Transport, Environment, Communities & Climate Change Select Committee - Tuesday 23 June 2026, 10:00am

Transport, Environment, Communities & Climate Change Select Committee
Tuesday, 23rd June 2026 at 10:00am

Speaking:

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Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Alex Collingwood
Cllr Caroline Cornell
Cllr Tim Dixon
Cllr Justine Fulford
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Andy Huxley
Cllr David Carroll

2 Apologies for Absence/Changes in Membership

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4 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

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Sally Moore - Senior Scrutiny Officer
Cllr David Carroll

3 Declarations of Interest

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Cllr Alex Collingwood
Cllr David Carroll

6 Public Questions

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7 Local Transport Plan 5

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Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Caroline Cornell
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr Caroline Cornell
Cllr Caroline Cornell
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Tim Dixon
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Justine Fulford
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Caroline Cornell
Cllr Justine Fulford
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr Andy Huxley
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Alex Collingwood
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Alex Collingwood
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr Alex Collingwood
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr Alex Collingwood
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Clive Harriss
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Wendy Matthews
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr Wendy Matthews
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Caroline Cornell
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr Llew Monger
Rebecca Dengler-Jones - Transport Strategy Manager
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Public Questions
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Robin Stuchbury
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
Cllr Robin Stuchbury
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
Cllr David Carroll

8 Performance Monitoring Q4 2025 to 2026

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Cllr Ashley Waite
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Alex Collingwood
Kevin Goad - Service Director for Communities, H&TS
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Ashley Waite
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Tim Dixon
Cllr Ashley Waite
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Caroline Cornell
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Tim Dixon
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
Cllr Tim Dixon
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Jaspal Chhokar
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Caroline Cornell
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr Llew Monger
Kevin Goad - Service Director for Communities, H&TS
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr David Carroll
Kevin Goad - Service Director for Communities, H&TS
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr Alex Collingwood
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Justine Fulford
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr Justine Fulford
Cllr Thomas Broom
Cllr David Carroll

9 Work Programme

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TECCC DRAFT Work Programme 26-27

Cllr Justine Fulford
Cllr David Carroll
Cllr Caroline Cornell
Cllr David Carroll

10 Date of Next Meeting

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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Cllr David Carroll - 0:00:00

Good morning everybody.

Welcome and very hot day.

Thank you for turning up to this meeting.

It's very important.

I hope nobody finds it really interesting.

Can I just quickly zip round after I do the first item?

Appointment Vice Chairman.

That will be on my right, Councillor Huxley.

We've got a number of new members and some substitutes.

Can we just quickly go around the room to introduce ourselves?

I'm Dave Carroll, the Chairman of this.

I'm Councillor Alex Collingwood.

I'm substituting for Michael Collins.

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:00:50

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:00:52

Caroline Cundell, I'm not substituting for anybody.

Cllr Tim Dixon - 0:00:59

Justine Fulford, Chesham.

Cllr Justine Fulford - 0:01:01

Councillor Clive Harris, Longcrendon.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:01:05

Cllr Llew Monger - 0:01:10

Councillor Lou Monga, Winslow, deputising for Councillor Anya Schaffer.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:01:14

Madam Romina, Councillor for Hove and Amandstone.

Thank you.

Cllr Andy Huxley - 0:01:20

Councillor Andy Huxley, Aylesbury East.

Thanks very much for that.

Cllr David Carroll - 0:01:25

I say OB, the finest interest, it's a very important committee,

analysing and scrutinising the business of this council.

Going on to item two, absence and apologies, we've already done that,

so thank you for that.

2 Apologies for Absence/Changes in Membership

Going back to the Chairman's update,

go back to the minutes of the last meeting,

I'm trying to think who was here.

Yes, there's several people here.

4 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

So any observations of the last meeting?

Okay.

I haven't done it.

He's joined a committee to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jeremy.

Sally Moore - Senior Scrutiny Officer - 0:02:04

Just there are some changes to the committee.

So Councillors Armond, Allen and Mike West are no longer members of the committee.

And Councillors Wendy Matthews and Tim Dixon were appointed to the committee at the AGM on the 20th of May of this year.

Thank you.

Thanks for that.

Cllr David Carroll - 0:02:20

And can I just thank the past members who have been on this committee.

They contributed a lot of stuff for this council.

So thank you for that as well.

Chairman's update, I think we've done that now,

introduced everybody.

And we've just got the next item.

Oh, declarations of interest.

3 Declarations of Interest

I'm looking around quickly.

Any?

Councillor Munger, anyone else?

Thank you.

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:02:54

Chairman, I sit on the local access forum, but when this item was brought to that I was physically away

So didn't participate in the actual item being brought to you today

And so I think you know there's no company of interest and therefore can actually participate in the debate

Cllr David Carroll - 0:03:08

There is two questions today one from the public

6 Public Questions

and you've turned up today that would go to the item 8 and

and Councillor Strutsby is going to come in at some stage for the same item.

So I'll call you when that comes up. Is that okay?

Thank you for turning up anyway. Thank you for that.

Right, let's move on.

7 Local Transport Plan 5

This is a very interesting item now. It's a local transport plan 5.

The cabinet member did promise to come back to update us what's been going on.

I know you've had a public consultation. So over to you. Can you introduce yourself?

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:03:49

Yes, Tom's bringing the cabinet member for transport and as you say chair back here to

just give a bit of an update further down the line.

LTP5 has gone out to consultation and we've had those consultation responses in and we've

considered the information that's come back to us and I think this has already gone back

to cabinet or is about to about it. Yes.

So we wanted to come and have a quick chat at tech first and give you the

opportunity to ask any questions you might have about both about LTP five,

but also about any of the feedback that we've received or any of the changes

that we've made as a result of the feedback. Um, so, uh, for anyone, uh,

who, who, uh, doesn't know LTP five is sort of our top, uh,

level strategic document that looks at how we're going to be doing various things transport

related.

It's been developed in parallel with the local plan for Buckinghamshire and there are a great

myriad of different areas that are covered by this document.

But as everyone will have noticed, as I said, this is the top level strategic document.

the detail of those various areas is usually present in the other policies that sits below

this.

This is sort of the framework document for everything else.

But very happy to answer any questions the committee might have, Jack.

Thank you.

Cllr David Carroll - 0:05:21

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:05:23

I was really interested to hear, or to read, rather, some of the feedback.

and a consistent theme in that feedback appears to be the question of funding.

Now I've read, I can't claim that I've read the entire local plan,

but I've dipped in and out and it is ambitious.

It certainly has a vision, but it risks reading a bit like a wish list

if it's not underpinned by a clear plan on how to fund your ambitions.

That is a general question, but in particular I'm interested about active travel and the

integration of active travel with other forms of travel so that we move to a multi -modal

travel model.

But again, that needs funding, it needs serious funding.

So I wonder, I'd like to give you the opportunity to tell people what is the plan for moving

from a wish list to something that, you know, see spades on the ground as it were.

So I think it's important to understand that the LTP5 is not a wish list in that sense.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:06:43

The point of it is to have a policy framework in place

so that when we come to deal with any of these issues

that are set out in the different policy areas,

that we've got our guiding principles to do it.

So LTP5 itself doesn't contain lists of schemes

for things that we'd like to do.

As I say, that goes into other policy areas.

So for example, in the case of cycling, walking,

active travel type stuff, we've got the LCWIP,

and that sort of sets stuff out in more detail.

Obviously there is a bit of a balance to be struck with these things because you

don't necessarily want to

set out something that sells the county short,

but you absolutely know is deliverable, because

a lot of the documents that we're talking about are also the basis on which we attract

funding for these things.

So we tend to try and be ambitious and show what we

would like to get to in the long term, because that much

better enables us to get in the funding to deliver

individual projects that help us along the way.

So as I say, it is a bit of a balance between those two

things, but I think we've struck the right balance.

We've shown what our ambition is.

We've shown what we want to be able to do.

And while we're not going to sort of deliver everything we want to do overnight,

I think that's inherent in taking a strategic long -term view,

is that obviously you are taking a longer -term view.

But actually if you look at the stuff that's been delivered by the team

over the last five years since the Council's been formed,

I think it's a fantastic record of delivery.

and we are, you know, we're managing to get funding

in through a number of sources,

whether it's actual travel funding from the government,

securing section 106 contributions,

you know, even quite complex schemes

are being delivered based on a mix of funding.

As with any politician, it would be lovely

to just have a nice big bank account somewhere

with money that doesn't have to come from anywhere

and just deliver all the schemes that we want.

But in the absence of the magic money tree,

I think we've got a good framework for delivering,

and I think over the last five years,

we've demonstrated that we can deliver

in what can absolutely be quite a challenging

funding environment.

The only other thing I'd pick up on is,

I think there is a real emphasis in this document

about choice, and what we want to do

is give people the choice to use the mode of transport

that they want and that means creating the the routes and options for people to

be able to make those choices but just to say it does also mean that we're not

superimposing one choice over another you know we're not we're not taking away

people's choice to travel one way in order to deliver a different travel

Cllr David Carroll - 0:09:59

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:10:03

choice. How will we address the public confidence in the reliability of this

service and the integrated ticketing innovation all which is needed and will there be any help?

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:10:13

So is that confidence specifically on integrated ticketing or the wider piece?

On the fact that our reliability because I have used the busses and they're not always that reliable.

Yeah, yeah, I know absolutely and look again, this is this is one of these areas where

There is there is an inherent level of uncertainty because we are in the vast majority of cases dealing with commercial operators

And they will make commercial decisions. I do think we've got a fantastic

Team here who work with the bus companies and try and make sure we're getting the very most we possibly can out of them

I think that's incredibly important

I think we're in a relatively settled period at the moment.

There is still some changes going on.

But most of the changes in bus service provision

that we've seen over the last couple of years

has actually been an increase in the expansion

in the level of service.

And we do see more bus journeys taking place in Bux

year on year, which is really encouraging.

Obviously, we'll sort of make interventions where we can,

but fundamentally the model in, frankly, in the country,

more generally, is the commercial provider model.

There's a lot of talk about franchising,

and I'm sure now that we're on course

for an Andy Burnham premiership in number 10.

One of the things we will hear more about

is sort of the various things they've done in Manchester.

The cautionary note I always sound on this point

is that when you're looking at London and Manchester,

you have a sort of a population density

that means you can deliver certain integrated mass transit

solutions, which any practical experience of being outside

of the big cities will tell you is not possible in a rural area.

So specifically on the integrated ticketing,

I think it's a long -term ambition from the government.

It's one of the things that we were, I think, encouraged, if not mandated, to put into LTP5.

It's on the list of it would be fantastic if we could do it.

But I think there is a lot of sort of pushing of this coming from central government without

a lot of how you actually do it and without a lot of thought of how that would happen.

I think from everybody's perspective,

it would be an attractive idea.

I think integrated ticketing,

you know, certainly, you know,

across commercial providers

or even across modes of transport,

bus and rail being the most obvious one,

is absolutely something that if we could see a way

to help that into being, we would.

But I think there's a lot of good wishes and willing,

but I think we're still a little bit short.

But as I say, it's not particularly the council that would be leading on that because it's mostly commercial operators.

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:13:19

This is personal for me.

I'll do my best, Maura.

Right.

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:13:42

This is just personally for me because when I go to get a bus, I go online, it says the

X5 and that's it.

Is there some way we can integrate all of the bus services, go from say, Elsbury to

Milton Keynes rather than just have to look at one and go find another?

Is that possible?

Oh, is it?

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:13:59

So mapping tools so that you can sort of look point to point rather than provider to provider,

as it were.

Yeah, I think that's something that we are actively working

with various providers to try and deliver

because actually that is an incredibly useful feature.

And it's, we've always got to look at,

not the way we would like to see things work

from a sort of internal council point of view,

we must always look at how things are being used

by residents, whether they are bus travellers,

train travellers, drivers, whatever it is.

So yes, I think that's something we've been sort of

in fairly active discussions with providers about.

But again, the reality is at the end of the day,

commercial providers will act in their own

commercial interest.

But certainly something we'd like to see.

Councillor Dixon.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Cllr David Carroll - 0:14:52

Cllr Tim Dixon - 0:14:54

So, Councillor Broome, regarding the homeschool

transport feedback on page four of the report.

It acknowledges the reliance on publicly funded taxes

due to unsafe walking routes.

How are we going to ensure moving forward

that we're not spending so much on these taxes

and we're actually saving money by not putting money out

into that and actually improving our walking routes

and our safe walking routes to schools, et cetera?

So there's not a lot of overlap

between unsafe walking routes and taxis.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:15:27

Taxis are only used when, I mean almost exclusively used in terms of children who have SAND requirements.

And so most of the time it's not possible for those people to walk.

There will be a small number of services that we provide otherwise.

Obviously we seek to make safe, unsafe walking routes wherever we can.

