Agenda item

The following representatives will be in attendance to give a presentation on their area of expertise in relation to highways and transport.

 

·         Parvis Khansari, Associate Director Highways and Transport

·         Philip Whitehead, Portfolio holder Highways contract

·         Martin Rose, Principle Traffic Engineer and CATG member

 

A short Voxpops DVD will be shown

 

·         Bill Parks, Head of Local Highways and Streetscene, North

·         Simon Rowe, Weather and Emergency Officer, Highways and Streetscene, North

·         Claire Walker, Colerne Parish Council

 

There will be an opportunity for questions at the end of the presentations.

The Chairman welcomed the panel members in attendance to give details on their respective work relating to highways and transport.

 

Due to the extreme weather conditions currently being experienced two of the presenters originally scheduled were now unable to attend as they were dealing with highways related problems around the county.  The revised running order would therefore be:

 

·         Parvis Khansari – the presentation would now include details on local highways and street scene (originally scheduled to be presented by Bill Parks)

 

·         Martin Rose – the presentation would include details of the CATG and its work.

 

·         A DVD highlighting the responses received from the public would be shown.

 

·         Cllr Philip Whitehead – the presentation would now include details on weather and emergency plans (originally scheduled to be presented by Simon Rowe)

 

·         Claire Walker – details of the Colerne Parish Council Snow Plans.

 

The Chairman requested that the minutes reflect her thanks to the emergency planning team of Wiltshire for all their hard work in dealing with the extreme conditions over recent weeks before welcoming the guests to speak.

 

Copies of all presentations made can be found attached to these minutes but included the following highlights:

 

Parvis Khansari, Associate Director Highways & Transport

 

·         The UK was ranked 24 in terms of quality of roads with France currently holding first place.  This was in part due to the emphasis of investment in recent years being placed on protecting frontline services.

 

·         There had been a significant increase in traffic over the past 50 years resulting in much heavier usage specifically on A and B classified roads.

 

·         Since 2001 the authority had taken advantage of available funding and had increased expenditure significantly in highways with plans for further investment over the next 6 years.

 

·         Various data collections were used to measure conditions of the road networks to ensure they remained fit for purpose.

 

·         The Chippenham community area consisted of approximately 275km of road, the condition of which was better than in some other areas of Wiltshire.

 

·         Details of the maintenance scheme for 2013/14 were provided, further details of which could be found in the presentation.

 

·         The potential future road maintenance sites identified for 2014-2020 were to be considered by the authority’s Cabinet.  If approved the list relating to the Chippenham area would be brought back to the Area Board for discussion.

 

·         Central government had recently announced the release of funding that each local authority was able to bid for works that required urgent attention.  Wiltshire Council was successful in its bid regarding the A350 project with utilities expected to be in place shortly to begin construction works.

 

·         Further details on how services were being delivered at a local level were then provided on behalf of Bill Parks (who was unable to attend).  This included:

 

·         The Highways and Streetscene teams within the Council had now been merged as part of the new structure with staff for the Chippenham area as detailed below:

o   Western Area Manager – Chris Clark

o   Area Engineer – Paul Bollen

o   Chippenham Area Coordinator – Richard Dobson

 

·         Contact details for the team were provided and could be found on the attached presentation.

 

Martin Rose, Principal Traffic Engineer and CATG member was welcomed to the podium.  His presentation included the following:

 

·         Community Area Transport Groups (CATGs) had been formed in 2010 across all 18 area boards.

 

·         Since 2010 the Chippenham CATG, with town and parish councils, had funded 15 highways schemes.  In 2013/14 there was a further commitment to fund a further 9 which included:

o   Langley Road (new footway and crossing)

o   Lowden Hill Tunnel (pedestrian and signing improvements)

o   Kington St. Michael Road (footway/bus stop improvements)

o   Lowden Tunnel (shuttle signals feasibility study)

 

·         The vast majority of spend related to pedestrian projects with the remainder including road safety, signing, feasibility and lighting.

 

·         Further information on how the CATG managed new requests was provided.  This included that where issues were identified as priority engineers would review and report potential solutions to the CATG.  For projects not identified as priority or for those exceeding the available funding allocation these could be put forward for substantive scheme consideration. 

