Agenda and minutes

Venue: May Room - Town Hall - Maidenhead

Contact: Wendy Binmore  01628796251

Items
No. Item

67.

Appointment of Chairman and Vice-Chairman

To appoint the Chairman and Vice-Chairman for the municipal year 2017/18.

Minutes:

Councillor Hari Sharma and Councillor Jesse Grey were elected Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively, for the ensuing municipal year.

 

RESOLVED: That Councillor Hari Sharma be elected Chairman and Councillor Jesse Grey be elected Vice-Chairman, for the ensuing municipal year.

 

68.

Apologies for Absence

To receive any apologies for absence.

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Councillor Wisdom DaCosta.

69.

Declarations of Interest pdf icon PDF 219 KB

To receive any Declarations of Interest.

Minutes:

Cllr Hunt – Declared a personal interest as she owns a property in the town centre. Cllr Hunt stated she had attended Panel with an open mind.

70.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 92 KB

To confirm the Part I Minutes of the meeting held on XXXX

Minutes:

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the Part I minutes of the meetings held on 14 March 2017 and 18 April 2017 be approved.

71.

Parking Provision

To consider the above report.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chairman agreed to hear both the Parking Provision report and the Broadway Car Park Report together as they were closely linked. Members unanimously agreed to discuss the reports together.

 

Russell O’Keefe, Strategic Director Corporate & Community Services explained that the report set out further work on the emerging parking plan for the Borough and Cabinet Regeneration Sub Committee considered the draft parking model and initial short term and longer term parking plans. Feasibility work had been carried out and discussions with stakeholders had taken place. The final proposals were subject to change with the final draft being presented to Full Council in November 2017 alongside the Broadway Car Park report. The parking plan met the demand and re-confirmed that parking needed to support the Borough’s residents’ needs. The report was based on commercial parking, not residential parking.

 

Councillor D. Evans stated a lot of work had been carried out by the Strategic Director Corporate & Community Services and the Head of community Protection and Enforcements’ team and the appendix was significant as it showed the start balance and end balance of parking spaces with a net gain of 427 overall. Temporary parking would be provided during the refurbishment of the Broadway Car Park and at the end of the exercise, the Broadway Car Park would gain more public parking spaces. He added that for the second report on the Broadway Car Park, the Council had been working on the redevelopment of the site and Appendix A included a feasibility study and Appendix C was the proposed development brief in Part II but, was summarised in Part I.

 

The Council was at the design stage one and would be moving to the second stage of the process to firm up the investment case which would go to Cabinet in November 2017. Detailed design would start shortly after that. The current designs were just indicative and not detailed or final designs. Councillor D. Evans added it was about providing the right sort of parking for that part of the town. At the end of the process, Maidenhead would have modern, state of the art parking that would come in stages as part of a long process. The car park is a major part of the regeneration of the area and it had to be done right with the right design and the right return on the investment.

 

The Chairman stated the proposed state of the art parking would have 1,400 spaces, including electric charging points, disabled spaces, parent and child spaces as it was important to plan for the future. The current car park was reaching the end of its lifespan. The Panel were not keen on keeping the car park as it was a case of just repairing the car park and continuing to use it in its current form. The redevelopment would increase capacity and provide a high quality regenerated car park; the proposed layout would improve flow and the new retail offer would attract visitors; the report was welcomed and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 71.

72.

Broadway Car Park

To consider the above report.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Panel unanimously agreed to discuss this item at the same time as the Parking Provision report. The recommendations were endorsed by the Panel.

73.

Flooding Monitoring

To consider the above verbal update.

Minutes:

Ben Smith, Head of Highways & Transport gave a brief presentation on flood monitoring with highlighted the following key points:

 

Ø  Different partners and agencies had different roles and responsibilities. The different partners and agencies included:

o   RBWM

o   Volker highways

o   Project Centre

o   The Environment Agency (EA)

o   Thames Water

o   Riparian Owners (land owners)

Ø  The structural chart showed which areas the above partners and agencies were responsible for. The Head of Highways & Transport explained there was a detailed document that set all the details out in more depth.

Ø  Service delivery and governance set out how the Borough delivered on responsibilities.

Ø  The Borough retained the client commissioning function and looked after contracts. Everything else was carried out by partners.

Ø  The presentation showed the local shift delivered over the last 12 months with regards to highway and drainage schemes

Ø  A flood prevention scheme study was carried out following the 2014 flooding event in the Royal Borough and following the results of that, several flood prevention schemes had been carried out. The presentation showed which schemes had been completed and how much each of them had cost. Some of the schemes were still ongoing.

Ø  The EA was the lead on the River Thames Scheme which was creating three additional channels to prevent flooding to the surrounding areas.

Ø  There was a provisional budget of £275k per year towards it.

 

The Head of Highways & Transport confirmed that the flood prevention schemes were still at the development stage and with a funding shortfall, the EA were working with partners to plug the gap. All environmental surveys were being carried out and the next milestone of the River Thames Scheme was to get it signed off by the government on the business case and then it would move into the planning stage. In terms of which Borough paid more or less into the scheme, there was a formula that worked out the cost and benefit for each authority.

 

The Head of Highways & Transport confirmed the £285k RBWM contribution was for fees and not the actual works. The funding so far took the Borough up to the design and planning stage.

 

The Head of Highways & Transport confirmed that the Royal Borough’s role was to manage contracts while the contractors carried out any works within the Borough, such as design and construction of flood prevention works. The arrangement would help provide the Borough with resilience to the service.

 

Councillor Beer congratulated the Head of Highways & Transport on his presentation and requested details of routine programmes for clearing gullies. The Head of Highways & Transport confirmed there was a programme for clearing the gullies and it was delivered through Volker Highways. The Head of Communities and Highways stated there had been a schedule agreed with the parishes at the Parish Conference; gully clearing could be added to that.

 

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That Members noted the presentation and the ongoing work carried out by the Head of Highways & Transport and his team.

74.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1972 - EXCLUSION OF THE PUBLIC AND PRESS

To consider the following resolution:-

“That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public can be excluded from the remainder of the meeting whilst discussion takes place on item 5, 6 and 7 on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 1 – 7 of Part I schedule 12A of the Act”

75.

Minutes

To confirm the Part II minutes of the meetings held on 14 March 2017 and 18 April 2017.

Minutes:

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the Part II minutes of the meetings held on 14 March 2017 and 18 April 2017 be approved.

76.

Parking Provision (Appendix)

To consider the above appendix.

77.

Broadway Car Park (Appendix)

78.

Delivering differently in Operations and Customer Services - Civil Enforcement Officer

To consider the above report.