Agenda and minutes

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting and introductions were made.

Copy of Area Partnership Discussion Paper attached.

There had been circulated copies of the paper which had been prepared for the Tweeddale Area Partnership.  The Chairman proposed that the Working Group should reach its conclusions within a period of one year.  The Group Members discussed the areas which should be covered by the Group.  It was agreed that the first step should be to identify the issues, both perceived and real.  These could then be tested through information gathering to see if these were valid issues.  The final phase would be to develop solutions to the problems identified.  The information regarding the recent review of on-street parking would be examined as part of this review.  Any solutions would also be looked in terms of their environmental impact.  Mr. Maudsley commented on a recent Transport Scotland paper prepared following a consultation on improving parking in Scotland and it was agreed that the link https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/improving-parking-in-scotland-consultation-analysis-report/ would be provided for all Members of the Group.

Consider extending membership of Group e.g. local business representation.

It was agreed that a representative of the local Traders was needed.  Ms Gilhooly advised that a new Traders Group had just been established.  A representative from the Tweed Valley BID was also suggested.  The Chairman advised that he would contact the groups in question.

Agree work to be carried out for next meeting.

It needed to be agreed what the parking provision needed to do, who it needed to support and how that could be delivered.  In response to a question on funding Ms Gilhooly advised that there was £46k in the Peebles Pay Parking income fund.  There had been survey work carried out in both 2013 and 2016 so it was suggested that these be compared to see if the level of change between those two surveys warranted a further survey.  Any information from the ticket machines would be helpful to see if any trends could be identified.  The Chairman advised that current information held would be circulated and he asked the Group Members to gather information through their respective organisations.

It was agreed that future meetings be held as follows, all at 3.15 p.m:-

11 March 2020

29 April 2020

26 August 2020

4 November 2020

In response to a question on what outcome the group were looking to achieve it was agreed that the outcome should result in clarity, simplicity, regular turnover and better information provision.  The provision of a leaflet which shops could issue was also suggested.