Appendix A Presentation to S&V councillors by OCC.

Monday 11 November 2019

Officers: Liz Hayden, John Backley, Rikke Hansen

CPE questions and answers. 

Question/comment	Response/comment
	Project group (S, V, Cherwell, OCC and West) meeting end November to consider the recommendations from the feasibility study
Why include West Oxon DC when already CPE?	Because we can use their experience to help other councils
Timescales	DfT has said they will only consider one more application (having had City and West already). Also DfT say they will only consider the application once Brexit is sorted out. We will need four formal decisions from South, Vale, Cherwell and OCC administrations to all agree to start the process and from that moment CPE will be between 18 months and two years to implement. Agreed to set out the indicative timetable and note the lead organisation for each step. Formal decisions taken by X/X/20 Review TROs aim to complete by ……………….
Have we talked to other councils about their experience?	The consultant we are using (RTA Associates) has experience of helping over 100 councils apply for and implement CPE.  It uses information gathered over time to produce average statistics applied in the model
What is the “model”?	A financial analysis of the cost of enforcement and the back-office processing to see if the income covers the expenditure.  This is for both the set up/one off costs and the revenue/on-going costs
Can we change the model?	We can adapt the model, during implementation as long as the costs allow
What kind of costs are we talking about?	We are yet to receive a final copy of the report, so we are not able to offer exact figures at this stage.  We anticipate that this information will be available after Christmas.
Previous studies have shown that the set-up cost is about £250,000 per council	Yes, that is the right kind of ‘ball park’ figure that we are talking about
	CPE is not about making money, the reason to implement it is to improve the traffic circulation
Lot of yellow lines are in the wrong place or don’t exist.  Will CPE deal with making sure they are correct	As part of the implementation process, OCC will initially digitise the TRO (Traffic Regulation Orders), as they are on paper now.  If there are any obvious omissions or errors, we can put them right as part of CPE but the exercise will not look at every TRO to see if it is correct or not
The town councils are looking at parking strategies now, so we shouldn’t try to get all the signs and lines correct, just implement as the restrictions are at present	Generally agreed
We will get a lot of complaints from residents who will say ‘I have parked here for years’ without paying	Yes, we will need a  clear programme of communication and education when we first implement the scheme.  And in the first few weeks we will issue just warning notices
Why don’t we put something in with the council tax to explain what we are doing with CPE	To consider this.   CPE will need to have various Comms that will include formal consultation and need to agree what format this will take
What if Cherwell say ‘no’	Dft articulate that we cannot  go forward unless all four councils agree (S, V, OCC and Cherwell)
County councillors can use their own funds (Priority fund??) to pay for yellow lines if they decided to
What are the timescales?	Officers will circulate an indicative timeline to highlight the phases of the project once all agreed including the organisation responsible at each stage
The enforcement of yellow lines is still a TVP responsibility at the moment, but they don’t have sufficient  resources to prioritise this work i.e. based on risk
We need not just to consult residents but engage with them in the process
CPE should be simple to administer.  Henley TC carry out management of on-street and permits in Henley (on behalf of OCC) and it works well and is cost neutral.  Abingdon Town Council do similar	CPE will take on this permit and on-street enforcement from Henley and Abingdon TC.
How do City council get away with making so much money from parking	We are not permitted to set out to make a surplus and councils that have done so  have been prosecuted.  We need to make sure we carry out the project legally.  Remember that off street and on street accounts are kept totally separately when CPE is implemented.  ie we differentiate between PCN income and car park fees
Would it be easier to introduce residents parking schemes after CPE is complete	Yes as more likely they will be managed and enforced properly under CPE but that will stay with OCC.  Just as present any new lines or new areas of on-street permit parking will be the responsibility of OCC
Generally agreed we need to get CPE up and running to enforce the lines as they are and then we will see what the behaviour of the public is and what displacement there is to decide if the lines and permits places are correct or not	Yes, we shouldn‘t specifically worry if yellow lines are wrong (unless quick and easy to change or if there are other strong traffic management reasons to change), just need to get it going. Need to use resources as soon as possible
If residents ask what we are doing, then we are carrying out a feasibility study.	We have formed a cross county working group (Cherwell, OCC, South, Vale) and have commissioned a feasibility study to consider the viability of the scheme.  The next step will be for the four local authorities to consider the report and take a decision as to whether they wish to adopt the powers. We envisage that decisions will be made by 31 March 2020
The timelines need to say who is responsible for what so that we are clear that South and Vale are not holding up the process	Yes, timelines to be put in InFocus
The upfront capital costs have always been a consideration when deciding whether or not to implement CPE.	The paper copies of the TROs need to be digitised for DfT to accept the application
Should we test the DfT to see if they will accept the digitisation of TROs over time rather than all at the start	Agreed we should challenge the DfT to accept digitisation over time if they want CPE to be implemented.
	Comms is key part of this project.  Officers will aim to update Cllrs after Christmas and if the councils decide to implement we will continue to communicate progress.