Agenda item

To consider a report by the Traffic and Transportation Manager (copy attached) which provides an overview of the Draft Regional Transport Plan currently under consultation, and as part of the consultation seeks the Committee’s views on its contents.

11:15am – 12:00pm

The Traffic and Transportation Manager, alongside the Principal Engineer—Road Safety & Active Travel, and Operational Transport Manager, presented the Draft Regional Transport Plan (previously circulated).

The report detailed the ongoing development of the North Wales Regional Transport Plan, which would replace the existing North Wales Joint Local Transport Plan 2015. Officers acknowledged committee members’ concerns regarding the report's size and its complexity, stressing that it was a high-level plan which would sit between the national transport plan and local area transport plans.

Across Wales, each of the four Corporate Joint Committees (CJCs) was required to produce both a Regional Transport Plan (RTP) for their respective region. This report outlined the development of the North Wales Regional Transport Plan, which the North Wales CJC was developing in collaboration with the six North Wales local authorities. The RTP had been drawn up by the CJC’s Transport Sub-Committee, on which Denbighshire County Council’s representative was the Lead Member for Environment and Transport.  The North Wales Regional Transport Plan would eventually replace the previous North Wales Joint Local Transport Plan 2015. Nevertheless, the latter Plan would remain “live” until the North Wales RTP has been approved by the Welsh Government, which was expected to be during the Summer of 2025.

The purpose of the four Regional Transport Plans was to help deliver the ambitions contained within the Wales Transport Strategy “Llwybr Newydd”. The National Transport Delivery Plan (NTDP) would support the delivery of the Wales Transport Strategy. The Welsh Government has developed the NTDP, and this would deliver trunk road projects, rail projects, and transport policies, projects, and initiatives of national significance.

The committee was informed that the consultation on the draft RTP was ongoing and would be conducted largely online.  However, hard copies of the consultation would be available across the region at libraries and one-stop shops.

Following the introduction, the committee discussed the following further –

·       Whilst welcoming the plan, questions were raised about parking, especially kerbside parking, as the Welsh Government’s proposal to ban this practice. Officers explained that this was a complex matter, compounded by the fact that young people remained living at home for longer leading to households having numerous cars. There was no funding available at present to develop residents’ car parks.  The WG had proposed to proceed and ban footway parking once the 20mph speed limit had been fully implemented, it had even included it in the NTP but not stipulated its inclusion in RTPs, however no firm proposals had yet been put forward for its enforcement. This matter could be discussed through the CJCs if members requested it to be escalated to that level.

·       The challenges experienced with respect of active travel, especially in the county's rural areas.

·       Housing developments and the need to ensure sufficient parking facilities were available.  Members felt that this problem should be highlighted within the Authority’s consultation response.  Officers confirmed that it was difficult at times to find an appropriate balance between enough parking provision in  new developments whilst also encouraging active travel.

·       Parking in certain urban and AONB destination areas proved to be extremely problematic during peak holiday season.  Members were firmly of the view that workable solutions required to be devised.

·       Members suggested that due to the sheer size of the transport plan and its complexities that it would be beneficial for the projects outlined in Appendix B to be taken to their respective Member Area Group (MAG) meetings to allow a localised discussion on the proposal. Officers agreed to the suggestion put forward by the committee and assured members that these projects would be taken to the relevant MAGs once they were sufficiently developed.

Members raised concerns about the CJCs work and whether local elected members would be losing out on an opportunity to discuss matters that affected their communities. The Scrutiny Coordinator clarified that work was ongoing to establish a joint scrutiny committee for the CJCs.  However, local authorities’ own scrutiny committees would still retain the powers to examine any matter that affected their local areas, the work of the joint scrutiny committee would be focussed on examining the strategic objectives and plans of the CJC not local area matters.

At the conclusion of the discussion the Committee:

Resolved:   to confirm that -

(i)   as part of its consideration it had read, understood, and taken account of the Integrated Well-being Appraisal (Appendix A); and

(ii)  having considered the contents of the report and the draft Regional Transport Plan (RTP), requested that the observations made during the discussion be incorporated into Denbighshire County Council’s final response to the North Wales Corporate Joint Committee (CJC) on its draft RTP.