Agenda item

(To receive a report from Mark Rainey, Children's Commissioning Manager, which invites the Committee to comment on the Sustainable Modes of Travel to School (SMOTS) Strategy, prior to a decision being taken by the Executive Councillor for Adult Care, Health and Children's Services on 31 July 2020)

The Chairman advised the Committee that this item was for pre-decision scrutiny, prior to a decision being taken by the Executive Councillor for Adult Care, Health and Children's Services on 31 July 2020.

The Chairman invited Mark Rainey, Commissioning Manager - Commercial to present the report.  The Chairman advised the Committee that Charlotte Gray, Acting Head of Service – Children's Strategic Commissioning and Teri Marshall, Education Transport Manager, were also in attendance for this item.

The Committee was advised that local authorities had a duty to promote the use of sustainable modes of travel on journeys to and from schools in their area.  To assist meeting this duty, the Council had to prepare a document which detailed their strategy to promote the use of sustainable modes of travel to meet the school travel needs in their area.  Appendix A to the Executive Councillor report (Appendix 1) provided the Committee with a copy of the draft Sustainable Modes of Travel to School Strategy for 2020-2023.

The Committee noted that the draft strategy built on the successes of the previous strategy and acted as a statement of the local authority's vision, objectives and work programme for improving the sustainable travel infrastructure and for promoting sustainable school travel.  It was noted further that the draft strategy aimed to provide health benefits for children and their families through active journeys; and environmental improvements through reduced congestion and improvements in air quality.

It was reported that the strategy had three key overarching objectives, which were:

·         Objective 1 - Children's Services, the Transport Services Group, Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership and Highways to work collaboratively to improve transport infrastructure;

·         Objective 2 - Children's Services, Transport Services and Public Health to work together to promote healthy lifestyles for children and young people; and

·         Objective 3 – To meet the requirements of the Education & Inspections Act 2006 in the provision of home to school transport.

The Committee was advised that there were six deliverables in the Action Plan to help achieve the three overarching objectives; these were detailed on page 62 of the report pack.

The Committee noted that there was an acknowledgment of the interdependencies of achieving the objectives set, and the development of cross-directorate working to facilitate the objectives.

During a short discussion, the Committee raised the following questions, and the following points were confirmed:

·         Positive Outcomes – The Committee was advised that improved health and a reduction in the carbon footprint would be two positive outcomes from the SMOTS Strategy.  The Decarbonisation Plan had resulted in significant funding being made available to local authorities around transport in general and the sustainability transport group would be trying to access some of this funding. The Council had already been awarded £450,000 of capital monies to contribute to improvements of specified unsuitable routes as part of an Invest-to-Save project;

·         Funding – The Committee was advised that the Government's announcement of funding for capital developments could be significant and some of this funding could be focussed towards these unsuitable routes.  It was hoped that a couple of unsuitable routes could be addressed each year by working with Highways;

·         Encourage cycling – It was noted that it would be queried whether some of the funding could be used to fund more cycle training for children such as Bikeability and Cycle Proficiency to increase their confidence on the roads;

·         The need to reduce the number of parents taking their children to school - It was highlighted that there were several measures that could be put in place to reduce the number of parents dropping children off at school.  These included school travel zones and park and stride sites. However, if a road was closed off to school traffic then school buses would not be able to access the school either.  Each school was looked at on an individual basis to identify the appropriate measures that could be put in place.  Better results were usually obtained when a school promoted sustainable travel to its pupils and parents;

·         The SMOTS Strategy would cover all Lincolnshire students regardless of whether they went to school or college in Lincolnshire or out of county;

·         Encouraging cycling – It was highlighted that as 76% of residents lived with 30 minutes cycling distance of school, it was suggested whether consideration should be given to providing pupils with a bike and installing more bike stores in schools to help reduce the costs of home to school transport.  It was clarified that a large proportion of this figure would probably not be entitled to home to school transport; and 

·         It was requested that a report be brought back in a year's time with an update on any funding received and how it was spent, the new routes available, and those that would be focussed on next.

RESOLVED

1.    That the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee unanimously agreed to support the recommendations to the Executive Councillor for Adult Care, Health and Children's Services as detailed in Appendix 1, on page 57 of the report pack.

2.    That the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee agreed that the points listed above should be forwarded on to the Executive Councillor for Adult Care, Health and Children's Services in relation to this item.