Agenda item

(Director of Governance) To consider the attached report.

The Committee then considered the presentation and line of questioning to be taken at their next meeting when they would host officers from Transport for London (TfL). It was noted that coming to the meeting would be the General Manager of the Central Line and the TfL Stakeholder.

At their last meeting the Committee drew up a list of items that they would like to be covered by TfL, and they were now asked if they would like to review this and perhaps narrow it down and it was difficult for officers from large organisations as TfL to cover everything. Members would also need to decide if they wished to have a presentation or just a simple Q&A session.

Of the items suggested, members would particularly like to know about:

      i.        The possible reinstatement of Central Line services between Epping and Ongar, as proposed by the Mayor of London;

     ii.        The extension of car parking facilities at local Central Line stations, particularly in view of the previous proposals for additional car parking capacity at Epping Station;

    iii.        If the new night time services would be extended up to Epping, and if so would there be staff or security staff on duty;

   iv.        Questions on infrastructure for the Central Line, in terms of increasing capacity, rectification of signalling breakdowns and investment in signalling infrastructure and the age of the rolling stock on the Central Line particularly in regard to the operation of automatic doors and unacceptably high temperatures in carriages. Maybe have a short presentation on infrastructure and what they hope to achieve or propose to do;

    v.        How much consideration they would have for our Local Plan;

   vi.        Ongoing concern about disabled access to platforms;

  vii.        Changes to the timetable to the “Roding Valley loop” and their future plans for this section; and

 viii.        With the increase in service on the Central Line service, when would they do their maintenance and what impact would it have.

Councillor Waller commented that the questions raised fell into two categories:

1)    Operational issues; and

2)    Strategic issues.

Should the meeting be divided into two parts to deal with this? He went on to note that he had recently attended meetings at Redbridge Council to discuss the Central Line and was told that they could not increase capacity by more than 10% in the coming years but the number of people using the Central Line  would increase by more that 10% in future years. Members may want to pursue this with them.

Members commented that over the years they have been told that capacity on the Central Line was not an issue and then that there was no capacity on the Central Line. It was important that they got a definitive view on this.

Councillor Shiell said that the 10% figure should be highlighted in connection with our Local Plan.

It was agreed that:

      i.        there should be some sort of presentation to preface their talk to present their major themes before they answered questions;

     ii.        Questions should be made available to them in advance;

    iii.        Members of the public should be made aware of this meeting and be able to pass on their questions to their ward representative to ask at the meeting;

   iv.        The presentation to last between 12 to 15 minutes;

    v.        Meeting to be publicised in the Council Bulletin;

   vi.        Questions to be sent to TfL about 2 weeks before the meeting to enable them to prepare answers.

Councillor Knight asked if it would be worthwhile to ask a representative from British Transport Police to attend and ask them about the impact on them now that there were less station staff and night time services. Members thought that this may take away from the main issues to be discussed. It was a big subject and maybe should go on the reserve list for future consideration. Councillor Neville suggested that they come next autumn once the night time tube service had bedded in. This was agreed by the Committee.