Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, Civic Offices, Reading

Contact: Andrew Wood - Committee Services  Email: andrew.wood@reading.gov.uk

Media

Items
No. Item

10.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 139 KB

To confirm the Minutes of the Strategic Environment, Planning and Transport Committee held on 29 June 2023.

 

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meetings held on 29 June 2023 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

11.

Minutes of the Meeting of the Traffic Management Sub-Committee pdf icon PDF 186 KB

To receive the Minutes for meetings of the Traffic Management Sub-Committee held on 14 June 2023 and 13 September 2023.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meetings of Traffic Management Sub-Committee held on 4 June 2023 and 13 September 2023 were received.

12.

Minutes of Other Bodies pdf icon PDF 111 KB

To receive the Minutes for meetings of the:

 

·                Joint Waste Disposal Board - 2 March 2023 and 15 June 2023

·                Reading Climate Change Partnership Board - 20 April 2023 and 20 July 2023

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Minutes of the following meetings were received:

 

·                Joint Waste Disposal Board on 2 March 2023 and 15 June 2023

·                Reading Climate Change Partnership on 20 April 2023 and 20 July 2023

 

In response to a question from Councillor Moore relating to the minutes of the Joint Waste Disposal Board held on 15 June 2023, Councillor Cross undertook to arrange for the Lead Councillor for Environmental Services and Community Safety to respond to Councillor Moore’s query concerning Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment in writing.

13.

Questions from Councillors and Members of the Public pdf icon PDF 101 KB

Questions submitted pursuant to Standing Order 36 in relation to matters falling within the Committee’s Powers & Duties which have been submitted in writing and received by the Head of Legal & Democratic Services no later than four clear working days before the meeting.

Minutes:

Questions on the following matters was asked in accordance with Standing Order 36.

 

Questioner

Subject

Councillor Singh

Number 18 Bus Route

 

(The full text of the questions and replies were made available on the Reading Borough Council website).

14.

Thames Water Scrutiny

In response to the Motion passed by Council on 27 June 2023 (Minute 18 refers) representatives from Thames Water will attend the meeting to give a presentation and answer questions from the Committee on their investment plans for Reading and on the company's work and operations within the Borough.

 

Minutes:

Further to the Motion passed by Council on 27 June 2023 (Minute 18 refers) and at the invitation of the Chair, Richard Aylard, Sustainability Director, James Bentley, Operations Director, and Nikki Hines, South Thames Valley Stakeholder Engagement Manager, of Thames Water gave a presentation and answered questions on Thames Water's investment plans for Reading and on the company's work and operations within the Borough. Thames Water’s presentation covered several different topics including:

 

·                Recent leadership changes, the company’s liquidity position and shareholder investment;

·                Thames Water’s refocused three-year Turnaround Plan;

·                Thames Water’s recently published five-year PR24 Business Plan (for the period 2025-2030);

·                An overview of how a Sewage Treatment Works functioned, including an explanation of storm discharges and the reasons for needing to make them;

·                Ways that storm discharges from Sewage Treatment Works could be reduced;

·                An explanation of why flows in foul sewers increased after heavy rainfall;

·                A demonstration of Thames Water’s interactive storm discharges map;

·                An overview of storm discharge points within the Borough;

·                A summary of the number of storm discharges that had taken place within the Borough in the previous four years;

·                An assessment of Reading’s performance in relation to storm discharges compared to the average across the rest of the Thames Water network;

·                An overview of Thames Water’s plan to reduce the number of storm discharges it made by the Government’s 2050 target date;

·                An overview of the impacts of pollution on river water quality and the Reasons for Not Achieving Good (RNAG) status in the Thames River Basin area;

·                Planned investment at the Reading Sewage Treatment Works;

·                Past, current and planned sewer maintenance works within the Borough; 

·                A brief overview of Thames Water’s approach to dealing with sewer abuse from residential properties and food service establishments;

·                Guidance on what customers should do if sewer flooding affected their home and ways to report problems to Thames Water;

·                An overview of how Thames Water communicated with Council officers, including detail on the resumption of regular liaison meetings.

