Roads and Infrastructure Services Update
Argyll and Bute Council · 6 December 2022
Back to Bute and Cowal Area Committee — 6 December 2022 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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ARGYLL AND BUTE COUNCIL BUTE AND COWAL AREA COMMITTEE ROADS AND INFRASTRUCTURE DECEMBER 2022 SERVICES ROADS AND INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES UPDATE 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 A Roads and Infrastructure standing report was a fixture on Area Committee agendas throughout the life of the last Council. In the first two rounds of Area Committee meetings in the new Council feedback was sought on the value of these updates, and their format and frequency. Generally Members felt having a standard item was beneficial and it was acknowledged that the Roads and Infrastructure weekly briefings issued to all members each Friday afternoon provide for the main sources of live information on current activities. On top of these briefings there is a bank of resources on the new Member Zone system which include the weekly briefings, subject specific briefings, ad hoc short briefings on issues, relevant previous committee reports, operational service procedures, legislation and Council policies. 1.2 In the last Council the purpose of these reports was to provide an update on service activities but since weekly briefings were introduced around 18 months ago [at the time of writing this report we are on to briefing Edition 72] these have largely superseded the original stated purpose of these reports. 1.3 On the basis of the above a new format is proposed for these standing area committee reports which removes duplication for Officers and rather links to existing published information, with additional updates only in the body of the reports if these are specifically requested/noted from previous meetings. The report remains as a standing item and continues to provide the opportunity for Officer engagement at the committee meetings. 2.0 RECOMMENDATIONS It is recommended that the Area Committee: 2.1 Note and consider the contents of this report, and provide feedback on the proposed new format. 3.0 DETAIL
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3.1 Roads and Infrastructure Services provides Members with weekly briefings on topical service activities which are all available here. 3.2 As part of the resources on the new Member Zone system there are various key documents available in an online library here. 3.3 At the previous Area Committee in June it was agreed that the Roads and Infrastructure Services Update report presented to the Area Committee in December 2022 should include an update on progress with the 5 outstanding traffic surveys proposed to be carried out across the Bute and Cowal area. 3.4 There are five outstanding speed surveys on the works programme. These are: Road Location Description A815 Sandbank – Cothouse Police Scotland request C06 Carrick Castle Complaint of speeding traffic in 30mph limit B836 Clachaig Complaint of speeding traffic in 30mph limit U24 Crichton Rd, Rothesay Complaint of speeding traffic in 30mph limit B881 Kilchattan Bay Complaint of speeding traffic in 30mph limit 3.5 Requests for speed surveys are generally prioritised based on road hierarchy. Traffic surveys will only normally be carried out during what are known as neutral months. These seek to avoid school holidays, the winter period and large events to avoid a distortion of the data. The impact on data arising from surveys carried out outside neutral days or months will a key consideration during the assessment of survey results. A neutral day is a weekday between March and October excluding public holidays and school holidays. These are the days where traffic is expected to behave in a similar way. Normally, the traffic surveys will seek to capture a mix of both weekend and weekday traffic data. A neutral month is defined as being one of: April, May, June, September or October. In all cases, surveys will not be carried out over the Christmas period. 3.6 We will look to work through the above works programme from March 2023. 4.0 CONCLUSION 4.1 This report provides links to existing published information on service activities and provides for the opportunity for Officer attendance and engagement at committee meetings. 5.0 IMPLICATIONS 5.1 Policy – none
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5.2 Financial – none 5.3 Legal – none 5.4 HR – none known 5.5 Fairer Scotland Duty: 5.5.1 Equalities - protected characteristics – none known 5.5.2 Socio-economic Duty – none known 5.5.3 Islands – none known 5.6. Climate Change – none 5.7 Risk – none known 5.8 Customer Service - none Executive Director with responsibility for Roads and Infrastructure Services Kirsty Flanagan Policy Lead for Roads and Transport Councillor Andrew Kain November 2022 For further information contact: Jim Smith, Head of Roads and Infrastructure Services; or Mark Calder, Project Manager