Parish Council - Meetings minutes

10 December 2009 - 8pm

HIGHWAYS & TRANSPORTATION

COMMITTEE

8.00 p.m. on 10 December 2009

Village Hall Committee Room

Minutes

Present: Councillors - Ken Huddart (Chairman), David Parks, Geoff Herbert, Anthony Sheppard, Jimmy Cartwright

Co-opted members-

In attendance: Parish Clerk- Freda Collins

Cllr Mike Bennison

1 member of the public

1. Apologies for absence

Brian Rhodes

Caroline Stevenson

These were accepted.

2. Declarations of Interest in items on the Agenda

Cllr Parks declared that he is a Governor of Claygate Primary School.

Cllr Cartwright declared that he is a Borough Councillor.

3. Constitution of the Committee

Nick Hayes has been co-opted on the Council, but has joined the Environment Committee at the request of the Council.

4. Minutes of the last Meeting

The minutes of the previous meeting on the 29 Oct 2009 have been circulated.

It was agreed that the words ‘hopefully in November-January 2010’ should be added after ‘parking review’ on line 9 of Item 5 AP14. They were then agreed and signed.

5. To report on the actioning of items from previous minutes.

AP12. Street lighting maintenance. Anthony Sheppard provided Cllr Margaret Hicks with a list of problems, and she was then briefed by East Surrey Highways officer Andy Rogers. Unfortunately the briefing was too optimistic, and Cllr Huddart had to email Margaret Hicks with up-to-date information.

AP17. Foley Road, footpaths and trees. See report below, Section 7.

AP18. Woodstock lane, brick thrown at cyclist. Geoff Herbert reported this to Police.

AP19. Foley Road on website – awaiting launch of consultation, see Section 7.

6. Public Transport

a. Bus shelters, Routes & Bus Stops, in particular Surrey County Council review of the subsidised bus network.

SCC has money for bus shelters. Cllr Steve Wells wanted to know if we should resurrect our interest in shelters at St Leonards Road and Common Road.

At St. Leonards Road (youth club), the Highway Garden Site has been refurbished without the bus shelter, incorporating a large concrete slab and extra planting. It was noted that we did wait some time before carrying out the restoration of this bed as EBC may have funded a shelter. It was agreed that we neither want to disturb the new bed nor to encourage youths to hang around this area under the shelter.

At Common Road, there is frontager opposition, so it was agreed not to proceed here either.

Cllr Huddart attended SCC Passenger Transport Forum and circulated the following report.

Some 60 people attended this presentation in Woking. It dealt with the need to shrink the passenger transport (primarily buses) procured by Surrey C.C. It followed closely the Cabinet paper (item 9 of 29 Sep 09, which I have). This is to produce a saving of £2.22m pa, out of the currently increasing subsidy of £11.02m pa net. Two-thirds of the saving is to come from the main network, and the rest from school transport provision.

The “do nothing” approach was said to be unaffordable and would lead to haphazard service reductions. Systematic removal of least economic routes would leave important gaps in service, and making small changes to help the least effective services would give insufficient savings. Hence a redesign of the network is proposed, introduced in phases, removing possibly duplicate services, and combining services onto the best feeder routes.

Phase One (of three or four phases), which covers North Surrey (virtually everything north of Claygate) and Reigate and Banstead, is to be decided on over the winter, and introduced in time for the September 2010 school term. These all seem to be provided by Travel Surrey (Abellio Surrey, whose MD Paul McGowan I met on the train to Woking). Phase Three covers Epsom and Leatherhead, having a route through Oxshott, connection to Surbiton, and serving Epsom hospital, but with two changes if travelling from Claygate. School services will be redesigned (cut) in the same areas as these phases. The Pegasus Guildford school bus experiment is too expensive (a view we have held all along) and is to be removed during 2010.

The Assembly did not cover any routes procured by Transport for London, such as the K3, and clearly the presenters (Cllr Ian Lake and Iain Reeve) were in denial on these. I was told to ask Paul Millin or Laurie James about the degree of subsidy.

The second half of the Assembly was a workshop which was well organised, except that the specific answers required of us were too simplistic. My priority order was transport for education, health, essential shopping, work, leisure (my workshop table put essential shopping ahead of health). We felt ourselves unable to come to any decision on the other requested priority choice: areas of higher deprivation; villages and rural areas; major town centres; routes with multiple pick-ups in suburban areas; routes purely for schools. We felt that the detailed circumstances of each route or area were critical.

