Agenda and minutes

To note any changes to the membership.

1.1      Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Thomas Crockett.

To receive declarations of interest by Members and Officers of any personal or prejudicial interests.

2.1      Councillor Jonathan Glanz declared that he is a customer of G. Network.  David Sangster, Managing Director and Co-founder, G. Network, was in attendance for item 5, Broadband Coverage.

To sign the minutes of the Business Planning & Transport Policy and Scrutiny Committee meeting held on Monday 12 June 2017.

3.1      RESOLVED: That the minutes of the Business Planning and Transport meeting held on Monday 12 June 2017 be signed by the Chairman as a correct record of proceedings.

Written updates from the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Business, Culture and Heritage (to follow), the Cabinet Member for City Highways (Appendix 1) and the Cabinet Member for Planning and Public Realm (Appendix 2).                      

Question And Answer session at the meeting with the Cabinet Member for Planning and Public Realm.

4.1       The Committee received written updates from the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Business, Culture and Heritage, the Cabinet Member for City Highways and the Cabinet Member for Planning and Public Realm on significant matters within their portfolios.  

4.2       The Chairman welcomed Daniel Astaire, Cabinet Member for Planning and Public Realm, to the meeting.  The Committee put questions to and received responses from Councillor Astaire on a number of matters that were relevant to his portfolio.  John Walker, Director of Planning, was also in attendance for this item.  The matters raised included the following topics:

·           Neighbourhood planning - What was the current position in respect of the Council supporting the Neighbourhood Forums on their neighbourhood plans, including those not referred to in the Cabinet Member Update?  Councillor Astaire replied that officers were working with a number of the Forums as set out in the report regarding Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Fitzrovia West and the Queen’s Park Community Council.  There were other Forums such as Marylebone who had taken the view it would be best to wait and take account of the Council’s revised City Plan and the Mayor’s revised London Plan when these were finalised rather than spend time, money and effort on producing a neighbourhood plan which did not comply with these documents.      

·           Mayor of London’s Supplementary Planning Guidance (‘SPG’) on Affordable Housing and Viability – The Cabinet Member was asked why the Council had not to date indicated support for the SPG.  He replied that there would be a number of policy changes that would be made on affordable housing by the Council which would have similar features to the SPG and there would be a number of aspects where it was necessary to distinguish Council policy from the SPG.  The City Plan was being re-drafted.  Councillor Astaire stated that a suite of affordable housing policies would be introduced that he believed would be appropriate for Westminster and these would reflect the content of the speeches that he and the Leader had made recently.  This included taking a more rigorous approach to development viability and a commitment to increasing transparency of viability assessments as set out in the Cabinet Member Update.

·           Paragraph 7.3 of the Cabinet Member Report referred to the ‘intention to introduce post-permission viability reviews to take account of changes in market conditions after consent is given’.  Councillor Astaire was asked at what point the reviews might be made and by whom?   He replied that there would be an overage clause in the planning permission.  If there was a reason for granting planning permission but the scheme did not provide required policy levels of affordable housing, there would be an overage mechanism within the consent given.  This would set out that at an appropriate time (most likely when the developer would be due to be putting the homes on the market), if the Council’s viability consultants determined that the developer could have afforded to give more in terms of homes or payments in lieu then the applicant  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Report of Growth, Planning and Housing

5.1       The Committee received a report on the actions taken to improve connectivity within Westminster, including broadband and mobile connectivity.  The report assessed how the Council had progressed with actions proposed in the report to the Environment Policy and Scrutiny meeting on 7 March 2016.

5.2       The Committee in considering matters relating to this topic heard from Councillor Jonathan Glanz, Lead Member for Connectivity, David Wilkins, Business & Enterprise Programme Manager and David Sangster, Managing Director and Co-founder, G. Network.  Greg Ward, Director of Economy was also in attendance. 

5.3       The Committee heard initially from Mr Wilkins.  He stated that when the Committee had last scrutinised this topic, Ofcom data from 2014 had showed that 47% of premises in Westminster had access to superfast broadband.  This figure had been updated in December 2016 and superfast broadband availability was now 70%.  He stated that this still lagged behind the London average of 95% and was behind the likes of Anglesey, Snowdonia, South Somerset and Brecon.  The UK as a whole lagged behind globally in relation to broadband connectivity.

5.4       Mr Wilkins explained some of the initiatives the Council had taken to create the right conditions that would lead businesses to invest in superfast broadband.  These included that by the end of August, Openreach had upgraded 62 cabinets capable of delivering superfast broadband, serving an additional 14,500 premises in Westminster (Mr Wilkins did make the point that Openreach had fallen well short of delivering the 144 cabinets promised to the Council by the end of 2017).  In order to support Openreach, regular meetings had been held with the street works team who had tackled any challenges faced in respect of the deployment of the cabinets.  There had also been joint working with the street works team and broadband providers such as G. Network to reduce the amount of disruption to public realm from the providers. Mr Wilkins advised that the Council had adopted the standardised wayleave agreement for Council housing stock (legal agreement to install infrastructure on to a building).  As a result of this change, the Council had received applications for infrastructure capable of delivering upload and download speeds of 1Gbps. 