And there's a lot of action on that that's ongoing.

But most of the time when you've got someone who is being transported by taxi, the reason

for that is because their EHCP designates how many other people they're allowed to travel

with and because of the legislative framework, our statutory duty is then to deliver that

level of transport.

So if you've got a child who has to travel alone or can only travel with perhaps one

child and very often taxis are the only way to do that. I do know there was

there was quite a bit of a hullabaloo last week on some social media

platforms around the fact that there was a government website that listed one of

our contracts which had a typo in it which meant that the somewhat ludicrous

claim was was being pushed around that we had spent 800 million pounds on

in the last five years, this is of course completely untrue.

And the figure needs to be adjusted by two decimal places.

So it is eight million over five years.

And that's obviously within the context

of the wider homeschool transport spend,

which I think budgeted for this year

is about 40 million pounds.

Which is obviously a huge amount of money.

But I would gently say to opposition colleagues

that almost every interaction I've ever had on homeschool transport with

opposition colleagues is them asking me to spend more money on it and expand the

service. So you know there's as I said to a previous question there's a bit of a

balance we have to hold there. But yeah so we obviously keep the use of taxis to

an absolute minimum. We've been very successful over the last couple of years

in route optimization. You know this is an area where we reduced the amount that

we had to spend by making services more efficient

by almost five million pounds last year.

The fundamental problem in the home school transport space

is volume rather than unit cost.

So for a number of years we've been driving down unit cost,

but that is completely swamped by the increase in volume,

which I think is reflective of what was intended

to be a relatively narrow but very generous scheme

in terms of S, A, and D provision that has over a number

of years been widened, particularly by court decisions.

And obviously that's the reason why, you know,

you've got councils all over the country

who are now spending very large amounts

on home school transport.

And I would take the opportunity to point

out that this is the part of SEND provision

that the government is not helping out on at all.

So, you know, we've heard a lot about the high needs block

of the DSG, the dedicated schools grant,

and the government saying very generously we're going to come

and cover 90 % of that.

You know, two points there.

First of all is that's 90 % of money

that you should have been paying in the first place.

So actually what you're doing is crystallising 10 %

of what you should have spent locally

as the national government and dumping

that onto council's balance sheets.

But the second point is that home school transport is a huge

component of SEND spending. Again this is all mandated by the the statutory

framework and this is not funded by government and the government have

chosen to completely ignore this incredibly important part of the

provision and so all councils will continue to bear the burden of this

which is why it's so important that we we bear down on unit cost and as I say

we made savings of about five million pounds last year alone on this but the

the constant upward pressure of volume is a challenge

and it's something we work on all the time.

Cllr David Carroll - 0:19:54

Just very quickly, referring back,

this isn't part of the question I was going to ask,

Cllr Justine Fulford - 0:20:01

but referring back to Tim's question about the taxi,

and one of my rural parishes,

there is no public transport which can get the children

to their schools on time.

There's a great desire amongst the parents

to encourage active travel amongst their children.

So it had a great big to do.

Most of my August was taken up talking

to parents of that village.

And there was nothing we could do,

because the bus times changed, because that's Hertfordshire.

We're right on the border of Hertfordshire.

So very helpfully, the school transport team said, well,

we do have a taxi.

So these aren't send children, so I just wanted to put that there that you know because we don't have enough influence over the in Buckinghamshire

We don't have enough influence over the bus routing and timetables

that's that's cost us taxi for those for the children in that village, but

Moving on what I actually wanted to talk to you about is are we waiting for the government?

To say 20 miles out outside schools. That's going to be a blanket or is this this

Council going to actively say 20 miles an hour is probably too fast 20 miles an hour outside schools should be

Just standard it should be that this cat this council should be working towards that the I drove this morning past

Thomas Harding that's my route to here Thomas Harding and st. Mary's in Amersham

Very narrow pavements very there's been the long -standing arrangement for parents of those

of school children there to use the local car parks free

and walk from the car parks.

They are now being asked for five.

That's been a free permit scheme set up

in conjunction with Buckinghamshire Council.

They've now been told.

The last figure I heard was 5 ,000 pounds per year

that the school had to pay to get these permits

for the parents and keep the traffic away from the children.

I think there's been some progress on that.

but really we can't be charging these ridiculous sums of money

to allow the school areas to be freer of traffic.

That was one very important thing.

And on a different matter, the safety, just still safety,

but safety of cyclists.

The highway safety policy of this council and defect risk

assessment says on carriageways, potholes and spoolings can be 40 mil deep and 300

millimetres wide on a carriageway. But on a cycleway, which is clearly marked, is

20 deep and 300 millimetres wide. Or for gaps, it's 40 by 20.

For cyclists, for cycleways, it's 20 by 20. Now, we don't have any cycleways around

Chesham and Amersham, there aren't any.

We have to use the carriageways when we're cycling.

So it's not safe.

Having those minimum standards for recording

for the carriageways is no good for people

who want to engage in that active travel

if they're coming across potholes and gaps

in the carriageway, which would not be acceptable if they were

trying cycling on a cycle route, which

There is no availability of cycle routes in Chesham

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:23:38

Thank You counsellor a range of things that I will try and get through them first of all in terms of

This example of what sounds like a single taxi being used in in a particularly rural area

The point I was making previously is that this is a statutory provision. We are required to provide it we

minimise the use of that kind of transport as much as possible, but there

are certain circumstances where it has to be used because it is a statutory

requirement. We are legally required to deliver the service, so there may well be

examples, but I would I would hope that they are very rare, very happy to take up

or any individual case that you have.

In terms of this point about defects and relative severity

of defects for intervention level,

which I think is what you're talking about,

obviously the critical distinction there is that

cycleways are much smaller space

in which people have to operate.

So a smaller defect takes up proportionally much more

of the width of a relatively narrow cycleway

compared to the full size width of a carriageway.

And therefore, a defect that could be easily avoided

by somebody on a road can't necessarily also be

so easily avoided by someone travelling on a cycleway

because it's just a much smaller space.

Obviously we have made this a priority this year.

We've put in place our 120 million pound road programme.

It's a record investment in the roads in Buckinghamshire.

It's the biggest roads investment the county has ever seen.

And a huge part of that is our resurfacing programme

so that we can both take long -term reactive action

when we have particularly bad weather as we did at the beginning of this year but

the long -term solution of resurfacing roads so that we get fewer of these

defects in the first place I think is incredibly important and you know it's

only possible because of the very carefully managed finances of the

council that mean that against the trend of almost every other local authority in

the country we are actually coming in five million pounds under budget this

financial year because we've been making efficiency savings and we've managed to

make slightly more than we thought we were going to that is not the picture

for almost any other council in the country but but critically you know and

I'd say this gently but you know if you're talking about how how we doing on

the roads programme and how's our investments in roads going the Liberal

Democrat in its entirety all 120 million pounds and so to sort of turn around and

then and then come back and say you know why aren't you doing enough on the roads

when you voted against the entire programme you know I'll leave that for

residents to judge in terms of road safety outside of schools this is

something that we're working on all the time we've got the road safety teams

We've also got the school safety teams

who work directly with the schools.

Very happy to look at the case of somebody,

a school being able to use a local car park.

I very much doubt that that is an arrangement

that has been free, this is now being charged for.

I'm assuming that what's happening there is

that as fees and charges have risen,

it's worth slightly more.

But again, very happy to look into it.

We have a process in place for 20 mile an hour speed limits.

Anybody can apply for a road to go to 20 miles an hour,

although that is based on evidence, not on ideology.

And we do not adopt the approach of some of our neighbouring

councils in seeking to impose 20 mile an hour speed limits

where people do not want them.

Blanket implementations across the country

have been massively opposed by local residents.

They are absolutely hated.

They increase journey times by 50 % from 30 mile an hour.

So, you know, we will absolutely look through the process

that we have long established

and which is used relatively regularly

to move to 20 miles an hour where we need to.

I'd say in quite a lot of cases involving schools,

the issue is much more about congestion

than it is about speed.

And if you have a problem at a school

that there's too many cars

and they're all moving at five miles, 10 miles an hour,

a 20 mile an hour speed limit does absolutely nothing

to help either with the safety of pupils

or with the easing of congestion outside that school.

You know, this push for 20 mile an hour speed limits

is, as far as I can tell, largely ideological.

It is not based in practical reality.

It is not based on a desire to make people safer.

It is a desire to do down a perceived enemy

in the motorist.

And that is something that this council will not do.

I've spoken in a previous answer about the fact

that we want to promote choice.

We want residents in Buckinghamshire to be able to choose

how they want to travel.

And we're gonna provide the options for them to do so.

We are not picking sides and saying,

you set of residents are better people

than this other set of residents.

that is not something we're interested in.

I see your hands going up, but I'm going round first

and people ask questions, I'll come round again, okay.

Cllr David Carroll - 0:29:25

I wanted to clarify what...

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:29:34

So my question was, will this council be just doing a 20 mile an hour speed...

Cllr Justine Fulford - 0:29:37

The policy of the council would have a 20 mile an hour speed limit outside schools.

I wasn't mentioning any other streets,

and there are definitely times during a school drop -off and pick -up time,

when all the cars have not accumulated on that congestion

you were describing, when it is very dangerous

because it coincides with rush hour,

people go as fast as they want to

because that seems to be, you know, 30 miles a limit.

It's too fast past a school when there are lots of very naive

and traffic unaware pedestrians around.

So that was my specific question.

I think you sort of went off on just 20 miles an hour in general.

Specifically, I don't think schools need to be applying for it.

I think this council could do itself a great favour by just saying,

we're not going to put you through that.

We are going to say 20 miles an hour outside schools at pickup and

pickup and drop off time. It's,

it's a very simple policy and it's been very effective elsewhere.

It's blanket across Scotland has been for a long time before they introduced 20

mile an hour speed limit.

It works.

Fatalities and serious injuries drop.

So I don't know what the, I don't know why you would not

want to have that.

It's the safety of people.

It seems a great idea to me.

Yeah, so the first thing I would point out

is that you opened by saying this is not a blanket measure

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:31:04

and you closed by saying it's a blanket measure in Scotland.

As I say, we have a policy in place

which means that we change speed limits on the basis

of evidence and the reality of what is happening on the ground. I would need

quite a lot to be dissuaded from the idea that we should be following

evidence and reality and move into the realm of the ideological. As I say my

experience in the portfolio now for a bit over a year you know there's a lot

of there's a lot of schools related issues there's lots of schools related

traffic issues. Almost all of them are related to congestion and parking and

involves situations where, as I say,

vehicles are moving more than 10 miles an hour.

Now there are still safety issues there,

because when you've got that very heavy traffic

and you've got kids who are perhaps not looking both ways

as they come out into the road,

that leads to safety issues,

and that's why we've got the road safety team,

that's why we've got the school safety team,

working with the schools to try and make sure

that we're mitigating against that wherever we can.

But the idea that a blanket 20 mile an hour speed limit

on every road with the school on is going to solve the problem of slow

moving traffic and it's just not practical but as I say the route is open

for any school where the issue is there is an issue around speed there's

process in place and I would encourage that school to talk to our team or talk

to their local members and see about putting that in place. Just on the wider

point about road safety we did we did read in I can't remember which

publication it was the other day,

but Buckinghamshire has actually got the eighth safest roads, um,

of any, uh, higher authority anywhere in the country.

So road safety is something that we absolutely focus on.

And it's clearly something that we're delivering on with the, you know, several,

several hundred local authorities. Um, and we are,

we are eighth in the top in terms of minimising those collisions.

So it is something we take seriously. And as a result of that, um, it's,

it's something that we deliver on.

Okay, Councillor Hartley.

Thank you, Chairman.

Cllr Andy Huxley - 0:33:16

Councillor, I was going to raise the subject of the taxi situation.

Having read in the Book's Herald post, so if it was in the Book's Herald then it must be true of course.

With the headline, books herald debug claims of one billion spent on taxi services from

Aylesbury social media account.

I must admit I'm half tempted to change my job if that's the case and have words with

you later.

But yeah, some of the comments that have been made have slightly concerned me, which I will

I will put a poster on the post if you like.

Because when you get things like independent investigation

will be when, you know, and things like that.

And this one I certainly didn't like,

pen pushers getting paid hundreds

of thousands of pounds a year.

So, yeah, you have been warned.

But the thing I was going to mention

was in actual fact to do with the survey report,

which I thought was very comprehensive and very good.

My slight concern was, oh, the other thing I was going to say

was that I actually found exactly what I was looking

for when I went through, so it was very comprehensive.

was concern over I'm still getting things from the consultation or after the consultation's closed,

which slightly concerns me. I don't know how it was worded when it went out, but I'm sure it must

have been reasonably clear when the final date was for the consultation. But I'm getting a lot,

quite a few on certainly cycle ways and that side of things.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think we were pretty clear

in terms of when this was running.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:35:38

The thing I'd say to anyone who's sort of

missed this consultation is that emphasise

the point I made previously that this is

a framework document and that actually

an awful lot of what we're doing below that

in terms of implementation is something

that we will continue to be doing over the next few years.