I raised directly with Iain Reeve the problem of secondary school allocations, and the threat of having Claygate children sent to Rydens or even Epsom. He suggested that we submit this concern formally to him (or Laurie James). Cllr Janet Turner (who was on the same table) is also upset by a possible threat to remove school coach provision from Hinchley Wood School, which would produce a car disaster delivering and picking up the children with recently greatly increased numbers.

Janet Turner is very interested in cycling, her husband being a cycling trainer, so I told her about the A309 subway/Woodstock Lane South problems. Other members of the Elmbridge cycling group are Tim Crowther, John O’Reilly and Graham Winton.

The bus operators seem surprisingly relaxed about the changes. Paul McGowan did speak to plead that the route numbers should be kept unchanged in any restructuring.

Questions were asked as to whether the proposed bus cuts were to be only £2m, since £4m had also been mentioned. Questioners asked if bus services could be maintained, and the cuts re-directed to other services. The reply was that Surrey C.C. had to find 20% cuts, the allocation of which would be decided by Cabinet, so could not necessarily be predicted by the members at the meeting.

Geoff Herbert has found a website link to the full list of proposed service changes http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2060777_have_your_say_in_countywide_bus_services_shakeup These are also supposed to be available at surreycc.gov.uk as “Your buses, your say”. Views can be emailed to busreview@surreycc.gov.uk. The next “surgery” session is 10-2, 4 Dec, Walton library.

On the route maps presented to the Assembly it seems that, in respect of routes east of Walton/Hersham:

• 218, 461, 471/A, 515, 564 to be retained

• 451, 514 to be dropped

• K3, 411 not procured by Surrey C.C. and hence not shown

Possible actions, probably with Laurie James:

• Point out the problem for Claygate secondary schools, the vital K3 service to the main schools at Hinchley Wood and Esher, and the poor service to Rydens,

• Ask for information on the subsidy level of K3, and whether any of this is borne by Surrey C.C.

• That the on-bus survey carried out on Wed 11 Nov 09 was at a time of serious road works delays at Claygate High Street, which would be expected to have reduced the patronage attributed to Claygate.

Cllr Huddart has plans of SCC’s proposed route changes, under consultation, to be implemented during 2010. Various routes are to be merged, but it seems that the same destinations will be served. Some routes will be terminated. The K3 is not involved and the changes would seem to cause no obvious impact to Claygate.

A survey on the K3 was carried out at the time when the High Street/Oaken Lane road works were delaying traffic. Cllr Huddart contacted Laurie James of SCC about this, but was informed that SCC was not responsible for the surveys. He advised that SCC does not pay any subsidy for the K3 and that, to his knowledge, it covered its costs.

Cllr Huddart attended the Greater London Assembly seminar on 8 Dec on The Future of London’s Buses, chaired by Caroline Pidgeon (Assembly Member, Chair of the Transport Committee), and renewed relevant contacts. He has a .PDF file of the introductory papers. The theme is that the London Bus subsidy has increased rapidly, peaking at £700m this year, and must be reduced to £450m p.a. by 2018. This will involve some £40m of operational savings, and reductions of service where possible. David Brown, Managing Director of Surface Transport, assured the meeting that there “are no plans for reductions in outer London” (note the careful wording). Cllr Huddart got him to personally confirm that this applied equally to cross-border routes. Stephen Joseph of Campaign for Better Transport emphasised the need for modal shift to Public Transport, cycling and walking if we are to meet carbon emissions targets. He noted that buses were vital for the sustainability of suburban centres. Should CPC need to lobby aggressively on these issues, the best route is likely to be through Steven Norris, a board member of TfL and the first Keynote speaker, who knows Cllr Huddart. Speaker Anton Valk of NedRailways was not convincing even with respect to his Abellio London operation, so our better contact would be through Paul McGowan of Abellio Surrey (which does all the SCC. routes north of here). Charles King of East Surrey Transport Committee was in the audience and could be helpful, although he was mainly concerned about trying to re-route a bus to serve a hospital near Croydon.

The seminar did not include the national element, funding from the Government or the National bus pass.

Claygate seems to be in a fairly good position, but we should remain vigilant.

It was noted that there is a charitable organisation called Easit which promotes green travel. This includes car share schemes or schemes where multiple companies share a coach for their employees to travel to and from work.

b. Trains

It was noted that nothing more has been heard about the SW Trains new charge card. The existing card company were using the Surrey card in order to sell season tickets, they did not intend to amalgamate with Oyster, but TfL insists that they should amalgamate. Post meeting note: SWT is advertising that Oyster will be usable throughout its Greater London stations from 2 Jan 2010.

