Agenda and minutes

To receive declarations of interest (if any)

There were no declarations of interest.

To confirm the non-exempt minutes of the meeting of the Improvement and Scrutiny Committee – Places held on 17 May 2023.

The minutes of the meeting held on 17 May 2023 were confirmed as a correct record.

(Questions may be submitted to be answered by the Scrutiny Committee, or Council officers who are attending the meeting as witnesses, on any item that is within the scope of the Committee. Please see the procedure for the submission of questions at the end of this agenda)

There were no public questions.

Alan Marsden, Head of Strategic Transport and Sustainable Travel attended the meeting to provide an overview of the process to develop a new joint Local Transport Plan covering the county of Derbyshire under the proposed East Midlands Combined Authority.

In March 2023, Full Council had resolved to approve the final proposal to create the Mayoral East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA). The proposal set out an expectation that on day one, the EMCCA would be established as the transport authority for the area, covering the four upper-tier authorities, and have the power to approve the single, joint Local Transport Plan (LTP).

The Transport Act 2000 (as amended by the Local Transport Act 2008) had placed a duty on the Council to have a LTP in place, and therefore it remained a duty for the Council until the EMMCA creation was enacted. A new LTP would provide an opportunity to sharpen up and refresh the strategic case to support delivery of integrated transport programmes and deliver more ambitious outcomes; including those set out in sub-strategies, including the Bus Service Improvement Plan, Low Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy and the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan.

The Department for Transport (DfT) had recognised that a combination of reduced Council resources and a lack of updated national guidance had led to many LTPs across the country nearing their expiry dates. The Council’s was due to expire in 2026. In October 2022, Cabinet reported that the DfT had provided a grant of £178,571.43 to the Council to help support additional capacity to prepare a new LTP. The publication of DfT guidance to support LTP preparation had been delayed, but it was now expected in early 2023 at the latest. The delay in publication of the guidance was now expected to push completion of provisional and final LTPs into late 2024-25. This timescale aligned well with the creation of the EMCCA and to be able to consider any transport commitments made during the election of the mayor.

Following the approval of the proposal to create the EMCCA, the four constituent authorities had put in place a governance structure for the Transport Priority area to further develop the necessary transition arrangements. This structure included a LTP workstream, with officer representation from each authority, recognising that joint working was necessitated now to accommodate the long lead time required to develop a LTP strategy. The LTP workstream was currently engaged in the first stage of plan development in assembling a joint transport evidence base and reviewing alignment of existing local transport policies, including Council Plans and detailed local transport strategies.  It was anticipated that the emerging priority transport themes for the new EMCCA LTP would be agreed by the end of 2023. These priorities would then be subject to scrutiny through a stakeholder and public engagement exercise in early 2024.

It was therefore anticipated that nuanced transport priorities might be developed for more focused geographies, for example of the two city conurbations of Derby and Nottingham, the north  ...  view the full minutes text for item 48/23

The Committee’s work programme for the remainder of 2023-24 was presented and Members were invited to suggest possible items for consideration.

As the Control Room located within the Place Department was now fully functional, Members of the Committee suggested that a visit to the facility would be very interesting. The clerk to the Committee would arrange for this visit to take place following the conclusion of the meeting on Wednesday 27 September 2023.