Agenda item

The Monitoring Officer to report on any Questions, Representations and Statements of Case received in accordance with Council procedures.

A statement has been received from Mr Robert Ball and Dr Douglas Smith as attached at Appendix B.

This will be considered under Scrutiny Procedure Rule 10 Part E of the

Council’s Constitution.

The Monitoring Officer advised that a statement had been received, copies of which were circulated with the Agenda, including an abstracted version.

The Chair provided an explanation of the process to be followed, advising that there would be a maximum of five minutes for the members of the public to make their statement.

Mr Robert Ball and Dr Douglas Smith of the ‘Putney Road Say No’ campaign were then invited to address the Commission.

As the submission was very detailed, Mr Ball and Dr Smith began by referring to the abstract of the key points in summary.

In making their statement to the Commission, Mr Ball and Dr Smith referred to the reasons which justified a call-in of the scheme, which was to be considered as the next item on the Agenda for the meeting.

The Commission were asked by the ‘Putney Road Say No’ campaign to note that in their view the call-in was made based on the discrepancy between the public record and the actual consultation and was the starting point of the submission. However, each reason was closely linked with the others and the statement was made to help the Commission to fully understand the concerns. The Commission noted that the submission received by the representatives started with their opinion on the specific reason for the call-in, but also covered a further three reasons, because they were all closely connected, namely:

·         The public record of the consultation has been altered to remove claims about reduced rat-running in Clarendon Park

It was considered that there was an important discrepancy in the public record of the consultation. Specific predictions made in the consultation about reducing rat-running in Clarendon Park did not appear in the formal record in the report on the consultation. The specific pages were appended to the submission and were also identified and discussed in the accompanying text.  It appeared that this discrepancy had arisen because of the second reason given for call-in.

·         The consultation was seriously misleading about reducing rat-running

It was considered that the first report of the traffic modelling in the funding bid document identified a risk of increased rat-running in Clarendon Park. All subsequent public statements about the scheme claimed that rat-running in Clarendon Park, and elsewhere, would be reduced by the operation of link road, or by the scheme. Many of these statements linked the claims directly to the traffic modelling. Specific predictions of reduction were made for Clarendon Park Road. Similar claims about reducing rat-running were made in the presentation to the Scrutiny Commission. The final statement in the Executive Decision report effectively withdrew all these claims by stating that the traffic modelling showed the impact on rat-running would be neutral. This meant that the modelling showed no reduction in rat-running in Clarendon Park. It was suggested therefore that the Executive Decision report contradicted every public statement about the link road or the scheme. It also left a clear inconsistency with the specific predictions made in the consultation.

It was expressed that this was seriously misleading to the public taking part in the consultation, as the claims about rat-running were known to have influenced views of the scheme. The inconsistency with the specific predictions in the consultation also appeared to be the reason for the discrepancy in the public record.

·         The traffic modelling evidence showed the link road was not needed

It was considered that the traffic modelling evidence showed that the link road did not work and that there was no real demand for the link road. The Commission were asked to take consideration of the detailed comments in the statement concerning the suggested benefits of the scheme, these concerns were identified as the most important conclusions of the submission. It was expressed that if the scheme was to reduce rat-running it could only be by achieved using the link road, the local access could make no contribution to reducing rat-running. The link road would only function in one period so its possible impact on rat-running was limited. The link road also claimed to reduce rat-running by creating faster and shorter journeys. If it was to reduce rat-running it must do this. The traffic modelling showed that journey times increased when the link road was used. Journeys were not faster. Measuring distances on maps it had not been possible to find any shorter journeys which would reduce rat-running in the areas where it was claimed. Journeys were therefore neither faster nor shorter.

In concluding their address to the Commission, Mr Ball and Dr Smith commented that the above reasons were why their campaign was indicating that neither the full scheme, nor the link road part of it, could reduce rat-running.

They suggested that without a reduction in rat-running there was no benefit to local people affected by the scheme, only more traffic.  They asked the Commission to accept that this was why the consultation was seriously misleading.

The Chair thanked Mr Ball and Dr Smith for their statement.

The City Mayor was invited to comment.  He referred to advice received from Officers on the positive impact of the scheme and referred to technical data from the modelling exercise which supported the proposal.

The Chair commented that the discussion on the call-in was to be considered as the next item of business and asked Mr Ball and Dr Smith to return to the public gallery.

At this point, Councillors Kitterick and Porter expressed concern that they would not have the opportunity to put questions to the members of the public that had attended to present their statement.

The Democratic Support Officer confirmed that in Scrutiny Procedure Rules as defined in the Council’s Constitution, it was the Chair’s discretion to determine the extent of participation by members of the public at meetings.

The Chair confirmed that as the call-in was the following item, she had advised that there would not be a discussion between the Commission members and members of the public. 

In concluding the item and in response to a question, she indicated that she was content for her ruling to be recorded.