To approve the minutes of the meetings held on 22 September 2021 and 13 October 2021 (PLOSC3) and to receive information arising from them.

The Minutes of the Meetings held on 22 September 2021 and 13 October 2021 were approved and signed as an accurate record.

The purpose of this report is to provide the Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee with background information and work undertaken to develop the emerging Libraries and Heritage strategy which will be considered at Cabinet on 21st December 2021.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to:

(a)       consider the contents of the report and presentation and provide feedback to the Cabinet Lead Member for Community Services and Safety, Corporate Director, Customers Organisational Development and Resources and supporting Officers;

(b)       decide if any further action is required to support the emerging strategy;

(c)       approve the development and content of the strategy.

The Committee had before it a report which provided members with background information and work undertaken to develop the emerging Libraries and Heritage strategy which would be considered at Cabinet on 21st December 2021.  The Cabinet Lead Member for Community Services and Safety, Councillor Fawcett, the Corporate Director, Customers Organisational Development, Claire Taylor, the Interim Assistant Director for Cultural, Lesli Good and the Director of Customer Experience & Cultural Services, Mark Haynes,had been invited to the meeting to give a presentation on the Strategy (a copy of which is attached to the signed copy of the minutes).

Councillor Fawcett introduced the report.  He welcomed developing the Libraries and Heritage Strategy and said that he believed that Libraries provided a very important link between the council and residents across Oxfordshire.  It was a widely used and loved service with around 2.3 million library visits last year.  Oxfordshire had not had a clear Strategy in place for many years and the new Strategy aimed to give very clear direction to the services moving forward.  Officers had listened to a wide variety and stakeholders and councillors drawing up the document.  The Strategy was not the full implementation plan, if the Strategy was approved in the spring, there would be a further stage looking in much more details looking at libraries and heritage across the County.

Claire Taylor introduced the presentation. She reported that extensive pre-engagement and development activities had taken place.  A formal consultation on the plan would then be undertaken next year.  She welcomed the input of the Committee and undertook to bring the actions in the five-year plan to Committee following the consultation.

The Interim Assistant Director for Cultural, Lesli Good, then gave a presentation on the Strategy (a copy of which is attached to the signed copy of the minutes).  Key points were as follows:

§    22 libraries managed by county council staff

§    22 Community Supported Libraries run by staff with the support of volunteers

§    Home Library Service supporting 670 clients

§    Prison library Service in Huntercombe and Bullingdon

§    the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock

§    the Museums Resource Centre at Standlake, housing the reserve collection

§    a Scheduled Ancient Monument and Grade 1 listed medieval barn at Swalcliffe, providing accessible storage for large agricultural and trade vehicles

§    Oxfordshire History Centre in St Lukes Church, Cowley

§    all three museum locations and the History Centre are Accredited (meeting nationally agreed standards for museum and archive services to inspire the confidence of the public and funding and governing bodies)

§    Victoria County History, a literary charity whose purpose is to publish the complete history of Oxfordshire

§    The museum service also has a legacy responsibility for the remains of the Bishop’s Palace in Witney

The services were highly valued and used by residents.  Key performance data in 2019 as the last full year of operation before the pandemic was set out below:

·            2.3m visits to libraries

·            3.4m items borrowed from libraries

·            159,071 of these  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10/21

The purpose of this report is to provide the Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee with requested background information to inform the review and discussion of the recent Cabinet decision to adopt the Oxfordshire Street Design Guide.  A copy of the Street Design guide can be found here on the County Council’s website.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to:

(a)       consider the contents of the report and put relevant questions to the Cabinet Lead member, Director of Growth and Economy and supporting Officers;

(b)       decide if any further action is required;

(c)       consider areas for further development of the Oxfordshire Street Design Guide and other supporting policy developments.

The Committee had requested background information to inform the review and discussion of the recent Cabinet decision to adopt the Oxfordshire Street Design Guide.  Oxfordshire County Council aimed to enable Oxfordshire as a whole to become zero-carbon by 2050. The Design Guide presented how the Council could prioritise active and healthy travel through street design in new developments contributing to the Council’s carbon reduction ambitions. The Design Guide provided design standards for streets in new developments. Promoting high quality placemaking whilst achieving high quality infrastructure for walking, cycling and buses.

This guidance was also intended to support the development industry in the preparation and submission of development proposals through the provision of up to date and transparent guidance.  This should both de-risk and accelerate the preparation and determination of development proposals for developers and the County Council.

The Committee had attended several workshops with officers on the Street Design Guide.

The Cabinet Member for Travel & Development Strategy, Councillor Duncan Enright introduced the item.  He emphasised that although the Street Design Guide had been approved by Cabinet, that there was still an opportunity for input by Scrutiny as it was ‘a living document’ and was subject to constant monitoring and review and improvement.  The Local Transport and Connectivity Plan (LTCP) consultation was also happening in January 2022, including all member workshops, and that, together with other documents, would all be taken into account in the developing of the Oxfordshire Plan 2050.

Chanika Farmer then gave a presentation to the Committee (a copy of which is attached to the signed copy of the Minutes) which outlined the functions of the Street Design Guide and how it related to other guidance, together with areas for development following consultation with the Cabinet and Scrutiny Committee, including:

•           Connectivity to areas surrounding new developments,

•           Design of car-free / low car housing developments,

•           Changes in shopping habits; accommodating deliveries in new developments,

•           Junctions in new developments,

•           Build on feedback from users of the Street Design Guide including stakeholders, District Councils, internal officers, and developers.

Following discussion, the Committee made the following points:

·                Members wished to see the next version of the Street Design Guide taking a ‘Living Streets’ approach that streets should be for Community, for Children, for relaxing, for commercial, for socialising and being adaptable for other means and should connect to Public Health Strategy around Healthy Place Shaping.

