltern Railways please.
Sorry I'm not David Heathfield I'm Karen Hope. Apologies for stepping in for my
colleague but I'm Karen Hope from Chiltern Railways and I'm here today to
represent Chiltern Railways who are the appointed train operating company that
will operate services between Oxford and Milton Keynes which is the first stage
of the East West Railway. As a train operator Chiltern are responsible for
some key elements one being the rolling stock the trains that we operate on the
stations and our train maintenance and stabling facilities and our colleague
accommodation and welfare facilities. We're responsible for people which can
be our train drivers, our station staff, maintenance technicians and engineers,
control staff and other back office functions. We're responsible for all the
processes and procedures that are necessary to safely and
compliantly operate passenger services. My role has
responsibility for ensuring readiness of all those aspects
of the operating service, such that we achieve appropriate
certification to allow passenger services to commence.
Chiltern are extremely proud to be the operator of the Oxford to Milton Kean service introduction
and we look forward to delivering for customers in the area in the future. I'll now pass over to
David who will introduce himself. Good morning, yes as I said earlier David Heathfield, Head of
Corporate Affairs at Chiltern Railways. I'm responsible for corporate communications,
media relations as well as stakeholder engagements for Chiltern and
specifically for the East West Rail projects. My role is focused on ensuring
customers have the best information as soon as we can share it on the new
service and ensuring that customers are at the heart of that service. Thank you
for inviting us here today and both Karen and I look forward to answering any questions.
Thank you all. I did mention earlier that we do have a member of the public who will introduce himself. He is actually the Chairman of the Parish Council, which could potentially be affected by this.
and I'd like to invite forward Mike Chapman.
Councillor Chapman, you have sent in the question and you have had a response.
You are welcome to ask it here or if you're happy with the written response you've received,
we can leave it now.
So thank you, Chair. I haven't actually received the written response yet.
However, if you'll forgive me, I would like to slightly modify the question because things have been changing,
as I think someone mentioned earlier quite rapidly with this.
First of all, at our end, there is very clear growing opposition from residents,
largely triggered by those design update sessions which EWR put on last week.
Secondly, we have got the Buckinghamshire Council leaders' very clear statement of opposition of the Council to this development.
And thirdly, it was our receipt of a copy only on Friday afternoon of the site selection
report which has given us evidence of some of the serious issues with this development.
It's a 100 -page report.
We are still working through it as I appreciate Buckinghamshire Council will be as well, but
I want to raise just to explain why we are reposing.
So there's a claim on page 23, section 4 .22, that the Sullivan Place development is just
a planning application.
Plenty of crew approval has of course already been given to that and the site will be a
very important contribution to Buckinghamshire meeting its five -year housing land supply.
We already have the first residents moved on to that estate.
This massive great train depot, as little as 250 metres away in one corner, is not going
to help the developers to sell houses, which is not in turn going to help Buckinghamshire
Council meet its targets.
There's another claim in the paper which is to raise questions which raises questions
about its validity page 4597 that there is no relevant neighbourhood plan.
Our neighbourhood plan of course became part of the local development plan in March 2025
and was made by Buckinghamshire Council in May of that year.
On to some of the issues.
The construction work as Councillor Broome has highlighted massive excavation, 188 ,000
cubic metres of earth, which we calculate would require something like 68 HGV movements
on an already overstretched A421 through our village potentially for a 68 per year. Absolutely
massive. Even when the construction work is finished and the depot is operational, we
note that the EWR's own paper refers to a cost of £293 ,000 compared to EWR's baseline
for ECS moves and taxi fares moving personnel around. So the comings and goings of those
hundred staff members will undoubtedly add to the overloading of our local road system.
The visual intrusion of a massive maintenance facility 200 metres by 50 metres by 10 metres,
as Councillor Broome has already referred to, effectively the industrialization of our
landscape, further encroachment towards the village settlement from the direction of Bletchley
and Milton Keynes with more green fields being lost to this industrial facility.