 

The Committee discussed the presentation and asked several questions and. some of the points raised included:

 

·       Thames Water and the Council’s Highways & Traffic Services Manager advised the Committee that regular liaison meetings between relevant RBC officers and their counterparts at Thames Water had been reestablished to proactively address problems within the Borough. Thames Water had also provided Council officers with its Professional Partners Line number and its dedicated Highways Authority number to allow professionals from both sides to communicate effectively on a routine basis and in emergency situations.   

 

·       Thames Water responded to concerns that the Council had invested large amounts of money resurfacing roads in the Borough only for the newly resurfaced road to be dug up shortly afterwards by Thames Water to conduct repairs and maintenance. Concerns were also raised about the effectiveness of traffic management measures put in place by Thames Water and by their contractors when conducting emergency repairs and maintenance in the town. These often resulted in traffic problems, particularly at pinch points in the town.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.

15.

Annual Reports for 2022/23 on: (i) Reading Climate Emergency Strategy and (ii) RBC's Greenhouse Gas Emissions pdf icon PDF 607 KB

A report presenting the Annual Reports for 2022/23 on two key elements of Reading’s response to the climate emergency:

 

(i)             The 2022/23 Annual Report on the Reading Climate Emergency Strategy 2020-25

 

(ii)            The 2022/23 Annual Report on the Council’s Corporate Greenhouse Gas Emissions

 

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee received a report presenting two Annual Reports for 2022/23 on key elements of Reading’s response to the climate emergency.

 

The 2022/23 Annual Report on the Reading Climate Emergency Strategy 2020-25 was attached to the report at Appendix 1. The Annual Report had been prepared by the Reading Climate Change Partnership and reflected the activity of a range of partners across Reading, not just the Council. The headline messages from the report were that, in common with the rest of the UK, emissions for 2021 (the latest year for which data had been available) had risen in comparison to 2020. The was because emissions had re-bounded following the lifting of pandemic restrictions. The long-term trend remained positive, however, with Borough emissions having fallen by 51% since 2005. This was down from the 55% reduction reported in 2020, but Reading had still seen the 8th largest reduction in emissions out of 374 UK local authority areas. Reading’s per capita emissions also remained the lowest in Berkshire. The pace of emissions reduction would, however, need to increase significantly to get back on track to achieve the Strategy target of ‘net zero by 2030’. A summary of the key conclusions drawn from the Annual Report 2022/23 on the Reading Climate Emergency Strategy were set out in the report.

 

A copy of the 2022/23 Annual Report on the Council’s Corporate Greenhouse Gas Emissions was attached to the report at Appendix 2. The Annual Report, which was produced annually by the Council, tracked the progress made towards the implementation of the Council’s Carbon Plan and the targets contained within it. The headline message from the report was that the Council’s carbon footprint had been cut by 73.9% since 2008/09, a further reduction from the 71.3% figure that had been reported in 2021/22. This meant the Council remained broadly on track to meet its interim target of an 85% cut in emissions by 2025. However, further action and investment would be needed to achieve this target, and to make progress towards the ultimate target of becoming a net zero organisation by 2030. A summary of the key conclusions of the Council’s Annual Greenhouse Gas Emissions report for 2022/23 were summarised in the report.

 

The Head of Climate Strategy provided the Committee with an update and explained that, since the publication of the report, the Council had received the results of the annual assessment that had been carried out by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), an international non-government organisation that operated a reporting process for corporations and councils which was regarded as the ‘gold-standard’ for climate reporting. The Council had first submitted its data to the CDP in 2021 and had been added to the A-List of Councils that demonstrated good practice. The Head of Climate Strategy reported that, following this year’s assessment, the Council had retained its position on the CDP’s A-List.

 

The Head of Climate Strategy also informed the Committee of a correction to the figures contained in the Council’s Corporate Greenhouse Gas  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.

16.