So it's the fact that it's long term, it's strategic.

That does create other opportunities for people to jump in

and because it's not a list of schemes,

it's not crystallised.

So where we've got residents

who can see an opportunity somewhere and think,

actually it'd be great if we had a cycle way here

or we had a footpath there or whatever it is,

I think I'd probably encourage them

to talk to their local member

and that local member can then raise that with me

with one of the teams and we can look at whether it's possible to integrate that into our plans

as we go forward.

So the opportunity hasn't been missed and we absolutely don't intend for this document

to be sort of pinning us to a very fixed course of action and taking away the flexibility

that we have.

And we're constantly looking for opportunities to expand this network.

We are careful, I've talked about choice a number of times

and we've really focused on that in LTP5.

We don't want to be in the business of prioritising

one set of residents over another.

We want to make sure that everybody's got the option

to use the mode of transport they want to use.

And that's a very much developing situation

and we always welcome feedback from residents.

I mean, genuinely, I think sometimes people think

Council sits out somewhere over there and you know not not not to be interacted with

But genuinely we're all here to serve the residents of Buckinghamshire

So we want to hear from the residents of Buckinghamshire. So then anyone watching don't hesitate to get in touch

Council Collinwood

Cllr David Carroll - 0:37:37

Thank You chairman. I

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:37:40

Was just on the report which is very helpful. It gave me a list of the analysis from the residents

So I break it down by chapter of each of the analysis for each of the pieces.

So the first bit was active travel.

Interestingly, the biggest support was public rights of way, not cycling.

I was surprised that.

My query in terms of that implementation piece you talk about is how we are going

to update our policies and strengthen them so we get better cohesion in terms

of community for things like public rights of way.

So we just had some applications recently where we had HW8 and

and then we had the next door piece.

And actually there's actually a proper integration

between the two sites that actually got a cycle path

that takes you all the children to the relevant school.

But that's unusual.

And how do we make that the expectation and the norm

based on LTP5 going forward?

You actually get that scenario going forward.

So you get that detail behind there that goes,

actually Mr. Developer, it's not an aspiration,

it's a requirement.

So that's sort of my first bit.

Do you want to talk about some of the other ones?

So we'll just do that bit first up to you.

I wrote towards that straight away.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:38:47

I mean, in part, that's the point of having LTP5 developed

alongside the local plan.

Because obviously, the local plan

has a real focus on delivering this completely mad number

we've been given by the government.

But in doing that, doing it in a way that

protects communities as much as possible

and makes sure that development is sensible as and where

it happens.

and things like what you're discussing there

are exactly the kind of thing we need to make sure

that that development is focused on.

And as I say, that's why we've brought forward LTP5

alongside the local plan rather than

a couple of years afterwards.

Because obviously we want the opportunity

for this to be considered as that development goes forward.

In terms of public transport, interestingly,

Cllr David Carroll - 0:39:37

rail got the biggest support over everything else.

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:39:39

And also access to rail.

Obviously, as we talk and talk and talk about electrification,

particularly First Great Western, and I don't know how we build that into the LTP5

to actually then say not just electrification of First Great Western, but also in terms

of children railways and how we improve the accessibility to all of our residents

across the whole of the county, if that makes sense.

Because East -West Rail HS2 actually doesn't really help us at all, really.

So how do we get our existing operators to work more collaboratively with us to then get better timetables more connectivity and that sort of stuff

So that was my sort of career on that bit

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:40:19

Yeah, so so yes, we are not short on on railway line in in Buckinghamshire

And but as you say very often we are short on benefits to Buckinghamshire residents

HS2 carving through the county providing zero benefits and you know the most destruction to our natural environment that we've ever seen

That is certainly true.

Working with sort of the big infrastructure projects is difficult,

particularly HS2, because they have their own acts of parliament,

they can basically do whatever they want.

I think Bucks has been very good, and actually this committee has been very good

in holding HS2 to account.

Our previous meeting where we had them in,

I think it was this committee that drew out of HS2 for the first time publicly

that they'd extended the reset process by a full year.

I don't think that had been made public.

I think it was this committee that managed

to pull that out of them.

So there is a massive role for us

in holding them to account.

Realistically, the chance of us getting

sort of a transport benefit at this point is illusory.

East West Rail is slightly different.

We do have one section, obviously.

Councillor Munger is in the room in Winslow.

and we continue to press for that to open up as soon as possible.

This is a very long -term engagement we've had with East West Rail to try and get them to do so.

My understanding is that the talks with the unions are still deadlocked.

This has been the issue all the way through, which is obviously very frustrating for everybody.

It's such a silly thing to keep a railway line closed because a two -car train,

all the length of a two car train doesn't have a guard on it.

I mean, it just seems utterly ludicrous to me.

Future electrification is a really important point

that it will touch on East West Rail,

Great Western and also Chilton,

who I think have sort of publicly said

is part of their long term plan.

We will have to see how long term investment reality

meets with nationalisation of railway companies.

The historical example tells us that nationalisation

is not beneficial to investment.

And so this is something that we may see

sort of become less prominent over time.

I think our biggest concerns in terms of electrification

are mostly around impact on the natural environment.

because electrification means gantries.

And obviously, particularly in rural areas,

that is not something that people want to see.

The good thing is that pretty much everybody

is talking about now hybrid electrification,

so battery electric trains,

which means that actually the electrical,

so the overhead electrical infrastructure

doesn't need to be everywhere.

And that's certainly a focus of conversations

that I've had with the various train companies

in terms of where that infrastructure goes

is going to be really, really important,

and that they have a choice.

They do not, you know, if they choose to dump it

in the countryside because it's cheaper for them,

that is a choice that they are making,

and that is a choice that we will hold them

to account for making.

The choice that we want them to make

is to ensure that that infrastructure is,

wherever possible, is going in areas

where it is not going to damage the character

of the countryside.

and I think that is entirely possible in most cases

and that's absolutely something that we press for

on a regular basis.

But as you say, yes, rail is almost always

at the top of the list in terms of support

for public transport.

My final point is about the EV charging piece.

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:44:11

Now, obviously in Marlowe we've managed to get

electric charging points in for the car parks.

In terms of LTP5, one of the big things that's come out

while the public is, to those who don't have access

to charging on the street and or on their drive,

how do we encapsulate that within the policy

to at least promote as a policy that not just us,

but other providers, whether work providers,

you know, public, other public bodies,

has a sort of a, again, a requirement rather

than just an expectation or aspiration.

So I don't know how that plays out in LTP.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:44:50

Yeah, so in terms of LTP5, it's mostly just about how do we deploy as many of these charging

points as we possibly can.

The wider point about sort of cross -pavement charging is a little bit more complicated.

There's some changes going on at the moment from the national perspective about moving

where what planning permission effectively you need to do it.

So that's something we're gonna have to take into account.

But there are some real challenges

because obviously getting a channel installed is great,

but then you've effectively made changes to the footway,

to the highway, and we need to make sure

that what's being installed is not going to be

a potential hazard for other residents using them.

But then you've also got the long -term maintenance issue.

And this is something that nobody seems to have come

to a particularly satisfactory resolution to.

And I fear we are going to be yet again in the position

where sort of government decides this is a marvellous idea.

This bit is a bit difficult

and the government is not willing to spend any money on it.

So that ongoing maintenance liability, I suspect,

is going to end up being dumped on local authorities.

So it's how we manage that

is something we are actively considering.

I was thinking more of us taking the lead

in terms of mass EV charging points.

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:46:11

So like we have in West Street where

there's eight -part charging points already.

So that's in the car park bit so that they can go actually,

you know, there's 20 or 30 spaces to play with.

Go enjoy yourself if that makes sense.

I'll just go around for people to ask their first question.

Cllr David Carroll - 0:46:27

So it's Councilman, please.

Thank you, Chairman.

Coming here is a substitute.

Cllr Llew Monger - 0:46:34

Forgive me if I'm going to take an overview on this.

but I look back at the introduction to LTP5 on the council's website and I'll quote,

we'll set out the ambitions, policies and plans for delivering transport improvements

for all types of transport across the county until 2040.

So I accept the point you made, it's an overarching strategic document,

but then so is the local plan for the same period, 2040.

There is not a single reference to the local plan,

which is going to deliver in exactly the same period of time

a significant increase in housing.

I don't want to enter into an argument about the politics of whether it should have remained at 2 ,900 a year

or moved to 4 ,200 a year.

The fact of the matter is, either way, we're going to have a lot more housing.

A lot more of that housing is going to come in the north of the county because of various constraints south of the Children's.

There's no reference at all to how that increase in housing, which is known about,

has been known about all the time that this plan has been being developed and

for over a period exactly covered by this plan there's no mention at all

about improvements to highway networks in the north of the county. There is no

mention for example to whether there's been any conversations and be

interested if there have been any conversations with Milton Keynes Council

about the development, the future development of the Milton Keynes MRT system,

which will come right up to the boundary of Buckinghamshire.

Are we talking to them about how we're going to link that into the new housing in the north of the county?

My community alone is going to see a six -fold increase in the population,

and yet we don't have the highway network.

There is no reference to, in the whole of MRT, to improvement in north -south connexions.

Other than of course HS2, which doesn't connect.

But it will, when we build a new town at Calvert and a station there on East West Rail and HS2 Cross, it will come.

What worries me then overall is the lack of any link to the other stuff that's going on.

Same period of time, vast changes in population and in population movement within that and

the need for better north -south connexions and yet there is no reference at all.

To be honest, it's small wonder that this has, I mean we're supposed to be talking about

the public's response to the consultation.

But inevitably, we're ending up talking about items within it.

Of course, the response is very high and very favourable,

round about 70 % in favour on average.

But it's all just motherhood and apple pie.

There's nothing serious in this.

It's we'll do nice things.

We'll do lots of nice things.

We'll make this better.

We'll do a nice thing here and a nice thing there.

But it's not addressing the issues.

So, tell me how we're going to, when it will be reviewed again, when we will be talking

about joining in with Milton Keynes Rapid Transit System, when we'll be improving North -South

connexions, and when we'll be delivering the highways network and general infrastructure

that the new housing in the North is going to require.

I think I probably need to refer you back to what I think was almost my first answer,

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:50:18

which is that this is a strategic document

that sets out the framework under which

other policies look at the detail.

So, you know, if you're looking for the details

of what we want to do in terms of our cycleway network,

as I said, have a look at the LCRWIP.

We have developed LTP5 alongside the local plan,

and part of the reason for that is to say that,

you know, the local plan is responsive to LTP5

and LTP5 is responsive to the local plan.

teams work very closely together on this.

And you'll notice if you look across LTP5

and local plan documents,

the language that the wording that's used

is consistent across both.

The point of the LTP5 is not to mitigate

the effects of the local plan.

That's not the role of it.

The problem that we have is the imposition

of 90 ,000 new homes in Buckinghamshire,

which is not based on any real need,

is a 50 % increase in the county's population.

And the government is imposing that number with zero,

not a single pound of money,

additional money for infrastructure

that comes alongside that.

That is fundamentally the problem.

LDP -5 is not a solution to fix that problem.

What we have is the imposition of, as I say,

a massive housing number, no follow up in terms

of infrastructure investment.

Part of the local plan, as part of the local plan,

we will be identifying that gap in terms of what we think

is necessary in terms of infrastructure spending.

And I know that Steve Broadbent, the leader of the council,

is already engaging with the government

and making this point that you know,

increase the population of a place by half

and require that to be done and not invest a single penny

in the infrastructure that supports it.

It is a completely ridiculous position to be in

and I think every resident of Bucks

has sort of got the point that 90 ,000 homes

is too many for the county,

50 % increase is too much for the county.

You know, I have to say, again, you know, we do have a bit of facing in two directions

from opposition colleagues.

Current Liberal Democrat policy would have 20 ,000 more homes on top of the 19 ,000.

Chairman, can we ask the cabinet members to stop getting into an argument now?

Let's not introduce a political argument about housing numbers.

Cllr David Carroll - 0:53:02

I think the cabinet members finished that bit now.

Councillor Harris.

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:53:10

Thank you very much Chairman. I won't say what I was going to say about one of the

flies some of our members put through doors about what wonderful things

they're going to do for us all. I really don't envy you your job.

Unfortunately the the county has huge pressures placed upon it being

basically north -south to start with and long skinny and narrow and we all know

that the infrastructure in terms of roads is very, very poor.

As far as education is concerned,

well, it's fine if we all went back to the 50s

and we went to the local school.

