Agenda item

The Board considered a report of the Strategic Director, Environment and Economy which advised the Members of the progress that had been made during 2009/10 on implementing the capital programme of schemes to support the strategies and policies contained within Halton’s second Local Transport Plan (LTP2).

The Board was advised that in March 2006, Halton had submitted its second LTP to the Department for Transport (DfT) for approval. This covered the five year period from 2006/07 to 2010/11. 

The Board was further advised that the report summarised the programme of works and initiatives undertaken in 2009/10 and also described the progress that had been made against the performance indicators contained within LTP2.

It was reported that in Table 1 – the summary of the LTP Maintenance Expenditure 2009/10 had been £6.9m.  However, this had been as a result of a special £4m Silver Jubilee Bridge Grant and normal maintenance expenditure would be just over £2m.  In addition, the £1.8m 2009/10 Integrated Transport Expenditure had been reduced and was now only £1.3m and would impact on what could be achieved in LTP2.  The reduction in funding would also impact on what Performance Indicators and what could be achieved in respect of targets. 

It was noted that the feasibility work on car parking in the Borough had been completed and there had been a number of conclusions in respect of applying for civil parking enforcement powers.  It had shown that in order for such a scheme to be cost effective it would need to be self financing and there would need to be charging introduced on car parks and some on street locations.  Before this could be undertaken however, the Authority would have to review every restriction in the Borough at a cost of approximately £50,000.  In the present economic climate, the Authority were not in a position to fund such a review.  Members had also indicated that they did not wish to introduce car parking charges as it would significantly impact on the success of any regeneration of the Borough.  A report detailing the feasibility study and the conclusions would be presented to a future meeting of the Board.

It was also noted that the Authority were working towards establishing a parking partnership with local businesses to develop a set of principles/restrictions to standardise car parking facilities in the Borough.

Members of the Board welcomed the future report and that the conclusions had supported the continued Members view that car parking charges should not be introduced in the Borough. 

Clarity was sought on whether the Government charged every Authority who had car parks on the assumption that they were obtaining money from charges.  In response, it was reported clarity would be sought on this matter and circulated to Members of the Board.

In respect of Page 63 – target 1.5 – a Member of the Board requested clarity on how many of the 580 park and ride spaces were at Runcorn Mainline Station?  how many were in use on a typical weekday?  and how many monthly parking tickets had been sold?  In response it was reported that there were 558 car parking spaces. However, as this was owned by Virgin Rail, Officers were unable to provide the information on the usage and how many tickets had been sold.  It was reported that this information would be requested from Virgin Rail and when available would be sent to the Member directly.

It was suggested that de-linking would probably resolve the problems on Holloway but as this was not in the near future clarity was sought on whether there were any alternative solutions to help the residents in that area.  In response it was reported that any enforcement powers would need to be self sufficient and that the Police Community Support Officers (PCSO’s) had the powers to give out Fixed Penalty Notices but chose not to and this could help address this problem.  Numerous letters had also been sent to the Police to request that PCSO’s issued fixed penalty notices in this area but to date no response had been received.  It was suggested that PCSO’s could only issue advice notices and it was reported that clarity on this matter would be sought and circulated to Members of the Board,

RESOLVED: That the progress made during 2009/10 and comments made be noted.