Agenda and minutes

Venue: Meeting Room 1, 135 Eastern Avenue, Milton Park, Milton, Abingdon OX14 4SB

Contact: Ron Schrieber  Democratic Services Officer

Items
No. Item

11.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 93 KB

To adopt and sign as a correct record the General Licensing Committee minutes of the meeting held on 31 May 2017 (attached). 

Minutes:

RESOLVED: to adopt as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 31 May 2017 and agree that the chairman signs them as such.

12.

Declarations of interest

To receive any declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests in respect of items on the agenda for this meeting.  

Minutes:

None.

13.

Urgent business and chairman's announcements

To receive notification of any matters which the chairman determines should be considered as urgent business and the special circumstances which have made the matters urgent, and to receive any announcements from the chairman. 

Minutes:

None.

14.

Public participation

To receive any questions or statements from members of the public that have registered to speak. 

Minutes:

The list showing members of the public who had registered to speak was tabled at the meeting.

15.

Low emission strategy pdf icon PDF 134 KB

To consider the report of the interim head of waste, leisure parks and environmental health (attached).

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The committee considered a report by the head of waste, parks, leisure and environmental health, regarding a draft low emission strategy (LES) for South Oxfordshire.  The report stated that the Environment Act 1995 placed a statutory duty on local authorities to review and assess local air quality and included a requirement to prepare and implement an air quality action plan (AQAP) where air quality objectives were not being met.

 

The committee adopted its AQAP in February 2015. Actions within the plan included the development of a LES and three low emission zone feasibility studies.

 

The committee had delegated authority to deal with air quality issues.  However, Council on 20 July 2017 considered a petition objecting to one of the proposals in the draft LES, the restriction of traffic to buses only over Wallingford Bridge during peak travel times, and resolved that recommendations from the committee should come back to full Council for further debate and ratification.

 

Attached, as appendices to the report, were the draft LES and summaries of the public consultation exercises which had been undertaken, together with the text of the relevant minute from the 20 July Council meeting.

 

Guy Hitchcock, Ricardo-AEA and David Chong-Ping, MEL Research made presentations to the committee on the draft LES and the consultation exercises, respectively.

 

The report identified two proposals in the draft LES which had attracted a lot of comment. The first was to investigate the restriction of traffic to buses only over Wallingford Bridge during peak travel times; the second was to trial the removal of on-street parking in areas of Watlington. The committee heard registered speakers as part of its consideration of each key issue.

 

Wallingford

Len Pannett, Diane Wyatt, lead petitioner, Adrian Lloyd and Lee Upcraft, Wallingford Town Councillors and Andrew Wyatt addressed the committee. Their points included:

·         Restricting traffic across Wallingford Bridge would simply divert traffic elsewhere and would not improve air quality significantly;

·         Other areas of Wallingford were also polluted so additional measures were required elsewhere;

·         It was not clear how the effects of the proposal would be monitored; and

·         Further traffic modelling and analysis were required before any measures were trialled.

 

Lynda Atkins, County Councillor for Wallingford, addressed the committee. Her points included:

·         The 2016 public consultation exercise appeared to be biased as residents in some of the affected Wallingford streets and Crowmarsh residents were not surveyed; and

·         The number of people supporting the proposal to restrict traffic across Wallingford Bridge were greatly outnumbered by the 1806 signatories to the petition objecting to this proposal.

 

Sue Roberts, representing Sustainable Wallingford, addressed the committee. Her points included:

·         The Council’s efforts to improve air quality should be applauded; and

·         Planning permission had been granted for additional housing in Wallingford with further developments proposed. These would generate additional traffic and would require further measures to reduce pollution.

 

In response to these comments, Councillors, officers and consultants:

·         Acknowledged that any restriction of vehicular access to the bridge would divert traffic elsewhere;

·         Agreed that, if the draft  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.

 

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