 

·         Following the presentation a Voxpop DVD was shown where members of the public were asked the following two questions:

 

·         What highways improvements would you most like to see in the Chippenham area?  The responses included:

o   Better lighting

o   Improved cycle routes

o   More regular grass cutting

o   Better parking around the cinema

 

·         Do you have a question about highways and transport that you would like us to put forward? The responses included:

o   What is being done about potholes?

o   What plans are there for future cycle paths?

o   Whether additional parking could be provided?

                                                                                            

The presentation made by Cllr Philip Whitehead, Portfolio Holder Highways Contracts, included:

 

·         That the transformation of teams should improve the service provided.  The change was made to ensure a coordination of activity by one team with the community deciding on the priorities.

 

·         The Council were working on how information could be better communicated, including what planned works there were and current works being undertaken in the local area.

 

·         The ‘My Wiltshire’ app would at some point in the future replace the existing on-line reporting system.  The ‘My Wiltshire’ allowed those wishing to download the app to report issues to the council via a remote device.

 

Cllr Whitehead also gave a presentation on behalf of Simon Rowe relating to the weather and emergency plans.  This included:

 

·         That the authority had a duty to ensure ‘safe passage along a highway is not endangered by snow or ice’ in accordance with the Highways Act 1980.

 

·         Once informed the team had an approximate 2 hour window to salt all routes.  This required the use of approximately 150 tonnes of salt covering a quarter of the Wiltshire roads.  Where conditions fell below a set level for 5 days or more secondary routes were also covered, increasing the salt usage to 250 tonnes.

 

·         The fleet consisted of 24 frontline vehicles and 40 vehicles for extended all route salting with Balfour Beaty on standby beyond this point.  Some of the current vehicles had ‘clever’ technology which, although not used at present, would allow for a programme on board the vehicle to dictate appropriate dispersal of salt in the future.

 

·        Approximately 130 farmers were on-call to provide further assistance to the team where required.  The assistance of the local community was required to keep smaller c classified roads open.  Each Parish was being encouraged to develop a Snow Plan utilising the help of the local community.

 

Claire Walker, Colerne Parish Council, gave a presentation on the Parish Council Snow Plan, which included:

 

·         The benefits of a snow plan were demonstrated last year when the parish of Colerne, with the exception of just one day, were able to keep the roads clear during extreme weather conditions.

 

·         Colerne, being the second highest village in the county, was an ideal candidate to take part in the snow plan pilot study.

 

·         The aim of the plan was to provide a coordinated response to keeping the access routes into and within the parish open and to help vulnerable members of the community.

 

·         The appointment of snow wardens had not been as successful as was hoped.  Further work to address this was being done in the hope that additional wardens would be in place shortly.

 

·         The parish had use of a Western gritter trailer but acknowledged that there was a need to provide clarity on insurance.  There was currently some confusion over whether private vehicles were covered.  Further details were awaited.

 

·         The coordinator would be the initial contact who would then make contact with other named persons within the plan.

 

·         The key to success was to ensure the areas covered by snow wardens was small.  A member of Wiltshire Council would be able to visit any parishes working on their snow plans to provide guidance and this had proved extremely useful for Colerne.

 

·         It was recommended that salt supplies were split and held around the local area.  Colerne had 2 sites in 2013 and were hoping to expand to 4 sites this year.

 

·         Communication was key with the use of such sources as parish magazines to draw attention to the Plan and to seek volunteers highlighted as a positive example.

 

The Chairman of the Board thanked all the officers for their presentations and opened discussion to the floor where the following information was clarified.

 

Those reporting issues using the Clarence system were now provided with a log number to allow them to follow up on the reported problem if desired.

 

The ‘My Wiltshire’ app was still at an early stage of its release and had been further developed since its initial release.  The app had been extended to allow the user to select description criteria and was likely to continue being developed as and when appropriate.

 

To allow for better preparedness Parish Councils were encouraged to produce a Snow Plan.

 

The issue of flooding was raised with the work of the Flood Working Groups highlighted.  It was understood that the funding allocation had increased from £600k in 2013 to £800k for 2014.

 

The Chairman thanked all for their time and the interesting presentations made.