Issue - meetings

Note: The Committee’s report attached as Appendix 2 is a previous version of the report. The final agreed version of the report was included with the agenda of the Full Council meeting on 11 February 2025 and can be found at this link.

15.1     The committee received a six-month update report on the implementation of the recommendations from the scrutiny review of the Council’s speed limit policy. The action plan arising from the review was agreed by Full Council in February, and the update outlined progress against each recommendation.

15.2     The Head of Communities confirmed that all elements of the action plan were either completed or in progress. She confirmed that updates to the website were being finalised and would be published online in early October. A revised Councillor Toolkit had been finalised and will be shared shortly. A Parish Council Toolkit, based on the Councillor version, would also be distributed in October.

15.3     Cllr Hollidge, who had been Chair of the Review Board, commented that progress had been positive and welcomed the update. He reiterated that speeding remains a concern and suggested that reducing the speed of vehicles could encourage greater uptake of cycling. He welcomed and supported further collaboration between the road safety and active travel teams.

15.4     The committee RESOLVED to note the updates to the recommendations and action plan set out in Appendix 1.

Report by the Deputy Chief Executive.

47.1     The Cabinet considered a report by the Deputy Chief Executive and a report by the Director of Communities, Economy and Transport with observations on the Scrutiny Committee’s report.

47.2     It was RESOLVED to:

1) Note and welcome the report of the Scrutiny Committee;

2) Recommend the County Council to welcome the report of the Scrutiny Committee and to agree the response of the Director of Communities, Economy and Transport to the recommendations and their implementation as set out in the action plan attached as Appendix 1 to the Director’s report.

Reason

47.3     The Scrutiny Review has highlighted the Council’s local speed limit policy and approach to setting speed limits is in line with the current Department for Transport guidance and is broadly similar to the approach taken by other local authorities.

Report by the Chair of the Review Board.

24.1     Councillor Hollidge, Chair of the Review Board, introduced the report. He thanked the Review Board members, officers and Sussex Police for their work on the review. The Committee decided to undertake the review after it was invited to look at the topic of local speed limit policy following a Notice of Motion in June 2023 and as a result of the number of road safety requests received by councillors. The review analysed the purpose of the local speed limit policy; whether it aligned with the Department for Transport guidance; the approach taken by other local authorities; did it correspond with national and local evidence and; how the Council communicates the policy to the public. The Board found that by and large ESCC’s polices were robust and in line with the DfT guidance. Recommendation 1 of the report recommends that the policy is reviewed if the guidance changes.

24.2     It was agreed that the review would be a two part review as it was not possible to complete examining everything the Review Board members wanted to look at within the timescales for completing the review. Councillor Hollidge commented that it will be important to consider the influence of the Local Transport Plan 4 (LTP4) which was being developed whilst the review was taking place and other developments such as the launch of the Living Streets Pedestrian Pound report, Active Travel and the impact of lower speed limits on health. Councillor Hollidge endorsed the report and recommended the report of the Review Board to the Committee for agreement and to present the report to Cabinet and Full Council for consideration.

24.3     The Committee discussed and commented on the report of the Review Board and a summary of the discussion is given below.

24.4     Councillor Taylor spoke on behalf of Councillor Hilton who was unable to be present at the meeting. She outlined that Councillor Hilton did not wish for her name to be on the report unless it can be made really clear that there is more work that remains to be done on the policy, especially 20mph speed limits. Unfortunately, she was not able to be present at all the review meetings and felt that her request for more detailed evidence on 20mph limits was not taken into account.

24.5     Councillor Murphy spoke on behalf Councillor Wright who had left the meeting. Councillor Wright was not entirely happy with the report and considered that the review should have received more direct evidence from other local authorities, including Oxfordshire, on the approach to local speed limits and 20mph limits.

24.6     Councillor Murphy commented that given the time constraints it was a good piece of cross-party work which looked at a range of evidence. He was quite pleased with the report and the way in which the Board had worked together and was happy to endorse the report.

24.7     Councillor Stephen Shing thanked the Review Board and officers for the report and commented that he thought the report was good. However, he  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24