Highways and Planning Cabinet Member – Minutes – 2 March 2010

77 (21) ROAD SAFETY PARTNERSHIP UPDATE – The Service Director Highways and Planning submitted a report to update the Cabinet Member on the work of the North Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership.

It had been agreed that periodic reports would be provided through the Highways and Planning Cabinet Member and Chair of the Road Safety Partnership to update on the work of the North Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership.

Under the government’s New Performance Framework, there were two National Indicators relating to road safety:

  • NI 47 People killed or seriously injured in road traffic accidents and
  • NI 48 Children killed or seriously injured in road traffic accidents

NI 47 had been included as one of the 35 North Lincolnshire Local Area Agreement (LAA) targets

The Partnership continued to monitor casualties across a wide range of categories, in order to identify specific problems as they developed and instigate timely corrective action (Appendices 2 and 3 of the report contained further details). Under the management arrangements for the Local Strategic Partnership’s LAA, road safety was included in the Resilience and Emergency Response Board portfolio.

Using the government’s preferred three-year rolling average, killed and seriously injured (KSI) casualties in North Lincolnshire had fallen for the fourth consecutive year. The number of KSIs had to be reduced to 102 by 2010. Provisional figures showed there were 95 KSIs in 2009; representing a 22 per cent decrease from 2008 and a 44 per cent decrease from the 2000 baseline.

The Campaign Strategy for 2010-2011 and the Road Safety Action Plans – Summary were included in the appendices.

Resolved – (a) That the Cabinet Member notes the activity and performance information included in the report, and (b) that the report be referred to Cabinet for information.

(22) CLOSURE OF CARLTON STREET CAR PARK FOR THE SCUNTHORPE EASTER FAIR – The Service Director Highways and Planning submitted a report seeking approval to temporarily close part of the Carlton Street pay and display car park, Scunthorpe, for the purpose of accommodating the Easter Fair.

For a number of years a travelling pleasure fair had visited Scunthorpe each Easter and on most occasions had been sited on the surface car park in Carlton Street (adjacent to the Leisure Centre).

On these occasions use of the car park had been suspended, a legal agreement entered into and the layout of the fair had been approved by the council’s health and safety section.

A request had been received for use of the car park once again between 29 March and 11 April 2010.

Resolved – That approval be given to temporarily close part of the Carlton Street pay and display car park, Scunthorpe, from 29 March and 11 April 2010, to accommodate the Easter Fair.

79 (23) CARBON TRUST STANDARD – The Service Director Highways and Planning submitted a report to update on the outcome of the recent assessment against the Carbon Standard, and to assess the impact of the Carbon Standards decision on the council’s payments under the Carbon Reduction Energy Efficiency scheme.(CRC).

The CRC was a mandatory cap and trade scheme in which the council had to purchase Carbon credits at £12/credit for every tonne of carbon it emitted (1 tonne of carbon = 1 Carbon Credit).

As part of the CRC scheme certain organisations (including the council) would have to produce accurate figures on its carbon emissions. On the basis of its carbon footprint and its performance against certain criteria (known as metrics) it would be awarded a position in a national league table. The position in the league table and performance against the metrics would determine how much the scheme would cost the council.

The metrics that the council had to perform against within the introductory period are:

Early Action Metrics (this included achieving the Carbon Standard).

Absolute Metric (measures an absolute C02 reduction).

Growth Metric (measures growth in revenue expenditure against carbon footprint)

Further details were set out in the report and an Action Plan was appended to the report.

Resolved – (a) That the action plan appended to the report be approved, and (b) that further update reports be submitted on a regular basis.

80 (24) SCHOOLS CARBON PROGRAMME – The Service Director Highways and Planning submitted a report to update the Cabinet Member and seek approval to develop a special project targeting schools within North Lincolnshire to help them reduce their energy costs and carbon footprints.

The council adopted a Carbon Management Plan on 3 February 2010 (minute 857 refers), which committed the council as a whole to reduce its emissions by 33 per cent over the next five years.

The council was successful in being accepted into the Carbon Trusts Local Authority Carbon Management Programme LACM in May 2009. As part of the programme the first step was to establish the detailed carbon footprint of the council. Once the footprint was established the programme aimed to identify ways in which the direct emissions of the council could be reduced.

The council was responsible for emitting 30,000 tonnes of carbon per year and this could be broken down into different sectors. Details were set out in the report. The biggest emissions came from schools, accounting for 45 per cent of all of the council emissions.

In order to address this issue it was suggested that as part of the wider Local Authority Carbon Management Programme, that a special project be developed for schools. Several schools had already requested to be part of a scheme. It was also suggested that the current Service Level Agreement between schools and the council was amended to specifically include Energy Management.

Resolved – That approval be given for the development of a special project targeting schools carbon emissions.

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