Agenda item - Deputations from members of the public.

A list of deputations received by the due date of the 23 January 2014 will be circulated separately as part of an addendum at the meeting.

68.1    The Mayor reported that one deputation had been received from members of the public and invited Mr Eakins as the spokesperson for the first deputation to come forward and address the council.

68.2    Mr Eakins thanked the Mayor and stated that:

“Late last year in November and December we conducted a resident transport survey in 3 wards across the City, Brunswick and Adelaide, Central Hove and South Portslade, we received hundreds of responses from a good cross section of the City, plenty of Green supporters, Labour Supporters, Conservative Supporters, UKIP supporters and even the odd Liberal Democrat Supporter.

You would have received the results of the transport survey and it’s split in to 4 sections, I’ll briefly go over the edited highlights rather than regurgitate the whole report. On the pedestrian section we would ask the Council to note and be mindful of how popular pedestrianised areas of the City are and to consider further pedestrianisation of areas of high footfall.

On cycling; one of the most responded sections, especially in the comments, there’s 3 points to this section. On bike racks, a high response from residents who say they are not sufficient. We appreciate the Council has a  mechanism for residents who request extra cycle parking but we don’t believe that this is working well enough so we suggest that the Council either advertise this more or offer a more comprehensive solution to this.

On the second section, on cycle lanes, the majority of residents who responded to the survey said that they do not feel safe cycling in Brighton and Hove and whilst, mercifully, there are few cycling fatalities in the City there are quite a few respondents who said they have stopped cycling because they don’t feel it is safe to do so. One of the main issues that we’ve identified that people are concerned about is over cycle lanes and we ask the Council to consult the cyclists and cyclist groups to see where the organised and planned cycle lanes are of particular concern. One which was identified several times in the results of the survey was the cycle configuration from the Level to the Palace Pier where it seems to be jumbled confused and inadequate.

Thirdly on the final cycling section, we request the Council to install extra signage advising pedestrians of the seafront cycle lane, I know this as being debated in public a few times before but quite a few cyclist experience a case where pedestrians are crossing the road at the seafront on to the lawns, don’t really look to see that there’s a cycle lane there running across as well and cyclists are very fed up of almost accidentally crashing in to them lots of times.

A couple of suggestions have been made where this could be painted a different colour or a raised curb but we do request that extra signage for pedestrians advising them that is a cycle lane there.

Thirdly on the motor transport section we do ask the Council to introduce free Sunday parking across the City as it has considerable public support and we suggest the Council does help motorists get around the City more easily by opening up bus lanes to private car usage in off peak hours, they do this in other cities such as Manchester and London we believe there’s probably enough room on certain bus lanes to do this in Brighton as well to help residents who feel that it is too congested in the city.

Finally on buses, we got a marvellous response on buses, people love buses in Brighton and Hove, they think they’re clean, punctual and there’s definitely enough of them the only real criticism that people came out with was during Winter time when it’s icy and snowy, thankfully this Winter we haven’t experienced that but there are far too many bus services cancelled and we ask the Council to work with bus companies to see what it can do; perhaps there’s extra gritting that could be put on.

Thank you very much for receiving our deputation this afternoon we ask that this could be forwarded to the new Local Transport Plan for process that we understand the Council will be engaged in shortly this spring as the LPT3 is coming to a close this year.”

63.3    Councillor Davey replied:

“You cover a great deal of issues which I haven’t got time to go through but I will pick out a few highlights to respond to if I may. First of all on walking, I very much welcome your support for pedestrian priority measures – we know that these are always popular once they are implemented and look forward to improvements in the Old Town area which will be coming forward later this year which did have the support of most of the other Councillors.

With busesI am pleased that you found that the bus service in the city was popular. We are indeed blessed with the most successful bus service in the country outside of London and one that continues to thrive as a result of the partnership working between the council and all the bus companies. 

DFT figures show that people in Brighton & Hove catch the bus more than anywhere else in the country outside of London. It is schemes such as the new Lewes Road bus and taxi lanes that have contributed so much to this success; there has been a 7% increase in bus use their in 2013 with a staggering 16.5m bus passenger journeys along that corridor alone. That is  50% more than the whole of Portsmouth.

I am surprised that you have come out in favour of allowing other vehicles into bus and taxi lanes at quiet times. I am yet to hear a coherent argument for how this would help other motorists as by definition the roads are quiet at  that time so there isn’t a problem with congestion.

Doings so would however undermine the safety of both cyclists and pedestrians who rely on the extra protection from traffic that these lanes provide. Interestingly a recent report highlighted the difference in the number of fines issued to motorists in bus lanes – it compared Reading that has part bus lanes and Brighton & Hove which does not.  In 2013 in Reading there were 72,000 fines issued to drivers for driving in bus lanes – that is in contrast with less than 3 thousand here. So I fear that should part time bus lanes become a reality here we will see further deterioration in compliance as is apparent in other Cities.

I hope that this is a change that councillors of all parties will resist. That was certainly the position of Lib Dem MP Norman baker when he was Transport Minister as he urged Liverpool not to remove all of their bus lanes completely.  Unfortunately the Labour mayor took no notice

With regard to cycling I fully acknowledge that this city has a long way to go before it feels like a place that is truly a City fit for Cycling. However we have made very good progress over the last three years. The City was one of the first to gain cross party support and sign up to the Times Cycling Campaign and make a pledge to make Brighton and Hove a city fit for cycling. The new Lewes Road cycle lanes have already helped to bring about a 14% increase in cycle usage there and these were designed with the help of local cycle groups, that’s the first time that’s happened in this City.

The seafront cycle route remains popular returning an impressive 500,000 cycle trips a year more than in most other cities. We’re also seeing increases on the new Old Shoreham Road Facility and a recently completed 7 Dials which is designed to make the area safe for everybody as is the introduction of 20 mph speed limits on residential roads which we welcome your endorsement of.

There is much more work going on including the new cycle parking across the City and the new bike hub up Brighton Station which is being constructed as we speak. Most of these schemes have attracted significant funding from the Department for Transport so have required minimal extra funding locally. The success of cycling in the City has been recognised nationally and subsequently we have been invited to give evidence to the commons Select Committee on transport who are currently looking at the very important matter of cycling safety and they are very impressed with what is happening in this City.

How we fit the transport demands of a successful city growing in numbers of people both who live and visit here whilst remains the same physical size is a challenge for us all and it is important that as many voices as possible are heard in that debate.”

64.4    The Mayor thanked Mr Eakins for attending the meeting and speaking on behalf of the deputation. She explained that the points had been noted and the deputation would be referred to the Environment, Transport & Sustainability Committee for consideration. The persons forming the deputation would be invited to attend the meeting and would be informed subsequently of any action to be taken or proposed in relation to the matter set out in the deputation.