But thanks to some governments, they closed down all the grammar

schools elsewhere.

So everyone wants to go to our grammar schools.

So people are moving into the area.

And one of my biggest pains is the fact

that we end up with a 50 -seater coach picking up

four or five people from one rural spot

and taking them all the way across town to somewhere else to deposit them.

And these vehicles are oversized for the roads they're going on.

My first question would be, what pressure can you bring to bear on these companies

to stop them using such massive vehicles? Because obviously

they've got a fleet of coaches sitting there doing nothing all day,

but if they charge us to take kids to school in them, that's fantastic

because they've got some use for them. The other thing is that

is I'll go past about five or six schools

on the way to my daughter's school,

because we're a fair distance from the school she attends.

And it's the parents that need to be taught

how to cross the road is the biggest issue.

These are more comments than questions I've met.

But because the traffic is moving so slowly

to counter the point that's made by my colleague here,

they're walking across through the roads,

more respite.

There needs to be more integration

between the education department and yourself

to ensure that we can cover these things.

Because, as I say, a lot of the problem

with the vehicles moving slowly is

accommodating these coaches going into the schools

in order to deliver very few children effectively.

A lot of the private schools use multiple minibusses,

which don't cause half the issue.

I can't see, other than the employment costs,

the costs of actually running the minibusses

too much for the schools.

But the main thing is what can you do to improve,

because we'll want kids to go to school with bicycles.

But if your school's five miles away, down dangerous roads,

no parents are going to want to do that.

So we want to see that people say,

wonderful greenways, fantastic, or this sort of thing.

But if they don't go where you need them to go,

that's the issue.

And I think that's why perhaps your policies aren't as popular

as they could be whilst remaining popular.

So I'd like to see a little bit more integration between education and transport to try and get these

people moving in the right directions more freely. I'll leave that with you.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:56:10

No, absolutely. So yes, no, part of the reason why we've got this emphasis on choice is because

a route option that might be very desirable on a nice sunny day in the middle of summer,

it suddenly becomes unviable when it's middle of winter, minus two degrees and pouring down with

especially when you're trying to get kids to school.

So just to make that point about choice.

In terms of the size of vehicles,

so this is one of the areas where we have actually

made a lot of progress.

And actually we've been driven by efficiency

in terms of cost because obviously it costs more

to procure a larger vehicle with fewer people on it.

And so we've made some great strides in terms of

Getting those down so that where we've got a contingent that needs to go on a particular route

that the size of the vehicle that's procured is the same size as

As the contingent of pupils now this has put some pressure on areas

Like our spare seat scheme which used to be much more extensive than it is now

But what it means is we're providing

the

transport that is is required for those students and

and making sure that they can get to school

where they have the statutory requirement to do so.

But obviously we're balancing that off against,

you know, this ever growing bill that we have to pay

because of the increase in the expansion

of the volume side of things.

So that's something I think we're making good progress on.

And if we have any areas where that's still the case,

then do let me know.

The one thing I would say is it is possible

that they are picking up the five kids at the beginning of the run and they may be picking

up quite a few more kids after that to fill up the bus.

But it's absolutely something that we can have a look at.

Can I have some map views and then I'm coming round again.

Cllr David Carroll - 0:58:09

Thank you, German.

Cllr Wendy Matthews - 0:58:11

You're proposing to add two new sub -policies to the LTP5,

One of which is to explore innovative solutions to rural public transport provision.

So could you tell me what those possible solutions might be and whether you're considering looking at the sort of scheme that Heathrow are setting up, which is transport on demand?

And the other one is the support for community transport and can you tell me what that's going to look like in terms of support for community groups doing transport?

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:58:51

Yeah, absolutely. So in terms of innovative solutions in rural areas, we think that's

a really important thing to look at because obviously a conventional bus network, for

example, it's very difficult to make that commercially viable in a way that supports

residents in the way that they would like to be supported. You know, one of the things

that we have been doing over the last few years is we're part of a pilot scheme with

DFT, the Department of Transport, around demand responsive travel that we've seen in Wickham

and Aylesbury in particular, but services also in some other places as well.

The challenges we found with this is basically it's not value for money, it's very, very

expensive in terms of the cost per journey and it's not something that we

think would be a commercially viable service that anyone else could run and

it similarly wouldn't deliver value for money to the taxpayer so that's why we

need to look at you know any any other options we can think of basically

because we have to maintain that balance between providing a service wherever we

can but doing so in a way that does provide value for money to the taxpayer

because we can't be in a situation where we've got sort of unlimited commitments

that then the Bucks taxpayers is having to fulfil to sort of

subsidise other residents in the county. I've said at tech meetings before when

I've been pressed on this you know there is there is a real challenge in this

I think a lot of people have expectations set by the London transport system.

That kind of integrated transport system only works with very, very high population density.

And even in the case of London, people always forget that it has been losing billions of

pounds for years.

It has required huge injections of state subsidy

from central government just to keep

Transport for London afloat.

So we are not going to be able to mirror

that level of provision in BARC.

But what we want to do is look at any potential new

and innovative ways that we can deliver

better public transport links.

So that's the innovation side of things.

Forgive me, what was the other point?

About what would be the nature of the community support piece?

Cllr Wendy Matthews - 1:01:27

Oh, community, yes, community transport.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:01:29

So I think that's obviously something that we're developing at the moment.

I'm not sure we're quite ready to publish that yet, as it were.

But very happy to take any ideas from the committee if they've got suggestions.

And of course we will bring that policy back and that will be available for tech to have a look at and to questions on once we've put that into the public domain.

You know, we have some fantastic community transport networks already in the county and we do what we can to support them.

And so this is having the policy specifically in place

is about taking something that we know is working

in certain places and seeing how we can better support that

and we can potentially help expand it

into other communities.

Because of course the nature of a community

transport service is that it's very much rooted

in a particular place and so you can't necessarily

just transpose it directly.

But we have seen the success of some fantastic schemes run by local communities and we've

been very keen to see those in other places as well and see what we can do to help to

make that happen.

Okay, we've just got three more questions.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:02:44

Councillor Minnan -Folke.

Thank you.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:02:50

Councillor Bloom, I'm going to say this with utmost respect because I hold you as a very

experienced counsellor and as a cabinet member you are certainly on top of your brief.

And I think you know that this is a closed party forum where we scrutinise policy and we scrutinise decisions

and we give you a bit of a hard time because that's what we have to do. Fair enough.

And I'm sure you know that there are more suitable arenas for political points.

So having made that procedural comment, I'm going to move to my question.

So you said at the beginning that the LTP5, it's a framework.

And that you have to strike a balance between aspiration and deliverability.

But so far what I've heard is why we can't do things, whether we're talking about charging

points, improving footpaths and cycle paths and walking routes, 20 miles an hour routes,

network infrastructure in certain parts of the country.

I'm hearing the reasons why we can't do these things.

So, I'm sure I'm getting this wrong, but you're not reassuring me that this LTP5 is deliverable.

And I think you very rightly mentioned that the vision or the underlying vision of the plan is to give people choice.

Now, key to giving people choice is the integration,

is, you know, making the whole system work.

And that includes walking routes,

it includes EV charging points,

it includes the bus integration and transport integration

that Councillor Cornell was asking you.

And don't tell me, because I know your views about franchising,

so let's not rehearse that.

But it is essential that we have a plan on how we're going to deliver and how we're going to integrate.

And I'm afraid I'm not hearing that. Put me right.

Well, I think I have mentioned throughout the course to say some of the things that we are delivering on.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:05:24

You know, as I say, you know, one of the most important elements of what's sitting under this framework is our highways maintenance section.

and we are delivering the biggest investment in roads

that the county has ever seen.

I don't think that's a small thing.

That's in the context of 45 million pounds worth

of cuts from government.

It's in the context of constantly increasing

demand cost pressures in areas like homeschool transport,

which we've also discussed.

But I suppose the flip side of,

we're talking about the limitations

of homeschool transports, for example.

The reason I'm talking about that is

because we are delivering what we are required to deliver.

You know, I'm talking about statutory duties.

That's the statutory duty we are delivering.

And that is a service that is being successfully deployed.

You know, I said at the beginning,

you know, I'm very proud of the work that the team has done

on active travel in terms of getting schemes delivered.

One of the new requirements that we've been hit with

from government is that we set out sort of what our plan

is for project delivery over the funding period which I think is going to be made public I'm

guessing. So I think we've submitted that to them already or are going to very shortly

and then that will go into the public domain but we've got a fantastic track record of

actually delivering these schemes across the county. We've got a huge amount of investment

as they say going into our roads.

You know, the point that Councillor Matthews just raised

about looking at new and innovative ways

that we can serve rural communities.

The trial I mentioned with DFT,

we're one of only a handful of local authorities

in the country that has actually put their hand up

to do that in terms of, you know, managing congestion

on the road network.

We have, we're in the process at the moment

of implementing our loan rental scheme, which will mean that we give a proper financial

incentive for utilities to not take up road space for longer than they need to.

That incredibly frustrating scene we see where Thames Water or wherever it is turns up, closes

the road for seven days and only works on it for two.

So there is an awful lot going on and that's sort of what we talk about in the day to day.

And I'd always encourage people, I know they can be painfully long at times, but the cabinet

remember reports that come to full council meetings.

We do use that as a method of sort of telling everybody when

we've got specific projects delivered, as well as what

we're looking to do in the future.

But generally speaking, across the board, whether it's

delivery of EV charging points, we have not quite been

where we wanted to be on that.

But that still involves delivering a huge number of EV

charging points across the county.

So the plan going forward, Councillor?

The plan going forward is what we've set out in LTP5 and the policies that sit below it.

You know, Councillor Munger points out this runs to 2040.

This is a long -term strategic view of what we would like to accomplish in the county.

It is ambitious. Part of that ambition is so that we can leverage in the funding that we need

in order to deliver a project in the way that we have done

in the first five years of the council's existence.

So I think we've got a good clear vision,

a clear strategy set out in LTP5.

Sitting beneath LTP5, you've then got the sort of

the how are we actually implementing it bit.

And you can see through delivery of schemes

throughout the county, how we're actually getting stuff done.

And I think it's reflected in, you know, you talk to people in the space of sort of access to the countryside,

they will tell you that Buckinghamshire has basically the most accessible countryside anywhere in the country.

You know, it doesn't matter how you're trying to access it.

you will better find yourself getting into the countryside

in bucks than you will anywhere else.

We've got, as I say, record investment going into the roads.

We know that there needs to be an improvement there.

But as I say, you've got strategic vision in LTP5,

you've got how we're gonna deliver that in the policies

that sit underneath that, some of which I've just mentioned,

and then obviously day to day,

you're seeing those schemes being delivered.

and it's across a huge range of different things.

A little later on today, I'm going down to Marlow

with Councillor Collingwood to have a look

at the four and a half million pound investment

we're putting in the historic bridge there

to make sure that that stays a proud historical

transport icon of Buckinghamshire.

But you know, any given week,

I'm out in various bits of the county

looking at projects we're delivering in terms of active travel, in terms of that

strategic road maintenance, in terms of connecting up our communities, trying to

so you know I've got a meeting later on this week where we're going to be

talking about some of these congestion issues outside of a school. So we are

delivering on this and we're delivering every day and as I say I think you've

got a clear strategy, a clear vision from LTP5, you've got how it's implemented

under that and then in the day -to -day reporting of the council you've got the

schemes that we're delivering in order to do that. Excellent.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:11:11

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 1:11:13

Councillor Conloy. Thank you Chair. It's just a quick one Councillor Broome. Going

back to the electrification of East West Rail which is literally at the bottom of

my garden. So Councillor Munger is well shielded from East West Rail but we have

a lot of houses right on it. I don't want electricity. I don't see these big

boundaries there. In the beginning we were promised either hydrogen trains or

similar or battery and I know that China have actually got the hydrogen trains

going and I think Germany has as well so why aren't we looking at that? Yeah

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:11:40

absolutely and I don't underestimate how important this point is going to be

about electrification infrastructure. I think we do want an electrified rail

network. I think it sort of it works better for everybody but we have a huge

opportunity with battery electric hybrid trains to make sure the infrastructure

is going in places that are already at least partially industrialised. I'll be

perfectly honest my biggest growth with the East West Rail at the moment isn't

their electrification infrastructure it's the imposition of this train

maintenance depot in the north of the county which my to be perfectly honest

with you my blood is still boiling about this is something they designed in this

location for probably about two years which they told us and the they told us

about half an hour before they told the public.

Absolutely appalling practise that we've seen

in evidence there, totally unsuitable sites,

and they're dumping it into Buckinghamshire

because they think they can get away with it,

and frankly because the process that government

has now put in place through NSIP means that

large scale infrastructure projects like this

are effectively lawless, except that they're lawless

under the cover of authority that they've been given

by the government to do it.