·                In the current document, there was no section on Car Free Developments, which would help meet the Climate Targets set out LTCP.

·                The document should be helping the LTCP meet it aims.

·                There was no mention of Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging in the document – would like to see a specification that EV charging will be in a parking space rather than on the pavement.

·                There was no specification in the document around no through traffic developments.

·                The School Streets specification did not meet the aims of the School Street Programme intentions.

·                Members questioned why the next version of the document was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11/21

At its Meeting on 13 October 2021, the Committee requested a report on the Local Transport and Connectivity Plan (LTCP) consultation plan and the draft questionnaires. It is proposed that these documents form the basis of the LTCP public consultation commencing in January 2022. The committee is asked to provide any comments on the consultation plan or draft questionnaires (Annexes 1-4).

The Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee members are RECOMMENDED to provide any comments on the Local Transport and Connectivity Plan Part 1 consultation proposals and draft questionnaires, prior to public consultation.

At its Meeting on 13 October 2021, the Committee had requested a report on the Local Transport and Connectivity Plan (LTCP) consultation plan and the draft questionnaires. It was proposed that those documents formed the basis of the LTCP public consultation commencing in January 2022.

The Assistant Director for Infrastructure and Planning, Rachel Wileman introduced the report.  She explained that the Local Transport Plan was a statutory document, required under the Transport Act 2008. Oxfordshire County Council were calling the new Oxfordshire document the Local Transport and Connectivity Plan, to better reflect the Council’s strategy, both for digital infrastructure and for connecting the whole County. They had developed and consulted upon the LTCP in three stages. This process had allowed for ongoing public engagement at each stage of the project. We have therefore been able to refine proposals before final inclusion in the LTCP.

In support of the LTCP, officers had developed supporting strategies for freight and logistics, active and healthy travel and innovation. Those strategies built upon the high-level policies in the LTCP but provided more detail about the proposals and how they would be delivered. Those documents, as well as an Integrated Sustainability Appraisal, were shared alongside the LTCP and were also endorsed by cabinet for public consultation.  She emphasised that consultation would be online, face to face, through hard copies, and telephone conversations.

Melissa Goodacre set out in detail how the public consultation and engagement  would be undertaken as set out in paragraphs 7 to 15 of the report.  The Cabinet Member for Travel & Development Strategy, Duncan Enright, added that they would also be carrying out roadshows across the County.

During discussion, members made the following points:

•       Members queried whether there was a target for the consultation in terms of how many people they wanted to respond.

•       Members expressed the importance of including representative bodies in the consultation to ensure the ‘middle group’ of people were not missed and requested to see the definitive list of stakeholders that would be consulted.

•       Members expressed an interest in seeing how the plan would be changed as a result of the consultation.

•       Members felt that the number of empty boxes to give views provided in the consultation documents would not be helpful to officers trying to analyse opinions and that further questions should be added instead.  A suggestion was also made that a ‘for or against’ box be added to the questionnaire.

•       Greater attention needed to be given to providing explanations of jargon throughout the document to make sure it was inclusive.

•       Members felt that the consultation questions did not try to capture what people’s prioritisation of the issues were that the LTCP was trying to address.

•       Members suggested that open respondent boxes were needed to understand why people held a certain view.

•       Members queried where the references to “thriving economy” were throughout the questionnaire and suggested that the 3 visions should provide a ‘golden thread’ throughout the document.

•       Concern was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12/21

The purpose of this report is to advise Committee members in determining their work programme for the 2021/22 financial year.  The Committee held an informal session on the 4 November 2021 to discuss content of the work programme for 2021/22.  The report presents its findings.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to approve the work programme for the 2021/22 Financial year as detailed in paragraph 11 and 12 of the report.

Following an informal session on the 4 November 2021 held by the Committee to discuss the content of its work programme for 2021/22, the Committee had before it a report which presented the findings of the informal session and advised members in determining their work programme for the 2021/22 financial year.

A discussion took place on the work programme suggestions which had been received. Reference was made to the limited time available as the Committee only had four meetings and it was noted that Scrutiny Task and Finish Groups could work on scrutiny reviews and submit reports to the Committee with their findings.

The importance of Scrutiny having the opportunity to comment on Cabinet reports was discussed and Members noted that there was an opportunity for any Member of the Council to attend Cabinet and ask a relevant Cabinet Member a question.

Members requested that consideration be given to establishing a Member’s Hub to provide briefing notes, background papers etc.  Jodie Townsend reported that officers were currently looking at ways to disseminate information to members, including the possibility of using existing technology at the Council.

Following discussion, the Committee AGREED to add the following items to the work programme:

In addition to the items detailed above the Committee AGREED the establishment of two Scrutiny working groups as follows:

q   Carbon Reduction Targets: Member Group to provide performance overview of current targets and make suggestions for development of future targets, the membership of the group being as follows: Cllr Hicks, Cllr Povolotsky.

q   Transport Policy Development – Member Group to provide oversight of current and emerging transport policy development and consultation, the membership of the group being as follows: Cllr Hicks, Cllr Roberts, Cllr Levy, Cllr Baines and Cllr Mallon.

In addition to the items detailed above the Committee noted the following issues for future consideration:

·            Flooding

·            The Future of the High Street and Retail.

Following several requests, the Chair has suggested that the start time of the Committee moving forward is 10.00 am.

The Committee are RECOMMENED to agree that from 2 February 2022 the start time of the Committee will be 10.00 am.

The Committee had before it a proposal that from February 2022 the Committee Meeting start time be changed from 1.00 pm to 10.00 am as the permanent start time for the Committee moving forward.

RESOLVED: that from February 2022 the start time of the Committee Meetings will be 10.00 am.