Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the cost to councils of damage caused by parking on the pavement; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Information on local authority traffic regulation orders is not collected centrally.
We are currently considering responses received to our recent consultation on the Cycling Delivery Plan, including issues relating to increasing walking and promoting safe walking.
The Department for Transport has made no assessment of the cost to councils of damage caused by parking on pavements. The Department has recently announced how it is allocating just under £6 billion in funding for local highways maintenance to councils in England, outside London and this funding could be used to help repair footways.
The provisions of the Pavement Parking Private Members' Bill warrant both an impact assessment and a full public consultation. The Bill has yet to receive a second reading in this House and is most unlikely to complete its Parliamentary passage in the time available. It would be inappropriate for the Department to invest public resource in the circumstances.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if his Department will conduct an impact assessment into the potential effects of the Pavement Parking Private Members' Bill; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Information on local authority traffic regulation orders is not collected centrally.
We are currently considering responses received to our recent consultation on the Cycling Delivery Plan, including issues relating to increasing walking and promoting safe walking.
The Department for Transport has made no assessment of the cost to councils of damage caused by parking on pavements. The Department has recently announced how it is allocating just under £6 billion in funding for local highways maintenance to councils in England, outside London and this funding could be used to help repair footways.
The provisions of the Pavement Parking Private Members' Bill warrant both an impact assessment and a full public consultation. The Bill has yet to receive a second reading in this House and is most unlikely to complete its Parliamentary passage in the time available. It would be inappropriate for the Department to invest public resource in the circumstances.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many local authorities have implemented traffic regulation orders to tackle pavement parking in their area; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Information on local authority traffic regulation orders is not collected centrally.
We are currently considering responses received to our recent consultation on the Cycling Delivery Plan, including issues relating to increasing walking and promoting safe walking.
The Department for Transport has made no assessment of the cost to councils of damage caused by parking on pavements. The Department has recently announced how it is allocating just under £6 billion in funding for local highways maintenance to councils in England, outside London and this funding could be used to help repair footways.
The provisions of the Pavement Parking Private Members' Bill warrant both an impact assessment and a full public consultation. The Bill has yet to receive a second reading in this House and is most unlikely to complete its Parliamentary passage in the time available. It would be inappropriate for the Department to invest public resource in the circumstances.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will consider the issue of pavement parking as a barrier to safe walking within his Department's Cycling and Walking Delivery Plan; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Information on local authority traffic regulation orders is not collected centrally.
We are currently considering responses received to our recent consultation on the Cycling Delivery Plan, including issues relating to increasing walking and promoting safe walking.
The Department for Transport has made no assessment of the cost to councils of damage caused by parking on pavements. The Department has recently announced how it is allocating just under £6 billion in funding for local highways maintenance to councils in England, outside London and this funding could be used to help repair footways.
The provisions of the Pavement Parking Private Members' Bill warrant both an impact assessment and a full public consultation. The Bill has yet to receive a second reading in this House and is most unlikely to complete its Parliamentary passage in the time available. It would be inappropriate for the Department to invest public resource in the circumstances.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps Network Rail is taking to improve punctuality on the Brighton mainline; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Perry
Network Rail acknowledge the performance of the Brighton Main Line has not been acceptable over the last few months. Recent periods have seen significant levels of disruption from signalling and track faults, engineering possession overruns, operating problems within both Network Rail and Southern, and external actions including trespass and fatalities. Southern have recognised that performance has not been good enough and have published a Performance Improvement Plan, available at the following web link:
Network Rail are investing in improving the reliability of the assets on the route, including signalling and track renewal schemes, and measures to improve resilience to seasonal weather variations; they are bringing in additional fast response staff across all disciplines, from track, signalling and mobile managers. Network Rail are also bringing in new contingency arrangements to improve their response times. In addition, Southern are taking action to upgrade equipment on trains to improve reliability, to improve crew management arrangements and to communicate with passengers promptly in times of disruption.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many people with a disability work in his Department; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Perry
The department employs 16,373 people of whom 1,399 have declared themselves as disabled and 3458 whose status is unknown.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many people working in his Department are over 65 years old; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Perry
There are 16,373 people working in the department of whom 334 are aged 65 or over.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to improve transport links between the UK and Indonesia; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
A new bilateral UK/Indonesia Air Services Agreement was negotiated by the Department for Transport with its Indonesian counterparts as recently as 2012. The Agreement improves previous arrangements by allowing airlines from either country to operate up to fourteen services per week in each direction between points in the UK and points in Indonesia. However, whilst it is the Department’s role and aim to negotiate as many opportunities as possible with the UK’s bilateral partners, it is ultimately for the airlines to decide on the services they operate based on their commercial judgement.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the capacity of his Departmental buildings for the micro-generation of renewable energy; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Perry
The Department for Transport has already deployed some micro-generation of renewable electricity on its Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency estate in the form of photo-voltaic cells and wind turbines.
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency are currently planning the installation of rooftop photo-voltaic arrays on three of their sites in Swansea.
The Department will continue to consider further future installations of renewable energy generation systems where they are economically viable.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he has taken to insulate his Departmental estate in order to improve energy efficiency; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Perry
I refer my Hon Friend to the answer I gave on 9 September 2014 to Question UIN 208348