AP20 Cllr Herbert will enquire about the new charge card.

It was noted (but subsequently refuted) that, in order to buy an Oyster card, a London address is required.

c. Claygate Station

Cllr Huddart received a request for a litter bin on the UP platform, since otherwise there is a temptation to throw litter over the fence of the footpath. A substantial package of litter was seen in the cleared area west of the station, and was cleared by a volunteer, who obtained the key from the ticket staff.  Cllr Huddart reported this to SW Trains. He suggests that there should be further litter bin on the UP platform at the north end.  He noted that the existing litter bin on the UP platform is near the waiting room, beside the southern door, which is normally kept closed.

He also reported that two of the street lights in Station Approach (west side of the station) near Hare Lane are out, making it dark for passengers and other pedestrians. A reply was received from SW Trains that the previous manager is no longer the station manager responsible for Claygate; the new manager is Bill Brittian. Mr Brittian has been made aware of the problems. Post meeting note: he said it was normal practice for litter bins to be accommodated within the roofed area.

7. Liaison with SCC

a. Foley Road trees & footpaths

Cllr Huddart has compiled a draft letter which was circulated to Councillors with his report. At the November PC meeting he showed Councillors samples of Marshalls’ bricks and SCC’s plan which incorporates a 5m asphalt collar, instead of blocks, adjacent to every existing and felled tree. There was some concern that this was not an effective retention of the footpaths, a view that should be put to SCC but otherwise to accept that we proceed with the deal. It was agreed that a 5m collar is excessive, so Cllr Huddart will contact SCC about this.

AP 21 Cllr Huddart to action

It was agreed that Keyblok red is the currently preferred block, on both appearance and cost grounds.

Steve Infield (a keen champion of the trees), Vanessa and Cllr Huddart met on site, to identify possible planting sites, and Cllr Huddart was able to show some residents the samples of blocks. He has search information from owners of underground plant, and shall be meeting on site next week with eDF (mainly regarding its 33kV cable) and Southern Gas to discuss how to proceed. All the searches take time, but this is progressing.

There is currently enough tree planting work for the volunteers, so no tree planting will take place in Foley Road until the next year.

Six people have been identified for a committee of Foley Road champions to put this to residents, and hopefully to get offers of donations. They are aware of the timescale and the need for donations to be received before March or the project will not be able to proceed. Meanwhile, Steve Infield will be writing direct to the residents.

Cllr Bennison was able to offer funding, so Cllr Huddart will liaise with him.

Post meeting notes: site meetings with eDF and SGN engineers have indicated limited areas of the north verge that would be unsatisfactory for trees, but are otherwise relaxed, provided all digging is by hand; I have submitted an application for £2,000 this year from Cllr Bennison’s allocation.

AP 22 Cllr Huddart to action

Cllr Huddart will also explore other sources of funding.

b. Road Maintenance and Footpaths

Malcolm McKenzie has submitted to Margaret Hicks a list of roads liable to flooding in and around Claygate, largely based on Cllr Huddart’s observations. Cllr Huddart’s reports are limited to serious ponding, which persists more than 24 hours after heavy rain, at sites where remedial action has been successfully taken in the past. Cllr Sheppard has received a complaint about Church Road at the Recreation Ground. It is known that the usual ponding is due to run-off from the Recreation Ground, and although it does take time for it to drain from the recreation ground, through the normal gully, it normally clears after a day. There is still a problem there after two dry days.

AP 23 Cllr Huddart to check the situation and report to SCC

Post meeting note: Surrey C.C. has recorded this for action subject to staff duties on the severe weather warnings.

c. Highway Tree Replacement and Maintenance

Vanessa has produced planting suggestions for Coverts Road, Foxwarren and Oaken Drive, and we can add others e.g. Langbourne Way, Torrington Road and The Roundway. Previously we have asked for £50 per site in donations. Cllr Huddart suggested that this should increase to £70 since trees vary in price and we should add in the cost of stakes and ties and a contribution to the delivery. It is also expected that costs will rise if we ever have to consider contractors for digging in asphalt or for meeting SCC’s more demanding requirements in Foley Road. We have previously charged £50 for sites at which the trees cost more. It should also be considered asking for less at sites where tress cost less than £50.

Residents at Oaken Lane have already been told that their donations will be £50. It was AGREED that a flat rate of £50 should be requested. There is £500 in the budget, although Coverts Road may take the majority of this.

d. Safe Routes to School

The rear entrance to Claygate Primary School is well used. It is still being used despite the recent inclement weather. Over the summer holidays there was a complaint, and petition, regarding parents parking in Dalmore Avenue. The complaint mentioned 23 parked cars but Cllr Huddart, in a careful survey, managed to find only 4. Cllr Huddart will repeat the survey to check on the numbers to see what action, if any, is justified.