Air Quality Action Plan Review pdf icon PDF 182 KB

A report seeking approval from the Committee to undertake a public consultation on the draft Reading Air Quality Action Plan 2024-2028.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee received a report on the development of the Reading Air Quality Action Plan 2024-2028. The report sought the approval of the Committee to conduct a public consultation on the on the draft Reading Air Quality Action Plan 2024-2028 and outlined the next steps for its adoption. A copy of the draft Reading Air Quality Action Plan 2024-2028 was attached to the report at Appendix 1.

 

The report explained that, whilst air quality had improved in the town, there were still some locations where nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels were above recommended UK and World Health Organization (WHO) air quality limits. The Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP) sought to target these locations to make them compliant with UK and WHO standards and at the same as air quality across Reading as a whole. The draft AQAP identified the areas where the Council needed to improve air quality and set out the actions that officers planned to take over the next five years.

 

The previous Air Quality Action Plan, which had run between 2016 and 2020, had focused on actions to reduce nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels in order to achieve compliance with national objectives. The report listed several of the successful initiatives that had been delivered through the last action plan and provided figures gathered from the Council’s monitoring network that demonstrated that there had been considerable improvements in NO2 levels between 2018 and 2022.

 

The new draft AQAP aimed to continue with efforts to reduce NO2 levels but also placed a new emphasis on targeting and reducing fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions. The new emphasis was required due to the mounting evidence that pointed to PM2.5 emissions being extremely harmful to human health and meant that the new AQAP aligned with the changes that had been made to national policy in response to this latest evidence. Measures to address PM2.5 emissions had therefore been given considerable weight throughout the new draft AQAP.

 

The initial draft AQAP (attached at Appendix 1) had been produced working with the support of environmental consultants Phlorum. The draft AQAP contained updated baseline data figures and trajectories for Reading, updates to align the AQAP with changes made to local and national policies over the last two years, updates to align the AQAP with the Reading Transport Plan and current thinking relating to air quality practice and listed the members of the Air Quality Steering Group (AQSG) who had contributed to the development of the draft AQAP.  Policies outlined with the AQAP included direct policy interventions, infrastructure schemes and education/enabling options that would help to support Reading’s ambitious plans and UK strategies going forward. Policy options would also include strategies to encourage or accelerate the uptake of low to zero emission vehicles, non-diesel vehicles, increase modal shift and discourage vehicle usage in certain areas where people lived or went to school. Active Travel and health options were also prioritised, alongside specific measures to reduce  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.

17.

Outcomes of ‘The Strategy Room’ Project pdf icon PDF 160 KB

A report inviting the Committee to note the outcomes of ‘The Strategy Room’ project to engage residents in discussions about climate change, to be summarised in a presentation at the meeting.

Minutes:

The Committee received a report and presentation on the outcomes of The Strategy Room Project. The Strategy Room was a project designed to engage people in discussions about climate change led by Nesta, the innovation agency, University College London’s Climate Action Unit and Fast Familiar, a Reading-based digital agency. It was described as “an immersive experience which uses facilitated deliberation, interactive polling and collective intelligence to identify the climate change policies that would best help a local area to reach net zero emissions”; and as “a way for people to walk in off the street, and within 90 minutes imagine together the benefits of a Net Zero future, and help create a strategy for their local area on how to get there”.

 

In late 2022, the Council had been invited to be one of 12 local authorities to take part in the pilot phase of the project. The Council had welcomed the opportunity to participate and had worked with partners to organise five workshops in March 2023. Three sessions had been arranged for residents, one for Reading Climate Change Partnership (RCCP) Board members and one session for Councillors. The project team had also worked with the University of Reading who had hosted a session so that six workshops were held in total in Reading with 67 people taking part, over 10% of the total participating in the entire pilot. Reading had achieved the highest participation rates of any of the 12 pilot areas with a good turnout at all of the workshops.

