Agenda item - Chairs Communications

3.1          The Chair provided the following communications:

“There have been a number of exciting developments since the last meeting of this committee in March, including some excellent funding awards which will improve our public transport system, encourage active travel and reduce our carbon emissions.

We are going to make our buses more reliable, cheaper and faster through our bus service improvement plan which has been provisionally awarded £27.9m. Working with operators, we’ll create a more sustainable transport network for the city.

We are improving active transport infrastructure through a successfully bid for £1.2m for a new active travel scheme on Marine Parade, a key route linking eastern parts of Brighton & Hove to the city centre. We were also awarded nearly £80,000 for a ‘Mini Holland’ feasibility study to assess how part of the city could be made as pedestrian and cycle friendly as a Dutch city equivalent.

Continuing the theme of successful funding bids, in March we also received more than £300,000 in funding to help increase the number of Changing Places Toilets. These will help meet the needs of disabled people, in particular, those with profound and multiple learning or physical disabilities.

I’d like to thank and congratulate all the officers involved in these bids for their hard work in securing these vital funds which will ensure that our City continues to thrive for residents and visitors alike.

I’m also pleased to report to this committee that work to improve the condition of city’s council run football pitches is also underway. Following a successful trial of a special equipment designed to combat wear and tear, this will be rolled out city wide.

Offices are continuing to work hard to keep our city clean and tidy. We want to hear from Residents about concerns that they raise which is why a citywide consultation is underway on efforts to tackle illegal flyposting and stickering. This would extend the work we are already doing to combat graffiti while the use of single use barbecues and the release of balloons and lanterns will be banned from the 1st of July.

In the last few weeks, we’ve also seen St Mary’s Catholic Primary become the latest school to join our School Streets scheme. Another 5 will be joining this year with a further six scheduled for the next academic year. School streets create safer, sustainable and healthier streets which enable Children to walk, run or cycle to school. Work has begun on a new play area, multi-use games area, mini-exercise track and an outdoor fitness space in Carden Park in Brighton, one part of the £3million refurbishment of our parks and green spaces.

With our draft Air Quality Action Plan out for consultation, I was pleased to see this month figures which showed that our programme to upgrade the city’s streetlights has seen us save almost 10,000 tonnes of Co2 since 2017 – reducing our emissions by more than two thirds. An achievement which really does demonstrate how long term investment can have a real impact on tackling the climate crisis.

Finally, tonight we are discussing the Hanover and Tarner Liveable Neighbourhood project and I want to assure residents of Elm Grove that we are going to end the scourge of pavement parking on their street via either new Govt legislation or our own traffic regulation order”.