Meeting documents

ITEM EX14

EXECUTIVE – 11 DECEMBER 2001

HIGHWAY INFORMATION ON LOCAL SEARCHES

Report by the Director of Environmental Services

1. When prospective buyers of property make local searches to check for any legal restrictions improved by local authorities on the property, they normally also ask a range of standard questions about other matters which might affect the property. A nationally agreed form, the "Con 29", is used for this purpose. This form includes standard questions on highway matters, e.g whether adjoining roads are adopted public highways and whether there are any planned major highway schemes near the property, plus optional questions concerning traffic schemes.
2. The present arrangement in Oxfordshire is that the District Councils answer Con 29 highway questions using information supplied by and regularly updated by Environmental Services Lands and Records Team. The cost of the Service is offset by fees payable on each enquiry, these being prescribed nationally.
3. A revision to Con 29 is proposed which greatly expands the range of highway schemes to be revealed on a Con 29. The proposals would include a range of traffic orders, pedestrianisation, traffic calming, from pedestrian crossings, minor alterations, and cycleways as standard questions. Definitive guidance on the new Con 29 had been expected by now but is still not available. The delay is an indication of the complexities that would be involved in providing the proposed highway information. But as 1 April 2002 is the proposed date for bringing in the new Con 29 I need to be able to act quickly to meet this, hence I am reporting on this now.

Issues Involved

4. Number of search enquiries.

There are approximately 23,000 search enquiries a year for the whole county, varying between 4000 and 5500 per District. Put another way, that is about 100 enquiries each working day.

5. Liability.

Inaccurate or missing information could result in claims against the Council for loss of value. Information about proposed schemes therefore must be comprehensive and accurate. Given that the type of schemes to be revealed could be the responsibility of a number of teams, including the Area offices, or developers, or one-off agencies granted to District, town or parish councils, this will be an onerous task. A new database needs to be set up to hold the relevant information for each appropriate scheme.

6. Who answers the highway questions?

I would prefer that the District Councils continue to answer the questions in the interests of an image of local government providing a joined up one-stop service. However, this means we must be able to provide them with all the extra information required, preferably by access to our database. The District Councils could choose not to give the answers to highway questions (we cannot insist that they do) in which case the job would fall to Environmental Services. If that happened, a proportion of the fee that District Councils receive for Con 29 enquiries would have to be passed on to us to pay for the extra staff that would be required.

7. Staff and cost issues.

Additional staff time is required to set up and maintain a highway records database. The cost of this may be recoverable by making a charge on the District Councils which they would then pass on but this still needs to be confirmed. This will be needed whether Environmental Services staff or District Councils provide the Con 29 highway information. Should a District Council choose not to deal with highway information, then further staff time will be needed to respond to the searches and costs recovered by claiming a proportion of the fee charged by District Councils.

Conclusions

8. Complete and readily accessible highway scheme information needs to be compiled and maintained in a database specifically designed to answer Con 29 enquiries. The cost of this may be recoverable by making a charge. The preferable option is for District Councils to continue to answer the highway enquiries on the revised Con 29 using our database, but discussion and agreement with District Councils is needed to confirm this.

RECOMMENDATIONS

9. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to authorise the Director of Environmental Services to recruit such additional staff as may be necessary to:

1. set up and manage a new database system to meet the revised highway information requirements; and
2. provide a response service insofar as discussions with District Councils do not produce agreement that they will continue to answer highway enquiries;

November 2001