But on the electrification point,

it's something we are actively engaging on.

It's something that I am really passionate about.

So much of the damage this is being done to the countryside

under this government is being done through

just a sort of metropolitan carelessness,

a lack of understanding of the rural environment,

and sort of assuming that things aren't going

to be a problem when they absolutely are.

And one of these is electrification infrastructure

needs to go in places that already have

an industrial or a semi -industrial character

that is perfectly possible along the route

of East West Rail.

And we do not want to see that electrification infrastructure

blighting the Bucks countryside

on top of every other imposition we've had

from this company that is behaving frankly, appallingly.

Finally, Chancellor Munger.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:13:54

Thank you, Joe.

Cllr Llew Monger - 1:13:57

I just wanted to come back on the point that Councillor Broome made about community busses.

You said you'd take suggestions from the committee.

Winslow has, I'm sure you're aware, a hugely successful community bus, which is totally

funded locally.

There's an awaiting opportunity for that group, for the community bus group to acquire a second bus and run a service around the villages in North Bucks, delivering people to the railway station and indeed into Windsor -Turnsend.

But that would need the capital to acquire another bus somewhere between say 70 and 100 ,000 pounds to get the right kind of vehicle.

And then the running costs for three to five years.

Now we gladly give Aviva a million pounds at Struck to support something like the X5.

But why don't we look at this idea for Winslow, but also right across the county.

Couldn't we be looking at section 106, transport contributions from all the development that you keep telling us is coming,

to fund local transport rather than fund national businesses like Aviva.

capital cost upfront to acquire the bus and the cost of operating it probably

with paid part -time drivers for the first three to five years.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:15:38

So in terms of improving the service, that sounds like a fantastic idea,

in terms of intervention from the council, I think I probably have to

talk to some of my colleagues about what the particulars of that would be legally.

There is a very big difference between subsidising an existing route in order

to keep it in place for the benefit of residents and effectively making a grant

of several hundred thousand pounds if you included sort of ongoing maintenance

costs and things. You know the council is not a bank and we have to be very

careful how we spend taxpayers money that's how we've that's how we've

managed to end up coming in under budget unlike almost every other local

authority in the country and obviously you're talking about a pretty

significant capital cost and whether whether or not there would be other

other things that would take precedence. The principle of expanding that

community service I think is excellent. I think we'd absolutely look to see what

we could do in order to support that. My strong suspicion would be that what we

could do would fall well short of a very large injection of taxpayers money into

what is essentially a private enterprise.

Cllr Llew Monger - 1:17:08

It's not taxpayers money this is developers money through section 106. I'll

Rebecca Dengler-Jones - Transport Strategy Manager - 1:17:15

Cllr David Carroll - 1:17:17

I think the question has been put and I think it's worth you'll take it away anyway wouldn't you?

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:17:21

Yeah can I just point out, so in terms of Section 106 contributions,

that's the reason I haven't mentioned that is because eventually it's, I don't want to tread on

anyone's toes, I think that's very much a conversation to have with the planning portfolio.

From the transport perspective we'd only be able to talk about sort of direct

investment which would of course be taxpayers money.

Thank you for that.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:17:45

That's been very, very thorough, very interesting, and thank you for doing that.

And obviously in the future we expect to come back and give us the update.

And to end this conversation, you did say the leader is going to talk to the government

at the moment about the local plan and funding for that, which we need.

And this is crucial to both parts of this working thing at the moment.

Am I right there?

So exactly lobbying the government on that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:18:14

I think we've been very clear that there is,

you know, we believe there is going to be a significant gap.

90 ,000 homes is a huge imposition on the county.

There is going to be infrastructure required

to support that.

As of this moment, you know, maybe when Prime Minister

Burnham is in office, we will have a phone call.

The red carpet may be rolled out for us.

I don't know.

But at this very moment, we have not a single penny of additional funding coming through infrastructure.

And as I said, you know, in the context of we've actually had a funding cut by 45 million pounds.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:18:52

Well, thanks for that. Thanks for the questions. It's been very, very good.

And thanks for your time. You're obviously on top of all this.

Can I just now ask the two people who've asked the questions come forward?

We did miss out because they were heavy.

You've been very patient.

So could you ask your question, please?

Thank you, Chair.

So I've been volunteering with the WasteBusters Programme

for about two years, running stalls

Public Questions - 1:19:29

and giving talks to help reduce household waste

and improve recycling rates.

Earlier this month, the volunteers were told the programme

is closing because the council has pulled the funding.

No reason was given apart from budget constraints.

Wastebusters employed one person for two days a week and the rest

of the effort was voluntary,

so it can't have been a big budget item.

The performance metrics in the report

on today's agenda show household waste recycling rates

and residual household waste a flat lining even with the support of waste busters.

My question is why have you pulled the funding and how do you expect to reduce waste

and improve recycling rates now? We got the deputy cabinet member here so can you

Cllr David Carroll - 1:20:16

answer the question please? Yeah thank you for the question I'm here deputising for

Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 1:20:23

Councillor Osso -Bogan today. The waste busters project was a two -year contract awarded to the

third -party organisation Garden Organic to recruit and coordinate volunteers across Buckinghamshire

to deliver waste prevention messages and engage with residents on all things waste and recycling.

The contract is due to end in July, having previously been extended by a year.

While waste busters have done a fantastic job over the last three years with volunteers

attending events, engaging with many residents across the county, including in my own ward,

I've met them. The feedback was consistently indicating that this

approach hasn't always reached the areas where engagement is most needed to drive

the improvements in recycling performance. As the question highlights

the recycling rate has been stagnant for some time and therefore a new approach

is required. A decision was therefore taken to review the existing model and

redirect the funding towards a renewed waste prevention strategy. This will

include the development of a dedicated team focused on

delivering a comprehensive programme of behaviour change work

and targeted campaigns.

The new approach will identify and target specific areas with

low recycling participation rates,

increase outreach to schools and young people,

invest in local community -based initiatives that promote waste

reduction and sustainability.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:21:45

Thank you very much. Moving on to the next question, Councillor Stroud's free.

Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 1:21:50

Thank you, thank you, thank you Chair for the opportunity to ask the question. It's always great to receive.

For background, because we have three minutes, you may not be aware of a members that we have a sort of Buckingham Flood Resilient Coordination meeting in Buckingham

which coordinates problems to discuss issues around flooding.

You may not be aware quite how bad Buckingham floods.

I can give you all the videos of it if you like

and all the photographs.

So this meeting, which this question comes from,

is basically members of the public flood action group

and different people holding us to account.

So I hope that gives you a bit of background for the question

before I put it, because I think it's only fair.

Buckingham is a very large county and it has two major rivers the Ouse and the Thames.

We never seem to talk quite so much about the Ouse, but that's a different question. Thank you.

Well through the chair after attending the Buckingham

BFRC end meeting and

concerns were raised about the section 19 report and the actions which were

or contained within it, meaning members were unhappy

about the timings of stuff.

There was also concerns

about whether there was detailed understanding of the flood

issues in the upper Great Ouse catchment area.

These issues are well known and publicly and documented.

You can see it anywhere.

As I was the only elected member at the meeting, I was asked

to follow up on these concerns as soon as possible,

which is today clearly.

I would like to ask what work is being undertaken

to update the section 19 report, which is the report

into the flooding for the 2020 flood for Buckingham.

There is to reassure those in the meeting,

the BFRCN meeting, that work is planned in these areas,

especially given the significant flooding

that has affected Buckingham

and unfortunately, it continues to affect Buckingham.

And this is the question that they asked me to put.

Thankfully, it isn't the exact words that they put,

but it is a reflection upon the words of that question.

I don't think that that is how we are.

I look forward to response.

Hopefully, I can go back and reassure them

or at least tell them where we are on this.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for the question, Councillor Starchbury.

Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 1:24:36

As you know, there's a regular item on the agenda at the BFRCN meeting regarding a review

of the activity against recommendations in the 2020 section 19 flood investigation of

Paul for Buckingham.

It should be noted the vast majority of recommendations assigned to risk management authorities,

including the environment agency, Buckinghamshire Council and Angrene Water, have been either

action or action is ongoing against them. Such progress is particularly positive

given that the council has no statutory power to compel other stakeholders to

undertake recommendations, while the recommendations are simply made as high

level suggestions for further consideration. The BFRCN meetings are

attended by several officers from the climate change and flood risk management

team who have excellent technical and chronological knowledge of the sources,

causes and impacts of flooding in the Upper Great Ouse catchment area in

Buckinghamshire, as do officers from the Environment Agency who also attend the meeting.

Representatives from Buckinghamshire Highways that are familiar with highways flooding matters

in the area regularly participate in the meetings.

It would be strange that these attendees wouldn't be aware of the flooding issues in the Upper

Great Ouse catchment area as you assert that they are well known and publicly documented.

It is known that not all members of the BFRCN share the concerns that have been raised to

and are very satisfied with the progress that has been made in establishing the

BFRCN and driving activity to help mitigate flood risk in the area. I allude

in particular to the activity undertaken by the council to clear sections of the

River Great Ouse in Heartlands Park and the environmental agency securing

funding for similar work on the River Great Ouse. I thank the party's concern

for the continued efforts and recognise the professionalism of both council

staff and the representatives of the reputable bodies that attend.

Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 1:26:25

Thank you very much. You're very welcome to come to Buckingham any time. I'll buy you a coffee, I'll introduce you to the river and the community.

It's an invitation for you.

And I'll even pay for the coffee. I think you need to actually come and visit Buckingham after listening to your response. Thank you.

Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 1:26:39

I visited recently with Councillor Osso -Bogan and had a good time.

You did meet me.

Thank you Robin. Thank you Heather. Thank you very much. Right, thank you for that. So can we move on?

8 Performance Monitoring Q4 2025 to 2026

Cllr David Carroll - 1:26:50

I feel sorry for our Chancellor Broome there because he's been through for an hour.

Could we go on to community first?

Do you want to introduce yourself and perhaps talk to some of the highlights?

Yeah, hi, my name is Ostril Whitt, I'm the Deputy Cabinet Member for Communities.

Cllr Ashley Waite - 1:27:11

I'm standing with Steve today.

There's only obviously three on which is obviously the Household Support Fund,

which this is obviously slightly up against the target and everything else with

with obviously current inflation increases relating into obviously white goods and

primary against white goods is a major problem there.

We obviously are looking at obviously removing certain elements in certain cases

and obviously looking at obviously the better pricing across the board which can be done.

Next one is obviously domestic abuse champions recruited and trained. Obviously we didn't

obviously hold anything in quarter three to training course in quarter four. We are obviously

looking at running this better with obviously over subscribing sessions and obviously trying to get

more people basically attending because there has been obviously a drop -off rate

And then there's obviously parking

Which is a percentage of invalid?

penalty notices, which is obviously

Yeah, we're at 1 % against a target of free

Cllr David Carroll - 1:28:29

Thank you chairman just like the last point

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 1:28:34

Does this performance bit is this pre?

the switch over to the new contract or just post switch over the new contract

if that makes sense this period that's been quoted if that makes sense and just

curious to know what this with the new contract what will the new benchmark mean?

Thanks Councillor Collingwood. Yeah it is pre the new contract obviously this new

Kevin Goad - Service Director for Communities, H&TS - 1:28:58

contract started two weeks ago the the target for the first six months of the

new contract remains at 3 % we are still above below that which is above target

Cllr David Carroll - 1:29:11

More questions on this or should we, okay.

I'll ask a question.

Yes.

Um,

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:29:18

with regards to the recruitment of domestic abuse champions,

um,

I'm trying to find,

and I can't find what is the outrun.

Um,

but it seems to me that there has to be something a bit more fundamental than

just mistraining.

Um,

So, what do you attribute the underperformance of the recruitment campaign and what you're

doing beyond just putting more training sessions, what are you doing to incentivise people to

become champions?

No problem at all.

I come from a recruitment background and I work for Nelson, no problem.

Cllr Ashley Waite - 1:29:57

One of the primary reasons is basically the communication and it's the communication

and obviously encouraging people to come with obviously better emails, better confirmations

and everything else, no problem. And it's also oversubscribing these courses as well

in order to basically get more there. It's not, we're going from a scenario of

suspending somebody one email and one letter with details to then going to multiple confirmations

with an increased level in order to make sure that each course is at its maximum level.

It's just tightening the process, being honest,

in order to basically get it,

in order to get more people in.

Thank you.

Councilman Dixon.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:30:43

Quad two customer service figures.

Cllr Tim Dixon - 1:30:48

We've got around about 50 % of all complaints

have been taken and upheld at a stage one or stage two.

I understand that's,

that's bad for me, it's quite a large,

high level of complaints.

what are we actually doing to tackle the root cause of the level of these complaints and the reason for these complaints?

I'm going to have to come back to you on that one.

