Agenda and minutes

Venue: Swansley Room, Ground Floor

Contact: Victoria Wallace  03450 450 500 Email: democratic.services@scambs.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies

To receive apologies for absence from committee members. 

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Douglas de Lacey, Sarah Cheung Johnson, Peter Topping and Deborah Roberts who had hoped to attend the meeting as a substitute for Councillor de Lacey. Councillor Philip Allen was present as a substitute for Councillor Cheung Johnson and Councillor Graham Cone was present as a substitute for Councillor Topping.

2.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

In relation to agenda item 7 (Bourn Airfield Supplementary Planning Document), Councillors Grenville Chamberlain and Gavin Clayton both declared a non-pecuniary  interest as the local members representing the neighbouring wards of Hardwick and Cambourne. 

 

3.

Minutes of Previous Meeting pdf icon PDF 78 KB

To authorise the Chairman to sign the Minutes of the meeting held on 16 April 2019 as a correct record.

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on 16 April 2019 were agreed as a correct record of the meeting.

4.

Public Questions

Minutes:

There were no public questions.

5.

Strategic Risk Register pdf icon PDF 233 KB

Minutes:

The committee reviewed the draft Strategic Risk Register and made a number of comments and suggestions which officers agreed to incorporate. These included:

·         The committee felt that while some of the risk controls were clear and succinct, which the committee liked, some of the controls were aspirational.

·         Regarding IT risks, the committee requested the inclusion of reference to the Scrutiny ICT Working Group.

·         The committee pointed out reference being made to the names of officers who have left the organisation, and felt that it may be preferable to refer to role titles rather than names.

 

The committee felt that the document was a big improvement and agreed to note it.

 

6.

2018-19 Quarter 4 Performance Report pdf icon PDF 99 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The committee considered and noted the Quarter 4 Performance Report. Committee members requested a standard deviation and a scale on the graph be included in future reports.

 

The committee also raised concerns regarding the poor performance of the Customer Contact Centre.

 

7.

Bourn Airfield Supplementary Planning Document - Draft for Consultation pdf icon PDF 151 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Planning Policy Manager and Principal Planning Officer presented the draft Bourn Airfield Supplementary Planning Document and associated documents to be published for consultation, explaining the consultation and engagement process for this.

The Planning Policy Manager informed the committee of the following:

·         The SPD sought to achieve higher levels of sustainability and captured the Council’s ambition for zero net carbon by 2050.

·         The SPD’s green ambitions were explained, as was access and the importance of ensuring there would not be rat running through surrounding villages.

·         A junction enabling direct access from the A428 to Bourn Airfield was not being proposed and the reasons for this were explained. This was in accordance with the advice of Highways England that there was no strategic need for this.

·         The intention of the SPD was to be completely consistent with Local Plan policy and representatives from the local community had been engaged in its preparation.

·         A secondary school would be necessary and this would be located on the northern boundary of the site.

·         The aim was for public consultation to take place from 17 June until 29 July 2019, with three public exhibitions taking place in Bourn, Caldecote and Cambourne.

 

Des O’Brien representing Bourn Parish Council, addressed the committee and set out the parish council’s severe concerns regarding the dismissal of the option for direct access from Bourn Airfield onto the A428, and the impact that this would have on local roads and villages. He referred to the 2011 census which stipulated the population of Cambourne as 8186, of which 3371 travelled to work by car. In Autumn 2014 a traffic survey found that 3100 cars left Cambourne between 7.15 and 9.15am. It was likely that 9500 people would be living at Bourn Airfield, therefore once it was built out it was likely that 3500 cars would be travelling from Bourn Airfield, which would go onto local roads and compete with the existing Cambourne traffic. It was not felt that there had been a proper assessment of the traffic and that the developer’s traffic assessment hugely underestimated the numbers of cars.  Mr O’Brien suggested the committee suspended this process in order to look at the traffic. Mr O’Brien raised concern that the Cambourne to Cambridge busway was being presented as the solution to everything when it was not; despite the busway there would still be huge numbers of cars on the roads. Bourn was a village that could not sustain the levels of traffic that would come from Bourn Airfield and a new solution that properly addressed the problem was needed. He suggested that money was put into assessing having direct access to the A428 from Bourn Airfield and that options were looked at.

 

Councillor Tumi Hawkins also addressed the meeting as the local member representing Caldecote. She made the following points:

·         She echoed Bourn Parish Council’s concerns regarding the lack of direct access to the A428 and questioned the traffic modelling that had been used. Councillor Hawkins had raised this issue  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

8.

Scrutiny ICT Working Group update

Minutes:

The Vice Chairman of the committee provided a brief update on the ongoing work of ICT Working Group. The LGA had offered the Council 5 days of ICT support, the use of which would be discussed with the Head of ICT to ensure best value was achieved from this time.

 

The committee was informed that a meeting had taken place to work on resolving the issues with the Chamber microphone system and progress had been made in moving this forward.

9.

Work Programme pdf icon PDF 64 KB

For the committee to consider its work programme, which is attached with the Council’s draft Notice of forthcoming Key and Non Key Decisions. When considering items to add to its work programme, the committee is requested to use the attached Scrutiny Prioritisation Tool.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The committee noted its work programme.

10.

Monitoring the Executive

Scrutiny monitors are invited to report any updates or issues which may be of interest or relevance to the committee.

Minutes:

There were no updates.

11.

To Note the Dates of Future Meetings

To note that the next meeting will take place on Thursday 13 June 2019 at 5.20pm.

Minutes:

The next meeting would take place on Thursday 13 June 2019 at 5.20pm.