 

The report explained that, following the workshops that had been held around the country in spring 2023, the data that had been gathered had been analysed and published at a launch event on 12 July 2023. The results could be interrogated via a new website that had been created for the project at strategyroom.uk. The website gave further details of the scenarios and policy prescriptions that had been discussed at the workshops and allowed the results from Reading to be compared against the national results. The report explained that the Councillors who had participated in the workshop in March 2023 had expressed an interest in receiving a presentation on the findings of the project.

 

The presentation gave an overview of the Strategy Room project nationally, explained the project’s general approach and methodology, and set out the project’s headline findings. The findings had shown that there had been a strong level of support for net zero ideas across energy, travel and food scenarios and that levels of support for policies that tackled climate change were higher than the current political debate would suggest. The project also found that climate ‘deniers’ were rare, there had been only one out of the 639 participants and the 70 people who had taken part in the co-creation workshops. The project had found that disagreements tended to be about what should be done about climate change and what policies were felt to be meaningful and fair. The project had also found that people  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17.

18.

Reading Climate Festival 2023 Evaluation pdf icon PDF 577 KB

A report evaluating the 2023 Reading Climate Festival and recognising the efforts of the partners in securing the success of the Festival.

Minutes:

The Committee received a report and watched a short video clip that gave an evaluation and overview of the 2023 Reading Climate Festival. A copy of the Gaia Evaluation Report, which included a full legacy plan, was attached to the report at Appendix 1.

 

The report explained that the Festival had taken place between 10 and 21 June 2023 with the stated aim of “inspiring and encouraging positive action on climate change”. The Festival, which had been held annually since 2020, had been organised and curated by the Reading Climate Action Network (RCAN), the public-facing brand of the Reading Climate Change Partnership, a multi-agency partnership for which the Council were the ‘host’ and accountable body. The Festival’s strategic priorities were; (1) to showcase the important role that Reading played on the world stage in understanding and addressing climate change; (2) to inform and engage the community about the work of RCAN/partner organisations in working towards a net-zero climate resilient town by 2030; and (3) to inspire and facilitate individuals/families to make clear pledges to adopt greener behaviours in support of the community’s effort to address climate change.

 

To help realise the ambitions of the Festival and given the ability of arts and culture to reach new audiences and to act as a vehicle to have wide ranging conversations, Luke Jerram’s iconic artwork Gaia had been brought to Reading Town Hall as a key focal point for the Festival. Gaia was chosen as a unifying piece of artwork that met all partners’ strategic priorities. It was a piece that spanned all audiences, and which could very easily be linked to the climate narrative in a positive and informative way. It was also internationally known and drew people from other parts of the country.

 

Gaia had been hosted in the Concert Hall at Reading Town Hall between 10 and 18 June 2023. The partnership had collaborated to deliver 57 public ticketed sessions, including ‘Twilight’ (evening) sessions and ‘Relaxed’ events (aimed at neurodivergent audiences). Sessions were charged at £2 per ticket for over 16s, with free admission for under 16s. There were 10 curated events and 10 school sessions that sat alongside Gaia. An additional 19 events had taken place as part of the Reading Climate Festival programme. The cost of bringing Gaia to Reading had been recovered through ticket income and the joint investment from partners thereby delivering high value for money at no cost to the public purse.

 

The report set out the key outcomes of the 2023 Reading Climate Festival and explained that using Gaia as the Festival’s centrepiece had increased the Festival’s reach to around 13,000 people. This compared to previous year’s audiences of around 1,000 and represented an increase of 1200%. The success of Gaia demonstrated the potential that cultural events and the arts had to attract new and different people to the climate change discussion. The report added that plans for the 2024 Reading Climate Festival were already in development with the same partners and centered  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

19.

Strategic Transport Schemes Update pdf icon PDF 173 KB

A report providing the Committee with an overview on progress towards the delivery of the current programme of strategic transport schemes in Reading.

