Issue - meetings

Report of the Leader of the Council, attached. 

The report of the Leader of the Council was submitted setting out the details of the business undertaken by the Executive.

The Leader and the Cabinet made statements and responded to questions.

The following questions were submitted in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 11.1

1.  Pavement Parking

Question from Councillor S Galton to Councillor Rayment

The Pavement parking, especially in our district centres and around some of our schools, can be a hazard to pedestrians and make walking and cycling impossible in places. Why aren't you using the powers available to you to introduce TRO's, to allow the Council to then control and solve this problem?

Answer

While it is theoretically possible to implement footway parking bans, there is a cost to processing the Traffic Regulation Order and implementing the required signing. The Council would have to justify why it was doing this at some locations and not others and the overall cost of implementing a footway ban across the entire city would be prohibitive.

The Government’s Transport Committee is currently carrying out a further investigation into footway parking to identify a national solution. The latest information on this is available via the link below;

https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/transport-committee/inquiries/parliament-2017/pavement-parking-17-19/

Update – The Transport Committee published its report on Monday 9th September 2019.

https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/transport-committee/news-parliament-2017/pavement-parking-report-published-17-19/

2.  Annual Weed Control

Question from Councillor S Galton to Councillor Hammond

Answer

Due to some issues with the procurement of the contract, the contract for the weed spraying was not released on time and the first spray of the year was subsequently delayed.

The contract is in place for 3 years from May 2019 

Using underspends, we’ve employed temporary staff to prioritise and manually dig out weeds from the highways and footpaths to clear the backlog.

3.  District Heat Schemes

Councillor S Galton to Councillor Leggett

What importance do you place on installing district heat schemes in new Council housing developments?

Answer

All new Council housing developments are looked at individually and solutions are based on a case by case basis. For Townhill Park and Potters Court developments it was decided there was an environmental and business case to install communal or district heating to parts of the new development. As district heating normally feeds a number of properties using a single or a few heat generators it will reduce losses that would be experienced by each property having an individual heat generator.

4.  Impact on Local Air Quality

Councillor S Galton to Councillor Leggett

What initiatives have you introduced since becoming the Cabinet Member for Green City and what quantitative impact have they had on local air quality?

Answer

Verbal Response provided at the meeting.

It was not possible to deliver initiatives without support from other Cabinet Members and Officers.  The following initiatives have been achieved:-

·  October 2018, launched CitizEn Energy a not for profit energy company which has reduced the City’s carbon footprint by over 1500 tonnes in the last year:

·  Clean Air Strategy had been reviewed and refreshed and is now target driven and had received  ...  view the full minutes text for item 41