Department for Transport will look to support Sat Nav scheme

The Department for Transport will be sending a representative to the next meeting of the South West Regional Freight Forum, following Bath MP Don Foster’s request that they support a local pilot scheme which will see local authorities provide appropriate routes to Sat Nav companies.

In reply to Don’s letter, sent on the 12th August, Paul Clark MP the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Transport states that the work undertaken “sounds potentially very promising”.

Lib Dems in Bath have been backing calls for more appropriate routes for traffic, especially HGVs, and encouraged Bath & North East Somerset Council to start sending a representative to the Freight Forum. Now the DfT will be represented at the meetings and will “consider what support [they] can provide.”

Bath MP Don said, “I am pleased that the Department for Transport are showing a keen interest in this project. I have highlighted a number of areas in Bath where HGVs are using totally inappropriate routes and getting these routes removed from Sat Nav maps will be a big step to helping resolve the problem.

New Super Off-Peak ticket will only add confusion

With First Great Western (FGW) set to introduce a new ‘Super Off-Peak’ ticket early in September, Bath MP has criticised the move saying it will only add to confusion for passengers.

Currently FGW have an Off-Peak and Peak ticket. The new Super Off-Peak ticket will be at the same price as the current Off-Peak ticket, with Off-Peak prices rising by 20%. Super Off-Peak travel will force people to leave Bath later in the morning, and also deny a return from London between 3pm and 7pm.

Don said, “Travelling from Bath to London on the train already involves one of the most expensive journeys per mile in the world. Adding extra restrictions on cheaper leisure travel is hardly going to encourage more families to use the railways.

“Moving to three types of fare only add confusion, and many people won’t even know what ticket to buy.

Southgate pedestrians at risk

City centre Councillor Andrew Furse (Liberal Democrat, Kingsmead) has criticised the Cabinet member for Major Projects for his failure to sort out the pedestrian hazards and other problems which have been caused by the Southgate works.

Councillor Furse has been actively seeking solutions to some of these problems, raising them with Council highways officers in January during a site visit. A list of crossing deficiencies and pedestrian safety hazards were communicated to the Cabinet member through the Southgate Project Board as long ago as February. Subsequently, Councillor Furse received assurances that a number of short, medium and longer term solutions would be undertaken before the end of March 2008. However, two months later, only a substandard improvement to the temporary crossing on Manvers Street has been implemented.

Councillor Furse commented:

“The Cabinet member is failing in his responsibility to ensure that Major Project works run smoothly. The Cabinet member’s failings on the Southgate works include:

1. Promised pedestrian improvements to the crossing layout and access-egress to the railway station have not been implemented.

2. Local businesses are not being kept informed and are suffering loss of trade from being ‘barricaded off’ – some have closed.

3. Health and Safety issues: the need for pedestrian protection from building works on and near to the highway has been ignored.

“All these issues rest with Cllr David Hawkins (Conservative, Lansdown) as the Cabinet member responsible for the Major Projects section of the Council. Adequate resources are not being allocated to the Southgate site to ensure that the contractors are operating within health and safety guidelines. Pedestrians are still exposed to circuitous and hazardous routes around the works.

“Furthermore I am frequently being contacted by local businesses who are being kept in the dark on progress of the works and on the access improvements they desperately need. The Cabinet member is clearly not concerned with the plight of the local businesses around the Southgate site.”

“Southgate is the development which has an impact on the most people, but it is not the only development for which the Cabinet member is responsible; he is also in charge of Bath Western Riverside, where there is a distinct lack of progress with residents being kept in the dark, and the new Council offices on which the Conservatives are planning to spend £38M. The Council should be looking at ways of more flexible working in the offices already in existence.

“On all these major projects Cllr Hawkins has failed the residents of B&NES, not only costing them money, but more seriously putting them in hazardous situations. It is clear he pays no attention to detail and it’s clearly time for him to step down.”

It must be wrong to keep charging the elderly

The signatories are calling on the Cabinet member to reconsider his decision to increase the charges for a range of services to elderly people, such as:

• Community meal costs up by over a pound per meal.
• Hourly rate for home care to rise by 74%.
• Maximum weekly charge for care to go up by almost 400%.

Text of call-in:

The undersigned Councillors wish to support the call-in of the decision E1795 ‘Charging Policy for Adult Care Community Services’ taken by the Cabinet member for Adult Social Services and Housing, Cllr Vic Pritchard (WL 14-Mar-08). This paper is called-in for the following reasons:

· Home care rates are to rise from £8.04 to £14. This represents an increase of 74% which would seem to be an unfairly steep rate of increase the impact of which should have been given more weight in the decision making.

· Evidence is given that charges are being increased in line with those of neighbouring authorities. However no evidence is given that the difference in cost of living between authority areas has been taken into account.

· In section 6.2 pf the decision paper it is stated that only an estimated 90 service users will potentially be faced by domiciliary care charge increases. However in the same section it is stated that the Council expects an extra £100,000 of income from these 90 people. This equates £1111 per person on top of the charges they are already paying. This would seem to be disproportionate and unfair.

· Similarly, the charges for community transport are to rise by 50%, with an expected additional £133 income to the Council per user, per year. Again this seems disproportionate.

· Charges for community meals are to rise by 38% or £1.05 per meal. This will have a wider impact than some of the charges mentioned above given that 67,000 meals are served per year.