Minutes:

The Committee received a report that provided an update on the progress made towards the delivery of the current programme of strategic transport schemes in Reading. The programme included major enhancements to public transport and active travel facilities, aimed at encouraging more healthy lifestyles and helping to address the Climate Emergency. The programme included the following schemes and initiatives:

 

·                Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) Programme

·                South Reading Bus Rapid Transit

·                Reading West Station Upgrade

·                Tilehurst Station Upgrade

·                Shinfield Road Active Travel Scheme

·                Bath Road Active Travel Scheme

·                Active Travel Behavioural Change Programme

·                School Streets Programme

 

The report provided a summary of the position concerning the delivery of the individual schemes and initiatives listed above. At the meeting the Strategic Transport Manager provided an update on the ongoing work taking place at Reading West Station and informed the Committee that the footpath at the station was due to reopen on 20 November 2023 and that, following this, the nearby traffic management measures would be removed and the process to bring the new station building into use would start.

 

The Strategic Transport Manager also provided an update on the programme of works relating to the Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) and reported that, on 1 November 2023, bus operators in the area had launched a ‘tap on tap off’ contactless payment system. To promote the launch of contactless payment an introductory offer of £3 for all-day travel, funded by the BSIP grant, would run until 31 December 2023. The statutory consultation for six proposed new bus lanes in the Borough had also started and would run until 7 December 2023. Plans for the new bus lanes had also been available to view at the various public drop-in sessions that had been held in relation to the draft Transport Strategy so that members of the public could see the plans and speak to officers about them.

 

Resolved -   That the progress made on delivery of the current programme of strategic transport schemes, as summarised in the report, be noted.

 

20.

Local Plan Partial Update Consultation on Scope and Content pdf icon PDF 229 KB

A report setting out the details of and seeking approval for a consultation to be undertaken on the scope and content of the Local Plan Partial Update. The report also seeks approval from the Committee to make some small amendments to the agreed Local Development Scheme (LDS).

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee received a report on the Local Plan Partial Update. The report sought approval from the Committee to conduct a consultation on the scope and content of the Partial Update.

 

The report explained that the Reading Borough Local Plan had been adopted in 2019 and that there was a statutory requirement to undertake a review of the Local Plan within five years of its adoption. To comply with this requirement, a Local Plan Review had been conducted which had identified the need to undertake a Partial Update. At the meeting held on 23March 2023 the Committee had agreed to proceed with a Partial Update according to the timetable set out within the Local Development Scheme (LDS) (Minute 36 refers). This included a ‘Regulation 18’ consultation on the scope and content of the Partial Update that would begin in November or December 2023.

 

The report therefore recommended that the Committee approve a ‘Regulation 18’ consultation on the scope and content of the Local Plan Partial Update to take place between November 2023 and January 2024. The proposed consultation document was attached to the report Appendix 1.

 

The scope and content consultation document sought views on the proposed approach to updating those policies that formed part of the Local Plan, including matters such as the overall provision of housing as well as initially consulting on the sites that had been put forward for consideration for development. The consultation document did not include specific draft policies at this current stage, instead it outlined the proposed approach for updating each of the policies within Local Plan Partial Update and therefore asked targeted questions to garner stakeholders’ views on the proposed direction of travel. The results of consultation would be used to inform the next stage of the Local Plan Partial Update, the pre-submission draft, planned for August 2024.

 

The report explained that there had been a variety of changes made to national policy, including a new version of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in July 2021 and an updated version of the standard methodology for assessing housing need, which placed a particular emphasis on the largest urban areas (including Reading) to deliver more housing which was the main reason for needing to conduct the Partial Update.

 

The scope and content consultation document also included proposals for additional sites for development or other uses. The consultation sought views on the potential inclusion of all additional sites that had been nominated through the “call for sites”. The report emphasised that the Council had not yet decided on whether or not the sites should be included as part of the Partial Update but that the consultation was the only opportunity to consult on all the sites prior to the production of the full draft document. The report stated that many of the sites in the consultation document might ultimately not be considered suitable for inclusion when the full draft Partial Update was produced. The consultation document therefore included substantial caveats, but nevertheless afforded  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.