Agenda and minutes

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 20 March 2018 as an accurate record.

The minutes of the meeting held on 20 March 2018 were agreed as an accurate record.

In accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct and the statutory provisions of the Localism Act, Members and co-opted Members of the Council are reminded that it is a requirement to register disclosable pecuniary interests (DPIs) and gifts and hospitality to the value of which exceeds £50 or multiple gifts and/or instances of hospitality with a cumulative value of £50 or more when received from a single donor within a rolling twelve month period. In addition, Members and co-opted Members are reminded that unless their disclosable pecuniary interest is registered on the register of interests or is the subject of a pending notification to the Monitoring Officer, they are required to disclose those disclosable pecuniary interests at the meeting. This should be done by completing the Disclosure of Interest form and handing it to the Democratic Services representative at the start of the meeting. The Chair will then invite Members to make their disclosure orally at the commencement of Agenda item 3. Completed disclosure forms will be provided to the Monitoring Officer for inclusion on the Register of Members’ Interests.

There were none.

To receive notice of any business not on the agenda which in the opinion of the Chair, by reason of special circumstances, be considered as a matter of urgency.

There were no items of urgent business.

To discuss with relevant representatives the impact of the new rail timetable.

The Chair welcomed all Members and invited guests to the meeting for a discussion on the impact of the changes made to the rail timetables upon the residents and businesses of Croydon as well as the wider community.

The Chair informed the Sub-Committee that Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) had given their apologies for non-attendance at the meeting as they did not feel it appropriate to attend due to pending enquiries by the Office of Road and Rail as well as the Transport Select Committee.

The Chair expressed his disappointment on behalf of the Sub-Committee that GTR declined to attend the meeting to answer its questions. Although they were not legally compelled to attend, it was felt that the opportunity to explain what had happened and provide reassurance of future improvements should have been taken. This meeting was an opportunity gain an understanding of what went wrong, the impact to Croydon residents, the economic community and the recovery process.

Officers from Network Rail were in attendance and provided a presentation to the Sub-Committee on their current position following the implementation of the new rail timetable. The issues faced and the service recovery plan following the problems that had arisen which impacted negatively on people’s lives.

The Sub-Committee was informed that there were a number of issues that contributed towards the disruption experienced, the main being driver availability. Drivers were not always at the station they needed to be at the appropriate time which resulted in train cancellations.

As part of the recovery programme, in the first couple of weeks following the introduction of the timetable, Network Rail worked with GTR on services that had available drivers to ensure they ran smoothly. Following on from that the current focus was to try to stabilise services that had experienced regular cancellations.

Councillor Callton Young arrived at 18:50pm

Work was currently being undertaken on a revised, consistent timetable which would limit disruption for peak services.

Tim Bellenger from London Travel Watch advised that his organisation had been involved with Thameslink and GTR since the public consultation and confirmed that the delivery of the timetable had been discussed including the challenges anticipated.

The relationship between the operator and Network Rail had been witnessed and there has been discussions around rethinking how the timetables should work, which was not limited to just changing the times but the whole process involved. It was identified that driver training, infrastructure and communication between other operators was vital to the successful implementation of the timetables.

Councillor Luke Clancy arrived at 18:55

The Sub-Committee was further informed that proper consideration had not been given to the number of fully trained drivers needed for the new routes. This failure arose from complicated plans for driver changes with many not confident on the new routes which meant they needed to be accompanied by a senior member of staff.

Councillor Stuart King arrived at 19:01

The Chair queried whether the operators knew they had sufficient trained drivers for each route. Officers responded that through  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24/18

The following motion is to be moved and seconded where it is proposed to exclude the press and public from the remainder of a meeting:

“That, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information falling within those paragraphs indicated in Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972, as amended.”

This was not required