The carbon footprint for the Wadden Road site option appears to be more than double that
of their Bistra option and 40 % above the baseline figure for the site over near the M40, equivalent
to around a quarter of a million new trees.
The noise and light pollution that will come from 24 by 7 working with the nearest homes
barely 250 metres away, including a wheel lathe building, which in EWR's own paper will
generate up to 80 decibels, train horn testing as units move off the depot, and the constant
running of services on those trains, including air conditioning, when they're stabled in
the sidings. Issues around air quality, especially during the construction work, with the HGVs
which EWR's own paper estimates will be 10 times worse than that M40 baseline figure.
References are being made to 100 jobs, but are these new positions?
I asked the question at the drop -in on Saturday and was told,
yes, some of those jobs may well be just merely transfers from, for example,
the existing Bletchley TMD when Chiltern staff move across to the new units.
I need to ask you to wrap it up, sorry.
Sorry?
You've gone to four, it's three minutes for questions.
Okay, my question then, I'll skip over.
My question then is how Newton Longville and Buckinghamshire Councils can work together
to ensure that the interests of our residents will be fully taken into account.
How can we help the decision makers on this understand that Newton Longville is the wrong
location for this facility?
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
You will receive a written response but I would like to see if anybody can respond to
you just now and Councillor Broome.
Thank you Chair.
Yes, so first of all I think we are entirely aligned between Buckinghamshire Council and
Longville Parish Council. I think frankly we heard the seriousness with which East West Rail takes this
in the response we just heard, the ludicrous assertion that actually consultation could have come later.
The only way consultation could have come later is if they'd started consulting after they built the Dan Depot.
It's just it's utterly, utterly
ridiculous as a position. I think I'm very glad you mentioned the options report
because we have received a copy of the options report,
and despite the fact that it has been very widely disseminated,
we're still being told it is not in the public domain
and not a matter up for discussion.
But actually, I think it must be published,
especially given how widely it has been circulated,
and there is a lot of very revealing information in there.
You picked out a number of very important points.
I would also say, however,
that the line we've just been fed
about the situation has changed because of the capacity on the railway and the fact that
Universal is now in the picture.
The lie to that is given in this report because of course the suggestion is you'd have to
find a bigger site and you can very clearly see in that report that there are plenty of
other sites that would have accommodated this in other places.
I think you can also see from that report that on the assessment of environmental impacts
There is a massive environmental impact on this site and a number of other sites where
there is no environmental impact whatsoever.
The only difference is that there is a slight capital spending and complexity saving in
dumping it in the countryside in the middle of North Bucks, which in my opinion indicates
that this has been a decision based on cost.
And actually I think if we look at the response that we've had here and in other places, so
far and it is very much a fobbing off exercise and there is no serious
meaningful engagement in this piece so I think we start very much aligned I
suspect we will continue to be aligned as we go through this process and I
think the most important thing we can do at this stage is get this information
into the public domain this is not a decision this has been made entirely in
last couple of months detailed designs of the potential sites I believe have
been circulated to the parish in terms of the layout of the yard which I think
are indicative that this has been worked on for years at this point and alongside
design of that level I think there will be a lot of information that could either
can or has been provided by whoever is doing that design work on the further
impacts of this on the area.
So we need a bit of light in the shadows.
We need a little bit of truth in the darkness.
We need the information in the public domain
so people can see what is going on
and they can make a decision for themselves
because frankly, what this feels very much like to me
is there is an attempt here to bounce a decision through.
East West Rail has an awful lot of power in this.
The government has changed the NSIP DTO process to mean
that there is almost no way to stop it
from a local perspective.
You know, the age of local representation
and consultation in these places is gone.
I'm just going to wrap up.
I will absolutely wrap up.
So the important thing is we get this information
into the public domain so we can actually see the basis
on which this decision has been made.
And we don't get this shoved through, frankly,
in the hope that there will not be strong enough public opposition to cause East West
Rail to think again.
