Agenda item

Report of the Town Clerk.

The Sub-Committee received a report of the Town Clerk setting out the action taken since the last meeting.

In response to a Member’s question as to why the continuation of the traffic and timing mix review at Bank would cost £650,000, an Officer stated that if there was a robust reason to change the traffic order, traffic modelling would be required. Much of the money was to pay for consultants’ time as well as TfL’s time for the auditing of a large modelled area and £150,000 was for costed risk so was only included in the eventually that it became an issue. Therefore, £500,000 had been set aside to progress to the conclusion if there was a change to the traffic order. An Officer stated that approximately £100,000 had been committed to studies underway on taxi availability.

A Member commented that the Court of Common Council approved the need for a review, not necessarily for a change, and that wording should reflect the words of the motion.

A Member asked for a full breakdown of the costs of revisiting the mix of traffic at Bank and raised concern that the motion was not debated in Court. She also raised concern about the amount of Officers’ time and resources spent on this. She raised further concern that the mix and timings of traffic might not be approved by TfL and stated that she would like the junction closed to traffic 7am-7pm and also at weekends. She stated that the closure had calmed the whole area and suggested that the Sub-Committee should undertake a review so lessons could be learnt going forward. The Member also raised concern that the decision was taken under urgency which meant the Sub-Committee could not discuss it.

An Officer stated that an update report would be submitted to the Planning and Transportation Committee in November 2023 and then an update report would be submitted to the Court of Common Council in December. He informed Members that when updates on projects were provided, a breakdown of money spent and forecast to be spent was provided and that this would be included in this report. The Officer stated that in this instance, the spend linked to the traffic and timing mix review would be differentiated as it was part of a wider budget. The Officer stated that the report on the wider traffic order review had detailed spending and this could be provided. The Officer stated that there had been an overall allocation of £500,000 for the review and it had not all been spent on the review. Some of the changes and opportunities identified were to amend traffic orders to bring them in line or deliver wider benefits and these were being implemented. The Member asked for details of the projects that had not been undertaken as a result of the time and resources spent on this review and commented that there would be increased costs as costs had been rising. She stated that there had been a knock-on cost to developers in terms of Section 278 money.

A Member asked Officers, when showing the figures, to try and split the money into money that was spent as a result of the motion and money that would have been spent anyway as there was already a plan to have a review a year later.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.