Opposition councillors have criticised Labour for a lack of transparency as they have been given no information about a special meeting 24 hours before it is due to start.
Green and Conservative councillors are frustrated they have no details about the Transport and Sustainability Committee meeting tomorrow. It only appeared on the council’s meetings calendar after 5pm last Friday.
An agenda marked with a “report to follow” was published at 11.34am today (Tuesday 20 June), with the A259 active travel improvement scheme between Fourth Avenue and Wharf Road, Hove, as the sole item.
A Labour press release sent out more than an hour after the agenda – but before the report was published – said that it was a redesign of the scheme to allow two-way cycle lanes while keeping road traffic as it is.
The £475,000 project approved last September was to be funded with £171,000 from the government’s Active Travel Fund and £304,000 from the council’s Local Transport Plan fund.
It included a separate cycle lane, an extra 70 cycle parking spaces – some for specially adapted bicycles – and 26 parking spaces for blue badge holders.
Green group convenor councillor Steve Davis, the opposition spokesman on the committee, said that councillors had not been given enough time to scrutinise any decision.
Councillor Davis, a former chair of the council’s Environment, Transport and Sustainability (ETS) Committee, said: “There’s a lot that isn’t clear right now but the lack of transparency from the Labour administration forces us to assume that they are scheduling a special meeting with the hopes to rush through a decision.
“It’s unclear whether a report is still being written the day before the meeting or whether a report has been written and is being intentionally withheld to minimise scrutiny.
“Either way, councillors from all parties will have little time to look at the report. Even more importantly, the public won’t get the chance to input into whatever decision is being proposed.
“This is a concern for the business of the transport committee but it’s also a worrying precedent. Labour might be the biggest group, but they still owe it to the council and to the city to be scrutinised for the decisions they want to make.”
Committee member Conservative councillor Samer Bagaeen also tweeted his concerns to the Local Government Chronicle and Active Travel England, stating that councillors usually have the information they need at least five days before a meeting.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Councillor Bagaeen said: “I’m very disappointed with the administration’s position that normally open and transparent ways of working can be swept aside and both scrutiny and information can be stymied and withheld intentionally on this important matter of active travel funding.
“The council has a lot to answer for.”
Councillor Bagaeen was sceptical about public support for the proposed cycle lane extension when the old ETS Committee voted it through last September.
At the time, he said that there were 38 supporting responses out of a total of 48 to the consultation on the traffic regulation order.
Transport and Sustainability Committee deputy chair Labour councillor Gary Wilkinson was also critical at the time, raising concerns about “floating bus stops”.
The chair of the council’s Transport and Sustainability Committee, Councillor Trevor Muten, said: “The chair of the committee may call a special meeting of the committee or sub-committee as the case may be at any time.
“The agenda for tomorrow’s meeting has been published and the item to be received at the meeting is a report on the A259 Active Travel Improvement Scheme – Fourth Avenue to Wharf Road.
“The committee report is currently being sent to members and being made available to the public council website.
“It will be clear from the report why a shortened timeframe was required.”
The special meeting of the Transport and Sustainability Committee is due to start at 1pm tomorrow (Wednesday 21 June) at Hove Town Hall. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe Cllr Bagaeen’s comments last September were about responses to a Traffic Regulation Order. He’d mistaken them as responses to the consultation about the A259 scheme but that had had a far higher number of responses and had happened many months earlier. It’s a shame that his mistake is repeated in this news item.
Now the report has been published, it confirms Cllr Bagaeen’s confusion, which should now be corrected. The report satys there were almost 900 responses to the scheme’s consultation. His lower figure was, indeed, for the Traffic Regulation Order. Please could you amend this news item accordingly?
Amused to see Green committee member Steve Davis complaining about not releasing details in time, when previously transport decisions were agreed with Labour, behind closed doors, as part of the secret Labour-Green coalition agreement (Aka Memorandum of Understanding).
Seems he doesn’t like have similar tactics used upon him.
As this is outside my flat in Hove, I’m suddenly interested here, in the hope that there are indeed changes to the original plans.
The existing cycle lane is just fine for those of us who use it (a lot, in my case) but could be improved and widened where necessary. With a bit of joined up government, the new cycle lane could also be incorporated into the Kingsway to the Sea development.
The plans under the Greens were just ridiculous, because their cycle lane was to be duplicated with the sole intention to narrow the A259 for cars, and the seafront parking was to be moved moved into the middle of the road, plus with floating bus stops and not-very-helpful disable parking bays.
This would have substantially altered the very nature of Hove seafront as a place to arrive with your kids and to enjoy the beach. The idea that people from out of town would arrive with their picnics and paddle boards by bicycle was just stupid.
Let’s hope we get a more common sense approach from Labour.
This isn’t open democracy if details are published too late for proper scrutiny. Their manifesto said: “Labour will listen…so that your opinions and experiences are fed directly into the council.” BUT we won’t give you a chance to answer and will just tell you what we are going to do.
Under the Greens we didn’t have open democracy – we had arrogant, entitled, ignorant clueless councillors demanding we all follow party ideology and dogma, and treating those who disagreed with them with utter contempt.