Thank you. I'm sure there is a lot of emotion in the room and amongst many of the residents.
Thank you for coming along. We need to sort of keep the meeting focused on the points
and in response. We do need to obviously look into this a lot more. It's so new to the council
I will move on to the committee.
I would like to just mention that Councillor Jordan had sent in some questions as a local
ward Councillor.
They did come in too late and she couldn't attend, but they have been, there's five questions
which I believe have been forwarded on and she will get a written reply to those.
before we start on the committee, I just want to clarify, obviously,
as you have passionately expressed, the Council are upset by this.
Reading through the report, I'm finding that there's a couple of bits of information which don't allow,
so obviously the report has come through to the Council on Friday on the 2025 sites assessments,
But from my understanding, there were five which it had gone down to and this was one
of them.
So I just want clarity because obviously the council have responded and put a response
out that we have no knowledge of this.
But there was the knowledge, I believe, that this could be happening or was there, had
the report got down to five without any knowledge at all and so the first you knew on this was
as of last week?
Yes, that's correct. As I say, we were informed that this decision had been taken about an
hour and a half before it was made public.
But you're unaware that it was in the five short list?
No, I had no briefing, no communication from the Research Rail on the matter.
Natalie, thank you.
If I can just address those points,
if that's OK in this forum.
So the five shortlisted areas were
included in the technical report as part
of the non -statutory consultation
at the end of 2024, non -statutory three.
And the depot location was referenced
in the Bucks local authority response to the consultation
in terms of referencing engagement
as and when that decision on those shortlisted sites
was made.
But they weren't made aware that it was a shortlisted site.
As part of the non -saturated consultation, on the basis their response referenced the
train maintenance depot and the noted site in the technical report on the page that it
was listed, my assumption would be that the officers within the local authority were aware
because that site didn't have a response.
Thank you.
Daniel.
Thank you.
Just in response to that, this council at the beginning of last year submitted a response to the non -statutory consultation.
The East West Rail Company led on. There were depot locations referred to.
This council picked up that there was reference to a potential one going in North Buckinghamshire, but not in the Newton Longville location.
we did make it absolutely clear in our response,
like we provide that as a written response
after this meeting if that is required,
but clearly said that if we were to be
a receiving authority for any form of depot,
that we should be spoken to ahead of
any public consultation being undertaken.
And as you've heard from the cabinet member,
that didn't happen.
So we'd just like to correct that point
from the East West Rail Company to put that on record.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I think this may come up again, I just wanted to carry out what both sides understood us to be. Thank you.
Councillor Huxley first of all and then Councillor Cremell.
Thank you Chairman. As people will be aware that if you live in Aylesbury you find it very difficult to get north
if you haven't got a car.
Travelling my train to Milton Keynes
is one of your only options other than getting in a taxi.
My question really relates to the Aylesbury Link.
And in the light of the government's position
that the Aylesbury Link currently has a poor business case,
what new evidence, growth scenarios, or funding mechanisms
would really, could realistically bring this spur back into scope
and what is the Council's strategy to influence that decision.
So this is something that we picked up on just about every available opportunity.
I know that the leader, I think, has written to the Secretary of State
to try and get this back in the scope.
We're also pursuing it through outside bodies
such as England's Economic Heartland,
which has been very good at supporting our position on this.
So we are bringing to bear every possible pressure
that we can.
We think it is, frankly, a bit of a no -brainer.
You know, we've had stepped up the expanded scope of this
and the connexion to Universal.
Well, that sounds like a very good reason
to give access to the good people of Aylesbury
to this line as well.
The business case we think is perfectly strong enough
to merit this going in and we've also had indications
from Mark Wilde, the CEO of HS2,
when he was up here and I think talking with
one of our local MPs, Greg Smith,
that actually it would be quite a useful feature for them
when they come to the railway systems
testing phase of HS2.
