Agenda item

To consider the attached report.

The Executive Board:

 

(a)        NOTED the findings in the initial consultation report.

 

(b)        AGREED to take forward for further design work the initial ideas included in the ‘Do Maximum’ option, excluding the idea of banning the right turn into Warwick Road and the idea of ‘floating’ bus stops, to develop two preferred design options, one including and one excluding the changes at the Victoria Road junction’.

 

(c)        NOTED the further technical work that would be undertaken over the summer period to develop a preferred option layout for further consultation.

 

(d)        SUPPORTED the development of traffic management measures to mitigate displaced traffic and parking for the purposes of further consultation.

 

(e)        DELEGATED authority to the Executive Director of Economy, Transport and Environment at Cambridgeshire County Council, in consultation with the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Executive Board, to approve further consultation for a preferred option scheme.

 

(f)         NOTED the procurement plan for project delivery, the revised project programme and the consultation plan set out in the report.

 

(g)        INSTRUCTED officers to ensure that the preferred option design for consultation includes details of proposed landscape areas and tree planting as set out in the report.

 

(h)        NOTED the important role of the Local Liaison Forum in involving local Councillors and stakeholder groups in the development of the detailed layout plans for consultation.

 

Councillor Lewis Herbert, Chairman of the Executive Board, opened the item by inviting those members of the public or local Members who had given notice to put forward questions to the Board.  Questions were grouped together based on their subject and were therefore asked and answered, as follows:

 

Question by Edward Leigh

 

Edward Leigh reflected on recent references to a report by Greener Journeys which claimed that experience from schemes around the country showed that bus lanes may reduce bus travel times by seven to nine minutes along a 10km congested route and also improve their reliability.  He said that this equated to an average saving of less than one minute per kilometre of bus lane and asked whether that really represented value for money or constituted a step change in the attractiveness of bus travel.  He also referred to conclusions from a Transport Research Laboratory paper in support of bus lanes that bus journey times had been decreased by two minutes, but that no consistent results regarding patronage were obtained.  Another quote, from Mott MacDonald’s report said that, after bus lanes were suspended in Liverpool for nine months, evidence showed that these bus lanes were generally only providing minor benefits to bus journey times and that whilst reliability was adversely affected in some cases, more significant bus delay and unreliability was typically the result of other factors.  Mr Leigh said that for better bus journeys, once the city had been de-congested, two areas would need addressing.  These were access to bus services and ease of interchanging.  He therefore asked the Board whether it would reject the officer recommendation to rush ahead with bus lane schemes for Histon Road and Milton Road.

 

Question by Councillor Damian Tunnicliffe

 

Councillor Damian Tunnicliffe asked how it was possible, since the impact of the proposed congestion package had not yet been assessed in respect of the impact on journey times for these streets, to conclude that these schemes were essential.

 

Question by Lynn Hieatt

 

Lynn Hieatt felt that people’s views were not being listened to and that the research and work done by residents and experts over the past years, for free and in their own time, in proposing workable, sustainable and more imaginative alternatives to bus lanes had been largely ignored.  She said that people again wanted to know why all the other, better, ideas for spending tranche one money were being overlooked in favour of bus lanes.

 

Bob Menzies, Director of Strategy and Development at Cambridgeshire County Council, in response to these questions, said that the most important factor influencing patronage of buses was that buses themselves were stuck in traffic.  Unless buses were freed up from congestion people would not use them as they were unreliable.  Mr Menzies cited the guided busway as a good example of where bus lanes could be effective, reporting that it continued to be reliable and had met all of its targets in respect of patronage.  He added that evidence was very strong to support the use of bus lanes, in the right locations. 

 

Mr Menzies said that alternatives had been investigated, but none of the alternatives had the same benefits as those that could be realised by those options set out in the report.  He accepted that the journey time savings appeared relatively small, but said that three minutes on a corridor such as this in the city was a substantial saving and should be considered in terms of a three minute saving per passenger on every journey, equating to a considerable amount of time saved.  The cumulative package would ensure that the network kept moving, making reliability of services the key benefit to impact patronage.  Mr Menzies was confident that if the right infrastructure and service was in place it would attract patronage, with the guided busway being an example supporting that statement.

 

Councillor Lewis Herbert, Chairman of the Executive Board, made the point that these schemes did not necessarily rely on bus lanes, but that of bus priority through junctions which would enable buses to flow through the network.  He reiterated that the key issue for public transport was reliability and confirmed that if improvements were put in place the bus operators had indicated that they would run more bus services, including express services coming through the radial routes.

