For the committee to review the transport strategy consultation materials and consider their input to Cabinet and planning policy officers, for inclusion into the Councils submission into the consultation.
Consultation documents are located here:
http://www.englandseconomicheartland.com/Pages/transport-strategyconsult.aspx.
Minutes:
Andrew Lane from Planning Policy gave an introduction to the consultation of the draft transport strategy.
England’s Economic Heartland is a partnership of local transport authorities and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs).
The consultation covers the Draft Transport Strategy, the Integrated Sustainability Appraisal, and the Proposal to Establish a Statutory Sub-national Transport Body. The end date for the consultation is 6 October 2020.
The website (link provided in the agenda) is very helpful and the final strategy is planned for the beginning of 2021.
Cabinet member sign off is the expected process for the response from the council.
The strategy’s draft vision is “to realise sustainable growth opportunities and improve quality of life and wellbeing for Heartland residents and businesses, by harnessing the region’s globally renowned centres of innovation to unlock a world class, de-carbonised transport system”.
Draft key principles are:
The consultation is asking for comment on the vision, key principles, having a step-change approach, 30 policies over 4 themes, and implementation and delivery pipelines supported by the Integrated Sustainability Appraisal.
There is no specific mention of the Ox-Cam Expressway. Policy 12 mentions the ARC with travel from Oxford to Milton Keynes is mentioned as a strategic issue to resolve.
The proposal to establish a Statutory Sub-national Transport Body – views are sought on whether to become statutory (currently operates as non-statutory). This would give more powers to create policy and be consulted on rail franchises, road infrastructure strategy and procuring bus services.
The chair welcomed comments and questions and spilt the discussion into two parts. First, to comment on the strategy:
Item 2 is for the proposal to have a statutory body.
The chair listed the areas the committee thought the council should respond on:
The committee voted in favour of these recommendations to feed into the consultation response of the council, which is expected to be signed off by the relevant Cabinet members.
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