Agenda and minutes

Scrutiny Inquiry Panel - Air Quality - Thursday, 20th November, 2014 4.30 pm

Venue: Committee Room 1 - Civic Centre. View directions

Items
No. Item

14.

Apologies and Changes in Panel Membership (If Any)

To note any changes in membership of the Panel made in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 4.3.

Minutes:

It was noted the Councillor Lloyd had now permanently replaced Councillor Thorpe as a member of the Panel.  This change had been report at the Council Meeting on 19th November, 2014.

15.

Minutes of the Previous Meeting (including matters arising) pdf icon PDF 46 KB

To approve and sign as a correct record the Minutes of the meetings held on 20th November, 2014 and to deal with any matters arising, attached.

Minutes:

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 23rd October, 2014 be approved and signed as a correct record.

16.

Air Quality - Southampton City Council pdf icon PDF 35 KB

Report of the Assistant Chief Executive looking at how effectively the Council is working collectively to address air quality issues in Southampton, attached.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Panel considered the report of the Assistant Chief Executive relating to how effectively the Council was working to address air quality issues in the City.

 

Neil Tuck gave a power point presentation giving details of the Local Sustainable Transport Fund, appended to the minutes.

 

The following responses were given to questions raised:-

·  The funding ends March 2016, and following a period to assess, it was hoped that it would be possible to see if the objectives had been achieved by 2017.

·  It was explained that the travel attitude survey targeted groups through “Mosaic”, which through technology ensured that there was an equal proportion of each group questioned.

·  It was commented that there needed to be more done to target the tourists that were visiting the City.  The “totems” were used at the coach and train station together with the airport.  At certain times of year there were also poster campaigns.

·  Concerns were raised relating to the “My Journey” app being very sensitive to the spelling.  This would cause a greater problem for people visiting the City that may not be familiar with place names or spellings.  They were currently looking at refining the search engine in order to try to improve this.

·  Information relating to the take-up of the free months travel, for target groups of young people entering employment, was not currently available as the resource restraints were causing difficulties accessing the data.

·  The was a mechanism in place to ensure dialogue took place with the University to ensure that they have appropriate travel plan in place and that they were targeting investment in this area.  A concern was raised relating the University not enforcing their own rule of students not being allowed to have vehicles.

·  It was agreed that for some people moving away from travelling by car was not an option, due to the type of work they had.  However for such groups there was always the option of looking at whether alternative travel could be used during their leisure time.

·  There was a team dedicated to school journeys and this had resulted in a large increase in the number of children walking to school.

·  There was a great amount of support for the Sky Ride event, however concern was raised about the safety of the roads for cyclists during normal usage.  It was agreed that work was still needed to make the City’s roads safer.  Additional local Sky Ride events also took place across the City.

  • The My Journey “Roadshow” attends many major City events to promote cycling.  Babs the Big Red Bird would be at such events.
  • Concerns relating to some advertising slogans being inappropriate had been noted.  It was agreed that there was a need for something eye catching but it was important that it did not cause offence.

 

Steve Guppy gave a power point presentation on Ultra Low Emissions, appended to the minutes.  Steve explained the government plan to reach ultra-low emission vehicle majority by 2050 and have announced £35M to be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.