 

Question by Gerry Rose

 

Gerry Rose referred to data files relating to the Histon Road and Milton Road consultations which he said had eventually been put on the City Deal website a few hours before the Joint Assembly meeting earlier in the month, stating that unredacted versions of the files had been available to the City Deal team for nearly three months.  He was concerned that submissions had been provided in 19 PDF documents and were in a non-searchable format.  He therefore questioned how officers were able to extract meaningful information and how submissions were properly analysed and taken into account. 

 

Question by Alison Murray

 

Alison Murray asked, given the overwhelmingly negative response from the public to proposals and the limited benefits to be realised, why no steps were being taken to consider alternative proposals to the Do Something and Do Maximum options, stating that they were not the only options.

 

Question by Jane Kroese

 

Jane Kroese referred to the climate change and environmental heading of the implications section of the report, referring to a short statement under that heading.  She felt that this seemed a short and insufficient statement regarding environmental issues in light of the size of the project and asked whether there was a plan to undertake a full Environmental Impact Assessment and publish an Environmental Statement to cover both the construction and operational phases of the project.

 

Stuart Walmsley, Head of Major Infrastructure Delivery at Cambridgeshire County Council, in response to these questions, firstly referred to the consultation process and said that the volume of responses for these two schemes had been a significant issue to manage and it had taken longer than anticipated to properly analyse and consider each response.  A breakdown of themes had been produced which had developed from the representations received.  He gave an additional assurance that all comments received as part of the process were taken very seriously and made the point that changes had already been made as a result of submissions made.  Mr Walmsley explained that some of the information contained in responses included personal or sensitive information which officers had a duty to ensure was protected and not placed in the public domain, stating that this had taken a sufficient amount of time.  It was agreed that officers would take away the point in relation to the non-searchable format of PDF files uploaded onto the website and provide a written response to Mr Rose.   

 

In terms of Environmental Impact Assessments and an Environmental Statement, Mr Walmsley confirmed that, due to the size and scale of both this scheme and the Milton Road Scheme, an Environmental Impact Assessment or Environmental Statement was not a requirement.  He stated, however, that as part of both schemes an important aspect would be public realm and how this could be improved, seeking to mitigate both corridors in terms of green infrastructure.  Mr Menzies highlighted that the County Council’s overarching Transport Strategy, which the Histon Road and Milton Road schemes were included as part of, had itself undergone an Environmental Impact Assessment. 

 

Question by Lilian Rundbland

 

Lilian Rundbland’s question related to the Citi8 bus along the Cambridge Histon Road as well as the villages north of the A14.  She said that residents had expressed a request in the consultation that the Guided Bus, as promised in the early stages, should make one stop along Histon Road.  However, in Figure 1 of the report she felt that the plan clearly showed that the Guided Bus would cross Histon Road and continue into Darwin Green towards Huntingdon Road, suggesting that there would be no improvement as a result for local residents.  She therefore asked what action the City Deal Board would take to live up to the transport vision of the City Deal project, in terms of connecting people and places for the residents along Histon Road.

 

Question by Sean Martin

 

Sean Martin’s question related to the proposal to stop cars turning between Histon Road and Victoria Road in both directions at the junction between these two roads.  He felt that such a restriction would have a major impact on residents and businesses on both sides of Victoria Road.  He set out a number of observations he had made in respect of this proposal, including safety concerns from the perspective of cyclists, delays in journey times for buses particularly in the morning rush hour, the fact that only 6% of traffic along Histon Road in the morning rush hour turned left into Victoria Road and that the current junction could be improved by much better co-ordination between the two sets of traffic lights.  He said that these observations were made over several days in the morning rush hour at this junction and asked what plans the City Deal had on this specific point.

 

Mr Menzies clarified that the proposal illustrated in Figure 1 of the report represented additional bus services and not an extension of the Guided Busway.  

 

Mr Walmsley said that the Victoria Road junction was very complex and conceded that it would take some time to develop a workable solution.  He was looking at the possibility of modelling the junction with or without closures but said that it would remain a signal junction, making the point that the scheme would include benefits to cyclists.

 

Councillor John Hipkin, local ward Member from Cambridge City Council, said that the effect of diversions resulting from any banned turns or any other such changes to the road needed to be very closely studied, adding that the closure of Histon Road to traffic coming from Victoria Road was very controversial. 

 

Councillor Roger Hickford, Chairman of the Joint Assembly, reported that the Assembly had considered this item at its meeting on 2 June 2016.  It was noted that the Joint Assembly had expressed concerns regarding the relatively small saving in journey times that was anticipated to be made as a result of progressing with the scheme.  An amendment was also debated for the draft consultation document on further options to come back to the Joint Assembly and Executive Board for consideration.  The amendment was lost as it was noted that this would add at least six weeks onto the project and the majority of Assembly Members felt that the scheme had sufficient consultation planned for the next stages of the process.

