Agenda item

(A)   Mr Hunt asked the following question of the Leader or his nominee:

 

“1.    The latest population estimate for the Leicester Urban area, as defined by the Office for National Statistics, is approximately 552,000 people.  How many of the Leicestershire County population live in the Leicester Urban Area (also referred to as the Leicester Builtup area) and what proportion of the county population do they represent?

 

2.     The Department for Transport (DfT) bidding Guidance for new Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIP) says that Local Transport Authorities (LTAs) may join produce a single Improvement Plan – particularly where local economies and travel patterns overlap significantly, as they do in our county.  To be successful the DfT expects LTAs to collaborate to resolve any cross-boundary issues.  So, where the vast majority of [bus] services in one area run across the border into another area, the DfT say they would expect a single BSIP [for two or more LTAs] to be produced .How many county bus services, from each of the members of the proposed Enhanced Partnership, start, terminate or pass through the city of Leicester?  And what proportion of each company’s services do these represent?

 

3.     The Guidance also says that there can be real advantages in developing a multi-LTA BSIP and where two or more LTAs form a Partnership:

•      LTA resources and funding can be pooled to improve efficiency and cut costs.

•      A joint scheme properly joins up cross boundary bus services.

•      Local bus operators can share resources to develop the BSIP in a joined-up way.

So, given that the Cabinet has resolved that the County Council will be expecting the Government to provide  “consistent and sustained revenue funding for the resources that it currently does not have” and “the levels of capital funding required to deliver our ambitions”, why are we compromising the success of the Plan by not sharing resources with the City?

 

4.     In November 2020 the Cabinet approved the Leicester and Leicestershire Strategic Transport Priorities document (2020-2050), within which the Leicestershire LTA and City LTA pledged to work together to support the efficient movement of both people and goods around and through the county. So how can two separate Enhanced Partnership Plans from each of the highly connected LTAs help us meet that aspiration?

5.     What consultations between local authorities took place before deciding not to form a joint Enhanced Partnership with the City LTA; and who made the final decision?

6.     Does existing legislation permit the formation of a single joint Local Transport Board to act for two local authorities which are as intimately connected as our City and County?”

 

Mr O’Shea replied as follows:

 

“1.    The Leicester Built Up Area (BUA) population estimates from the official ‘Office for National Statistics’ for 2020 is 544,800. However, it should be noted that the BUA boundary does not totally capture the whole of the City with some development in Hamilton and north of Beaumont Leys not covered. The figure below shows the City boundary in red with the BUA shaded grey.

 

 

The City population (within the red boundary) is 354,000. Deducting this from the 544,800 BUA population gives an approximate Leicestershire BUA population of 190,800 (noting the above BUA exclusions). This is 26.8% of the total 713,100 Leicestershire population.  

 

2.     The number of county services for each operator which start, terminate or pass through Leicester City together with the proportion (%) of each operator’s services which operate in Leicester and/or Leicestershire are detailed below. Please note, for services which have variations (e.g. Arriva 5, 5A and X5), each variation has been counted as an individual service:

 

Arriva:                35 (64.8%)
Centrebus:         8 (18.6%)
First:                    6 (30%)
Kinchbus:           2 (28.6%)
Roberts:             3 (33.3%)
Stagecoach:       2 (50%)

 

3.     The possibility of a joint partnership covering the County and City areas was discussed at senior officer level and also with the Lead Member for Highways and Transport and subsequently at a meeting between the Leader and the City Mayor.

 

These discussions reflected on considerations such as that as a City with a denser level of population than the County, the bus market in Leicester is different from that of the County (for example ‘turn up and go’ frequencies of services). Furthermore, cities have had access to Government funding streams not accessible to Counties, such as Transforming Cities Fund (TCF), or have been better able to take advantage of Government funding, such as Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) - funding for electric / low emission buses.

 

Leicester City Council has been successful in securing both TCF and ZEBRA funding. Additionally, it is seeking to introduce a Workplace Parking Levy, with the intention of using revenue from it to support passenger transport service improvements. This provides it with a significant investment platform.