So really there is sort of pressure to do this from all sides
I'm not entirely sure what we see the resistance that we have so far, but we will absolutely keep plugging away
Because it's fundamentally a good idea
Thank you, and thank you council Schaffer, please
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask a question before I need to leave I
Know the depot will come up again. I'm sure
others will ask it, I would have a question on it and I am as concerned as
colleagues are
about this decision and I hope we get more clarity.
The question I do want to ask however relates to the services and the additional changes to the
platforms at Winslow station. So it all centres around Winslow and I think it has
two parts, possibly three parts to it.
One, two related aspects, I in principle think, you know, making the stations fit to accommodate
larger trains makes sense.
I would like to know whether that will have an impact on the launch of the service down
that road, so is that going to put it back any further?
and as a related point to that, when are we now envisaging that the services will actually start?
The second question, which also happens to relate to Winslow but is slightly different,
is the question around freight trains.
Now, obviously, using rail for freight from an environmental perspective,
from a logistics perspective, makes a lot of sense.
We are, however, getting informally quite a lot of concerns from Winslow residents
about large numbers of freight trains.
I know there are meant to be two scheduled services a day.
That's one thing.
That is not what residents have been reporting.
So what is the current state of the line being used by freight trains, particularly at night?
Thank you.
Karen, thank you. I think there's three parts to that question.
Thank you for tabling it and I think the answers will come from three different parties. I'm
going to refer to my colleagues at East West Rail Co in terms of future stages and platform
extensions and I'm going to refer to my colleagues at Network Rail regarding freight services.
Chiltern will provide an answer on passenger service introduction
as far as we're able to today.
As I explained in my opening remarks, Chiltern as operator
are responsible for combining a number of elements
to enable passenger services to commence.
We've made really good progress in lots of those areas and we have ongoing discussions
with industry partners that are key to ensuring that we can bring about the necessary agreements
and put in place all the necessary processes and procedures to be able to start those services.
Those discussions are still ongoing and once they have concluded we will be in a much better
position to be able to discuss with stakeholders in the wider community on when passenger services
can actually commence.
So I'll take the question about extensions to the platforms.
So we need to run longer trains in the end on East West Rail because primarily of the
demands that's increased with the universal theme park.
That means we expect to run five car trains rather than the previously planned four.
There is a proposal at the moment and we need to do some further work on the design,
but there's no specific reason why extending those platforms would need to delay the entry into service that Chiltern are pursuing at the moment.
It should be perfectly possible to do that whilst the train service is operating.
Then to pick up the freight point, thank you for the question.
We do acknowledge the disruption and noise that freight services can introduce.
There are, as I understand it, currently two freight services timetabled most days.
One of those is a move from Southampton to Northampton and back, and one from Cardiff
to Daventry and back.
One of those moves is a relatively late evening move.
I think it comes through Winslow shortly before midnight.
So those are regular timetabled moves.
They will happen most days.
There is the potential at any time is an open railway for services to be diverted in response
to operational needs around the network.
And there's also the potential for operators to submit short notice bids to operate further
services.
I think probably a lot of the concerns from Winslow stem around a number of diversion
removes that have been happening in some weeks overnight and that is due to line closures
elsewhere on the network for maintenance.
That is currently a repeating pattern of one week in every sit.
There's a number of overnight closures and therefore great diversions.
To be honest, I'm not sure whether that's planned to continue in the future and for
how long, but I can definitely take that away and submit that as a written response afterwards.
But we would say that we encourage line side neighbours and residents to report any concerns
they have about Northeast Network Rail's national helpline, because that allows us to log where
there are concerns and identify where the hotspots are and where there may be a need
for further assessment and intervention.
Thank you.
If you could come back with more data on that,
that would be great.
Thank you.
OK, I've got Councillor Cornell next, please.
Thank you, Chair.
One of the things I find interesting
when you're saying you want to put this enormous depot
in Longville is that actually I downloaded this morning
that the train maintenance depot,
80 million pound investment, the train,
Bletchley Train Maintenance Depot is going 72 to 80 million pound upgrade
to become the primary maintenance base for the new trains.