AP24 Cllr Huddart to action.

He has been following up the request to EBC for parents to be allowed to park free from 3 to 4 p.m. in the Hare Lane, Old Village, car park. Because this initiative seemed to have stalled between officer and councillor, the Headmaster has provided a list of parents and their vehicle registration numbers, which Cllr Huddart has submitted to EBC. The response is due this week. Thanks were given to Andrew Patterson and Darryl Taylor for their help in this matter.

Cllr Hayes has asked for a double yellow line at the end of Dalmore Avenue to prevent parked cars obstructing the turning circle and the entrance to the Recreation Ground. It was agreed to ask for this.

AP25 Cllr Huddart to action.

e. Street Lighting

See AP12 above, re. Margaret Hicks’ initiative. The situation remains unacceptable with several lights out long-term, replacements and removal of the discarded columns awaited long-term and even one of the Belisha beacons not lit. SCC has now placed the refurbishment contract which includes design and installation. The contract with the new company providing lighting for Surrey has been signed. It is estimated that it will take 3 months for them to ‘settle- in’ so no repairs are expected during this time. The worst impact of this, is that avoidable maintenance will be deferred until the refurbishment reaches the site in its five-year programme. This is unacceptable; SCC should not be using the new contractors as an excuse not to adequately maintain, especially where there is a safety issue such as the Belisha beacon in The Parade, and Woodstock Lane. We need a timeframe for the repairs. Unfortunately, Margaret Hicks accepted answers from Officers, which were incomplete. It was agreed that Cllr Huddart will continue to report and that he will write to officers asking for a timescale. If this does not happen then he will go back to Mike Bennsion and Margaret Hicks.

AP26 Cllr Huddart to action.

Cllr Herbert noted that SCC had produced a Customer Charter. The Clerk will circulate this.

Cllr Huddart has been informed that the replacement whiter lights will be less efficient than the existing yellow. In residential roads, for pedestrians and perceived crime reduction, this is compensated by an improved subjective impact, particularly for the elderly; for traffic purposes on main roads the compensation does not apply.

There is a problem with the light on the fountain on The Green, which seems to be intermittent. Probably this is due to the nature of the type of lamp which is high pressure sodium. If it seems to be out for too large a proportion of the time, Cllr Huddart will ask for it to be changed.

8. Parking

Off- Street

It was noted that the station car park is well used, but the EBC car park is virtually empty because of the excessive daily charge.

It was noted at the Esher Business Network that EBC will agree deals on parking charges for traders, but it is not known what the deals are. There is an impasse as EBC is waiting for Chambers of Commerce or other trade groups to inform EBC what their needs are.

It was agreed to ask Cllr Wells to work out with the traders what they would like and then approach EBC.

AP27 Cllr Sheppard to speak to Cllr Wells.

On- Street

As previously noted, Cllr Hayes has asked for a double yellow line at the end of Dalmore Avenue to prevent parked cars obstructing the turning circle and the entrance to the Recreation Ground.

It was noted that the Local Committee has agreed to have yellow lines along Claremont Lane. Recommendations to implement double yellow lines on both sides all the way from the existing lines to the Milbourne Lane lights were agreed; there will be a short stretch of 'No Waiting 9am - 3 pm' on the E. side, roughly between Broom Close and Fir Tree Close, said to be enough for 10-15 cars.  Some objectors apparently wanted this to be longer, but this was not accepted.  The Chairman committed to these lines being in places by mid January.

9. Traffic Calming

Victoria Lord took her petition on Oaken Lane to the Elmbridge Local Committee. The recommendations in the officers' report were agreed.  Frank Apicella gave a short presentation, stressing the view that speeding is the major issue in Oaken Lane.  He claimed that the rustic footpath between The Avenue and Derwent Close is not highway land, so that issue remains unresolved.

 

Barry Fairbank, on behalf of Michael Courtney, queried who will actually enforce speed limits in Oaken Lane, stressing the need for a permanent engineering solution; this point was supported by Insp. Haycock.  He also pointed out that the pedestrian data had been collected in half term, to which Frank's response was that the location of crossing points was more important in this case than the volume of pedestrian traffic.  He also pointed out that residents' views on traffic calming were unsupported by any evidence. We know that police action plus Speedwatch to solve speeding problems has not worked so far.

