(a)

one of the biggest challenges facing the Place department, as well as the Council as a whole, was how services would be managed and delivered against ever decreasing budgets;

(b)

the Plymouth Plan would be an integrated plan for Plymouth, replacing all of the Council’s existing strategy documents with one document;

(c)

as part of the Plymouth Plan consultation, the Council had successfully taken over the lease of a shop in the city centre used for hosting events and talks;

(d)

the Get Plymouth Building Programme contained eight initiatives and aims to accelerate housing delivery and help to provide local jobs;

(e)

RENTplus was a new model of affordable housing funding and delivery and provided tenants with the opportunity to buy into the equity of a house after living there for five years;

(f)

officers were still waiting for a full detailed response from inspectors with regards to the refusal of the Derriford Area Action Plan;

(g)

the Council was working with Plymouth Community Homes and British Gas to help to improve Plymouth’s housing stock through the EcoMeasures programme;

(h)

the Economic Development team was working hard to attract new investment into the city and increase job creation through programmes such as the 1000 Club campaign, the Plan for Jobs and the Urban Enterprise Programme;

(i)

the Council had commissioned Jones Lang LaSalle to undertake a strategic review of the City Council’s property assets in order to ascertain how efficiently the Council is using its land and buildings to make efficiency gain and promote economic growth and jobs;

(j)

the Local Economic Strategy was being refocused in order to achieve a coherent vision for the city as part of the Plymouth Plan process;

(k)

a lot of work was being put into further developing the Plymouth City Deal; Plymouth, Cornwall and Torbay were working together to produce a negotiation document. The document would focus on three specific areas including better business support to marine sector companies, how to create a better platform for investment and export potential in the marine sector and what physical attributes were required to build a marine production campus;

(l)

officers were working on Plymouth’s Ocean City branding;

(m)

officers and Councillors had been working hard to push the connectivity agenda for the South West; task groups continue to lobby central government;

(n)

the Marjon Link Road had recently received Local Pinch Point Funding;

(o)

four Major Transport Schemes, namely Derriford Roundabout, Cattedown Roundabout, Octagon to Derry’s Cross and Woolwell to the George, had been identified as the cities priority schemes for consideration of funding support through the funding of the Local Transport Board major schemes funding pot;

(p)

Laira Rail Bridge was to be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

(a)

there was a bus lane enforcement camera situated near the approach to Prince Rock School which was able to record non-authorised vehicles using the bus gate on Embankment Road; recordings were being monitored and enforced;

(b)

a member of the public earlier this year won an appeal against the Council for a penalty fine they had received on the grounds that the signage on the approach to the Embankment Road bus gate was confusing, despite the Department for Transport agreeing that signage was to the correct standard; the Council subsequently successfully appealed the decision however the penalty was not reinforced. Officers would confirm the number of enforcements and appeals received in respect of the Embankment Road bus gate;

(c)

the Council’s camera recordings are only able to be used for the enforcement of non-authorised vehicles in bus lanes; all other motoring offenses are the responsibility of the Police to enforce;

(d)

officers organised a traffic survey in March 2013 as traffic had increased in Florence Place and Grenville Road; the result of the survey showed that 22% of traffic was a result of this route being used as a rat-run however 78% of the traffic was considered to be local residents and visitors accessing the area; officers would investigate the feasibility of monitoring noise and air quality levels on Florence Place and Grenville Road;

(e)

an evaluation and monitoring programme was developed in order to measure the anticipated outcomes of the East End Transport Scheme; ‘after’ data with respect to car journey times was not yet available as this was provided by the Department for Transport on an annual basis. The after data was expected in early 2014;;

(f)

an external company was used to undertake the traffic counts;

(g)

automatic traffic counters are situated in the road along Gdynia Way and Laira Bridge, which collect data on a daily basis;

(h)

real time data for bus journey times for Plympton buses was analysed for the November 2013 time period as the information was not available for the March 2-13 period which had been used for other bus services;

(i)

no accidents had been recorded on Embankment Road at the junction of Heles Terrace/ Gdynia Way/ Embankment Road. This will continue to be monitored;

(j)

subsidised bus services would be up for negotiation and then out for tender; proposals would be taken to relevant neighbourhood for discussion;

(k)

data collected showed that in the first eight months of the East End Transport Scheme opening, accidents had generally reduced; it was normal practice for monitoring to take place over a longer period of time however figures were currently positive;

(l)

the Environmental Service was responsible for compiling and monitoring the air quality report which was required to estimate the effects  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

(a)

the following items be included on the existing draft work programme for Working Plymouth and sent to the Cooperative Scrutiny Board for approval:

·         Sherford Development

·         Hoe Foreshore Maintenance

·         Amey Contract

·         Outland Road - Road Closures (evaluation of work)

(b)

a request to delete Britain’s Ocean City: Water Quality and Water Management item from the draft Working Plymouth work programme be sent to the Cooperative Scrutiny Board for approval;

(c)

Agreed that the Democratic Support Officer would email Members with an update on the recent Fire Service Task and Finish Group undertaken by the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board.