To confirm the Minutes of the Strategic Environment, Planning and Transport Committee held on 27 June 2024.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 27 June 2024 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

To receive the Minutes for meetings of the Traffic Management Sub-Committee held on 13 June 2024 and 11 September 2024.

The Minutes of meetings of the Traffic Management Sub-Committee held on 13 June 2024 and 11 September 2024 were received.

To receive the Minutes for meetings of the:

·                Joint Waste Disposal Board on 13 June 2024 and 19 September 2024.

·                Reading Climate Change Partnership Board on 18 January 2024, 18 April 2024 and 18 July 2024.

The Minutes of the following meetings were received:

·                Joint Waste Disposal Board on 13 June 2024 and 19 September 2024. 

·                Reading Climate Change Partnership Board on 18 January 2024, 18 April 2024 and 18 July 2024.

Questions submitted pursuant to Standing Order 36 in relation to matters falling within the Committee’s powers and duties which have been submitted in writing and have been received by the Assistant Director of Legal & Democratic Services by no later than 12 noon, four clear working days before the day of the meeting.

A question on the following matter was asked in accordance with Standing Order 36.

(The full text of the question and reply was made available on the Reading Borough Council website).

A report on the adoption of the Christchurch Conservation Area Appraisal following the completion of a public consultation.

Further to Minute 25 of the meeting held on 13 March 2024, the Committee considered a report that recommended the adoption of a final version of the Christchurch Conservation Area Appraisal covering the area of Christchurch within Redlands and Katesgrove wards, following the completion of a public consultation. The following documents were appended to the report:

·                Appendix 1 - Equality Impact Assessment

·                Appendix 2 - Statement of Consultation on the Draft Christchurch Conservation Area Appraisal

·                Appendix 3 - Christchurch Conservation Area Appraisal (adoption version)

The Appraisal had been carried out as a community project led by the Reading Conservation Areas Advisory Committee (CAAC) with assistance from Council planning officers and interested local community representatives. At the meeting held on 13 March 2024 the Committee had agreed for a public consultation to be carried out on a draft version of the Christchurch Conservation Area Appraisal to replace the previous Appraisal which dated from 2010.

The Appraisal recommended that a number of boundary changes be made to significantly extend the conservation area to include properties on Whitley Street, Basingstoke Road, Milman Road, Glebe Road, Christchurch Gardens, Christchurch Road and Cintra Avenue. The consultation had taken place between 5 April and 31 May 2024 and a total of 14 responses had been received. The main points arising following the consultation process were summarised in the report. A summary of each consultation response was provided in the Statement of Consultation (attached at Appendix 2) which also highlighted the changes that had been made to the Appraisal following the consultation process.

The report explained should the Christchurch Conservation Area Appraisal be adopted it would result in the recommended extensions to the conservation area being confirmed. This would have implications for the operation of planning powers in the area and would alter the permitted development rights that would apply. The Appraisal would also become a material consideration in the determination of planning applications in the area.

At the invitation of the Chair, Evelyn Williams, Chair of the Reading CAAC, gave a presentation on the work that had been carried out by the CAAC to conduct the Appraisal review and to prepare the Appraisal document.

Following a discussion of the item the Committee thanked Evelyn Williams and other volunteer members of the CAAC for the work they had done on the Christchurch Conservation Area Appraisal.

Resolved –

(1)           That the responses received during the consultation on the Draft Christchurch Conservation Area Appraisal, as attached at Appendix 2, be noted;

(2)           That the Christchurch Conservation Area Appraisal, as attached at Appendix 3, be adopted.

A presentation on the Council’s involvement with Project Skyway, a “drone superhighway” linking Reading to Oxford and Coventry.

The Committee received a presentation from the Assistant Director of Planning, Transport and Public Protection on the Council’s involvement as a stakeholder with Project Skyway, a collaborative partnership project funded by a £15 million bid to Innovate UK and led by Reading based company Altitude Angel to create the UK’s first “drone superhighway”. A copy of the presentation slides had been circulated with the agenda.

