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Area Co-ordinators Report to Broomhill Central Nether Edge Area Panel 3 March 2005
Broomhill, Central and Nether Edge Area Panel
Meeting of 3 March 2005
Area Co-ordinators Report
PURPOSE OF REPORT
To inform Members of progress in the implementation of the Area Plan, answers to outstanding questions and other significant developments.
OUTSTANDING QUESTIONS
Q Where there any plans to provide additional car parking spaces following the sale of part of the land which had been used as a car park behind Champion Hire on Abbeydale Rd.
R Half of the land belonged to Housing and was sold to Champion Hire in June 2003. There are no plans for additional car parking
Q Could the Council give consideration to the installation of a pedestrian crossing at the junction of Osbourne Road and Sheldon Road?
R This is actually Machon Bank Road / Osbourne Road. This can be added to the list of sites to be assessed. There is very limited funding for pedestrian crossings and the sites to be installed in the 2005/6 financial year have already been identified subject to approval. There are currently around 200 sites on the list so the chances of anything being provided in the near future are limited.
Q Could the Council give consideration to problems being experienced by residents living on Cowlishaw Road, who, due to the lack of on-street parking, were often unable to park near their homes?
R This is within the proposed Sharrow Residents Parking Scheme. Consultation on the scheme is expected to be carried out during the 2005/6 financial year.
Q When would the responsibility for dealing with car parking offences be transferred from the Police to the City Council?
R It is proposed that such responsibilities would be transferred with effect from 1st April, 2005.
Q There was an absence of a coherent policy for promoting and implementing designated safe local walking routes within Sheffield localities. Had the Council any plans for producing such a policy?
R At the moment there is a ‘Plan 4 Walking’, but work is commencing on turning this into a Pedestrian Strategy.
Q There were inadequate and insufficient infrastructure measures for safe crossing points and routes for schools, residential homes, parks and footpaths. Had the Council got any plans for introducing such measures?
R If local people feel that improvements to crossing points need to be made, they can apply to the Area Panel. Dropped crossings were installed on Stewart Road and Lydgate Lane from the Panel's £10k allocation this year. Others can be considered for future years if requests are made.
Q Could the Council produce a clearly stated, published criteria for prioritising cost effective safe routes for vulnerable road users, traffic calming and road safety schemes, in the context of highway expenditure budgets?
R To ensure that they are dealt with fairly and transparently, all requests for highways schemes go through an assessment procedure. If a requested measure is felt to be feasible, it is assessed by a panel of officers and scored against set criteria which relate to the Council's Local Transport Plan aims. Those schemes which score highly enough are then progressed in order of scoring as funding becomes available. It is believed that a presentation on the assessment procedure will have been given at a Panel meeting by the previous link officer. A further presentation to the Panel on how the procedure works can be made, this might be timely as the assessment criteria have recently changed. The request for transport projects form can be found on the Council website http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/in-your-area/transport-and-highways/transport-planning/requests-for-transport-projects or write in to Transport Planning, Howden House 1 Union St, Sheffield S1 2SH
Q How many “uncontrolled and controlled” pedestrian crossing were there adjacent to schools or on school routes in the City as a whole, and within Nether Edge and surrounding school catchments, such as Sharrow, Ecclesall, Carterknowle and Millhouses, and where were they sited?
R The Council has lists of signal controlled crossing and zebra crossing locations but we do not record the location of uncontrolled crossings. All schools in Sheffield will going through a School Travel Planning process, with the aim of having all plans working by 2010. All schools have been contacted but not all have yet signed up to the process. Obviously the more pro-active the school is, the earlier it can happen. Part of the travel planning process will be to identify the needs of each school relating to safe routes.
Q What action was to be taken with regard to improving highway safety in the Cemetery Road/Summerfield Street/Napier Street area following the new housing development on the site of the former Wards Brewery? It was understood that the developers had promised a sum of money towards the installation of a pedestrian crossing on Summerfield Street. Local residents had been informed that a pedestrian crossing would be installed in 2004 and they had also asked for the plans in respect of the crossing to be submitted for future discussion at a meeting of the Area Panel, but this did not happen. Why had there been no progress in connection with the installation of the pedestrian crossing and how many reported accidents had there been on Summerfield Street between 2001 and 2005?
R There had been a financial contribution from the developers towards the installation of a pedestrian crossing, but the amount received was not sufficient for the planned works, and no Council funding had been identified to make up the shortfall. The Council was aware of the need for road safety measures in the area and the proposed installation of a pedestrian crossing on Summerfield Street would be included on the Pedestrian Crossing Request List for the 2005/06 financial year.
Q Had Highways Management Services given any further consideration to creating a further entrance to the General Cemetery on Cemetery Road?
R Awaiting a response
R Awaiting a response
Q Does the Area Panel consider it appropriate for a stretch of the River Porter to be built over and could the Council confirm that planning permission would be sought for the construction of any new bridge across the river?
R Planning permission for the construction of a new bridge across the River Porter had already been granted as part of the Porter Project proposals.
Q Why had the Council found it necessary to make changes to the Planning and Highways Area Boards? If the number of Boards, as proposed, was reduced from three to two, the meetings would last much longer, Members of the public would be sat around for much longer and due to the pressures being placed on the Councillors in the light of the potential increase in applications and other planning issues to be considered, their decision-making could be affected.
R Following investigations into the proceedings of particular Planning Board meetings, the Cabinet last year authorised the carrying out of a full review of the membership, terms of reference, operational parameters, including operational areas and workloads, frequency of meetings and all other issues relating to the conduct and management of Planning and Highways Area Boards. Whilst the number of Boards will be reduced to 2, they will be meeting fortnightly. So instead of 3 Boards meeting every 3 weeks, we will have 2 Boards meeting every 2 weeks. The number of meetings and workload should, therefore, be much the same and the meetings should not, in theory, last any longer, particularly as membership has been reduced from 11 to 9 which will reduce the number of Members speaking.
Benefits of the revised arrangements include good quality Officer reports, well trained Members, improved efficiency of the planning service, improving the speed of decision making and reducing the delay of referrals, taking on board Local Government Association advice and comparing best practice with other Cities, the benefit of the area approach and give more time to Ward Members to represent their constituents.
The revised arrangements become effective from April and will be reviewed in 6 months' time.
Q When would the facilities for partially-sighted people on the pedestrian crossing on Ecclesall Road, at its junction with Summerfield Street, be upgraded?
R The upgrading works required to assist partially-sighted people using the facility involved the installation of rotating cones. However, the existing monitoring equipment on the crossing was not sufficient to operate rotating cones and the required modifications would be very expensive. The Council had an ongoing programme to upgrade pedestrian crossings and this crossing would be included in that programme.
ISSUES
In the absence of the Area Co-ordinator outstanding issues will be deferred to the next meeting.
Dave Whitfield
Area Co-ordinator
Broomhill, Central and Nether Edge
26 February 2005
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