 

Given such considerations, it was concluded that each authority would have differing needs and requirements of its respective Bus Service Improvement Plans (and that has proved to be the case with the Plans as have now been published) and thus it would be more appropriate to have two separate Partnerships rather than a single, Leicester and Leicestershire Partnership. The Cabinet resolved to proceed with the creation of a Leicestershire Enhanced Partnership at its meeting in June 2021.

 

Other bodies do exist whereby the County and City coordinate efforts, including the Park and Ride (P&R) Board and the Leicester TCF Board. Projects have already been delivered that benefit county residents, such as the electrification of the P&R bus fleet, and projects to be delivered through TCF should bring further benefits. In addition, informal discussions between the authorities will continue to take place to seek to ensure that best use is made of resources to support improvements to passenger transport services (and other sustainable transport modes more widely) to the benefit of Leicester and Leicestershire residents.

 

4.     The response to question 3 explains why there are two separate Enhanced Partnerships and thus two separate Partnership Plans. The response also highlights where the two LTAs are working together to support the movement of people and goods.

 

5.     See response to question 3 regarding consultation on this matter.  The decision was taken by the Director of Environment and Transport following consultation with the Lead Member.

 

6.     Existing legislation permits the formation of an Enhanced Partnership to deliver Schemes as outlined within the associated Bus Services Improvement Plan.  Each Enhanced Partnership acts on behalf of its members to deliver the Schemes within the EP Plan.  As Leicestershire and Leicester have their own separate EPs, they will act to deliver their own EP Schemes, but will collaborate on cross boundary issues as appropriate, including with Leicester City.  A Local Transport Board formerly existing involving the County and City councils as well as the Local Enterprise Partnership.  This purpose of this board was to have oversight of and give direction to the Local Growth Funding process and delivery.  It has not met for a number of years.”

 

Mr Hunt asked the following supplementary question:

 

“Many thanks for the detailed answer and the wonderful map.  However, the substantial part of the answer says that we didn't form an Enhanced Bus Partnership with the City, largely because the City has a denser population and they have more money, but I can't realise why that would prevent us from working with an Authority that has more money and more passengers for buses. Was there any other reason or can the Lead Member supply any further information to that?”

 

Mr O’Shea replied as follows:

 

“Thank you Mr Hunt, I shall make sure that you get a written reply to explain your confusion.”

 

[Subsequent to the meeting, the following written reply was received:

 

“The answer provided explained the various considerations and communications that were undertaken in relation to Enhanced Bus Partnerships. It must be noted that it is for each individual authority to decide if they wish to consider forming a combined partnership and, as such, the City and County formed their own decisions on this matter. As provided in the original response, it was concluded that each authority would have differing needs and requirements of its respective Bus Service Improvement Plans and that has proved to be the case with the Plans as they have now been published.   Consequently, it would be more appropriate to have two separate Partnerships rather than a single, Leicester and Leicestershire Partnership.

 

During the development of their BSIPs both authorities shared their drafts for comment prior to submitting them to the DfT. In their discussions, both the Leader and the City Mayor committed to communicate and engage with one another as they move forward with their Enhanced Bus Partnerships and implementing the BSIPs confirming the intention for both authorities to work together on improving bus services for county and city residents.”]

 

 

(B)    Mr Bray asked the following question of the Leader or his nominee:

 

“The Leader will no doubt be aware of reports in the press about Derbyshire County Council officers routinely reading emails sent to elected members’ email addresses. Elected members often receive sensitive and confidential emails from the residents that they represent and therefore does the Leader agree with me that this is worrying and can he confirm that no Leicestershire County Council officers are reading members emails?”

 

Mr Breckon replied as follows:

 

“The practice that Derbyshire County Council had in place, i.e. each email account having at least one delegate (someone who can access the account if the main account holder is unavailable) is not and has ever been in place at Leicestershire. However, County Council officers and Members can delegate access their account to a named person if they so wish.”

 

(C)   Mr Bray asked the following question of the Leader or his nominee:

 

“Can the Leader please confirm how many Leicestershire schoolchildren were still waiting for school transport to be arranged:

1. after the start of the school term in August; and
2. by October half term?”

