Agenda item

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 expressed about the methodology of phrases like “partially support” etc. being used and would welcome work to understand what responses meant as ‘partially oppose’ could be people who didn’t like the proposal or didn’t think it went far enough.

•       Members suggested grading to see what priorities were rather than just binary support/oppose  and expressed concern that the consultation only asked what people thought at the moment but did not explain what the benefits were of implementing policies.

•       Members queried whether representative polling or weighting could be used and whether the consultation and engagement team had considered sampling bias, and queried whether Let’s Talk Oxfordshire could do things to counteract this?

•       Members suggested more could be done around participatory democracy.

•       Concern was expressed that the consultation literature was not set out in layman’s terms.

•       Members suggested that the questionnaire should be more vision based asking people what they want and then formulating policies to reflect this.

•       Members questioned whether there were any user experience designers at the Council and whether there was anyone that understood representative polling/sampling.

•       Members felt that there was a need for behavioural change but that the option of promoting this did not present in the questionnaire.

•       In relation to  page 76 question 6, ‘PM57’ was mentioned, members queried what this was.

•       A suggestion was made that a 1-10 scale was more effective.

•       Members queried whether officers were aware if there was a drop in participation from other consultations.

•       Members felt that zero-carbon movement and zero-tailpipe emission in the freight strategy was old fashioned term.

•       Members felt that there needed to be a more holistic overview and that it needed to reflect the people we are trying to reach.

•       Further consideration needed to be given to the language used throughout the documentation and how things were explained .

•       Members requested that the Innovation Framework be brought to the Scrutiny Committee at a later date.

•       It was noted that the questionnaire only asked what district people were from and did not ask if people are from rural / urban areas.

•       Members queried whether all protected characteristics in the Equalities Act 2010 were covered.

•       Concern was expressed about how many people would complete the whole questionnaire and whether there was any way to filter the questionnaire so that key issues were captured.

Councillor Enright thanked the Committee for their input and undertook to work with consultation and engagement colleagues to refine the questionnaire and highlighted how in-person engagement could help.