I hadn't realised how long I'd been away! Not actually away for the most part though - I have had one weekend away, for my Dad's 60th birthday celebration, but unfortunately the 'quiet' time for council business coincides with one of the busiest times for the day job, so I've mainly been working to build up my flexitime. It's also been a surprisingly busy time for casework, and for advice bureaux - I still tend to assume that people go away in August, so getting 8 people at a bureau, as I did tonight, is a bit of a shock. That said, it's better than sitting there for an hour and having nobody show up, which still happens from time to time..

I've gotten involved in two steering groups this month for projects in the ward - the Kingstanding Youth Inclusion Project, which aims to work with the top 50 'at risk' young people in the area, and the Management Support Group for the Wyrley Birch Children's and Family Centre, which will be opening next year. Both are interesting projects, and though neither of them are unique to Kingstanding, it is nice to see that we are getting the additional investment coming in from a number of sources to address some of the key issues in the ward.

Had an extra meeting of the Transportation Scrutiny Committee yesterday as we had requested a call-in of the decision to implement 'blue routes' in Birmingham - designated routes for emergency service vehicles. We had no argument with wanting to improve emergency service response times and access, but there are concerns about the knock on effect on traffic calming measures and road safety in general. The fact is that despite nine months of work on this policy, there is no clear rationale for it's introduction. The Emergency Services have always had preferred and/or strategic routes - apparently the whole nine months have been spent producing this map (PDF download at the bottom of the page); no district or ward versions available for clarity. The report does not give any reasons for the introduction of this policy, and does not offer any evidence to suggest that response times are a problem in Birmingham, or that traffic calming measures have a negative impact on emergency vehicles. It does however provide a convenient way to tip the balance on traffic calming away from measures which physically prevent speeding towards more advisory measures and things like speed cameras, which have a very limited preventative effect on anyone who is determined to speed.

We argued that the policy would speed up all traffic, not just emergency vehicles, and therefore have a negative impact on road safety. A Transport for London Scrutiny took evidence from the London Ambulance Service where they heard that congestion, not traffic calming, was the greatest cause of delay to emergency response. Congestion on main routes may force emergency vehicles to use residential roads where traffic calming may be in place, so surely dealing with congestion is the first priority, rather than potentially threatening road safety by 'reviewing' all the existing traffic calming measures. We are told that each case will be dealt with on it's merits, which is right and proper - but still no assurance about measures outside schools being protected, despite public statements from the Lib Dems about getting a clearer commitment to that into the report. In the end they voted along with the Tories to refuse the call-in request. Len Gregory says it is not his policy to speed up traffic in Birmingham, no matter what. But that will be the outcome of this and other 'decisions' of the so-called Progressive Partnership.