Agenda item

This Council meeting will be held virtually in order to conform with current guidelines regarding social distancing. Normally requests to speak at this public meeting are required by 9 am on the day preceding the published date of the meeting. However, during the current situation and to facilitate these new arrangements we are asking that requests to speak are submitted by no later than 9am four working days before the meeting i.e. 9 am on 17 March 2021. Requests to speak should be sent to Deborah.miller@oxfordshire.gov.uk together with a written statement of your presentation to ensure that if the technology fails then your views can still be taken into account. A written copy of your statement can be provided no later than 9 am 2 working days before the meeting.

 

Where a meeting is held virtually and the addressee is unable to participate virtually their written submission will be accepted.

 

Written submissions should be no longer than 1 A4 sheet.

 

Council received the following Petitions and Public Address:

 

Petitions

 

Mr Mark Hull, presented a petition asking the Leader of Oxfordshire County Council to write to the Chair of Thames Water asking Thames Water to:

1.       notify all relevant authorities of the locations where untreated sewage was expected to be released, in time for them to warn river users of the possible presence of human waste in the river.

2.       commit to installing before 2030 sufficient treatment capacity for the needs expected then in all waters receiving Thames Water’s wastewaters, so that all untreated sewage discharges cease by 2030.

3.       support Oxford City Council's request that a location on the river Thames

in Oxford receive Designated Bathing Water Status.

 

Mr Ruff presented a Petition requesting that Oxfordshire County Council give urgent and independent consideration to the following schemes to improve residents’ parking, reduce traffic speeds, and make roads safer for residents, pedestrians, and cyclists. For the avoidance of doubt, there should be proper public consultation with residents on the design and timing of all schemes and Council officers should proceed with them as quickly as possible:

 

Residents’ parking schemes:

1. Residents’ parking schemes introduced – urgently – for the following roads (in alphabetical order) where properties do not already benefit from off-road parking: Beargarden Road Berrymoor Road Broughton Road Crouch Street Gilkes Yard Hornbeam Close Westbeech Court West Bar Street.

 

No cut-throughs, traffic calming, and active travel alternatives:

2. Safety measures at the Broughton-Bath Road junction to slow traffic and improve visibility, together with improved pedestrian crossings on West Bar Street for students and staff at Banbury College, and visitors to our GPs’ and vets’ surgeries;

3. The introduction of safer, segregated cycle ways across Banbury town centre with a view to better connecting residents to the town centre and train station; and

4. A 20 mph zone from Banbury Cross to Queensway including Bath Road, Beargarden Road, West Bar Street, Broughton Road, and Crouch Street to ensure greater safety for pedestrians and cyclists;

5. Re-routing bus services to avoid Bath Road given the easy access of bus stops on the Broughton and Warwick Roads already;

6. No cut-through restrictions and/or a properly planned one-way system on Bath Road and Crouch Street to end rat-running without disadvantaging residents;

7. Consideration of relocating any new residents’ parking spaces on Beargarden Road to the opposite side to improve visibility for pedestrians and motorists.

 

 

 

Ms Lidia Arciszewska presented a petition of some 400 signatures requesting

 to reduce the speed limit, exclude aggregate lorry traffic and facilitate cycling on Lower Road, Long Hanborough.

 

Mr Charlie Maynard presented a Petition requesting that the Council commits to a feasibility study to define and protect a rail route along the A40 from Wolvercote junction to Witney, for this work to be completed by 2021 year-end and be included in the fifth Local Transport Plan. Additionally, if the application for a £50,000 grant from the DFT’s Restoring Your Railways Ideas Fund was successful, they requested that the Council committed to providing £8,000 of the £16,667 of match-funding required to fund preparation of a Strategic Outline Business Case.

 

Public Address

 

Mr Jamie Hartzell spoke in support of the Motion by Councillor Susanna Pressel.  He urged the Council to introduce the workplace parking levy in Jericho and Walton Manor, in order that there was the money to pay for the transport system that they needed and wanted – a system that reduced the attractiveness of commuting by car, and brought less congestion; less carbon emissions, less air pollution; safer streets; and an adequate, affordable public transport system so people could still easily get around - by bus, train, foot and bicycle.  

 

He believed that the main employers in the area, Oxford University and Oxford University Press were already sympathetic to the workplace parking levy, and therefore should not prove hard to introduce.

 

Mr David Dickie spoke on behalf of ‘Clean Air for Henley’ in support of the Motion by Councillor Stefan Gawrysiak.  He explained that Henley had become an Air Quality Management Area in 2003, and that 18 years later, it still suffered from Nitrogen Dioxide exceedances of the 40 micrograms per cubic metre legal limit. The latest severe example of this was the limit was exceeded 18 days out of the first 22 in December 2020 despite being in Covid times.

 

In August 2020 Henley had installed a particulate monitor to measure carbon particles mainly given off by diesel engines. New emerging medical research in many areas of the body showed that, as carbon particulates could not dissolve in the body, they were capable of inflicting even more damage to our health than NOx. The unreviewed particulate results indicated Henley was not meeting WHO guidelines.  It had been acknowledged since 2003 that Henley’s air pollution was almost entirely down to traffic. They were therefore very dependent on Oxfordshire County Council making decisions on traffic control. The 20-mph zone in Henley was a step in the right direction. Announcements in Bath and Oxford on eliminating high polluting vehicle were more substantial and welcome. For the sake of the lungs of the young children of Henley, he urged Council to pass the HGV restriction motion.