So why the change from that?
You know, if it's there already, I'd literally download it this morning.
So I can take response to that. So currently
the trains that Chiltern will be using for the passenger service
are based out of Bletchley. But in the end
And the number of trains that will be running on East West Rail is significantly larger
than that.
It's a very frequent service at longer trains.
And because of that, there is not sufficient room in Bletchley Maintenance Depot to undertake
the maintenance that we would need to do to make sure that that frequency of services
is delivered reliably and with good performance.
There isn't enough room in that depot to be able to do it, unfortunately.
I was pleased when I came back on this, but actually Bletchley in the beginning was a railway town, wasn't it?
It was. So why can't you find another, why are we going to have it in the middle of countryside?
When you've got Bletchley, you've got Oxford, you've got Didcot, why do we have to have it here?
The answer to that is space.
There is, we have looked at locations in those locations
and there isn't space in Bletchley, there isn't space in Oxford, for example,
to be able to put a facility that would support the number of trains we need to operate.
But surely if you've actually got Bletchley there already, just to extend it,
it's not going to be that difficult, is it?
Rather than putting it in the middle of beautiful countryside,
it's enormous Great Beaumont.
I think the answer, the only answer I can give you is there is not sufficient space in those locations for a facility that would allow us to maintain the number of trains.
Can I also come back and say that your record's not that brilliant because I'm a town councillor for Winslow as well.
We've had a lot of problems in Winslow with East West Rail and the building of the station and now we've discovered you haven't actually built it properly.
So you're now asking us to support a depot in the middle of Greenfields.
Sorry, was your question specifically about the design of Winslow Station?
My question is the fact that you've designed Winslow and it's not fit for purpose yet,
so you're going to have to modify it.
And I believe you've got to modify the entrance and the exit from the train station itself.
So if you've done that already, we are now being asked to support a depot in the middle
of Greenfields.
And in my mind, have you done your due diligence?
Really? I'm not sure I would agree with that.
So just specifically on Winslow, the station was originally designed to support the train service that we had envisaged
prior to the arrival of Universal.
So it is Universal that has meant that our plans changed so that we would need to operate longer trains.
So specifically on Winslow, that's the reason for the change of platform design.
but also it's changed.
Councillor Cornell, I've got to stop the back and forth on it.
If we can wrap up on that question
and then there are other questions waiting, sorry.
Okay, I've got Councillor Gemmell next please.
Thank you very much.
So a number of questions, I'll try and be short on each one.
Great Western Rail has brought in an electric train now
that can do 200 miles and recharge in three and a half minutes
and it was out doing passengers at the weekend.
Is there a possibility that we can dump the diesel rolling stock now and start to get to electrification quicker than was originally proposed?
Trees and I think you're doing from now on and I've said this for four years as both Peter and Caroline on the committee here today
will know is
And I've asked for four years about how many trees you've saved and moved rather than just trashed and replanted
But going forward in terms of moving trees
If there was somewhere where you could actually plant them and whether that was this council or charitable bodies or whatever it is
Would you in principle be prepared to dig the trees out
and hand them to the local community to replant rather
than destroying them?
Are the train lines that we've been putting in and still
putting in ready for amok collapse?
So as the Gulf Stream and amok collapses,
which has now been talked about by the scientists
over the past three or four years,
that will plunge us into minus 20 in the south
and have three months of severe winters going under zero
with extremely heavy snowfall.
Are the lines that have gone in now ready for that?
Have you been planning for it?
If you're not planning for it, when are you going to start?
Your net zero commitments
for both companies were done in 21 and 23.
Since 23, we've had the three warmest years on record
with 24 going to 1 .6 degrees
and smashing the Paris Agreement minimum.
When are you going to update your net zero targets
to get realistic?
Who is advising you on your science?
And can you give a commitment to get
that done in the very near future.
Thank you.
A few questions there if you'd like to respond,
and then we'll just double cheque that everything's covered.
