Agenda item

Members of the public may submit an address or question in writing to the Scrutiny Panel, where full notice of the question or address is given to the secretariat no later than 17:00 on Wednesday 15 November. Questions and addresses submitted should be no longer than one side of A4 paper in Arial 12 font. The address or question will be circulated to the Panel and public speakers will be invited to speak at the virtual meeting. Written submissions may also be read out by the Chair or Democratic Services Officer where requested or if the person making the request for public speaking is not able to attend the meeting. A response may be given at the meeting or a written answer supplied. Questions and notice of addresses must be submitted to futureoxfordshirepartnership@southandvale.gov.uk

Note: This meeting may be recorded for live broadcast via the Future Oxfordshire Partnership’s YouTube Channel - at the start of the meeting the Chair will confirm the meeting is being filmed. By registering to speak you are consenting to being recorded and to the use of those video and audio recordings for webcasting.

It was noted that two written statements had been submitted and circulated to the Panel in advance of the meeting. Full copies of the statements are available here.

Robin Tucker gave a statement on behalf of the Coalition for Healthy Streets and Active Travel, (CoHSAT) which emphasised the importance of making journeys safer for all road users and that as part of Vision Zero there was much more that the City and District Councils could do to make roads safer as the number of crashes related to the number of trips people had to make which could be reduced by:

·           Make sure new developments are built round 15-minute principles.

·           Work to add missing services to existing neighbourhoods.

·           Ensure footways and cycleways are easy and safe to use.

·           Make sure developments are not cut off from their host towns – ‘cowpat’ developments as Transport for New Homes calls them. Use CIL, S106 or S278 to deliver these vital connections.

·           Recognised the importance of safe connectivity.

Concern was expressed that although good street design would make a difference to safety through the design guides to specific sites, opportunities for safer streets were being lost in gap in responsibilities between the Districts and the County Council. The coalition’s view was that the County Council’s latest Street Design Guide had not addressed the issue of connectivity and a revision was needed. Despite better design guides, development proposals were still often car dependent, with poor walking and cycling routes, and unsafe junctions.

As an active travel community with access to technical and local knowledge as well as practical expertise, CoHSAT was willing and able to help but often were not asked to contribute to designs or policies until it was too late to have any impact. There was a need for earlier involvement as part of the master planning process where CoHSAT could help identify problems and opportunities in time for them to be useful.

Danny Yee on behalf of Oxfordshire Liveable Streets had submitted a written statement which spoke to the importance of ‘safe, healthy equitable mobility for all’ within the statements contained in Vision Zero because historically, efforts to ‘solve’ road danger had involved deterring people, particularly children, older or disabled people from walking, wheeling or cycling.

Three main points were made: busy highways severed communities and impeded social connections; grade-separated crossings of such road were needed to enable safe, accessible and inclusive walking and cycling; and County Council polices and District Local Plans needed to be coordinated to deliver such objectives.

The need for grade separated crossings had been recognised by National Highways for the M40 and A34, but it was not just high speed roads which were a problem as when there were long delays, multi-stage crossings, and many traffic lanes to cross, signalled crossings did not provide an inclusive solution. It was stated that these created an unavoidable trade-off in the signalling between delays to people walking, wheeling or cycling, delays to motor traffic, and road danger. Examples were given of problems at Barton Park, Oxford ring road, the Oxford North and Water Eaton developments, Begbroke, Bicester and likely failure to secure underpasses to connect the Salt Cross development to Eynsham.

In order to address these problems, there was a need for clearer policy and better coordination and concern was expressed that the Local Travel and Connectivity Plan did not offer clear guidance on when grade separation was necessary or desirable. Local Plans needed to prohibit larger developments which did not provide for fully inclusive walking and cycling routes to community facilities. 

The point was made that although underpasses had gained a bad reputation in the UK, they could be designed properly as was the case in Holland and had the advantage of requiring less elevation change for people, walking, wheeling or cycling and were more accessible than bridges.