A report informing the Sub-Committee of progress and decision making in respect of the Traffic Regulation Order rectification process.

Further to Minute 27 of the previous meeting, the Sub-Committee received a report that informed them of progress and decision making in respect of the TRO rectification process.  The following Appendices were attached to the report:

The report included a table that detailed the TROs affected and explained that the launch of the statutory consultations would be staggered.  The report also included a table that set out the progress of each TRO through the rectification project and would be updated for future meetings until the processes were concluded for all effected TROs.  A further table set out timelines that might be subject to change and would be influenced by the feedback received during the statutory consultation but, for the report, it had been assumed that no objections would be received and a decision taken to implement the resultant TRO.

The report explained that it was expected that enforcement would commence following the making of each TRO and a two week period of warning notices being issued, as applicable.  As part of the rectification scheme officers were also identifying areas where signing and lining relating to the restrictions required improvement.  These works would be carried out following statutory consultation subject to a decision to make the TRO.

The report included a table that provided some headline data for claims that had been made through the restitution scheme and a table that provided details of the media communications that had been carried out and had been planned.

Finally, the report provided an update on the project to move to a digitised, map-based TRO management system that had the overall intention to introduce a software package that enabled map-based locating of restrictions, management of TROs and interrogation of TROs.  It had been intended that the initial part of this project would be to capture the restrictions as shown on street (the ‘ground truth’) and create three new themed Boroughwide TROs within the system: waiting restrictions, movement restrictions and speed restrictions respectively.  The primary advantages of such a system were set out in the report.  The government had recently suggested that their regulations could come in to force as early as July 2025, although officers expected that October 2025 was more likely.  This would require the Council to be in a position to submit data in a specific format relating to all new TROs and Temporary TROs from that date.  With no digitised solution currently in place, officers were now working to adjust the project delivery order to prioritise procurement of the digital TRO management software.  With this software in place it was expected that the Council would be able to comply with the new regulations by having a hybrid TRO system in place.  Thereafter, officers would seek to commission the resource intensive part of the original project that would see the system being the single source of TROs. It was expected that the government would set a deadline by which all TRO data was submitted to their database, so this remained a critical part of the overall project. 

The Sub-Committee discussed the report and a number of questions were raised as follows:

• Were the 2,235 letters that had been sent out to addresses held on the Council’s database sent to people who had been incorrectly charged and were therefore eligible for a refund or were they potentially eligible for a refund because although there had been 590 responses there had not been 590 refunds;
• Could a summary be provided of communication that had taken place since mid-January 2025;
• Based on current progress when would officers complete the rectification work;
• As some of the information was held on an old system, had the data on that system been recovered so that those people could be written to as well;
• Could the reasons for refusal be provided and the total amount of money that had been refunded.

Finally, Councillor Ennis reassured the Sub-Committee that a lot of work and external verification was going on in respect of the TRO Rectification process and that a whistleblowing policy was in place so that staff could raise concerns.

Resolved –

(1)      That the report be noted;

(2)      That a written response be provided to the Sub-Committee by officers in answer to the questions set out above on the TRO Rectification Project.