So perhaps I'll start by responding on the battery
rolling stock question.
So yes, GWR have the unit which they're now running
on the Greenford branch.
Only batteries on that unit.
It charges directly at the stations.
It is designed for the sort of shorter journeys
that you get from West Ealing to Greenford,
but it is very good at doing that.
Our journeys are slightly longer.
They're slightly faster journeys.
But our plan is to be using battery electric multiple units
to deliver the service.
So we're planning to do discontinuous electrification,
electrifying part of the route but not all of it,
And the fleet that we're expecting to buy would run partly off the overhead line where that's available
and where the overhead line is not available it would run off batteries. That is our plan.
And I can take a response around the tree planting and the environmental impacts.
So the environmental plans are being developed as we progress the design of the railway.
But I will take back the question and apologies if that's been taken and not responded to previously.
I will ensure that we have a response to you on the possibility of working together to look at replanting trees
That are needed to be taken out
And I will respond to that. I'll make sure you get a response to that section
Thank you does that cover all the points council
Can you use your microphone please
What are you doing to get your trains ready for amok collapse?
Which will come in the period of the time that these lines are running
I mean, it's not going to be waiting for these lines to go out of service.
And the second one is when you're gonna update your net zero plans in line with
the fact that we've had the three warmest years on record in the world.
So we are designing the railway with climate change in mind.
Clearly there are a range of different scenarios that could occur as a result of
climate change.
And it's difficult for us to predict precisely which ones of those will occur.
But we are taking that into account
It's perhaps something that we might want to write back to you to explain specifically what we're assuming in that area
And regarding when we'll be updating on net zero commitment, I will get back to you with a response on that as well
Thank you and Councillor Collins, please
Thank You chairman
Councillor Gemmellers already asked my question relating to the rolling stock diesel.
I remember a previous meeting of this committee.
We were disappointed to hear that the project was going to come in with the use of diesel
rolling stock and I think we were sure at that time that the future would be to go through
some form of certification.
So that's been responded to here.
Thank you, Councillor Mormann.
A slightly related question.
It's my understanding that Construction Stage 1 has committed to a 10 % biodiversity net gain.
I'd like to know what plans do you have in place to ensure that that commitment is not derailed
And to my colleagues in the Council, what enforcement mechanisms have you put in place
to ensure that the plans are not derailed and that the commitment is maintained?
I can respond to Connexion Stage 1.
I can confirm that we did meet the biodiversity net gain target of, we actually bettered the
environmental compensation, so it's in planting that we undertook.
And in relation to the future stages of the project that 10 % commitment maintains within our design
for the railway and will be coming out as we go into a consultation in spring this year.
Just to emphasise we're not in consultation stage at the moment. We will be coming out to consultation
later in the year and our plans around our environmental
policies will be
discussed as we take forward what that will look like in the development consent order,
but the 10 % net gain is intended to be part of that development consent order as well.
So we're not normally the planning authority on this because it's a nationally significant
infrastructure project, but from what we've seen so far, obviously this doesn't include
the trade maintenance depot.
We've seen what we consider to be sufficient planning to produce that 10%.
Obviously we'll keep engaging on that and that picture will have changed quite substantially though at this stage
because it doesn't factor in, as I say, a massive industrial facility in the middle of the countryside.
Thank you. Councillor Cornell, please.
Sorry, just to come back.
If you get the go ahead with this depot, how much compensation are you going to be paying
to all the householders around?
Because it's going to be an enormous, enormous impact on their quality of life.
It's going to be an enormous impact on the countryside, wildlife, everything.
So what compensation will you be paying them?
So our engagement with the landowners who are directly impacted by the plans for the
engagement that we started week before last at the same time that we were
speaking to stakeholders and council representatives. So we are speaking to
them specifically about their individual circumstances and obviously be they are
working with our land and property team for those directly impacted and as we go
into that consultation later this year we'll be looking at the safeguarded area
and making sure those impacted are fully engaged with our land and property team.
