Agenda and draft minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, Council Offices, Cecil Street, Margate, Kent. View directions

Contact: James Clapson 

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Councillors Farrance, Keen and Lewis.

 

2.

Declarations of Interest pdf icon PDF 87 KB

To receive any declarations of interest.  Members are advised to consider the advice contained within the Declaration of Interest advice attached to this Agenda.  If a Member declares an interest, they should complete the Declaration of Interest Form.

 

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

3.

Minutes of Previous Meeting pdf icon PDF 58 KB

To approve the Minutes of the Joint Transportation Board meeting held on 6 June 2019, copy attached.

Minutes:

Councillor Messenger proposed, Councillor Taylor seconded and Members agreed the minutes to be a correct record of the meeting held on 6 June 2019.

4.

Report from Stagecoach pdf icon PDF 141 KB

Minutes:

Mr Arnold, Commercial Director, Stagecoach provided Members with an update on Stagecoach services within the District.  Mr Arnold also introduced Mr Morgan the Operations Manager at Westwood Depot.

 

During consideration of the item it was noted that:

 

·  Thanks were offered to Mr Arnold and Mr Morgan for their attendance. It provided a great opportunity for the Officers and Members to interface with Stagecoach.

·  Bus routes could be tweaked. Perhaps consideration could be given to reducing the number of Loop buses to enable provision of other routes.

·  Thanks were offered to Stagecoach for the provision of busses on Westgate Day which helped to make the event a success.

·  Stagecoach were in dialogue with the NHS and would respond to closures of practices by amending bus routes if it was appropriate to do so.

 

The report was noted.

 

5.

Thanet Highway Works Programme 2019/20 pdf icon PDF 155 KB

Minutes:

During consideration of the item it was noted that:

 

·  £700,000 of funding had been received for phase five of the pothole blitz project, around £500,000 had been spent and a further £200,000 of works were scheduled to take place over the next five to six weeks.

·  The externally funded works in Molineux Road, Minster had been completed, this work included the planting of three trees.

·  KCC would continue to monitor the misuse of the puffin crossing at the Broadway where people crossed the road diagonally.

·  The markings that had appeared on the A28, in the Westbrook and Westgate-on-sea area were to indicate the location of existing services under the road.

·  There were no plans for Virgin Media to continue works in the District, BT may come to the area next to improve broadband provision. 

 

The report was noted.

 

6.

Parking and Waiting Restrictions pdf icon PDF 2 MB

Minutes:

Ms Glaiser, Uniformed Services Enforcement Manager, Thanet District Council introduced the item and advised that the Council wished to install 23 new sets of double yellow lines. 

 

During consideration of the item it was noted that:

 

·  If the public felt that a proposed double yellow line needed to be extended they should respond to the Council during the consultation process.

·  The process to request a restriction was a follows:

o  A request should be submitted to the Civil Enforcement Department in writing, it should state the location and reason for the request. 

o  TDC and KCC would review the request to agree that it was valid.

o  If valid, the restriction would be proposed to Members at the next available Board meeting. 

o  If the Board agreed, the proposal would go to public consultation

o  If there were no objections, KCC created a sealed order to implement the proposal and works could commence. 

o  Normally the process took between six to 12 months.

 

It was proposed by Councillor Binks, Seconded by Councillor Taylor and the Board agreed the following:

 

‘That subject to the views of the Board, the recommendations shown in Annex 1 were approved and;

 

That the proposals which require statutory consultation were advertised, and that any traffic related objections are reported back to a future meeting of the Board.’

 

7.

Independent Parking Surveys for Birchington, Westbrook and Westgate-on-Sea - Revised On-Street Schemes pdf icon PDF 194 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Ms Glaiser, introduced the item which asked for the Board’s comments regarding the revised on-street parking restriction proposals, following an independent survey for Minnis Bay, Westbrook and Westgate-on-sea.

 

Councillors Bambridge, Scott, Braidwood and Ashbee spoke under Council procedure 20.1 during which the following points were noted:

·  There were always places to park in Station Road in Westgate-on-sea, and there were no obvious traffic flow problems.

·  Trade would be killed off if people didn’t want to pay to park, this would lead to loss of business and a loss of business rates to the Council.

·  Westgate had a number of unique independently run shops.  A pay and display scheme would reduce footfall and business would suffer, leading to the loss of jobs.  Empty shops encouraged criminality. 

·  It would be better if the existing one hour free parking policy was enforced.

·  Westbrook business owners were worried by the proposal.  They believed that it would be better, and more profitable for the Council, to enforce overstay parking than introduce a new pay and display parking scheme.

·  The proposals had no support from businesses and residents in Westbrook or Westgate-on-sea, with the exception of Royal Crescent where residents were supportive of the proposal in their area.

·  The Council should talk with residents and businesses rather than hire an external consultant to do their research.

 

During consideration of the item it was noted that:

 

·  The schemes had been split into three groups, however it could be beneficial to separate Royal Crescent into a fourth group as the residents in this area were so supportive of the proposal.

·  Extensive consultation had previously taken place, suggestions of how to improve the consultation process were welcome from residents and Members.

·  The cost of installing pay and display schemes varied according to the location.

 

The following comments were received from Members of the Board:

·  Shops had closed in Birchington due to the introduction of parking charges.

·  The consultant’s report seemed to make statements without sufficient supporting evidence.

·  Elderly residents would have to walk further.

·  It would be more effective to increase the enforcement of existing schemes than to introduce a new pay and display scheme.

·  TDC should have constructive dialogue with the Town Council’s and other partners about alternative options as their local knowledge could help provide a number of better ideas.

·  Local residents should be given special privileges to allow them to park in Westbrook and Westgate-on-sea centres.

·  The local shops would be very disadvantaged, it would discourage people from coming to the centres.

·  Some other councils had reduced parking charges to encourage footfall for local businesses.

·  Parking charges should be the same across the whole of the District.

·  Residents could be charged less than visitors.

·  Birchington traders had set up 30 member group to look at ways to improve footfall. They unanimously believed that if the Birchington scheme was removed then traders would be tempted to park outside their shops and this would reduce footfall.  However they did want the cost of parking to be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.