 

The dropped kerbs and pruning work were agreed, but there was no commitment to a timescale for completing the work.  Victoria Lord will receive a written answer to her question on the Report, which was dealt with under Public Questions, not under the Oaken Lane item.

Victoria Lord has emailed Freda with residents’ unhappiness at the handling of her petition.

Residents were unable to attend the meeting so emails were read out by the Clerk. These raise the points:-

i. the pedestrian survey was taken during half-term,

ii. that a mini-roundabout at the junction of The Avenue and Oaken Lane would slow traffic.

iii. the covert speed check was carried out between 10am and 1pm which is the quietest time for this road.

iv. the ownership of the path on the west side of Oaken Lane is unclear.

A discussion took place and it was agreed that:-

i. the pedestrian survey should be carried out again during term time.

AP28 Cllr Huddart to request a new survey

ii. the Officer response dealt with the suggestion of a mini-roundabout. These only work where there is equal distribution of traffic flow. There is also insufficient highway to provide the space for a mini-roundabout without removal of the ancient hedgerow.

iii. the traffic calming measures could cost £70k, but there is not really a strong case for spending this money in Oaken Lane. There is a case for traffic calming in Hare Lane; which the Parish council has already requested.

iv. the footpath belongs to the frontagers, but there is a planning condition which ensures that the frontagers should clear the path. Either we could politely ask the frontagers to clear the path or ask SCC to ensure that this is carried out.

v. we should ask Margaret Hicks how far her suggestion for a 20mph limit for the whole of Claygate has progressed. Mr Povey is interested in the concept of safety in villages and Claygate could be a pilot.

vi. Speed cameras are known to be effective, but are subject to Government rules and are only used in roads with high accident records. Average speed cameras have been shown to be effective and are not subject to the same strict rules.

vi. we should revive Speedwatch. Surrey Police are keen to revive and expand local Speedwatch campaigns.  Cllr Sheppard spoke to Insp. Haycock who would be very supportive if we could get a team together in Claygate; there is still an age limit of 75.

vii. Cllr Huddart will be attending a Probus lecture which deals with speed management. This subject may be the subject of an article for the Courier. At the moment, speeding is acceptable to society. The best way to reduce speed is to make it unacceptable in the way that drink-driving is now found unacceptable.

It was agreed that Cllr Huddart should reply to Victoria Lord to tell her what we can achieve. Measures which are achievable are those where there is readily identifiable action, including dropped kerb, trimming vegetation, pan-Claygate traffic calming, and joining in a Speedwatch campaign.  We shall action these through the PC (H&T),

The other matters, those to which we have not committed, including facilities for wheel-chair users at Wingham main entrance (if Wingham feels a need, it should improve its pedestrian gateway route), improving the footway of Oaken Lane just north of The Avenue (since the available width is over our 1m intervention level, although there is nothing against your trying to get the frontager to contain his/her hedge), or installing any railings (current professional advice discourages these), will have to be taken up with Margaret Hicks.

AP29 Cllr Huddart to action.

10. Cycling

It was agreed that more cycle racks are required at the station and at The Parade. The existing ones at Fruitworld are the correct type as the bike can be secured to them. Slots cut into the pavements are not desirable as they bend wheels. Hoops attached to lampposts are acceptable, although the bike can just be chained directly to the lamppost. It was agreed that the hoops would not detract from the Victorian lampposts. It was agreed to ask for more racks.

AP30 Cllr Huddart to action.

It was noted that Cllrs Bennison and Hicks are trying to improve the cycle tracks for Claygate.

11. Bridleway Proposals & Rights of Way

Nothing to report.

12. Street Signage

The sign for Woodbourne Drive is broken and is leaning against the fence in The Roundway.

AP31 Cllr Huddart to report

It was noted that signs are cleaned by EBC and agreed that; overall, the standard of maintenance by EBC is very good.

13. Website

Cllr Huddart needs to update the website about Foley Road.

AP32 Cllr Huddart to action.

14. Matters for Information Only

Supt. Rachel Tills gave a presentation at the Elmbridge Local Committee which aims to tackle anti-social driving and parking through 'enforcement and education' directed at drivers pulled over at selected places.  So far the commonest offence dealt with has been failure to wear a seat belt. Surrey are introducing 'Speed Awareness' training as an alternative to prosecution for drivers caught speeding in many cases.

15. Date and place of the next meeting

The next meeting will be at 8.00pm on 18 Mar 2010 in the Village Hall Committee Room.

Signed………………………………………………..as a true and fair record of the meeting. Date……………………………

 

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