Cllr Ashley Waite - 1:31:19

Okay, well, Kevin, have you got any comments on it?

I don't unfortunately, no.

Okay, well it's fair enough, you can come back on that one.

Yeah, that's fine, no problem.

That's fine.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:31:27

Councillor Munger.

Thank you, Chairman.

Cllr Llew Monger - 1:31:32

I'm not sure if I'm following this item correctly, but are we covering questions on all of the

sectors covered in the performance monitoring for quarter four?

Because we seem to be moving between different elements of it.

Well, perhaps if I ask the question, you can tell me.

Okay, then I'll find that.

That helps me.

We're going to get we've given the Councillor Breamer arrest.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:32:02

So we've moved on to that.

And we're going to.

I'm sure he's very grateful for having the rest.

Then a question on the waste data.

Cllr Llew Monger - 1:32:11

Recycling levels in former Ilsbrouw,

Ville district council were 54 % at the point

that the councils merged to form the unitary council.

What's gone wrong?

Why are you now falling in terms of recycling levels rather than increasing?

This is a separate one. This is for the next cabinet member. This is communities at the moment.

Can answer it now.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:32:39

You're quite good to answer that one. It's entirely up to you when you come to you.

But we'll finish up the communities one first. Any more questions on the community one? None at all?

Okay, so we move on to environment.

Okay, so can you take that question?

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, you're right.

In around 2020, the recycling rate was 54%.

Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 1:33:01

During COVID, it dropped.

It's a national trend that it dropped.

And we're working on getting it back up.

The team, as I mentioned earlier, are looking at recruiting extra officers

for this waste prevention stroke behaviour change.

We think the biggest change we can make is in the food waste

going into the correct container rather than into the residual waste.

That we find that's causing a lot of issues.

So the team are going to be working on that and they're going to take a strategic approach,

reach out to town and parish councils, face -to -face meetings with residents.

We've identified certain areas that have got lower recycling rates than others that we're going to work on.

And so it's just about education, going into schools as well.

And so we're putting some more resource into that by recruiting these extra officers to help drive this behavioural change.

It is a national trend that the recycling rate has dropped and we want to correct that and get back up and above where we were previously.

Jeremy, can I make a simple suggestion?

Cllr Llew Monger - 1:34:11

That might help and that is if you have print plastic coated labels or sheets to go on every

single bin saying what can and can't be included I think you go a long way to helping.

Because people don't always know what goes in which bin.

And on the food question the caddies simply aren't big enough in many cases.

That's the other problem on the food side.

Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 1:34:42

Well anyway okay I've been a family of eight and our caddy's big enough. Okay okay no I'll take that back to the team.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:34:49

I think it's food for thought anyway. Okay all right thank you. So um Council Conlail.

Thank you chair I'd like to know we've got another tip going to be open to Buckinghamshire,

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 1:34:56

North Buckinghamshire, aren't we? Do you know yet where it's going to be or when it's going to be opened?

Are you talking about the new HRC site for Buckingham?

Yes.

Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 1:35:07

Yeah, no, that's being finalised.

It's in the works.

It's in the MTFP.

So do you know what?

I don't know the exact location yet.

So you don't know the location yet?

No, I don't know it yet.

No, thank you.

But it's in the works.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:35:23

Elton Dixon.

I'm trying to comment on the Energy Doctor's

Cllr Tim Dixon - 1:35:30

which has been a success delivering 87 tonnes of CO2 savings,

which is really good.

However, alongside the obligations we have towards net zero,

that is a minuscule amount.

I just wondered how we are planning on matching our obligations

moving forward and expanding on schemes such as the Energy Doctor campaign.

Yeah, thanks for the question.

The team are now also working on the Warm Home Energies grant.

Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 1:36:02

So they're contacting quite a lot of eligible properties that fit the criteria

for those upgrades to those properties.

And we've got quite a good pipeline in the works of retrofitting measures to be installed.

I think that's, you know, domestic properties are one of the biggest emitters.

And we're working on trying to get those that qualify

for these schemes to help reduce their emissions.

Cllr Tim Dixon - 1:36:32

So do we see those figures coming back about how far you're getting along with those schemes

so we can scrutinise that as well because obviously we've got a very overall sort of

general sort of figure here but to actually know the specifics about how many houses,

how many tonnes of carbon you've estimated and actually say it would be useful to report

back.

I just wonder whether being this is my first meeting on tech whether that is reported back

at a later meeting because I think it would be really useful too.

Yeah, I'll answer that one if you want to.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:37:03

We have regular visits from the cabinet member and the cabinet, deputy cabinet member, so you do come back on a regular time anyway, so that's the way we play.

Yeah, we'll be happy to do that in the future.

Okay. Any other questions?

Councillor Munger.

I'll just keep hoping I'm in the right area then.

Cllr Llew Monger - 1:37:21

It's not communities.

Sorry?

Cllr David Carroll - 1:37:36

It is environment.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:37:41

You're going to have to forgive me for my ignorance, but what is this recycling statistic

actually measured?

because if I understand correctly,

is the amount of waste or the percentage of waste

that is collected that is recyclable,

not the actual recycled amount.

So are we sure that all the waste that is collected

as recyclable is actually recycled?

Because my understanding is that a percentage

of recycling waste is sent abroad for recycling.

And perhaps, you know, you might want to comment

whether we have a handle on whether it is actually recycled.

This statistic is out of all the waste produced

Cllr Jaspal Chhokar - 1:38:36

in Buckinghamshire, the percentage that is recycled.

Like all of the waste, including non -recycled waste,

the percentage that is recycled.

In county or abroad?

I don't believe that any is sent abroad.

Okay, fine.

I mean, there might be, from what I recall, there may be like a minuscule percentage,

but it's very small.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:39:01

So, we're rounding back on to Councillor Broome.

Good to be back.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:39:09

And I'm sure we'll have plenty of questions on this.

Just to go through a couple of the bits we've got here.

Forgive me for focusing on the reds.

I was asked to be more positive earlier,

but I think that's the context everyone will want.

So in terms of the first red that we have,

it's percentage of category one defects

repaired within the five working day period.

Obviously because these are indicators

is based on previous months collected data.

This is the figure for Q4 of the 25 -26 year,

which is January, February, March,

which was the period in which we had

some very, very bad weather,

two weeks of freezing, thaw, freeze and thaw,

freeze and thaw, followed by some very heavy rain,

and we saw the emergence of a large number of defects

on rain networks across the country.

During that period we doubled the capacity that we had

out on the network making repairs,

because effectively what we were seeing

was the telescoping of defects emerging.

So what we would normally expect to see

over a considerably longer period,

we were seeing emerging very, very quickly.

And so the issue we had was capacity.

It was how many people we can physically have

out on the network making repairs.

So the 85 % recorded here against our target of 95 % seen

within five working days was as a result of that pressure.

We have now stabilised that situation and we are,

I think we're back into the green, but we will see how

that balances out in terms of Q1 versus Q2

when I'm back with you next time.

Secondly, percentage of gullies cleansed.

So we've had a couple of issues here,

but one particular one that is,

is difficult for me to provide an explanation for,

we've found a much higher incidence than we usually do

of vehicles parked over drains and gullies

when we've gone to clear them.

Obviously those will simply be put back into the schedule

and return to at a later date.

As I say, I can't provide a particularly constructive

explanation for why we've seen this variance.

There's nothing that I can see that would cause it particularly.

But this is a large scale, very practical operational activity.

And so you will occasionally run into issues like this.

And in terms of accessible EV charging units,

I've mentioned this to tech before, but I'll reiterate because I think we've got

some new people around the table. We've run into a particularly frustrating

issue over the last year or so, which is that one of the funding streams for

deployment of new EV charging points from government funding involved an

approval from the Office of Zero Emission Vehicles,

we managed to secure an agreement with the providers of these

that involved a very high revenue share

coming to Buckinghamshire Council.

In other words, securing value for money

for the taxpayer in Buckinghamshire.

When we submitted this to the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles

they told us that this revenue share was too high

and that we had been too successful in securing that value for money for bucks taxpayers.

I very much suspect because we made a load of other local authorities look bad in what they had submitted

and they told us to go away and come back with a lower number that is worse value for money for Buckinghamshire taxpayers.

So that has set us a little back and as I say, as you probably hear from my tone of voice,

I find incredibly frustrating and a completely pointless roadblock in us

getting more of these deployed. But we are pressing on and we've got 432

deployed already and we will be ramping up delivery in 27 now that we have

crossed this rather odd hurdle that's been laid in front of us by the

government. So those are the three reds in terms of everything else

that's in the pack.

I'm very happy to answer questions on those as well,

but I suspect you won't have them.

You know, we can see increasing public satisfaction

with the condition of road surfaces.

We can see something that I'm particularly keen to focus on

is the delivery of a capital programme.

We've, you know, I've talked about this

during the previous session we had,

you know, 120 million pound roads programme

is a massive investment in our roads.

it's a record investment in our roads, but it's only as good as the delivery

and what we see from this indicator is that we are delivering on those capital

schemes. So not only are we making the funding available but we are actually

getting them done. I'm very much looking forward over the next year or so to

seeing that number of capital schemes deployed going up from about 220 last

year to 270 this year as a result of the investment that we have made because of

the choices we have taken to make sure that we are spending money on what is

the absolute priority for residents.

Councillor Cornell.

Thank you chair.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:44:58

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 1:45:00

Councillor Broome, are all the gullies logged?

Because I know of two.

Well definitely one that's definitely not logged.

It was so choked that they tile marked over it.

So now it's never going to be used, which is a great shame because we have flooding in that village.

And also I know the following winds load that hasn't been done because it's so blocked they can't get a thing down.

So I have to send the specialist back. So I hate to disagree with you but they're not all logged.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:45:29

So part of the ongoing maintenance programme is that we will identify drains that need further works or even full capital schemes.

So for example, if you've got one that's ended up being

blocked up completely for whatever reason,

I always caveat with this one though,

that not all drains and gullies on the highway network

are highways, drains, and gullies.

There are a surprising number out there

that do not belong to us.

We do not maintain.

But what you will often have is something where

there is a failure further down,

you know, in the pipes that are running underground

that you can't see, then what we'll have to do is raise a piece of

cattle work to go in and replace that section of drainage. And so obviously

until that can be delivered, we will not attempt to clear a drain that we know is

not functioning because it's simply not an efficient use of resources. But in

terms of the number that we sort of track here, this is basically us

going out to a drain or gully and clearing it if it's not clear already

or raising works to rectify any issues that we find. So as I say we're a

slightly strange phenomenon of more cars than usual. I don't know if everybody's

been sort of staying at home a bit more at the beginning of the year or

something like that but but it just gets reprogrammed so basically if we're not

if we don't, if we can't access it,

then we'll just come back on another day.

And as I say, either clear it or raise remedial works

if remedial works need to be raised.

I think a lot of people don't appreciate

quite how extensive the drain and gully network is.

We're dealing with, and Kevin will correct me if I'm wrong,

but it's close to 90 ,000 drains and gullies

across the county.

So this is a huge piece of work

that we undertake every single year.

And we do clear our drains and gullies

more frequently than any of our neighbours.

So we clear every drain and gully every year.

But for example, our neighbours in Oxfordshire

have a split programme between every year in urban areas

and every three years in a lot of rooms.

So this has always been a commitment for us.

And obviously, as a conservative group,

this was a manifesto commitment for us.

So it was something we take very seriously.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:47:59

Okay, here is a straight question, so straight answer please. We've had a 52 % increase in defects,

so you've been, you were given a hard time over potholes, right? So we all know potholes has been

a your Achilles heel, let's say, over the wind.

And you've put it quite rightly so

to a particularly unusually wet winter.

So the connexion between potholes and climate change

could not be stronger,

particularly in a week like this week.

So don't tell me what you're doing,

but tell me what you're doing differently to build resilience across our network system

against climate change.

What you're doing differently?

Yeah, so the sort of the manifestation you're talking about is changes in temperature and

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:49:05

weather patterns, because the two things that we see on the roads that affect the roads

are surface temperature and precipitation.

And it's absolutely true that particularly in terms

of precipitation, we are seeing much higher volumes

and we're seeing greater intensity.

As I suspect, just about anybody who was kept up

by the thunderstorms last night will have noticed

the amount of water hammering down.

You know, that is happening at a regularity,

which we haven't previously seen.

So in terms of how we improve that,

is basically part of our wider sort of highways maintenance strategy.

Um, so we know that, uh,

we will see a degradation happening at an increased rate.

That means that, you know, we need to have careful monitoring of, of both, uh,

you know, the entire network,

but particularly when we know that defects are reported and emerging,

but maybe haven't met our intervention criteria yet. Um,

But I think the biggest thing is the wider

120 million pound roads programme.

We are in a situation where there's more pressure

on our roads.

