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Committee report · Full Council · Tue 2 Dec 2025 · East Sussex County Council

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On utility roadworks permits, the response says the council carries out about 800 permit condition inspections a month, about 22% of these fail, and Fixed Penalty Notices are issued for the failures. p9

Other questions covered air quality monitoring in Eastbourne, School Streets schemes, rural bus services, and construction traffic and roadworks in Hailsham. p12p19p30p53p62

The School Streets response says a draft assessment framework is being tested, all schools are due to be assessed during January 2026, and a draft programme is planned to go to public consultation in early 2026. p19p24

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  • p9d) Are any conditions monitored and/or enforced? We undertake approximately 800 permit condition inspections per month, approximately 22% of these permit condition inspections fail. A Fixed Penalty Notice have/are issued for all of these failures.
  • p12Response by the Lead Member for Transport and Environment Outdoor air quality is monitored at representative locations across Eastbourne. It is not practical to measure at every location. The three main pollutants in East Sussex that are of concern for health are particulates, nitrogen dioxide and ozone. These are monitored by a mix of continuous air quality monitoring stations and diffusion tubes. There are two continuous air quality monitoring stations in Eastbourne that measure particulate matter, which are at Devonshire Park and Holly Place. In 2024, data from these monitoring stations on PM10 indicated that the annual average concentrations were 17 μg/m3 and 10.7 μg/m3 at Devonshire Park and Holly Place respectively. This was slightly lower than the 2023 concentrations of 17.2 μg/m3 and 11.8 μg/m3, and significantly below the annual average threshold of 40 μg/m3 required by the national Air Quality Standards Regulations of 2010. PM2.5 (which is fine particulate matter that can penetrate deeper into the lungs than PM10) was monitored at one site, namely Holly Place. The PM2.5 annual average in 2024 was 6.7 μg/m3. Again, this was slightly lower than the 2023 annual average of 7.3 μg/m3 and below the annual average threshold of 20 μg/m3 required by the national Air Quality Standards Regulations. Outdoor air quality monitoring at Devonshire Park and Holly Place is continuous, and all the data is publicly available in real-time on the website of the Sussex Air Quality Partnership (SAQP), which is a partnership of all the local authorities across Sussex. In addition, an annual report on air quality, covering the whole of Eastbourne, has to be prepared by the Borough Council and this is published on the SAQP website.
  • p19Response by the Lead Member for Transport and Environment Thank you for your questions. As you rightly highlight, we used experimental traffic regulation orders to deliver school street schemes at three pilot schools in the county – Southover Primary in Lewes, All Saints Primary in Sidley - Bexhill, and Langney Primary in Eastbourne. These schemes and the traffic regulation orders were made permanent this summer. In response to your first question, following the successful delivery of these pilot school street schemes, a draft assessment framework has been developed to identify a further programme of school street schemes across the county, subject to funding. This assessment framework is currently being tested by officers, and it is proposed this will be completed by mid-December 2025.
  • p24In relation to your second question, the draft process will include assessing all schools. This will be undertaken during January 2026, and a draft programme will be included within the East Sussex Local Cycling & Walking Infrastructure Plan, which will be subject to a public consultation at the end of January/early February 2026. Chyngton Primary School will be assessed as part of this process and the outcome of this will be communicated with them, as well as all other schools. In relation to your final question, Government has announced a four year local transport settlement for the period 2026/27 to 2029/30 of both capital and revenue funding. The revenue and capital funding allocations for active travel from 2026/27 onwards are currently unknown; officers understand an announcement from Government on this is imminent. With the establishment of the Sussex and Brighton Mayoral Combined County Authority who will become the local transport authority for the geography, they will likely be responsible for the allocation of the local transport and active travel funding settlements down to the existing upper tier, and new unitary authorities post-local reorganisation, who will remain the local highway authorities and would be expected to deliver, for example, school street schemes. A draft programme of school streets schemes will be included in the draft updated East Sussex Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan that will be subject to public and stakeholder consultation in early 2026. The draft final LCWIP is then programmed to come to my decision-making meeting, as Lead Member, in June 2026. This approach will enable the County Council to consider the inclusion of a programme of school streets schemes within future capital local transport investment programmes that are put forward to the new Mayor for the Sussex & Brighton MCCA.
  • p30Since this EP draft there has been a government funded £3 price cap on fares (previously £2). Which means that bus services are receiving a subsidy from government, but through ESCC. This could mean that buses are able to increase passenger numbers, and thereby increase profit, whilst government receives nothing. And yet it is unclear how there is accountability for the bus service. a) Does the Enhanced Partnership Board have any influence on Stagecoach in terms of monitoring the services and holding them to account for poor performance? b) We understand that ESCC supported services are provided under contracts between ESCC and the bus service provider. Is there also a contract in place for the subsidy provided to Stagecoach for the £3 fare (previously £2)? c) What is our contractual link between the supported services we fund and the commercial services that Stagecoach run? d) Does the contract have key performance indicators (KPIs) that relate just to the supported service, or to the whole bus services? Is payment reliant on reaching these KPIs? e) Does the awarding of the supported services depend on the company running a reliable and efficient commercial service that enable residents in rural areas to depend on them for moving around the County? f) What is being done to encourage Stagecoach to spend some of their massive profits improving and extending the bus services in the rural areas. g) Do you think we would have a better rural bus service if we had opted for the franchise model under the BISP, which has been so successful in other areas? h) The Cuckoo Line north of Hailsham was opened under Act of Parliament in 1880. In 1964/65 local residents were consulted by the British Railways Board. Residents were promised an adequate bus replacement service as far as Tunbridge Wells. The Abandonment Order was granted on condition that these bus routes would continue to exist. At that time the frequency was one bus every quarter of an hour.
  • p535) Question from Councillor Murphy to the Lead Member for Transport and Environment Hailsham has had a huge amount of large housing development over the last 4 years and there are a large number of conflicting temporary direction signs fixed to lamppost and street furniture that the developers have put up to direct traffic to these developments. Can you confirm that these signs are for Construction traffic and are intended to direct large construction vehicles on a safe route to the development. There are increasingly large vehicles using the town High Street and it is causing traffic problems negotiating around the turns into George Street and holding up traffic when there are busses in the High Street.
  • p62Hailsham has a number of utility roadwork temporary closures in the past year causing untold misery for traffic trying to enter and leave the town. Whilst Highways cannot deny utility companies the right to dig up roads, ESCC have also carried out temporary road closures particularly on South Road and Ersham Road in the past two years. Unfortunately, there have been some latent defects left behind after these works that have resulted in additional remedial works having to be carried out.

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