November Meeting Minutes
Minutes of the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) – Transport Sub Group
Meeting on Friday 3rd November at 10.30 am
Mayors Parlour, Winchester Guildhall
Attendance and Representation
Nick Farthing Chair
Cllr George Beckett WCC - Leader of the Council
Steve Tilbury WCC - Director of Development
Andy Hickman WCC - Head of Access and Infrastructure
Dan Massey WCC - Transport Planner
Judith Martin Winchester FoE
John Edwards Winchester Cycling / CTC
Stuart Blake Winchester Area Community Action (WACA)
Nigel Deacon Stagecoach Bus - Local Manager
Jason Raynor Stagecoach Bus
Sian Campbell HCC - HATS Co-ordinator
Kevin Ings HCC - Community Transport Manager
Steve Lincoln WCC - Community Development
Agenda
• Introduction, welcome and purpose
• Rural Transport Issues and Opportunities
• Passenger Transport Review
• Winchester Town Access Plan
• Transport Indicators
• Future areas of activity
• Schedule of Future Meetings
Minutes
Introduction
Steve Tilbury (ST) gave an introduction, welcome and purpose of the LSP Transport sub group. He explained that the role of the sub-group was to focus on particular issues raised by the LSP board. The transport sub-group was needed to make connections to other sub groups, giving the example of the Andover/Winchester hospital transport problem.
Nick Farthing (NF) explained how the LSP would need to fit in with other areas of work such as core strategies and the LDF.
Judith Martin (JM) questioned whether the underlying aim was to concentrate on public transport provision, ST explained that the remit was wider than public transport, or even just transport as some solutions may be about relocating access and functions.
Cllr George Beckett (Cllr GB) gave his views on the purpose of the group, explaining that he hoped the group would be the ideal forum to give the LSP board actual policy direction, responding to problems (both real and perceived), raising solutions and tackling soluble problems.
NF explained that in Gloucester they has used publicity (of non-car transport) to reduce traffic levels by 29% and perhaps improving publicity could be a useful first year task of the group.
GB talked about the role of rural transport and its limitations. He explained that providing for rural transport could/does have a high cost yet would not necessarily be available for all people. Stuart Blake (SB) suggested that people did not object to payment for services (transport), so long as the services were ones that they wanted to use.
ST suggested that it may be within the groups role to solve the more minor issues, and that the group may need to focus on specific issues.
Rural Transport Issues and Opportunities
Stuart Blake (SB) from Winchester Area Community Action (WACA) gave an overview of his role and services that WACA provide. He explained that WACA has two Winchester based Dial-A-Ride (accessible) Minibuses available to cover the northern part of Winchester District. These are available as a book and ride service for anyone with a mobility impairment. WACA also has three community minibuses, two based in Winchester and one (recently acquired courtesy of HCC) in Swanmore to serve the southern parishes.
SB explained that due to operational restrictions, their services will not meet scheduled services. Within the more rural areas of the district there are a number of other operational problems; long stem-runs (buses operating without patronage) dispersal of people/patronage over a wide area combined with multiple destination requests.
It was also established that areas including Denmead, Colden Common, Bishops Waltham and Alresford also have their own community buses, often provided by parishes and/or community groups and often under utilised.
SB explained that there are a number of excellent voluntary car schemes though out the district, providing access to a range of services for those who would otherwise be without transport. However, these services are run without a strategic overview, GB suggested that again this was an area where education and information would be beneficial.
SB further explained that often voluntary/community transport relies on volunteer drivers – in many circumstances more drivers would allow for more services.
GB suggested that this was another area where education and information (of existing services) may have as much as a role to play as providing additional services.
NF explained the possible role that Taxi Clustering may have to play, and Nigel Deacon (ND) talked about how Stagecoach had used taxi-buses to serve Petersfield station, and that this may be a future option within the district.
SB went on to explain that often rural communities liked to sort their own solutions to problems, therefore in the case of the new community bus in the southern parishes, it will be funded for one year and it will be up to the local CT groups to decide how they use it.
A number of potential solutions to rural transport / community transport issues were identified:
• Funding new vehicles
• Offering a booking service for community transport groups
• Education and information
• Volunteer driver training
• Setting up an innovation fund
• Funding struggling schemes
• Taxi clustering schemes.
Passenger Transport Review - HCC
Kevin Ings (KI), the Community Transport Manager from Hampshire County Council gave an overview of how the County Council was carrying out a Passenger Transport Review for all districts within the county, looking at both community and supported passenger transport.
The need for the reviews had arisen against a backdrop of spiralling contracting/ tender costs which could not be met out of the county’s revenue funds. In the past individual service reviews had be reactive to budget/tender changes, whereas a district wide review could evaluate need and base service provision on that basis. It may be that there are more cost effect ways of delivering services e.g. taxi-buses rather that conventional buses, this may reduce service levels but this in turn may be preferable to removing services completely.
KI explained how the process is set to deliver a number of options to be costed, these will be based on access to health, education and a range of other services. KI circulated a paper to members of the group. Consultation had been through a number of representative groups and parish councils. (Note: this has now included all district members)
KI also gave a brief outline of how the accession modelling had been used as part of the Local Transport Plan (LTP) process to indicate accessibility to a range of goods and services, it was also established that Accession was limited in that it made no account of community transport, cycling or levels of car ownership.
A discussion over the use of buses and community transport followed, and issues of cost and information were prominent. ND commented that much of the commercial bus network suffered from a peak hour capacity problem.
Winchester Town Access Plan (WTAP)
Andy Hickman (AH) explained the process likely to be taken over the development of the new Winchester Town Access Plan (WTAP). The launch will be in the form of a joint members (HCC / WCC) board in January, where a range of ideas will be examined to establish the members’ views. In due course the LSP Transport group will be consulted on the development of the WTAP and provide feedback to the LSP board.
ST explained how a vision for Winchester had been established as an aspiration document and the development of WTAP gives an opportunity to include all ideas, the development process will take approximately one year and the plan will provide a long term framework for decision making.
Transport Indicators (TI’s)
AH spoke about TI’s, explaining that there is lots of relevant information within the LTP, however these are often at a county level, it was questioned whether SC/HCC can deliver relevant information at a district level
Future areas of activity
The group had a discussion on the possible future activity areas. It was agreed that these would be:
• Paper on transport information – what is out there and how is it distributed, a paper to be prepared for the next meeting
• Input to the LSP board
• Input to the WTAP
• Rural transport problems – what are they, and how are they best dealt with
• Defining useful indicators to monitor community strategy – Liaise with HCC
Schedule of Future Meetings
It was agreed that the schedule of meetings would be tailored to feed information to the LSP board. Dan Massey (DM) would continue to be the WCC liaison officer.
Cllr Beckett thanked all members for attending what he thought was a useful meeting, making a few interesting closing comments.
• Reducing the need to travel and hence reducing the need to use public transport can ultimately result in reduced level of service
• Perception is not the same as fact
• Often services are there, but potential users may not be aware of them and improved information is key to changing this.
Published: 11 April 2007