As I say, it's water on the roads, and temperatures.

But it's also volume of traffic.

We see a lot higher volume of traffic.

Our colleague, Councillor Gemmel, likes to ask me

the question about the Netherlands very often.

The busy very often, the busy very rarely mentions

These are traffic density is four times higher in the United Kingdom than it is in the Netherlands

And then the final element is is weight of vehicles

and so, you know, we see a lot of storeys about

particularly about

heavier vehicles because EV drive trains and things like that but more generally

You've got more vans on the road. You've got more lorries on the road. So you've got conditions

You've got volume of traffic and you've got the weight of that traffic and the answer to that is is

long -term strategic maintenance,

which is exactly what we're doing.

So we're looking ahead at what roads we think

are going to fail, administering preventative treatments

where we can on those.

We've submitted, you know, we've submitted a huge amount

of information about this to the Department of Transport,

and they rated local authorities across the country.

And in terms of best practise,

So the way in which we are deploying the money we invest

and in terms of level of investment,

so the amount of money we are spending on our rate network,

we are rated in sort of the top 21 authorities

in the country on this.

So the way that we're handling

is long -term strategic maintenance,

is preventative maintenance.

And the evidence that we're doing that

is that even the government who as you will know from various of my comments this evening

don't particularly like us all that much because of the colour of this council have put us

at absolutely at the top of the pile both for investment in our roads and for best practise

in delivering that investment. So it's how do you stop roads from degrading? You invest

more and you invest smart. So you haven't answered the question what you're doing

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:52:31

differently you're talking about maintenance proactive maintenance but

maintenance is not the same as building resilience so what I've asked you is how

we're building resilience against potholes flooding all the problems that

climate a changing climate brings to our network system. So that is how you build

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:52:52

resilience for the network. There is no easy answer, there is no

shortcut to making road surfaces better, a synonym for which would be more

resilient to the elements which they face. It's a long -term project, it

requires serious investment. That level of investment requires choices in other

places so that that money is available to invest and that's absolutely what

we've done. In terms of flooding, it depends what kind of flooding you're

talking about. I'm straying slightly outside of my portfolio here. So in terms

of water on the highways, there is some additional resilience that we can

add through our capital programme and we do, but it is also the case that the

difficulty with particularly high intensity, high volume rainfall is that

no matter what sort of drainage solution you've got on the ground level,

the capacity volume of both the pipes and drains taking water away,

but also the soakaways and the rivers,

because most drains either go to soakaways or into watercourses from the highway.

If the groundwater level is very, very high in that soakaway,

if the river level is very high in that river,

you will see slower drainage.

And there is no engineering solution to that.

That is not a fixable problem.

Obviously you're actively looking at all the situations.

Cllr David Carroll - 1:54:29

Yeah, exactly.

So as I say, our capital programme in terms of rate surfaces

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:54:35

helps us with resilience of surfaces

and making sure that they're degrading less quickly.

Part of that is also the point we've put in here

about the number of crews that are available.

So again, you know

We managed to double our capacity on on the network within a very short period of time in order to deal with the acute response

So our acute response was getting out and filling potholes our medium to long term

Response is the investment in the roads and the capital programme

That doubling of capacity is not something that most other local authorities managed to achieve

In fact, I don't think a single one of our neighbouring local authorities managed to get close to that

And that's because of our very good relationship with our partners and making sure that we reacted really quickly.

And with a bit of foresight, you know, basically as soon as we started to see the cold weather coming, even before the wet, that we were drawing in additional crews.

It is also helped by the sort of diversity of treatments that we use because, you know, particularly my predecessor, Steve Broadbent,

who's obviously now leader of the council,

setting train a really good programme

of looking at new and innovative treatments,

things like mastic heat treatments, that kind of thing,

which meant that when we did have the increased pressure

caused by the weather,

we had more tools in the toolbox

to get out and try and fix things.

Now I completely understand that, you know,

residents would like us to do it quicker,

and we would like to do it quicker.

And a winter like this, where we run into problems

of this nature, does also give us an opportunity

to make things better next time around.

So we're looking at what we did well,

we're looking at what we could do better next time,

and we'll integrate that into the way

that we're working going forwards.

But the big overarching point,

the thing that we absolutely have to do

that addresses the resilience point

from a highways perspective is that long -term maintenance. It is the most

important thing that we do. I'm very very proud that this year we're delivering

the biggest investment in the county's roads in the history of the county. Okay

Cllr David Carroll - 1:56:52

within that answer that question is do you still want answer some questions is

that within that but I'll go back to Councillor Munger then if it's not been

You're on my list, I've got two more.

Cllr Llew Monger - 1:57:04

Thank you, Chair. I have two questions on the transport portfolio and perhaps if you'll forgive me or permit me I should say later, maybe a general comment on this performance monitoring.

The first question relates to average daily cycling count per active cycle counter per day.

Now if anybody in the room actually knows what that means, could they please tell me?

Because it seems utterly meaningless.

There is a target of 66, whatever that is, and an out -turn of 77 .8.

How you get 0 .8 of a cyclist is going to baffle me for the rest of the day at least.

So what on earth is this about?

What does it mean?

How does it reflect to actual cycle usage?

Please help.

Yeah, no, very happy to.

I completely appreciate your point.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:57:57

It looks somewhat opaque when you look at the measure.

Basically, this is essentially polling

of a number of cycle ways.

So we have devices that will measure basically

every time a cyclist goes past.

You know, we deploy those in certain bits of the network.

and basically what we're looking at is,

so it's a relative measure, are we seeing more people

or fewer people using those cycle lanes?

So it's literally just a count of people cycling past

that electronic recording device

and that's where you get the 0 .8

because it's averaged over a quarter.

So it will be number of recorded in a day

averaged across the quarter.

And this is considered to be important data on the transport portfolio is it?

So there's always been, we've always had a focus on sort of developing cycling

transport links in the county. It is quite a difficult thing to measure

because you don't have sort of vehicle registrations like you would with

with a road -based vehicle, you know,

it's tricky to collect data on,

and so one of the ways that you can do that

is by fixed point monitoring,

which at least tells you whether you've got more people

or fewer people using your cycleway network.

Obviously, you know, as you can see

from the sort of target progression there,

that varies over the course of the year

because you've got more people cycling

when the weather's good and less people when it's not.

I absolutely wouldn't say it's a perfect measure.

The difficulty is finding a better measure

that we can actually be accurate about.

You'd need to know what you're trying to achieve first.

Cllr Llew Monger - 1:59:54

But I'll move on to my other question.

This is on invalid PCNs.

The percentage levels of PCNs is shown.

It's quite low.

But what are the numbers? How are we supposed to gage whether invalid PCNs is any kind of problem or not?

If we don't know what the actual numbers are relative percentages mean absolutely nothing whatsoever

we can't understand the scale of the issue without the actual numbers, so

can might I suggest that if the numbers are available they're given to us now and if they're not that in future this

section has changed to show actual numbers and the variance quarter to quarter, month to month, whatever you're measuring.

Kevin Goad - Service Director for Communities, H&TS - 2:00:53

Thanks, Councillor. Based on last year's Civil Enforcement Officer tickets issued only, which was around about 60 to 61 ,000,

That gives 60 to 61 ,000 civil enforcement officer tickets

issued in 25, 26.

So it's 1 % of that.

So it's relatively low.

Well, in terms of numbers, still quite a lot of people involved.

Cllr Llew Monger - 2:01:16

But I guess I made my point.

You know, the chairman will know, at the fire authority, we go through vastly more data than this at our meetings across the whole spectrum of the operation of the fire service.

this seems to be a snapshot of some limited selection of issues across three different portfolios.

And frankly, I don't think it tells us anything of any significance.

And I would venture to suggest that you should ask the question, so what?

Because I'm not sure I understand what it is actually telling us as committee members.

You know, the question that matters at the end of the day is not the data, but so what?

What will you do about it?

What is the impact of that?

What will it cost us to do anything about it?

So I'll leave you.

I think we've got the answer.

Cllr David Carroll - 2:02:23

The very important is indicated.

Kevin Goad - Service Director for Communities, H&TS - 2:02:28

The metrics are agreed with Cabinet members and portfolio holders generally.

And they reflect the key metrics that particularly the public will understand.

I take the point on this one because it is, if you're issuing 1 ,000 tickets, 1 % is particularly good.

If you're issuing 100 ,000 tickets, 1 % is actually good.

There's no issue with us providing some context around the total numbers.

And obviously with the new contract, you're likely to see PCM issues rise because we have now got full deployment of resources out there.

But, you know, these metrics are reviewed every year with portfolio holders and, you

know, that's a process that this committee can inform if it doesn't feel that we are

measuring the right things.

Forgive me, Jack.

Cllr Llew Monger - 2:03:14

I wasn't, my reference to this or what was across the whole data spectrum, not just about

yours.

There wasn't any sort of slayer with that or anything.

Cllr David Carroll - 2:03:21

I know you're just questioning and challenging.

So thanks a lot.

The question's been...

Can I just jump in very quickly on this, Chad?

Because I just think that...

So these are...

Cllr Thomas Broom - 2:03:31

These KPIs are part of what we output more widely at cabinet level.

So a lot of what these are about are providing opportunities to hold us as executive members to account.

So, for example, the ones that I've talked about today, the point of those is so that there is a publicly facing metric

on something relatively broad, and I completely agree with you because we're talking about

quite top level issues, but it allows members to basically give me a hard time about the

things that we aren't doing as well as perhaps we could do, and giving that sort of quite

broad strategic overview.

I think in terms of some more granular detail in reporting, there's lots of other stuff

that will come to a committee like this

that will go into that level of detail.

But the importance of these KPIs is from,

as Kevin says, from the perspective of a resident,

within my portfolio, for example,

they want to know whether a bad pothole is being filled

within the five days.

That's really important to them.

They want to know whether their drain or gullet

is being cleared.

That's really important to them.

But the fact that these are fairly high level KPIs,

indicative of things that we know residents will want to see doesn't mean

that there isn't other data that's available and you know some of the more

detailed reports will absolutely come to committees like this and and we'll

dive right into all the detail.

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 2:05:09

Thanks Jim, a couple of more practical things. Talk about the gullies piece, well one of the

obvious ways of us to help support the team is if like we do West Jiltons they

have the roadworks, we have a spreadsheet every week for the roadworks that's going to take place,

whether it's Buckinghamshire Council and or BT or Thames Water, whatever it happens to be.

But I can't ever see that the gullies are listed there. So at least if we knew that in, I don't

know, Station Road or Marlborough Bottom, if you knew the gullies were due to be done, even if we

knew like, okay, in June or July, we knew roughly when it was going to happen, then we could then

say actually Mr. Residence please behave and please be nice and please move your

car so actually you can then clear the stuff that means that Debbie doesn't go

by your car. So that was the first sort of practical suggestion. The second one was

about the potholes that will get done and hopefully you're going to change the

process slightly because the classic is in say Southfield example there is a category

one there. In fact there will be seven category ones there. This week they've done six out of seven

left the seventh behind with a nice bit of white paint around it. Again it's a

category one. So I don't understand their methodology because obviously I've been

ex -crowd counter -counsel as well so I know what category one looks like right? I can tell you

instantly that if it's a category one or not and clearly the whoever the guy's doing it

he's run out of stuff. The plus side for me is actually he's doing a better job

rather than sitting at eight times he looks like he's doing it once and once

right I hope. That's how it seems to be but just understand the dynamic of as

He's driving along the whole road and he misses desk six but doesn't do seven.

That's fine, okay.

Cllr Thomas Broom - 2:06:46

So in terms of trains and gullies, this is absolutely information that I would like to get out to people.

One of the sort of innovations that members may have seen that we've been piloting is the Member App.

And that provides all sorts of information about what the Highway Service is doing in your ward as a local member.

One of the things I think we're looking to get into that is some more information about drain and gully clearances

Obviously, there's there's two types

We've got the cyclical programme which is where we go around and do all of them and we've got that that's relatively easy to predict

Because we you know, we know what we're going to be in certain areas like the grass cutting programme or something like that

And then there's and then there's reactive stuff which will happen in response to reports from members of the public and local members

But yeah, absolutely

And I think to be honest, as I said before,

I think a lot of people don't realise quite how extensive

this network is.

And actually I'm really keen to get as much information

as possible into the public domain about this,

because I think we've got a team who are out there

all year round, you know, working really, really hard.

And as you can see from the indicators, you know,

we're not benchmarking ourselves at sort of getting around

60 or even 70 % of these.

We're benchmarking ourselves against really, really high standards of delivery at 95 % of

the whole network.

And as I say, it's a huge network.

And we're operating in practical reality.

And so, you know, we don't just run into theoretical problems.

We don't just run into, you know, oh, well, you know, why wasn't this foreseen?

