Agenda, decisions and minutes

The were no declarations of interest.

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Forward Plan Ref: 2021/051

Contact: Natalie Moore, Transport Planner Tel: 07917 534327

Report by Corporate Director Environment & Place (CMDTDS4).

The Burford Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (ETRO) of 7.5t was approved by the former Cabinet Member for Environment on 18 July 2019 and has been in place since 5 August 2020. This report provides an interim update on the scheme impacts following the end of the public consultation and traffic monitoring that took place in February.

The report recommends the Burford ETRO continues to February 2022 to allow for further monitoring in Autumn 2021 using camera technology to provide greater detail of the classification of 2 axle heavy good vehicles and requests Burford Town Council review, with OCC officers, the permit scheme operations and criteria to reflect the needs of the local rural economy as outlined in some of the consultation responses. It does not consider whether the Burford ETRO will be made permanent and that decision will be taken at the end of the full eighteen-month experimental order period, in January 2022. 

The Cabinet Member is RECOMMENDED to:

a)               continue the Burford Experimental Traffic Regulation Order of 7.5t to February 2022;

b)              conduct further traffic monitoring in Autumn 2021 using camera technology to provide greater detail of the classification of 2 axle heavy good vehicles;

c)               request Burford Town Council review, with OCC officers, the permit scheme operations and criteria to reflect the needs of the local rural economy;

d)              note the Burford ETRO will be returned to Cabinet Member Decisions in January 2022 for a final decision on the scheme.

The Burford Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (ETRO) of 7.5t had been approved by the former Cabinet Member for Environment on 18 July 2019 and had been in place since 5 August 2020. The Cabinet Member for Travel & Development Strategy was now considering an interim update report (CMDTDS4) on the scheme impacts following the end of the public consultation and traffic monitoring that took place in February.

The report is recommending the Burford ETRO continues to February 2022 to allow for further monitoring in Autumn 2021 using camera technology to provide greater detail of the classification of 2 axle heavy good vehicles and requests that Burford Town Council review, with County Council officers, the permit scheme operations and criteria to reflect the needs of the local rural economy as outlined in some of the consultation responses. The report did not consider whether the Burford ETRO would be made permanent. That decision would be taken at the end of the full eighteen-month experimental order period, in January 2022. 

Mark McCappin and Jan de Haldevang presented on behalf of WIVTAG (Windrush Valley Traffic Action Group) which represented a range of organisations in an area of about 100sqm. They went through the four recommendations as set out in the officer report.

The first recommendation recommended that the ETRO should continue but they believed that it should be halted, highlighting in support of that view that OCC’s own traffic counts showed an 80% increase in HGVs in Witney an AQMA and so the ETRO was making air pollution worse in an existing black spot. Secondly for farmers the A361 and the bridge in Burford was vital to their operations.

The second recommendation dealt with traffic monitoring. They did not agree that camera technology would help as a camera could not see whether a vehicle was above or below 7.5t and also there would be no ‘before’ figures available for comparison. Current monitoring was limited to just six main road sites but it also needed extended to smaller roads in Gloucestershire as well as Oxfordshire. Finally, this recommendation offered nothing about larger HGVs.

The third recommendation concerned changes to the permit scheme. The officers’ full report suggested increasing the scheme radius to 20 miles with more local hauliers then applying for permits to address the needs of the local economy. However, that would make this a regional issue as opposed to a local one with the County Council then having to manage a permit system and increasing the radius would bring most local hauliers into the permit area with more vehicles coming through Burford with numbers of heavy HGVs in Burford potentially back to where they were before the weight restriction began. Neither did this recommendation address freight to or from destinations more than 20 miles from Burford.

They believed there was sufficient evidence now to demonstrate failure of the current scheme and that decisions were needed now and to wait until February 2022 was wrong. If the scheme was allowed to continue, local objections would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.