So that's the whole of Newton Longville and parts of Mursley.
So I would be taking back specific questions on the land and property compensation scheme,
but I can talk to the engagement that we've had already, which is those directly impacted
by the Red Line boundary.
I'm sorry, that's such a disingenuous answer.
What Eastworth Rail is in fact saying here is that they've spoken to the landowners of
the site that they are intending to build their facility on.
The question was very clearly about local residents and what conversation will be provided
to them for the impact of the site going in.
I think the answer clearly is nothing, but you know, have the decency to actually say
that.
Don't try and mislead this committee and suggest that,
oh, there'll be some form of engagement on this process.
Because they clearly won't.
You're not required to, to be fair,
but they clearly won't be, so tell them the truth.
Thank you, Councillor Croupp.
I think, as you say, they're not required to.
I think we all are aware that you don't normally compensate
an entire community.
I think it is something that's been raised
and should be considered with the engagement
which you have.
I did see something on social media about one of the landowners not even being aware of this
I think they found out about a week ago as well
So I guess engagement with the landowners probably needs to be done more as well and you'd like to respond
So yeah, just to confirm on that point
So the first point of contact is with landowners that is our
Priority to make sure that those are direct those people who are directly impacted by these plans were the first people to speak to us directly
about the preferred location that we were taking forward.
So yes, that was on the, I think the 19th or 20th of January.
That was the first day we spoke to them,
but that was on the same day that we spoke
to key stakeholders as well.
So just to, I really wanted to highlight that point
that speaking to those directly impacted
is absolutely the first priority as an organisation
that we try and ensure we do.
Thank you. I think the concern is that direct impact is neighbours as well. It's not just the landowners. It will affect the whole community. I think that's what everyone feels.
And engagement sessions obviously have only just started but I think we do need to develop on that.
I am going to have to wrap this up in a minute. I'm going to go to Councillor Martin for a response and Councillor Collins has one more.
I think the key thing for residents of Newton Longville in particular is what mitigation
the project is proposing for the impacts that this huge structure and the extra rail traffic,
road traffic during three years of construction is going to have on that community.
So people are very keen to hear what proposals the project has.
The other issue that I note is that the engagement session last week, two designs for the layout of the site were presented.
What I'd like to know is what opportunity the community will have if Newton Longfield proceeds as the potential site to influence the decision on which of these goes ahead. Thank you.
Thank you for that question.
Um, and I think, you know, that is absolutely the intention to make sure that we are getting
feedback from the community on those options within the boundary that we have identified
as the preferred location.
Um, we had two sessions last week, nearly 300 people came along and spoke to us.
Um, and we have started to take feedback already, um, on options.
And as you say, taking their comments on mitigation during that construction period is part of
the work that we can do that will inform the mitigation practise that we can develop with
the development consent order.
We are working with the chair of the parish to have another session in Newton Longville
in early March and the consultation, the route wide consultation on East West Rail is intended
to start in the spring.
That will be another opportunity where we will be coming back and speaking to the communities
directly impacted to take their feedback, all of which will be considered as we present
the final design for our development consent order.
Councillor Collins, thank you. Thank you, Chairman. I think we as a county should
learn the lessons of the fiasco at HS2 and Councillor Martin there
knows more than any of us about the issues that have been... we should learn
the lesson. We've had huge problems. I personally am aware of many, many cases where what was
said at the time hasn't actually materialised. There are people that are in fact now being
made homeless virtually because of the remuneration situation, compensation. It's not happened
as it should have happened. And I think we should be very aware and learn the lesson
and take that forward into any negotiations we have with East West Rail.
Thank you. I've got one very quick question from Councillor Gemmill because we have come to the end of this.
Just staying on Newton Longwell, have you considered just taking some of the other depots up?
I mean if we build flyovers and bridges and stuff and then assemble actually is already on two levels or whatever anyway,
Why can't you build up and do it in exactly the same place and then not have to destroy a whole load of other countryside?