The Assistant Director of Planning, Transport and Public Protection explained that participation in the project had allowed the Council to be involved with the introduction of a new piece of technology from the start and had afforded the opportunity to understand and influence how that new technology and associated infrastructure might impact the town, residents and the Council itself. The Council’s involvement also helped to give it and the public a voice in shaping how the industry worked and interacted with local government and with the public. At the same time the Council was also able to provide support as a partner to a Reading based local business thereby supporting economic growth in the town.

The presentation outlined the project's vision to enable drones to safely share the skies with all other aviation, even when out of sight of the pilot, thereby unlocking the societal and commercial benefits of drones. The Committee heard that the project had been designed to expand what drones could do by allowing them to fly long distances without the pilot maintaining visual line of sight. Project Skyway was a “drone superhighway” and utilised masts on the ground equipped with sensors. Masts were placed along the route to track drones and to monitor airspace to allow the drones to fly safely alongside other air traffic. It was noted that the erection of masts would potentially have implications in terms of planning but that, where possible, mast infrastructure would utilise existing masts and structures.

The Assistant Director of Planning, Transport and Public Protection explained that the Council had worked together with Connected Places Catapult to support public engagement and had helped to facilitate access to residents. A public engagement exercise had connected a broad range of stakeholders to identify potential users and their requirements and to assess public perspectives. Approximately 20 Reading residents had participated in focus group sessions that looked at positive use cases and the societal, environmental and economic growth benefits of drones. The focus groups also looked at the potential negatives such as the impact on wildlife, noise and visual amenity, sustainability and energy use, local jobs, infrastructure (i.e the erection of more masts), safety and privacy.

The focus group sessions had also asked participants to identify who they thought would be responsible for addressing issues arising from the introduction of drone technology. Participants said that local authorities would need to play an enforcement type role in regulating the use of drones in areas such as preventing environmental harm (e.g. addressing noise and visual pollution), enforcement of unauthorised drone usage and privacy. The focus groups recognised that the regulation  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.

A report on the production and implementation of a Climate Change Adaptation Framework for the Council.

The Committee considered a report onthe production and approval of the Climate Change Adaptation Framework for the Council. A copy of the Climate Change Adaptation Framework was appended at Appendix 1. A copy of the Reading Climate Risk Assessment spreadsheet was attached to the report at Appendix 2.

The report set out the global context concerning climate change and global warming and explained the worsening impacts, risks and costs, both nationally and internationally, that included environmental events such as floods, heatwaves, storms and wildfires. The report explained that the UK faced warmer and wetter winters, hotter and drier summers, and would be susceptible to more frequent and extreme weather events and that this would continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. The report explained that climate change would have a significant impact on the economy and that the most vulnerable in society would be the most exposed to its risks as they had the least resources available to them to allow them to adapt. The report explained that the Council, its partners and the wider community needed to plan for and adapt to the effects of climate change and that the Climate Change Adaptation Framework had been developed to allow the Council and the communities it served to become more resilient to its impacts.

The report explained that the Council had long recognised the need to adapt to climate change and that this had been outlined in the Reading Climate Emergency Strategy 2020-25, the vision statement of which was to achieve a “net zero, resilient Reading by 2030”. The report explained that, whilst the Climate Emergency Strategy did identify and plan to manage climate risks, it was more focused on climate mitigations (reducing emissions) than on climate adaptation (preparing for the impacts) and that it did not address climate adaptation comprehensively enough from the perspective of the Council’s own services and responsibilities. Therefore, there was still a need for the Council to develop a more bespoke climate adaptation framework.

The report explained that the Climate Change Adaptation Framework had been prepared to fill the gap that had been identified in terms of giving the Council a clear framework to build on the foundations that had been laid in the Climate Emergency Strategy by setting out in more detail the key risks, issues and objectives for the Council to pursue to make itself, and the communities it served, more resilient to the impacts of climate change.  It also provided a framework within which individual Council services could develop their approach to managing climate risk as they became more climate risk aware.

