Agenda and minutes

County Councillors Peter Britcliffe, Bernard Dawson and Hasina Khan replaced County Councillors David Foxcroft, Carl Crompton and Erica Lewis respectively.

There were no apologies.

Members are asked to consider any Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests they may have to disclose to the meeting in relation to matters under consideration on the Agenda.

County Councillor David Whipp declared a non-pecuniary interest in Item 4 as he was Chair of Pendle Community Safety Partnership.

County Councillor Peter Britcliffe declared a non-pecuniary interest in Item 5 as he was Chair of Lancashire County Council's Health Scrutiny Committee.

Resolved: The minutes from the meeting held on 11 September 2020 were confirmed as an accurate record.

The Chair welcomed to the meeting County Councillor Keith Iddon, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport; Phil Durnell, Director of Highways and Transport; John Davies, Head of Service Highways; Michael White, Highway Regulation Manager; and Jackie Brindle, Safe and Healthy Travel Manager. Also welcomed to the meeting were Lara Jones, Central Process Unit Manager, Lancashire Constabulary and Hassan Khan, Superintendent, Lancashire Constabulary.

It was noted that at the last meeting of the Internal Scrutiny Committee members requested that the issue of speeding traffic and the lack of enforcement be considered as soon as possible.

A presentation from Highways and Transport officers was provided to the committee. The committee was informed that there was a growing perception that speeding levels had increased this year and this was reflected in the volume of complaints now being received by the Lancashire Road Safety Partnership. It was noted that excessive speed was a major concern and was a factor in some of the accidents in Lancashire's road network, however it was highlighted the number one factor for accidents in Lancashire was careless driver behaviour. There was not a one size fit all approach to road safety and different types of enforcement and education were required. 

Speed was a key issue of the Lancashire Road Safety Partnership's Towards Zero Road Safety Strategy. The partnership began in 2001 and was a result of the Government's National Safety Camera Programme and had evolved over the years. The Lancashire Road Safety Partnership was a multi-agency approach and included all the relevant partners in Lancashire. A review of the partnership was about to be undertaken and would be led by the Police with input from all the other partner agencies. The Lancashire Road Safety Towards Zero Road Safety Strategy was explained to members and it was highlighted that tackling speed was a key element of the strategy. 

The Road Safety Team was responsible for a number of key areas of work such as safety engineering schemes, speed management and speed limit setting and review. The team also deployed temporary signage and speed indicator devices around Lancashire.

Members were informed that the maintenance and replacement of the fixed camera casings were the responsibility of Lancashire County Council but the actual cameras were under the management of the police.

Through the Safer Roads Fund Programme the county council was looking to install 88 more average speed cameras across 5 different routes in Lancashire which had been considered to be amongst the most dangerous in the country. In addition to this there were other projects within the Safer Roads Fund Programme that were also ongoing across 5 different locations in the county.

In regards to speed management specifically, there was a number of ways the county council managed this and included speed assessments and data analysis, temporary signage and Speed Indicator Devices (SPIDs). There were a variety of different types of SPIDs and some collected speed data and others did not. The Road Safety Team was looking to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The report presented set out the request from the Health Scrutiny Committee for a task and finish group to be established to review the forthcoming proposals from the local NHS on the future of Chorley and South Ribble A&E.

Resolved: The Internal Scrutiny Committee approved the task and finish group request.

This report presented provided information on the single combined work programme for all of the Lancashire County Council scrutiny committees.

There was a request for an analysis update on road safety to be presented at a future meeting of the Internal Scrutiny Committee.

Members were informed of two upcoming Bite Size Briefings. One on Winter Maintenance Services in Lancashire on 18 November and one on Visiting Arrangements in Care Settings during Covid-19 on 19 November.

Resolved: The Internal Scrutiny Committee noted the single combined work plan presented.

An item of urgent business may only be considered under this heading where, by reason of special circumstances to be recorded in the Minutes, the Chair of the meeting is of the opinion that the item should be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency. Wherever possible, the Chief Executive should be given advance warning of any Member's intention to raise a matter under this heading.

There were no items of Urgent Business.

The next meeting of the Internal Scrutiny Committee will be held on Friday 22 January 2021.

The next virtual meeting of the Internal Scrutiny Committee would take place on Friday 22 January 2020 at 10.00am.