 

Mr O’Shea replied as follows:

 

“The actual start of the school term varies across schools, colleges and pupils attending schools in other local authority areas. The figures below identify the overall number of pupils on transport and those with transport applications, awaiting transport on the key term dates.”

 

Key Term Start Dates	Number of Pupils with Transport Assistance in place	Number of Pupils who applied but awaiting Transport Assistance	Total number of pupils
30th August (All LCC School returned)	1807	395	2202
6th September (Most FE Colleges and other LEA's returned	2182	162	2344
13th September (All Returned)	2224	146	2370
October Half Term	2300	126	2426
24th November	2347	101	2448
Number of applications received after 30th August                      246

 

 

(D)   Mr Bray asked the following question of the Leader or his nominee:

 

“Can the Leader update me on any progress in finding a replacement school crossing patrol for St. Peter’s School in my division (St. Mary’s)? If no progress has been made what other measures are being looked into to make crossing safer for children in this busy town centre location?”

 

Mr O’Shea replied as follows:

 

“We have continued to seek to recruit a school crossing patrol to St Peter’s School, London Road in Hinckley and have tried to attract candidates. Because of the relatively short times of operation (45 minutes in the morning and 35 minutes in the afternoon) it is likely to appeal to someone with connections to the school and/or living in close proximity to the school.

 

Our service is reliant on members of the community coming forward to fill these paid school crossing patrol roles. Unfortunately, to-date no applications for this location have been received. A PV2 assessment which checks the volume of traffic and children crossing was conducted in May 2021 and the site still meets the requirements for having a patrol.

 

Officers contacted Mr Bray on the 18^th October 2021 with reference to the requests raised via the Members’ Highway Fund and updated him on the upgrades intended to be installed outside the school.

 

At present, twin amber flashing lights exist to advise motorists to reduce their speed during school start and finish times. Those lights will be removed and replaced with a new Vehicle Activated Sign (VAS). The sign will be illuminated to advise of children crossing the road during school start and finish times together with amber lights, incorporated into the sign itself.

 

The sign also acts as a reminder to the 30mph speed limit, where any vehicle exceeding that speed will also receive a reminder of the posted limit. The sign will help provide an added visual awareness of a school being present and children crossing, whilst also raising speed awareness along the road.

 

An example of how the sign will function is shown below. All other existing signs advising of a school in the area will remain and the upgrades are expected to be completed by January 2022.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(E)    Mr Galton asked the following question of the Leader or his nominee:

 

“1.    Could the Leader please list the total number of claims for damage to vehicles on County roads for each of the past 5 years, with claims for damage caused by pot holes identified separately?

 

2.     How many of these claims were successful (please list for each of the last 5 years)?

 

3.     What was the average pay out or settlement for successful claims (please list for each of the last 5 years)?”

 

Mr Breckon replied as follows:

 

“1.    The number of compensation claims made to the County Council for each of the past five years for vehicle damage due to poor road conditions is as follows:

 

Year	Total number of claims	Pothole Claims	Others
2016	250	190	60
2017	288	228	60
2018	363	316	47
2019	210	173	37
2020	180	135	45
2021 (part year)	155	137	18

 

 

2.     The number of compensation claims made to the County Council for vehicle damage due to poor road conditions, where compensation was paid out, is as follows:

 

Year	Total number of Pothole Claims paid	Others claims paid
2016	9	3
2017	34	3
2018	45	0
2019	12	0
2020	5	0
2021 (part year)	7	0

 

 

3.     The total amount paid out in compensation (to date) for vehicle damage due to poor road conditions, and the average payments, is set out below:

 

Year	Total compensation paid for pothole damage	Average Payment for Pothole Damage	Total compensation paid for other damage	Average Payment for other damage
2016	£1,363.28	£151.48	£1,220.81	£406.94
2017	£5,498.86	£161.73	£135.00	£45.00
2018	£14,397,29	£378.88	£0	£0
2019	£16,394.11	£1,639.41	£0	£0
2020	£2,548.00	£516.80	£0	£0
2021 (part year)	£654.00	£93.43	£0	£0”