Agenda and minutes

Any county councillor may, by giving notice to the Proper Officer by 9 am on the working day before the meeting, ask a question on any matter in respect of the Cabinet Member’s delegated powers.

The number of questions which may be asked by any councillor at any one meeting is limited to two (or one question with notice and a supplementary question at the meeting) and the time for questions will be limited to 30 minutes in total. As with questions at Council, any questions which remain unanswered at the end of this item will receive a written response.

Questions submitted prior to the agenda being despatched are shown below and will be the subject of a response from the appropriate Cabinet Member or such other councillor or officer as is determined by the Cabinet Member, and shall not be the subject of further debate at this meeting. Questions received after the despatch of the agenda, but before the deadline, will be shown on the Schedule of Addenda circulated at the meeting, together with any written response which is available at that time.

Councillor Jean Fooks

“I am very disturbed to see that the two long-awaited amendments to North Oxford and Summertown CPZs have been delayed until February, despite having been in the Forward plan for November 25^th for some time. Please would you explain why and whether they can be brought forward to deal with the very real problems they are intended to address? “

Reply from Councillor Rodney Rose, Cabinet Member for Transport

“The Councillor will be aware from my responses to her questions at the September 2010 meeting that, given the current budgetary pressures, minor amendments to CPZs are low on my list of priorities. Indeed this position is being reflected in the proposals for savings and reorganisation within the Highways & Transport section of the Environment & Economy Directorate

Indeed, the consultation on changes in the Summertown and North Summertown CPZs are only able to be dealt with in February 2011 because there is external funding from developers for elements of the proposals and officers have been able to ‘piggy-back’ other known concerns onto the back of these, thus reducing the impact on OCC budgets.”

Supplementary

Councillor Fooks asked whether or not private funding would enable some schemes to be brought forward.

Reply

Councillor Rose replied that the problem lay with reductions in staffing levels and confirmed that the earliest likely date for these to come forward for decision would be February 2011.

Councillor John Tanner

“Given the shortfall in the Residents’ Parking account in 2009/10 was £22K and a 25% increase in charges in 2011/12 is likely to bring in around £93K, what is the extra £70K to be spent on. Could Councillor Rose explain what the ‘Other’ category includes? In these austere times, has the Cabinet Member considered reducing costs in line with income?”

Reply from Councillor Rodney Rose, Cabinet Member for Transport

“As set out in the report costs associated with enforcement of resident parking zones are in two parts: resident parking bays, as identified showed a loss of £22k and the yellow lines (of which approximately 75% were within resident parking zones) showed a total loss of £170k of which approximately £85k was attributable to resident parking zones. In total therefore the shortfall for operating the zones was approximately £117k not £22k.

The 'Other' category in the financial information were a variety of costs including payments to contractors for implementing essential changes and maintenance in the zones, payments to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal service, payments for the provision of credit card payment services, membership of the British Parking Association and other small ad-hoc items such as training, printing, postage and stationary.

The County had already made significant savings (approximately £250,000 per year) and would seek to make further savings to balance the current deficit of £117k with the anticipated additional income of £93k. Additional savings in costs to meet the entire £117k shortfall would have to begin to target patrol levels and as such might only serve to reduce income through PCN's.”

Supplementary

Councillor Tanner thanked  ...  view the full minutes text for item 36/10

Forward Plan Ref: 2010/160

Contact: David Tole, Team Leader, Traffic Regulation Order Tel: (01865) 815942

Report by Head of Highways & Transport (CMDT4).

The Cabinet Member for Transport considered comments and objections received to a consultation on increasing the cost of residents’ parking permits in Oxford.

Councillor Turner stated that in 2006 when this scheme had originally been set up the intention had been for it to break even and asked why a 25% increase was now being sought.  He also asked why there had been no county representation at Area Committees and whether or not the Cabinet Member had considered reintroducing charges at Thornhill to offset this latest increase.

The Cabinet Member confirmed that charges in 2006 had been based on circumstances at that time.  However, changes made by the government in the period since then had affected the modelling.  He confirmed that he had not attended Area Committees because he had not wanted to fetter his discretion when considering these proposals and it had been up to officers to decide whether or not to attend if invited but he felt that they were already under a great deal of pressure.  In any event he felt that any public debate on these proposals should have taken place at this meeting when decisions would be taken.  With regard to Thornhill there was likely to be an announcement shortly.

RESOLVED: to approve the proposed changes to the cost of residents’ parking permits in all the permit parking zone orders for the City of Oxford (excluding those for Blackbird Leys West, Brake Hill, Frys Hill and Minchery Farm and Waterside) as advertised in the Oxfordshire County Council (City of Oxford and North Hinksey) (Variation of Charges for Residents’ Permits) Order 20**

Forward Plan Ref: 2010/174

Contact: Mike Ruse, Traffic Regulation Officer, Tel: (01865) 815978

Report by Head of Highways & Transport (CMDT5).

The Cabinet Member for Transport considered responses to a consultation on a proposed relocation of an existing permit holders parking bay.

RESOLVED: to authorise variations to the Oxfordshire County Council (Jericho) (Parking Places and Controlled Parking Zone) Order 2000, as amended in this report, to provide for:

(a)               relocation of a resident parking bay to the other side of the road to form one long bay in Victor Street;

(b)              a new section of NWAAT restrictions in place of the relocated bay.