To go up would would involve very significant of engineering
And for somewhere like Bletchley
I think it's very hard to see that you could create something that would allow you to do that. The space is very very limited
So it's hard to see how you could do that, I think.
Is it just a question of money then or is it a question of engineering not being possible?
I think it would be expensive.
There is very limited space and you need large amounts of space to do,
as Council has just described, things like grade separation.
It's very large structures required.
Thank you.
There was never going to be enough time for this item, but thank you all for coming.
I think there's a lot of points which the committee and other members would like some
feedback on.
I believe it is essential that the communication and consultation improves, I guess I should
say, from this point in regards to the depot, at least.
There is obviously strong feeling around about it from everyone.
So if we can just keep the updates coming,
that would be good.
But thank you for attending this morning, everyone.
It's been really informative and really helpful.
Thank you.
.
Okay, thank you everyone for your involvement and your questions.
Moving on to the next agenda item is the Forward Work Plan.
I think it would be a good idea from our committee's point of view to request an update from East
West Rail sooner than in one year's time.
Obviously this has all just come out about the depot in particular.
There's other potential questions that would have been raised had the latest news not come
out.
So the work plan as it stands, we only have the next meeting lined up and then we've got
HS2, but I think we should look to put it into next year's programme fairly early on,
so maybe in six months we can invite them back and get an update of where we are with
what's happening and the opportunity.
With HS2, we have got a whole separate meeting.
It might be appropriate that we actually hold a separate meeting for them, depending where
it's got to because I think there are other members of the council maybe
regarding planning and such which should be involved so it might be one that we
hold joint with GIH and look at doing looking looking into it together so
that's where we are with that the rest of the work programme obviously as I say
we've got the March meeting set I did mention earlier on that there's a lot of
interest in the trees, I think it would be worth us now looking at how we can actually
work to bring a effective dive into what is happening with the tree mission.
We have discussed the potential of canopy cover, where we're at with that, what we can
do.
And the ideas like Councillor Gemmell has raised about bringing in a policy to move
trees rather than you know it's the scopes there I think if we anyone that's
interested if you can let me know we'll put a smaller working group together to
try and do something to firm up an idea on what we can do with the trees because
I think it's it's something that does get a lot of interest and a lot of
support and something we can look into as a committee is there any other
comments anybody would like to make on that or the work programme council again
I just wanted to ask, can we ask for review on what resources it would call, we would
require to get to net zero in 2030?
Can we as a committee ask for that?
I mean it's in our, it's an aim one of our climate and air quality strategy.
Can we just ask for that to come here and somebody to report on it?
Yes absolutely.
I will need to find out what we can do to demand a review on it but I can certainly
as chair of the committee get an email sent out on behalf of the committee
saying we want we want some action and we want some answers on it. Okay thank
you. Anyone else would like to contribute towards the work programme thoughts or any
other comments before we close up for today?
Can you just use your microphone sorry we are still... Sorry I think your idea of
Having East -West Australia as one session completely is a really good idea because there's so many questions that need to be answered and asked.
And they're so, as Thomas said, so disingenuous.
But having dealt with them before on my last patches, they are not easy.
Thank you.
Okay, well thank you all. Really good contributions this morning.
And I will be seeing you all in March.
Thank you very much.
Sorry, I keep saying March because I presume you'll know, but for the benefit of webcast,
it is the 24th, I think, of March.
Now I don't know myself.
I have got it here, along with the work programme.
It's probably on the 24th of March.
It is the 24th of March and then 21st of April is the HS2 update.
And on the 24th of March, the agenda is the local nature recovery strategy,
active travel and performance monitoring for Q3 when we will actually discuss Q2 as well,
of which is attached to the pack.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mr Steve Bambrick
Corporate Director Planning Growth & Sustainability
View profile Mr Steve Bambrick
Mr Daniel Gigg
Strategic Sites and Specialists Team Leader
View profile Mr Daniel Gigg