· No evidence is given that an assessment has been carried out of the impact on those residents who will be affected by several or all of these price increases. Many pensioners are on fixed incomes; with costs of food and fuel also rising, these charges increases could be the last straw.

· If costs go up residents may reduce their care. There is no evidence of a risk analysis of this possibility having been carried out.

Round and Round We Go

Plans to improve the look of roundabouts in Bath and North East Somerset through sponsorship deals have been delayed thanks to the Council's legal department say Lib Dem Councillors.

After at least 15 years of going backwards and forwards, including 297 emails from one Councillor to try and get something done, the Planning Committee gave permission for the first sponsored roundabouts last summer. It was hoped that the scheme would help make the entrances to our city more attractive and would save council tax payers money.

However, despite Councils across the country allowing companies to sponsor roundabouts, the legal department at B&NES Council is not sure whether we can do it here. Now Liberal Democrat Group leader Cllr Paul Crossley has written to Cabinet members Charles Gerrish and Malcolm Hanney asking them to take action and clear away this most recent hurdle.

Cllr Nigel Roberts (Odd Down) who has been following this issue since permission was given in principle for two roundabouts in Odd Down, said:

“It's now 8 months since permission was in theory given for these roundabout sponsorship deals. It's not as if B&NES would be blazing a trail – this is a well-established practice in many areas. You would think that the Cabinet as it has been putting up charges in so many areas would want to pursue this idea.”

Councillor Marian McNeir (Lyncombe) said:

“When you travel around the country, you see many well planted and looked after sponsored roundabouts. They can often reflect something special about the local area, for example there is one near the Eden project in Cornwall which has the same wonderful flags that you find at Eden. Why can't we do the same in B&NES? We've been talking about it for years, now is the time to act. After all it is an opportunity to save the Council money which could go towards bringing the other charges down.”

residents parking to go up official !

Liberal Democrat Councillors have expressed their disappointment that the scrutiny call-in, which had been organised to look into the increases inparking costs in Bath, has been dismissed.

The panel voted, by four votes to three, to dismiss the call-in, with Conservative Councillors from outside of Bath backing the original decision taken by their Conservative Cabinet colleague. The Cabinet member will now be free to go ahead and implement the decision to apply increases of up to 60% to residents’ permit costs across the city, as well as a number of other changes to parking costs and arrangements.

The call-in panel raised a number of issues around poor consultation and excessive increases to permit costs. Although all Councillors agreed that consultation on this decision had been inadequate, Conservative Councillors appeared more concerned with the state of the Council’s finances than the issue of engaging with those who will be affected.

Disappointment as parking call-in dismissed

Liberal Democrat Councillors have expressed their disappointment that the scrutiny call-in, which had been organised to look into the increases in parking costs in Bath, has been dismissed.

The panel voted, by four votes to three, to dismiss the call-in, with Conservative Councillors from outside of Bath backing the original decision taken by their Conservative Cabinet colleague. The Cabinet member will now be free to go ahead and implement the decision to apply increases of up to 60% to residents’ permit costs across the city, as well as a number of other changes to parking costs and arrangements.

The call-in panel raised a number of issues around poor consultation and excessive increases to permit costs. Although all Councillors agreed that consultation on this decision had been inadequate, Conservative Councillors appeared more concerned with the state of the Council’s finances than the issue of engaging with those who will be affected.

Councillor Ian Gilchrist (Widcombe), who led the call-in signatories commented:

“I am disappointed that the Conservative and Independent members of the panel did not recognise the merits of the case made to uphold the call-in.

“I thought that the arguments outlining the damaging effects of extending charged times in the city centre to 8pm were pretty compelling, and if they don’t listen to Nod Knowles (Director of Bath Festivals) who will they listen to?

“I am slightly mollified by the apparent concession that Cllr Gerrish has made in the direction of Sunday evening parking, but this still has to be confirmed. If we have achieved even this small bit of good then that is a good thing. Residents will not be pleased at a 60% increase in their annual charges, but I do draw comfort from the thought that we at least did our best to oppose this.”

Cllr Steve Hedges (Odd Down), who sat on the panel, said:

“This really is a kick in the teeth for the democratic process; this decision has been made with complete disregard for best practice in decision-making such as engaging with hard-to-reach groups and the elderly who are often on fixed incomes. The Cabinet member also refused to address the issues raised in the call-in notice, including my concerns around costs of permits for traders, most of whom are small independent businesses who can not afford such huge increases.”

Concerns raised by Nod Knowles as to the impact on the night time economy, were supported by Cllr Roger Symonds (Combe Down), who said:

“Extending car park charging from 6pm to 8pm will have a knock-on effect for all evening and night time businesses in the city centre. How long before this money grabbing administration extends charging until 8pm for kerbside parking as well? It is significant that none of the four councillors who voted to dismiss the call-in live in Bath.”

Notes:

The Panel decided to dismiss the call-in (4 votes to 3) and made the following recommendations:

§ That enforcement should be improved in this area; and

§ That consultation should be improved in the future; and

§ That the later opening of Park and Ride facilities should be looked in to; and

§ That the Panel support the undertaking given by the Cabinet Member to look into streamlining the parking department administration; and

§ That before the amendment to the Sunday hours is implemented, further consultation should be undertaken.