 

 

 

Ms Amanda Chumas spoke in support of the Motion by Councillor Stefan Gawrysiak. She referred to the substantial increase in the number of commercial vehicles using the road and particularly a dramatic increase in the number of HGVs. Because of their length, 13.6m (excluding the cab), the 44 tonners could not turn into New Street without swinging wide into the lane of oncoming traffic before turning – thereby bringing everything to a standstill.

 

The aggregate trucks, although not as long are very heavy when laden. They invariably flout the 20-mph speed limit and take the corner at speed, often with wheels clipping or riding over the pavement.  As a consequence, the tarmac surface of the road on that corner is literally rutted with grooves that successive HGV wheels have made and the kerbstones and pavement are gouged and broken making it dangerous for pedestrians who cross at this point as it was a blind corner. The narrow pavements outside the Bull and Toy shop in Bell Street and in Thameside and the narrow foot path (strictly single file only) over the bridge were all equally dangerous.

 

motivated by section 1 (1) Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, she started a Campaign to prevent HGVs using Henley purely as a river crossing. Such trucks should be mandated to stay on the SRN. The Campaign’s petition had attracted  2375 signatures online and another 390 had signed a hardcopy. In addition, they had built up a body of enthusiastic volunteers and a Campaign Organisation and were committed to see this through. She urged Council to support the resolution, so that they could start the necessary studies and initiate the TRO.

Mr Jamie Clarke, Parent at St Ebbes School, Oxford spoke in support of the Motion by Councillor Damian Haywood.  He welcomed that Oxfordshire County Council had embraced the idea of School Streets and encouraged a modal shift amongst school kids to walk and cycle to school. However, with just six schemes planned for the County as a whole (far less than the of the 48 schemes planned in Hackney, 12 in Birmingham and 14 in Calderdale) it was clear that without a clear time based plan with appropriate personnel capacity and budget to roll out further schemes, most children in Oxfordshire would continue to go without the benefits of a school street. They would instead continue to be subjected to dirty congested streets outside their school and having to dodge cars doing dangerous manoeuvres on a daily basis. He felt that Councillor Haywood’s motion would change this by ensuring council officers had the time and resourcing to deliver a much needed second wave of Schools Streets.

As the County Council itself recognised, the implementation of School Streets had never been more relevant, as it was known that School Streets worked and were popular. Their success had been independently verified by academic research by Edinburgh Napier University, which found in a 16 school study that School Streets resulted in a reduction in the number of motor vehicles, an increased use of active travel and improved road safety in areas with a school street.

Also, significantly, parents wanted them. In South Oxford where he lived  the problems were acute. In a survey of local parents at St Ebbe’s Primary School, 63% of parents supported a School Street with only 20% opposed. A similar survey at New Hinksey Primary School saw 86% support for the introduction of a scheme. They had however struggled to get a School Streets scheme set up over the last year, there simply hadn’t been the staffing or resources to make it happen despite lots of school and parent willingness to support the schemes rollout. He urged Council to support the motion to turn the positive words into amazing actions for the children of Oxfordshire.

Ms April Jones, Parent at New Hinksey School spoke in support of the Motion by Councillor Damian Haywood.  She had children at New Hinksey Primary School for 6 years. In that time, the school had been constantly trying to persuade parents not to drive right up to the school at drop off and pick up times. The school was on a narrow no through road, where manoeuvring was difficult and dangerous. Requests came regularly in the school newsletter, and governors had on occasion resorted to standing in the street in hi vis jackets and turning cars back. 

 

Most parents who felt they had to drive complied cheerfully, and parked in the neighbourhood, walking the rest of the way. But even now, when social distancing requirements made cars around school even more dangerous, there were some people who continued to drive right up to the gates. She was unable to see them changing their behaviour without the formal structure of an official School Streets scheme. This was what the school needed to achieve safe surrounding streets - staff and governors did not have the time or resources to continually enforce it themselves.

 

She urged the Council to support the motion so that they could move away from being a car-based society to ensure the safety of children and protect them from dangerous traffic, air pollution, and from unhealthy inactive lifestyles.

 

Mr Tony Fox, local resident spoke in support of the Motion by Councillor Stefan Gawrysiak.  He referred to the volume of HGV traffic and the noise, pollution and infrastructure-damaging vibration that emanated from the juggernauts in Henley, and the danger and inconvenience that pedestrians were subjected to He further referred to the narrow pavements which made pedestrians feel vulnerable walking along with trucks passing within inches. He had sent more than 150 photographs to OCC over the last couple of months) which indicated how trucks had to mount pavements in order to negotiate streets that were totally unsuited to this form of transport. He had also included a map obtained from the OCC’s own Freight Quality Partnership Lorry Route Map (produced in 2005 in collaboration with Halcrow) which clearly showed Henley as a town, ..“unsuitable for through lorry traffic”. On the same map “Lorry Routes for Through Traffic Movements” (A40, M40, M4, A34 and A404) were clearly marked along with “Routes for Local Access only” (including A4130 and A4074).

 

Comparisons had been drawn between Henley and the problems experienced by towns such as Burford where vehicle weight limits had led to increases in traffic in other villages by what is referred to as ‘displacement’. This would not be the case if a similar ban were introduced for Henley. In fact, the smaller villages on the routes around Henley would benefit because the only reason for many of the HGVs to pass through them is to get to the Thames crossing. 44 Tonne long distance freight trucks and heavy aggregate trucks should be mandated to stay on the SRN which was built to take them.  He urged the Council to support the Motion.