The real world is a somewhat unpredictable place.

And so even though we sort of face those perhaps unexpected

challenges, we try to hold ourselves

to a very high standard.

In terms of how defects are repaired,

it's tricky to say without a specific example,

if I'm honest.

I mean, I know that there's,

I know that obviously earlier on in the year,

we had lots of residents were quite distressed

at the level of temporary repairs we were doing.

But that was very much in reaction to the volume of defects we saw and you know

the point of that was to make that safe in the short term and

Then come in with a full patch repair

Because the issue that we always have is that if you have continuing bad conditions that that patch repair

Comes out almost as quickly as the as the quick fix, but it costs ten times as much

So you're much better off doing the temporary repair and then coming back when conditions have improved

There are some circumstances where we're using different treatments on different

sections of the road because as I mentioned before we're trying to make

sure that we're using the most appropriate treatment for the most

appropriate defect but again the reality is we are dealing with an enormous

operation that's extending across you know all 2 ,000 miles of the

highway network. If you add in the cycleways, the rights -of -way, all the bits

we administer you're almost at 10 ,000 kilometres and so there are going to be

instances where our contractors aren't doing what we've asked them to do and in

those circumstances I just say you know that's that's point of which for local

members to report that back up to us we absolutely do hold our contractors to

account we do take action when we think they're not delivering what we have

asked them to deliver and obviously this is the nature of a delivery model like

this, you know, we are delivering through contractors, there is a contract

management process that we undertake to make sure that the contractor

contractors are delivering what we have told them to deliver. Part of that is

going to occasionally be when they are not doing that and so you know we really

appreciate when local members and members of the public you know come back

and report this stuff again and let us know that it's happening and then we can

go through the processes we have in place to make sure that that is

corrected that the defect is repaired and this is not that that correction does

not incur a cost to the taxpayer.

Council,

Cllr David Carroll - 2:10:57

first I start with the positives. Shall I, I'm very,

Cllr Justine Fulford - 2:11:03

very pleased to see that satisfaction on the condition of road surfaces has gone

up to 21%. Um, it's something I suppose,

but it's still not a very ambitious target.

as a delighted that the galley cleaning in Chesham, you know, the deep cleaning,

including jetting of the bread down system on St. Mary's Way has enabled the underpass

to be reopened, it was a very expensive jetting project compared to the repairing the pumps

which burnt out, replacing the pumps which had burnt out

because they couldn't pump into the block galley.

So that's done, that's really positive.

We've got a subway back.

Thank you very much for that.

What I'm confused by is why we don't have performance

indicators for category two defects, which the policy

of this council says we aim to repair in 28 days.

Now these are the ones which people notice

because they don't get fixed quickly.

And occasionally the white lines which have been placed there

to highlight that there's a defect, to confirm

that it's a defect and the defect is,

a repair is going to be delivered,

those white lines actually have to be repainted

or they disappear altogether before the repair is performed.

So my question is, why do we not have the performance indicators

for the category two defects?

I think that's an important thing

because I think you could significantly improve your

public satisfaction with the roads if those category two

defects were completed within 28 days? So we've always focused on the category 1

Cllr Thomas Broom - 2:12:46

defects because by nature they are the safety critical defects they are the

defects that will cause damage to vehicles. Something that's category 2 on

a 28 day repair is not going to have the same level of impact and you know that

that's why it's category 2 that's why it's on the 28 days. I appreciate

Yeah, no, no, absolutely.

And I do appreciate that there is a visual element

to some of this, which is that, you know,

people see defects, they try and avoid defects.

They won't necessarily know when moving along a road

whether or not a defect is likely to cause damage

to the vehicle in the same way that a highway inspector is.

So we do try and get those cleared as much as possible.

but obviously that 28 day period is much, much broader in terms of allowing that work to be programmed and to happen.

So the category one I think makes sense to be on the KPI because it's what will directly impact residents.

This slightly goes back to the point that Councillor Mungo was making.

You know, this is a relatively limited set of sort of top level strategic KPIs.

because there is more detail sitting below that

in our various policies.

But I think the critical thing is that

when we're in a situation where we're seeing defects

expand to the point where we're actually breaching

some of these criteria, the acute response

is to get capacity out onto the network,

is to make sure we've got as many crews out as we can

making repairs, and then in the medium to long term,

it's that investment in road surfaces,

it's preventative maintenance, it's resurfacing,

It's those capital projects that you know stop defects appearing in the first place

Although we have the perennial we do have the perennial problem of

You know utility works and restorations average lifespan of a road surface is sort of 15 years

utilities will only guarantee

utility works are only guaranteed for two

And so, you know you do end up in that position where you can resurface the road

you can protect it for a couple of years, the utilities then turn up, dig it up and

sort of five years into the lifespan of what is a perfectly good road surface, you have

defects emerging and it's not anything to do with the quality of the road surface, it's

the fact that utility companies effectively have complete access whenever they want it

to our road network, which in my view is a problem and there does need to be some change

in terms of how that's managed.

In terms of the subway in Chesham, we're absolutely delighted to see it open.

Getting that reopened has been a process that's been ongoing for about four years now.

It partly goes to the question from Councillor Malina about resilience in terms of changes

in precipitation in particular, but also higher groundwater levels.

The subway wasn't flooding just because of blocked drains.

The issue is that that drainage either goes to soakaways

or to rivers, as I mentioned before.

In the case of chalk streams,

such as you have in Chesham,

chalk streams, the level of those

are determined by the groundwater.

So whenever you have high groundwater

that stops soakaways functioning,

you will also have higher volumes in the river,

which will stop drainage there.

The the solution that we have eventually alighted on as I say after about four years of

Sort of trying different things and trying to work out a long -term solution to the problem

Is that we we effectively acknowledged that that that some flooding will occur?

when

When water levels get high?

And the issue that was happening before was the pumps were burning themselves out because they were trying to push water

into soakaways that were not soaking away

and into a river which, you know,

the water level was too high, the pressure was backing up.

So what the new pumps will do is they will actually

turn off somewhat counterintuitively when they detect

that sort of negative pressure coefficient,

which will preserve the pumps.

There may be some water in the subway for a couple of days

while that drains down, but then the pumps can reactivate

and drain it without us having to go in and do a big deep clean.

So it's, yes, it's a great thing to see it open,

but it's actually the product of some of that resilience planning

that we were talking about before.

We're rolling this same thing out across a number

of other subways across the county.

It is in response to increased precipitation,

which affects both fluvial and groundwater flooding.

So yeah, but it's great to see it open, absolutely.

Cllr Justine Fulford - 2:17:45

In terms of resilience, I just respond to that, that actually that deep clean of the highway drainage system, which has allowed the reopening,

it seems to have had an effect on the high street flooding, which Cheshire has been plagued by for 15 or more years.

I haven't received any reports of premises on the high street being flooded,

since despite the part of heavy rainfall since that cleaning exercise was

undertaken so it's very important that that gully cleaning is is maintained and

it's not allowed to you know disintegrate into that that position

that it was before. As much as I would be delighted to take credit for for you

Cllr Thomas Broom - 2:18:21

know gully cleaning fixing that problem I think the the much more likely answer

is that there is the groundwater flooding is not caring and we've seen this a long

a number of our chalk streams, as I say,

you know, chalk stream is basically a route

where the sort of the groundwater level

appears above the surface.

So it is intrinsically linked,

but we've had very similar issues

in places like Chalfont and Peter.

And the reality is that drain clearance,

drain clearance is often linked to flooding

for shall we say political reasons,

But in areas that are susceptible to groundwater flooding,

it's almost always groundwater flooding.

And that is not something that the highway strains will fix,

because it is literally water coming up from underneath.

So I'm delighted that we've got a nice clear network.

But in that particular area, I would very much doubt

that that is the issue.

We've, as I say, we've had similar issues in places

like Chalfonts and Peter, you know, where we've had local,

local groups are saying, you know, this is this is a result of you know, this

this flooding we're seeing is a result of highways drainage when actually we

know that all the drains and the gullies are cleared. We've got you know a record

of them being cleared. We put the cameras down and seen that they are cleared.

Unfortunately groundwater flooding is a very frustrating thing for residents to

deal with precisely because there are very few mitigations that anyone can put

in place.

Cllr David Carroll - 2:19:59

Well, just to finish up on that, I must say that my air of gully clean has been fantastic,

so can I just, whoever wants to take the credit, take it.

Okay, well, thanks a lot, everybody.

Thanks for your input and thanks for your time here today.

Just briefly, I want to go over the work programme.

You've got it in front of you.

9 Work Programme

We've got a high level of work coming up, so if you want to add to that later on, but

We did have a meeting a couple of months ago on Teams,

I remember, where we put a lot of our input into this.

So any comments on it?

Yeah, it reflects what we said.

Cllr Justine Fulford - 2:20:40

I would like to add at some point,

antisocial behaviour leading to crime,

leading to serious criminal behaviour in some instances,

which is a problem which is emerging quite strongly in Chesham.

I would really appreciate the chance to have a scrutinised this Council's response to issues, to related issues.

Cllr David Carroll - 2:21:09

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 2:21:16

Yeah, they are, yes.

Yeah.

So you'll be able to have your input into that, okay?

Cllr David Carroll - 2:21:28

Well, we're looking into what's going to happen now, but they are actually coming in to see us.

Okay, everybody, thanks very much.

10 Date of Next Meeting

I must thank the substitutes for turning up and putting our contribution into this meeting.

Thanks very much for that.

The next meeting, the 8th of September, so thank you very much for your time.

Have a nice weekend.

Cllr Thomas Broom

Conservative

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Cllr David Carroll

Conservative

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Cllr Jaspal Chhokar

Conservative

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Cllr Alex Collingwood

Conservative

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Cllr Caroline Cornell

Conservative

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Cllr Tim Dixon

Liberal Democrats

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Cllr Justine Fulford

Liberal Democrats

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Cllr Clive Harriss

Conservative

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Cllr Andy Huxley

Conservative

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Cllr Wendy Matthews

Conservative

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Cllr Llew Monger

Liberal Democrats

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Cllr Maru Mormina

Green Party

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Cllr Robin Stuchbury

Independent

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Cllr Ashley Waite

Conservative

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Interactive webcast player

Transport, Environment, Communities & Climate Change Select CommitteeTuesday, 23rd June 2026 at 10:00am

Cllr David Carroll - 0:00:00

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:00:50

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:00:52

Cllr Tim Dixon - 0:00:59

Cllr Justine Fulford - 0:01:01

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:01:05

Cllr Llew Monger - 0:01:10

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:01:14

Cllr Andy Huxley - 0:01:20

Cllr David Carroll - 0:01:25

2 Apologies for Absence/Changes in Membership

4 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

Sally Moore - Senior Scrutiny Officer - 0:02:04

Cllr David Carroll - 0:02:20

3 Declarations of Interest

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:02:54

Cllr David Carroll - 0:03:08

6 Public Questions

7 Local Transport Plan 5

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:03:49

Cllr David Carroll - 0:05:21

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:05:23

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:06:43

Cllr David Carroll - 0:09:59

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:10:03

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:10:13

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:13:19

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:13:42

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:13:59

Cllr David Carroll - 0:14:52

Cllr Tim Dixon - 0:14:54

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:15:27

Cllr David Carroll - 0:19:54

Cllr Justine Fulford - 0:20:01

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:23:38

Cllr David Carroll - 0:29:25

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 0:29:34

Cllr Justine Fulford - 0:29:37

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:31:04

Cllr Andy Huxley - 0:33:16

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:35:38

Cllr David Carroll - 0:37:37

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:37:40

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:38:47

Cllr David Carroll - 0:39:37

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:39:39

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:40:19

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:44:11

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:44:50

Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:46:11

Cllr David Carroll - 0:46:27

Cllr Llew Monger - 0:46:34

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:50:18

Cllr David Carroll - 0:53:02

Cllr Clive Harriss - 0:53:10

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:56:10

Cllr David Carroll - 0:58:09

Cllr Wendy Matthews - 0:58:11

Cllr Thomas Broom - 0:58:51

Cllr Wendy Matthews - 1:01:27

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:01:29

Cllr David Carroll - 1:02:44

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:02:50

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:05:24

Cllr David Carroll - 1:11:11

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 1:11:13

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:11:40

Cllr David Carroll - 1:13:54

Cllr Llew Monger - 1:13:57

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:15:38

Cllr Llew Monger - 1:17:08

Rebecca Dengler-Jones - Transport Strategy Manager - 1:17:15

Cllr David Carroll - 1:17:17

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:17:21

Cllr David Carroll - 1:17:45

Cllr Thomas Broom - 1:18:14

Cllr David Carroll - 1:18:52

Public Questions - 1:19:29

Transport, Environment, Communities & Climate Change Select Committee
Tuesday, 23rd June 2026 at 10:00am