 

Councillor Hickford therefore confirmed that the officer recommendations contained in the report, and an addendum that had been circulated at the meeting, were supported by the Joint Assembly.

 

Mr Walmsley, in presenting the report, set out the objectives for the Histon Road and Milton Road schemes which consisted of:

 

·         comprehensive priority for buses in both directions wherever practical;

·         additional capacity for sustainable trips to employment and education sites;

·         increased bus patronage and new services;

·         safer and more convenient routes for cycling and walking, segregated where practical and possible;

·         maintain or reduce the general traffic levels;

·         enhance the environment, streetscape and air quality.

 

Further to the consultation exercise for both schemes, Mr Walmsley confirmed that the following had been highlighted as key issues resulting from the consultation on initial ideas:

 

·         concerns over the impact of banned turns and restricted access in respect of Victoria Road, Warwick Road, Gilbert Road, Arbury Road, Union Lane and King’s Hedges Road;

·         concerns over increased traffic lanes, impact on green landscaping and difficulty in crossing wider roads;

·         concerns that ideas for cycling improvements did not suit all cyclists;

·         impact of junction changes in respect of Union Lane, Elizabeth Way and Victoria Road;

·         role of Mitcham’s Corner in the Milton Road project.

 

In respect of Mitcham’s Corner, Mr Walmsley explained that this had not been included in the Tranche 1 programme.  He acknowledged, however, that there were benefits that could be achieved in respect of public realm so officers were working with the City Council to develop how it could be improved.  Mitcham’s Corner would be considered for inclusion in the City Deal’s Tranche 2 programme by the Executive Board in due course. 

 

Members were referred to an addendum that had been circulated at the meeting of the Joint Assembly which took into account the results of additional data that had become available.  This set out a revised recommendation (b) to that set out in the report, as follows:

 

‘Agree to take forward for further design work the initial ideas included in the ‘Do Maximum’ option, excluding the idea of banning the right turn into Warwick Road and the idea of ‘floating’ bus stops, to develop two preferred design options, one including and one excluding the changes at the Victoria Road junction.’

 

Councillor Bates proposed two additional paragraphs to the officer recommendations, as follows:

 

‘(g)       the Executive Board instructs officers to ensure that the preferred option design for consultation includes details of proposed landscape areas and tree planting as set out in the report.’

 

‘(h)       the Executive Board notes the important role of the Local Liaison Forum in involving local Councillors and stakeholder groups in the development of the detailed layout plans for consultation.’

 

Discussion ensued on the Local Liaison Forum that would be established in respect of the Histon Road and Milton Road schemes.  Mr Menzies reminded the Board that meetings of the Local Liaison Forums were open to the public, with the terms of reference set by local elected Members from the County Council and City Council, who would also determine which stakeholders were appointed and who would be entitled to speak at meetings.  It had been originally proposed to establish one Forum for both schemes, since it was felt that the areas impacted by both schemes would be represented by the same local elected Members.  However, the Board was of the view that these schemes affected two different communities and therefore supported the establishment of two separate Local Liaison Forums, one for each scheme.

 

Councillor Herbert made the point that Local Liaison Forums were not decision-making bodies and asked whether the issues that had been raised at this meeting by public questioners, such as segregated cycleways and concerns with the public realm for example, would be picked up.  Mr Menzies confirmed that one of the Local Liaison Forum’s key roles was engagement with the community and he fully expected the issues put forward to be raised and discussed in more detail at Local Liaison Forum meetings. 

 

Supporting the above amendments to the officer recommendations contained within the report, the Executive Board unanimously:

 

(a)        NOTED the findings in the initial consultation report.

 

(b)        AGREED to take forward for further design work the initial ideas included in the ‘Do Maximum’ option, excluding the idea of banning the right turn into Warwick Road and the idea of ‘floating’ bus stops, to develop two preferred design options, one including and one excluding the changes at the Victoria Road junction’.

 

(c)        NOTED the further technical work that would be undertaken over the summer period to develop a preferred option layout for further consultation.

 

(d)        SUPPORTED the development of traffic management measures to mitigate displaced traffic and parking for the purposes of further consultation.

 

(e)        DELEGATED authority to the Executive Director of Economy, Transport and Environment at Cambridgeshire County Council, in consultation with the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Executive Board, to approve further consultation for a preferred option scheme.

 

(f)        NOTED the procurement plan for project delivery, the revised project programme and the consultation plan set out in the report.

 

(g)        INSTRUCTED officers to ensure that the preferred option design for consultation includes details of proposed landscape areas and tree planting as set out in the report.

 

(h)        NOTED the important role of the Local Liaison Forum in involving local Councillors and stakeholder groups in the development of the detailed layout plans for consultation.