The structure of the proposed Climate Change Adaptation Framework was set out in the report which stated that it was important to understand that climate adaptation was a process not an event, and that dynamic assessment of climate related risk would be required to continually update the response of individual services and the Council as a whole.  Hence the approach had been to develop a framework which  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17.

A report presenting the Annual Reports for 2023/24 on two key elements of Reading’s response to the climate emergency:

(i)             The 2023/24 Annual Report on the Reading Climate Emergency Strategy 2020-25;

(ii)            The 2023/24 Annual Report on the Council’s Corporate Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

The Committee received a report presenting two Annual Reports for 2023/24 on key elements of Reading’s response to the Climate Emergency.

The 2023/24 Annual Report on the Reading Climate Emergency Strategy 2020-25 was attached to the report at Appendix 1. The report had been prepared by the Reading Climate Change Partnership (RCCP) and reflected the activity by a range of partners across Reading, not just the Council. The headline message from the report was that, in common with the rest of the UK, emissions for 2022 (the latest year for which data was available) had fallen compared to 2021. This followed an increase in emissions in the year after the pandemic. The long-term trend remained positive with Borough emissions having fallen 54% since 2005. This represented a further reduction on the 51% reduction reported in 2021. The report stated that Reading had seen the 12^th largest reduction in emissions out of 374 UK local authority areas. Reading’s per capita emissions also remained the lowest in Berkshire. The report also explained that the pace of emissions reduction would 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 2023/24 on the Reading Climate Emergency Strategy were set out in section 3 of the report.

The 2023/24 Annual Report on the Council’s corporate greenhouse gas emissions was attached to the report at Appendix 2. The report tracked the progress made towards the implementation of the Council’s Carbon Plan and the targets within it. The headline conclusion of the Annual Report was that the Council’s carbon footprint for the 2023/24 business year had been cut by 72.7% since 2008-09. This represented a slight increase in emissions from 2022/23 and meant that the Council’s emissions had risen by 1.2% against the baseline. The slight rise in emissions put the Council above its benchmark target of meeting an 85% cut in corporate emissions by 2025. As had been concluded in the previous year, which had seen modest reductions, further action and investment would be needed to achieve the 85% target, and to make progress towards the ultimate target of becoming a net zero organisation by 2030. The report noted that some factors affecting emissions, in particular the increase in the carbon intensity of electricity, were beyond the Council’s control. A summary of the key conclusions drawn from the Annual Report 2023/24 on the Reading Climate Emergency Strategy were set out in section 4 of the report.

Resolved –

(1)           That the progress in reducing Reading Borough’s carbon emissions, which had fallen by 54% since 2005 be noted;

(2)           That the progress in reducing Reading Borough Council’s corporate emissions, which had fallen by 72.7% since 2008/09 be noted;

(3)           That it be noted that, while progress was being made, the Council and other partners needed to increase the pace of emissions reduction to meet the targets for a net zero Reading, and a net zero  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

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

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

·                Bus Service Improvement Plan Programme (BSIP)

·                South Reading Bus Rapid Transit

·                Reading West Station Upgrade

·                Tilehurst Station Upgrade

·                Shinfield Road Active Travel Scheme

·                Bath Road Active Travel Scheme

·                School Streets Programme

·                Active Travel Behavioural Change Programme

Updates for each of the schemes listed above were set out in the report. Each strategic transport scheme had been aligned with the Council’s Local Transport Plan (LTP), the Reading Transport Strategy 2040, with the delivery of each individual scheme playing a key part in achieving the overall vision and objectives of the LTP.

At the meeting the Strategic Transport Manager also updated on the Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) fund scheme and on the £4.7m of funding that had been secured for the provision of 24 electric buses. The Committee heard that work had started to install charging infrastructure at the bus depot which was expected to be completed by spring 2025 and that electric buses were expected to start to run in summer 2025. Updates on the ZEBRA fund scheme would be included in future Strategic Transport Scheme Update reports.

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