5.5       Mr Wilkins stated that the Council had on 24 August 2017 launched a £2.8m European funded project, Connect Westminster, which supported small businesses in connecting to gigabit capable broadband.  Over the next couple of years at least 1,250 businesses would benefit from this.  There had been 23 applications to date.  Mr Wilkins advised the Committee that early evaluations from the Council’s previous voucher scheme suggested that 25% of all firms who received the vouchers took on additional employees.  There had been increased profits as a result of additional sales and reduced costs for the firms.  Mr Wilkins referred to the implementation of a parking bay discount scheme to reduce costs to broadband providers when deploying new networks.  He drew Members’ attention to the inclusion of specific provisions in the working draft of Westminster’s City Plan to provide guidance to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Report of Executive Director for City Management and Communities

6.1      The item was introduced by Kevin Goad, Head of Highways and Public Realm.  Andy Foster, Asset Manager – Highways Infrastructure and Andy Warrington, Associate Director, Atkins Ltd, were also in attendance for this item.  Mr Goad referred to the Council’s role in the maintenance and management of highway infrastructure assets, including footways and carriageways and ancillary assets, bridges and structures, highway drainage and street lighting.  On 28 October 2016 the Department for Transport and the UK Roads Liaison Group had released an updated national code of practice (‘CoP’), ‘Well-Managed Highway Infrastructure’ on the maintenance and management of highway infrastructure assets.  The Council had until the end of October 2018 to comply with the recommendations of the updated national CoP.  Mr Goad spoke about the CoP requiring authorities to adopt a risk based approach which considers the appropriate levels of service in accordance with local needs and priorities.  It would be necessary to manage the challenges, opportunities and risks created by the new CoP.  Atkins Ltd was helping to manage this process.  

6.2         Mr Warrington gave a presentation to the Committee on the implementation of the new CoP.  He referred to a number of matters in the presentation.  These included that the CoP replaces the previous separate codes for the maintenance of ‘highways’, ‘structures’ and ‘public lighting’, the matters that the Council needs to take into account in relation to third party liability claims, the need to provide detailed outcomes of how services are managed, the 36 recommendations in the new CoP, the opportunities and risks inherent in complying with the CoP and the three stepped approach involved in complying with the CoP. 

6.3      The Committee asked a number of questions on the CoP, including the following:

·           Did the CoP lead to a major change in the way the Council undertook the maintenance and management of highway infrastructure assets?  Mr Goad replied that it did involve a significant step change.   One example was that previously there had been a lack of asset data on drainage, including the condition of them.  The knowledge of the assets would be updated.  The risk based approach was an opportunity to address some of the major issues relating to drainage / gullies in the borough and change the way in which investment was made.  These could include fat in gullies in Chinatown, concrete in gullies from development sites or sorting out the gullies prior to the leaves from trees falling in Bayswater.  There was an option to spend a long period of time in one or two wards, address the issues and then it might not be necessary to return for a significant period of time.  Officers were able to be proactive whilst having a budget set aside to react to issues that arose on a day to day basis.

·           Would there not be implications for other wards in Westminster if a long period of time was spent in one or two wards on seeking to resolve specific issues?  Mr Goad  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The Committee to consider whether it wishes to issue any press releases in relation to its work.

7.1      The Committee decided not to produce a press release at this time in relation to the items on the agenda.

Report of the Director of Policy, Performance and Communications.

8.1      The Committee considered the Work Programme for the next Business, Planning and Transport Policy and Scrutiny meeting on 15 November 2017 and the following meetings in 2018.  There were a number of items scheduled for November and Members decided that two items which would be topical and suitable for scrutiny would be firstly to review the results of the ‘Building Height: Getting the right growth for Westminster’ consultation and scrutinise policy proposals for the City Plan and secondly receive an update on street markets in the borough.  The potential items on the Community Infrastructure Levy, Assets of Community Value / Pubs and Place Shaping would be rescheduled for the meetings in 2018. 

8.2      The Committee requested a statement from UK Power Networks in respect of a power network explosion which had occurred below the pavement in Oxford Street on 7 September.  Members also sought a written update on the current position regarding the cycling strategy and progress of the Cycling Superhighways.

8.3      ACTION: The following actions arose:

·           That UK Power Networks be asked to provide a statement on the power network explosion at Oxford Street on 7 September (Artemis Kassi, Policy and Scrutiny Officer).

·           a written update be provided on the current position regarding the cycling strategy and progress of the Cycling Superhighways (Anthony Sabato, Service Development Manager and Toby Jacobs, Sustainable Transport Officer, Artemis Kassi, Policy and Scrutiny Officer).

8.4      RESOLVED: That (i) the work programme be updated;

That (ii) the action tracker be noted; and,

That (iii) the actions be taken forward.

9.1      There was no additional business for the Committee to consider.

15 November 2017, 8 February 2018, 12 April 2018

10.1    The dates of future meetings are 15 November 2017, 8 February 2018 and 12 April 2018.