Any county councillor may, by giving notice to the Proper Officer by 9 am two working days 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.
Minutes:
Councillor Nick Hards had given notice of the following questions:
“Would the Cabinet Member for the Environment please supply an update on the progress with regard to the civil enforcement of parking across the county? I am particularly interested in South Oxfordshire but would also appreciate having this information for Cherwell, Vale of White Horse and West Oxfordshire Districts.”
The Cabinet Member for Environment replied:
“West Oxfordshire adopted Civil Parking Enforcement (CPE) in 2010. CPE requires both on street and off street parking to be included and therefore the County are required to work with the District Councils to implement a solution. South Oxfordshire have recently expressed a strong interest in also adopting Civil Parking Enforcement and Vale of White Horse and Cherwell District councils have subsequently expressed an informal interest in pursuing CPE depending on a proposal demonstrating that there is a business case to do so. The Council’s previous modelling of CPE has demonstrated that it would make a significant loss. WODC currently report a loss of approximately £250k per year which would substantiate the accuracy of previous modelling. There would be a significant saving in implementing and operating CPE across all 3 districts at the same time and therefore the Council officers from each authority are working closely to develop a proposal to bring to each authorities respective Cabinets later this year. The process for implementing CPE is quite lengthy and as such would take approximately 9-12 months following endorsement from each authority to formally introduce enforcement.”
Councillor Hards
“Is Oxfordshire County Council willing to consider residents’ parking schemes in South Oxfordshire? In the absence of a scheme, my predecessor arranged for a section of Station Road Didcot to be made No Entry Except for Access, but this arrangement is proving ineffective and is causing conflict, with residents being abused by people who flout the restriction and insist on parking all day while they go to work.”
The Cabinet Member for Environment replied:
“The County has previously stated that it would not seek to extend residents’ parking schemes to areas without Civil Parking Enforcement as without regular enforcement they typically prove to be ineffective and do not met the expectations of householders. Parking Enforcement is understandably not a high priority for the police who currently enforce within South Oxfordshire.
The exception has been areas close to Town Centres where very small schemes have been implemented to manage on street, limited time, pay & display parking to support the retail centres for which residents can purchase a permit. The Council has adopted limited powers to enforce these pay & display zones. Such schemes tend to only be effective where a turnover of parking takes place to balance the needs of residents and other parking and is therefore unlikely to be suited to the situation that Cllr Hards refers.
The County would therefore consider residents’ parking zones following implementation of CPE, but as is the case in Oxford would expect such schemes to be self-financing.”
The Cabinet Member asked officers to respond to Councillor Hards to confirm whether or not an undertaking which some local residents had said had been given by Thames Valley to monitor this issue had in fact been given.